CHRISTMAS IN GRAVENHURST -

A WONDERFUL ARCHIVAL FIND - AN EARLY 1900'S POET WHO WROTE ABOUT MUSKOKA

Although in the early stages of development, I have been offered an exceptional collection of early 1900's poetry, in a handwritten binder, (including many published pieces) depicting the Muskoka region from 1910 into the 1930's. One depicts in verse, Muskoka's 122nd Battalion, of the First World War. When I finally acquire the material, I will be publishing a biographical profile of poet and his work in my Nature of Muskoka Blog (Bracebridge), where I do most of my historical journals. I absolutely thrive on original material for research, and the timely observational pieces are right up my alley. This will be a Muskoka first, and I love getting scoops. So I will let readers know when it is about to be published.

DIG A FALL-OUT SHELTER, BUILD UP SURVIVAL SUPPLIES, OR WELL, WRITE A JOURNAL ABOUT HOW TOUGH IT'S GOING TO BE IN ANOTHER BLEAK ECONOMIC DOWNTURN

When I lived in Burlington in the late 1950's and early 60's, I remember hearing about neighbors building fall-out shelters. I think the digging got a little more aggressive around the time of the Bay of Pigs showdown between the U.S. and Russia. I'm told we even had air raid type drills at school but I don't remember it personally. I was pretty young to know much about war and the kind of bombs that would necessitate digging holes and jumping into them…..with a door shut between them…..and us on the upper side…..presumably in harm's way. My parents didn't build a fall-out shelter, and I guess that had to do with living in an apartment. The laundry room was the lowest we could get in that building. But I was made aware this was not a normal period of time, and that there was increased danger of something imminent……that never happened. That was good. There have been a few other testy periods for us baby boomers, but this period seemed most perilous in retrospect. When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, well that seemed pretty tense as well. In retrospect, it was a damn precarious time for everyone, pondering if the Russians had a hand in the shooting. Short of Martian invaders, most people in our neighborhood felt the Russians were our biggest threat. I didn't know where Russia was, at that point in my schooling, but I watched for them every day on the way to school. Or something like a bomb, which I did know about, falling from the sky onto unsuspecting second graders. I offer my apology to the Russian people, in retrospect, for thinking they were going to invade my neighborhood. Those darn story-spinning adults!!!

I've been a student of the Great Depression, and all the recessions since, and the way folks coped at home during the periods of World War. I've had kind of a fascination about economic downturns, even from the pioneer period in our country, simply from an historical perspective. While it's also true, that the big real estate meltdown of the late 1980's, was the dance with economic reality that almost cost us our new home. I lost four jobs inside one year. Our antique shop, strangely enough, survived. When you're a tad panic-stricken, masterminding cunning plans about how you're going to survive, and feed your young family, the old mind gets a real work-out, as does the stomach churning toward an ulcer. What I decided to do instead, to occupy my downtime, was to study the way it was etching over all of us…….sort of like a glacier on Canadian Shield. I wanted to know all of its consequences to all folks, rich and poor, doctor, lawyer, bus driver and store clerk. I wanted to know how they were able to get by, and hold onto their jobs, their income, and even how they were able to profit from economic calamity. I grew up in a family that reminded their young son about the days of the Great Depression, and how my grandparents provided for them.

My mother asked me, one day, if she'd ever told me why my grandfather swore off religion. Of course I didn't know, but I was pretty sure she wanted to tell me this wee bit of family history. "Well, he was hired to build a church for a congregation in Toronto," she said. "It was a beautiful little church that was perfect for the congregation. It was built on time, and with everything they had asked for. When it was officially opened for Sunday services, all agreed Stanley Jackson had done a terrific job. Then they refused to pay him for the work he had done. He turned his back, walked away, and never spoke of God or religion again." The money was needed to feed his own family. It was a big one. The loss was profoundly felt. There were many other stories about my Cabbagetown grandmother, who made her sons race up the road after the delivery wagons had passed, to collect any horse droppings for the garden……which she needed to keep the family in vegetables at least. The coal chunks, right out of the book "Angela's Ashes" were similarly scooped up and joyfully brought home for the heater. I thrived on these stories. Not on the suffering I new occurred, as my father and brothers were frequently turned over to Childrens Welfare Services, when things got really bad…….but the reality they pulled together however was necessary, and survived many crisis periods. I can tell you, as you may have experienced yourself, I didn't throw things out in our house, even plastic bags, that could be re-used…..not recycled, but used for a variety of other household economizing. If I left food on my plate, by golly, I was reminded of the lean years, and what starving kids would have done to get those few leftover pieces of meat. Both my parents were similarly etched by the troubles they had traversed over a lifetime. I wanted to learn more. My greatest learning experience was the immersion of the late 1980's, early 90's, and it was a tough decade. I became Mr. Mom. Suzanne went to work. We survived but it wasn't pretty. But what we learned of home economy, by immersion, was worth the experience of facing-off against an unwieldy recession, being in the most vulnerable position possible. Don't want to do it as recreation but we've been preparing for the next downturn since the last one in 2008. I don't think we're going to have to wait too much longer, to watch the next economic tsunami wash our way.

The economic news tonight is grim. In Europe, in United States, with the financial rating agencies threatening countries like France, and speculation that Hungary, Italy and Portugal, are going to tank real soon. While I'm not a "sky is falling" kind of guy, I'm an historian. I deal with the past daily. The precedents are there. Just not this enormous, and so soon after the last downturn. Most troubling, is what I see of the most vulnerable…..and in that number are those who have been financially stressed for years, and then those who have taken on great personal debt on the assumption……"no way is it going to happen."

I want to write a little more about this, from a personal perspective, later in this blog collective. I'm worried about the cavalier attitude of local government in particular, and how they are going to manage the downturn…..and the resulting reduction of the tax base. Will we be seeing bankrupt towns and cities in this province? It's happening in the United States. Is there time to straighten some of the mess out prior to any new recessionary wave? There's not much time, and I'm not being reactionary whatsoever. I'm genuinely scared of this one, because the food bank and social services are already seeing substantial increases in urgent need……and our government is tapped out. How much flexibility exists?

I want to know that our municipalities are up to speed on this……..and what they have as emergency preparedness, if and when we get hit with an economic crisis. Some would say……it's already too late. We're screwed. I'm a tad more optimistic. I would have been the last to jump from the Titanic, thinking it could be righted, despite being more that halfway below the waterline.