WHAT A COINKIE DINKIE -

I FINALLY GET CLOSURE TO AN EDITOR'S GIG CUT SHORT-

When I strolled up Dominion Street, in Bracebridge, on the day I became editor…..of the oldest newspaper in town, (early 1980's) I remember pausing to look up at the iron letters on the front of The Herald-Gazette office, and thinking out loud….this is the best day of my life!

Even as a snotty nosed, dirty-faced kid, running around this old town, I had looked upon that newspaper office, one block from the main drag, and thought it was my destiny to one day take the helm as editor. I was a writer in residence up on Alice Street, even in public school, when I began writing adventure stories to impress the creative writing component of public school english. I then moved on to a spirited writing residency in the former brick house, built by Dr. Peter McGibbon, earlier in the century. It was a particularly haunted abode, in a good way, and it was a hugely prolific period in my budding career. I was inspired by everything. They were all challenges to cherish. I couldn't wait to finish one project before launching a second and third.

I seemed to always be writing or planning out a script or war-themed story, although my first public piece was a short play about the curious, risque interactions of teenage friends on the brink of new and exciting discoveries. Well it got some laughs, and I made a few of my girlfriends blush, but it established me, amongst my associates, as a writer wannabe. So much in fact, that one of the main characters, and my best friend at the time, swiped the manuscript and refused to return it……believing that if I did become a well known writer-kind, this would be a valuable first edition…..

So when I strolled up to that Dominion Street newspaper office, on that spot of urban landscape since the late 1800's, I was too over-whelmed frankly, to know how to express myself about the promotion……so I drank like a writer and lived the life of a newsy…….like our hero, columnist Paul Rimstead, of the newly launched Toronto Sun. Rimmer was a local lad, who had the same trials and tribulations at the local high school, as we (the other writers on staff) had endured, but had still gone on to the fame and glory as a key player in the Canadian daily press. Rimstead led the way for many young, full of ambition reporters. I drank to my success. And I wrote morning, noon and night. With a few beers to keep me awake.

I arrived at Muskoka Publications in the winter of 1979, working first as a reporter for the Muskoka Lakes-Georgian Bay Beacon. I did fill-in work for The Herald-Gazette when there was a manpower shortage, and I managed to sneak a few news photographs and some shared articles into the bigger newspaper of our small network, and one fire scene flick that I was enormously proud. I had to spend the whole night at a structure fire to get the shot, but I can't explain the pure joy of seeing that action photograph, on the front page, in that week's edition.

I worked hard to earn a name for myself in the writing business generally, and it wasn't long before the publisher decided I deserved a step-up in the organization. When I was offered a chance to join The Herald-Gazette full time, as news editor, and then editor after a year's experience, the rush was long and tingling. It was most of what I had wanted as a young lad, returning home after his stint at university. The only thing missing in my life was a partner, some kids, a dog and cat, and well, a small, tidy little house to raise our family. Before the end of the 1980's I had it all. We were broke but happy with our professions……a writer and a teacher (Suzanne). We had two wonderful boys, Andrew first, and then wee Robert. A dog named Alf and two cats…..one was Fester and the other Animal. It was a happy beginning. Contenting and exciting at the same time.

Then we bought a newer house, and then flipped it, for a mover-upper in the Town of Gravenhurst. It was all coming together. And I never once entered the building on Dominion Street, that I didn't look up at those beautiful metal letters, adorning the white stucco, of the place I loved to work.

Well, you know what they say. It wasn't about my ability to write, or my willingness to work long, hard and suffer the low pay I was being offered. I always wrote more than we needed for each edition, and our paper, because of a great staff of reporters, made The Herald-Gazette a keen competitor in a tough market. After working as a feature editor for our sister publication, The Muskoka Sun, as well as The Muskoka Advance, and The Herald-Gazette, from my home office……where I was able to look after Andrew in those early years of adjustment to new family responsibilities, absence from the day to day operation of the paper, put me at a serious disadvantage to compete with those who wanted my job. After several years of working from a home office, the in-office competition was too severe to keep me in the top position I had enjoyed during those halcyon days.

I rejected the down-grade imposed by the new owner, and could not stomach the reduced hours and diminished opportunities. I left the best job I'd ever had……and I did have many regrets. It had been a dream job…..but you know what happens to dreams?

I've been bitter about this for many years. The Herald-Gazette ceased publication about a decade later, and the name was removed forever from local publishing. What a terrible reality that was for a long-in-the-tooth dreamer like me. I had always thought there might be a day I would make a come-back………you know, be invited back into the newsroom, to re-invent the glory years of what we (reporters) used to call…..with affection, "The Hurly Gazelle."

It never happened. My aspirations died with the closure. And I've never been back in that neighborhood of Dominion Street, that I haven't glanced upon that building, with great longing, looking for the letters that once graced its old facade……and reminded me I was in the right place. I was hungover a lot in those days, so it was nice to have those letters to situate me, when the buildings all had the same texture of blur.

This week, at a local second hand shop, I found a box containing some old, rusted metal letters. I was intrigued. Specially the simple note on the side of the box that read, "Metal letters from Dominion Street - The Herald-Gazette." When I met Suzanne, holding the box, with the bottom falling through, she said it was as if "a Christmas morning……seeing a child with the best gift ever."

I now own, as a matter of so much irony, the actual letters of my newspaper's name, that I glanced happily upon, for all those years. It cost me $15 for the box. They are now stretched on the side of my driveway, for guests to read. I plan on getting a nice bit of pine to fasten them eventually. They remind me of some great days, and wonderful folks I worked with……some who have passed away since my days as editor.

Maybe they, as individual letters, are a strange form of closure. But when it is spelled out, "The Herald-Gazette," it makes it all so different, and I feel connected again, to a front line news job I had always wanted. I will never forgive those who treated me badly in those years, but this is the kind of trophy that makes a good stab at restoration of good thoughts, about good times…..despite the cruel realities we encounter through our respective lives.

I never stopped writing despite my disassociation with the newspaper. I suppose that really bothered some of my adversaries. And that's always been a sweet fancy of mine, that they couldn't dictate a writer's passion, by simply cutting the payroll……and one of the most eager and respectful editors they ever had.

I will think of those days again, when I look at these familiar letters that meant so much, for so long, and apparently……still entice me to write, and write, and write.

Whoever dumped those letters, along my hunting and gathering pathway…….thank you so much. I have a feeling the irony has a lot more twists and turns yet to come.