CHRISTMAS IN GRAVENHURST -

FOOD AND CASH DONATIONS MADE - WHAT A NICE FEELING THANKS TO GOOD FRIENDS

WE WANT ALL OUR MUSICIAN FRIENDS, AND EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED IN OUR NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS CONCERT, ON SATURDAY, AT THE OPERA HOUSE, THAT WE DROPPED OFF THE FOOD AND CASH DONATIONS YESTERDAY MORNING. AND IT FELT GREAT. WHAT WAS EVEN BETTER, WAS THE FACT WE WERE JUST ONE GROUP OF NUMEROUS, MAKING DONATIONS AT THE SAME TIME……SHOWING SUPPORT FOR WHAT THE SALVATION ARMY IS DOING TO HELP CITIZENS IN FINANCIAL DIFFICULTY. OUR DONATION REPRESENTED $450 FROM DONATIONS AT THE DOOR, THE NIGHT OF THE EVENT, AND ANOTHER $250 IN GROCERY ITEMS. THIS WAS ALL GREATLY APPRECIATED BY ORGANIZERS ROBERT AND ANDREW, AND I'M SURE BY THE FOOD BANK.

RUNNING THE CONCERT IS GREAT FUN. MEETING UP WITH MUSICIAN PALS IS ALWAYS SPECIAL. SEEING THE FACES OF HAPPY KIDS ON THAT STAGE, PERFORMING THEIR HEARTS-OUT, WELL, THAT'S PRECIOUS. BUT YOU KNOW, DROPPING OFF THE DONATIONS THAT CAME AS A RESULT OF THAT COMMUNITY GET-TOGETHER…..IT WAS WORTH EVERY EFFORT. WHAT A NICE FEELING TO WRAP UP A CHRISTMAS PARTY. THANKS EVERYONE.

FIREFIGHTERS WE UNDER-APPRECIATE -

GRAVENHURST BANNER / BRACEBRIDGE EXAMINER LAUNCH AN IMPORTANT, ENLIGHTENING THREE PART FEATURE SERIES

When we'd hear the warning tone on the scanner, the news room crew got cracking. No one wanted to go. We didn't want a fire in our community. It was frightening for everyone, because you just never knew what was going to happen. How bad it was going to be. Would there be casualties? People we know? Friends, neighbors, family?

No, we weren't the members of the local volunteer fire brigade. We were their shadows for whatever was happening out there. We were the reporters of the event, and everything that happened at that fire scene. The firefighters were the focus….the flames the backdrop. A picture of a fireball wasn't our photographic mission. The silhouettes of those courageous folks, stretching the fire hoses, and extending the ladders, donning the oxygen tanks…..they were the story, and it was our job to do justice to the events as they occurred on scene.

But let me tell you, the first fire I covered, was the result of a car-truck collision. The publisher of the paper handed me a camera, gave me the location, and opened the door of the office. I was gone to cover breaking news, as a cub reporter, and bloody hell, I didn't have a clue what a reporter's privilege included. I was about to find that out. The press card allowed me through the backed-up traffic, and past the police line that was holding back gawkers. I wouldn't have ever been one of those gawkers even if I'd been afforded the opportunity. Here I was, now entitled to get almost as close as the first responders to the carnage. When I saw the flames and smelled the spilled fuel, and saw the devastation to truck and car, my knees began to wobble, and I felt light headed. I knew the way the firemen were working with the jaws of life, that this was an ugly situation with life-threatening injuries.

I was a rookie reporter / photographer and I needed the job. I was a sports reporter for God's sake, and here I was standing amidst the most violent accident I'd ever seen as a civilian. I banged off about a dozen photographs, but I admit to having a problem holding the camera still. The firemen were all around me, and I was only asked to move once, because an ambulance was pulling into the scene. But it was when I heard the victim's screams, that I had to step away, and lean against a rock at the side of the road. When the jaws of life had engaged, and the man nearly freed, he'd all of a sudden come out of his state of unconsciousness, the pain being overwhelming. The firemen and ambulance attendants worked feverishly to free the man, and despite his cries, they never so much as paused. A good thing, as the car was smoking despite water being applied to wash away sources of fuel. The combination of mixed smells of contamination, from an accident scene, the feeling of walking into a "hell on earth," the yells of emergency personnel, and the agony of the victim, made me want to hide….run away….and frankly, rip this film out of the camera back. I didn't sign up as a small town journalist, to be chasing emergency vehicles. I wasn't trained for this. I was a graduate of history. A creative writer. Here I was then, with gas and oil on my shoes, nauseous, petrified, and very worried this accident scene was about to reveal its tragedy. It did.

As I leaned on that rock face, I watched as they pulled the man from the mangled car, and I was there when the stretcher was pulled across my camera focus…..and it was my first failing as a reporter. I could not depress that plunger. The front page photograph would have to be something else. I could not take a picture of this unfortunate soul, just to sell a few more papers off the newsstand. The man died before he made it to hospital. I suspected as much. But the effort these firemen made, to save that driver, was amazing. When I studied the negatives for the next week's paper, I saw something that changed my whole perspective……a good thing for a rookie reporter, looking to stay employed for more than just a couple of training weeks. I saw, in those hastily taken photographs, the faces of the firemen…..the looks of confidence on some, despair on others, exhaustion, sympathy in their eyes, but the resolve to get the crisis under control. While I was shaking, and nearly passing out on the side of the road, these courageous folks were trying their best to save a life. Inadvertently, I found the humanity other reporters may have missed….focusing instead on snapping what they may have perceived to be, the award-winning front pager. The one the national press might want for their own front page. My shots were what you'd expect of a new photographer…..a sport's reporter turned news front-liner. In all the years I worked as a front-liner, and an editor, who attended hundreds of fires and accident scenes like this one, that inadvertent focus on the firemen, and their own battles to stay energized, despite the toll of reality, and control their emotions, was my standard for the next ten years on the beat. Maybe they're called "human interest" photos, because instead of beading in on the epicenter of the carnage, I always put first responders as my target of interest. It was because of my admiration for their efforts at these horrific scenes, most of us can not even imagine…..the reality can never be covered by a photograph, or video. The actuality beats the senses to oblivion. Take it from someone who has stood close enough that blood ran over my shoes.

I can remember doing a feature story years ago, and sitting down with a long serving fireman in Muskoka. That part of the conversation was off-the-record, at the time, because he felt it was too personal, and not a good companion to the story I was doing about fire-fighting generally. When I asked him what his most traumatic experience had been as a firemen, in his many decades of service, he answered immediately, detailing a car accident on Highway II. He said that when they got to the scene, there was a long and wide debris field. One car had been crushed badly, and there were people trapped inside. They didn't have the jaws of life, and worked with the tools of the profession the best they could. As hard as they all tried to pry apart the car, even with their bare hands, the fire underneath couldn't be quelled, before it made its way up into the passenger compartment as a result of the leaking fuel. Within seconds the car burst into flames, and they had to pull back to save their own lives. He confessed that it was the screaming of the victims, that has stayed with him ever since. It was a young reporter's mistake to ask then, how he felt at that moment, hearing the cries from those trapped. "I wanted to scream along with them. It's all I could think of doing at the time. You don't know how to react. But it's not the first time or last time I cried at an accident scene."

There was nothing more to write. Nothing more to say. It was the trauma of a firefighter doing a volunteer service for his community…..something he would continue to do for many more years. And some of those stories have happy endings…..rescues that defied the odds, that saved so many lives.

I can look back at some of the photographs I took back then, and each one has more emphasis on the responder, the emergency personnel, because they were the most important folks at that accident or fire scene. I'd do the very same today, if I was restored to that position, and I'd probably have the same fear and trembling all over again, watching and learning about the far reaches of humanity……most of us have never seen as close, or personal, as our dedicated first responders. As I was then, and remain now, so very thankful of the work they do, to safeguard our lives.

I'm so pleased for the recent newspaper series in both The Banner and The Examiner, and I look forward to reading the three part series.