Opera House Needs An Entertainment Overhaul

RICHARD KARON'S EXPERIMENTAL ART - A DIVERSE TALENT - NOT JUST A LANDSCAPE PAINTER

WITH THIS LEAD-UP TO THE LAUNCH OF THE RICHARD KARON BIOGRAPHY, I WANTED TO SHARE SOME OF HIS ART IN ADVANCE. THE FOLLOWING ART, TODAY, IS ON-LOAN FOR THIS PROJECT, AS GENEROUSLY PROVIDED BY THE ARTIST'S SON, RICHARD SAHOFF KARON. RICHARD KARON HAD A DISTINCT TALENT FOR STUDIO ART, BEYOND THE LANDSCAPES HE IS BEST KNOWN FOR HERE IN MUSKOKA. BE SURE TO VISIT THIS BLOG SITE AND THE YOUTUBE TRIBUTE VIDEO, ON MONDAY, BEGINNING AT 8:30 P.M., AND CONTINUING FOR SEVERAL WEEKS, WITH CONSECUTIVE BLOGS AND PAINTING EXHIBITS.

MAKE FULL USE THE GRAVENHURST OPERA HOUSE WHILE WE HAVE IT -

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER ACCEPT NATURE

TELL ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS STORY BEFORE. MAYBE YOU REMEMBER THIS OF A GREAT AUNT, A STRANGE COUSIN, YOUR LOVING GRANDMOTHER, HOARDING GRANDFATHER, OR PARENT. THIS ISN'T AN UNFAMILIAR STORY. BUT IT REMINDS ME SO POIGNANTLY ABOUT THE WISDOM, CONTAINED IN THOSE FIVE, QUICK TO THE POINT WORDS……"USE IT OR LOSE IT!"

GROWING UP, MY FAMILY WAS TYPICAL OF MILLIONS OF OTHER WORKING STIFFS, LIVING PAYDAY TO PAYDAY. JUST MAKING ENDS MEET BUT NEVER FEELING AS GLUM ABOUT IT, AS WE DO IN OUR STRESSED HOUSEHOLDS TODAY. IT WAS AN ORDINARY LIFE. EXPECTATIONS WERE MODEST, AND AS LONG AS WE HAD A ROOF OVER OUR HEADS, AND FOOD ON THE TABLE, WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR. THERE WERE YEARS MY DAD HAD TO BUM RIDES TO GET TO WORK, BECAUSE WE COULDN'T GET A BANK LOAN TO BUY EVEN A USED CAR. WE MIGHT HAVE FELT DISADVANTAGED, BUT ALOT OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS AT THE TIME, WERE IN EITHER A SLIGHTLY BETTER ECONOMIC SITUATION, OR A LITTLE WORSE OFF. FOR THE LIFE OF ME, I JUST CAN'T REMEMBER MERLE OR ED WHINING ABOUT THEIR LOT IN LIFE. WE LIVED WELL FOR POOR FOLKS. THE ONLY PERSON TO HAVE EVER CALLED ME "POOR," WAS A KID WHO LIVED IN A SMALLER APARTMENT THAN OURS, AND AT THE TIME, HE WAS WEARING CLOTHES MY MOTHER GAVE HIS FAMILY.

MERLE DID HAVE A GREAT RESPECT FOR WHAT WE DID OWN. SHE HAD A ROUND COFFEE TABLE, WITH A WOOD VENEER TOP, THAT SHE SHINED EVERY DAY, UNTIL THE AFTERNOON, WHEN THE FURNITURE STORE DELIVERED HER A BETTER ONE. SHE POLISHED THE ROUND TABLE-TOP SO HARD, IT WAS LIKE A WOOD-VENEER MIRROR. THE SURFACE WAS WEARING THIN BECAUSE OF THE CONSTANT WORK-OUT WITH HER SPECIAL POLISHING CLOTH, AND SO MUCH PLEDGE. AS WE HAD FEW POSSESSIONS, THERE WERE ITEMS SHE GUARDED AS FUTURE HEIRLOOMS FOR ME. SHE WANTED TO GIVE CERTAIN SILVER PIECES SHE HAD ACQUIRED FROM HER FAMILY'S ESTATE, THAT SHE WANTED TO GIVE MY FUTURE BRIDE. FOR YEARS AND YEARS I CAN REMEMBER THOSE TIGHTLY WRAPPED SILVER PIECES, STUCK IN THE BACK OF THE CUPBOARD. A FEW TIMES EACH YEAR, LIKE THE CHANGING OF TIME IN THE SPRING AND FALL, SHE WOULD PULL ME OVER TO THE CUPBOARD, OPEN THE DOOR, AND POINT AT THE STASH OF SILVER, AND REMIND ME, "IN CASE I DON'T WAKE UP ONE MORNING, YOU MUST TAKE VERY GOOD CARE OF THESE PIECES. THEY'LL BE VALUABLE ONE DAY."

So every Christmas season, Easter, and Thanksgiving, Merle would somehow make mention of the silver service I would inherit one day, that would look so beautiful on the festive table…..and be worth a lot of money. She would not use them. I may have, on several foolish occasions, asked why she wasn't using the odds and ends of silver on our own table, for special occasions, and she'd react in shock, as if having just then, witnessed the earthly arrival of the Holy Ghost. "I'm saving them for your wife. You'll thank me for this one day."

Suzanne called to me, to come and see something she had found, in the bottom of my parents china cupboard. It was an afternoon that we had dedicated to cleaning out Merle and Ed's Bracebridge apartment, following the death several years ago, of my father following a stroke. My mother had died a year earlier. Suzanne had found the legacy silver, stuffed in behind three rows of odd glasses, Merle had thought were collectible enough, to warrant china cupboard space. In company of some cheap figurines and ornaments, she slipped the tightly wrapped packages out of the cupboard. This wasn't the ceremonial event I had always anticipated. Of all the chances Merle had to "gift" the silver to Suzanne, as she had always planned to do, she had succumbed to dementia before doing so. Ed probably never knew they were in the the china cupboard. These pieces have been moved all over the place. From our tiny residence in the Weber Apartments, on Alice Street, in Bracebridge, in the 1960's, to a cottage on Alport Bay, of Lake Muskoka, to the former McGibbon House, on Manitoba Street, all the way to Parry Sound (my father was a part owner of a lumber company), and back to Bracebridge. From a basement apartment, on Wellington Street, where they lived for a while, my parents carted the silver to the Bass Rock Apartments, where they shifted units after several years, from a one bedroom apartment to another, affording a better view, with an extra bedroom for our boys. Well, the silver didn't travel a million miles, but quite a few. They never had to be rescued from a sunken ship, and they weren't taken by a burglar. And never once since my childhood, were those silver pieces unwrapped by my mother. She had never followed through with her plan to give the silver to my wife. Here I was, a snotty nosed, smelly kid, licking a popsicle after a game of baseball, in 1968, and Merle's telling me about the heirloom silver, she's saving for my future family. So how powerfully strange it was, to sit in that hollowed-out apartment, as Suzanne finally took the wrapping of those few, modest pieces of silver, that had been guarded like the crown jewels, for most of my life.

As antique dealers, the silver plate pieces were of little value, if we had opted to sell them, as many folks do when they inherit things they don't need, or will never use. When Suzanne began wrapping them up again, I made only one request of this partner and mother. "Can we please use these pieces and give my poor mother some peace of mind in the afterlife?" Her intentions were good, but Suzanne and I both said the same thing, almost at once: "Why wouldn't she have used these for herself? She could have still given them away later?" It's hard to know what she was thinking off, as she denied herself for posterity, using items she would have very much enjoyed and celebrated, in order to convince me, that she was looking forward to the day I married the future mother of her grandchildren.

While this may seem like a convoluted, weird approach, to a presentation about the Gravenhurst Opera House, there are some realities that are strikingly similar. While I don't see it as intentional, or deliberate, to save our Opera House for the posterity of another era, another generation, another town council to decide on its use, I find there is a similar reluctance to admit, there is a timely quality to what we possess at this precise moment. At times, the voyeur, can be forgiven, when pondering the use or non-use of the Opera House, for thinking that it has somehow been forgotten at the back of the cupboard……and wouldn't it be nice, one day, to allow it to be used again. As we may also, impose upon the scene, that like heirloom pieces we might inherit, there is considerable rationale, to justify feeling somewhat dissatisfied it hasn't been used as much as it could have been, under better circumstances. One would be quite foolish, to think that this building, regardless of its protectors, will last forever. In the case of the Gravenhurst Opera House, what are its architectural limitations? When might it become too expensive to repair? Will there come a time when the historic venue can't be restored? A time when a future population of our town, will decide it needs a new entertainment venue on that corner, and simply vote for change? Despite heritage designations, some things won't adhere to declarations on filed documents, as well intended as they may be. For the realists, the truth seekers, and the modernists, the Opera House is still a gem on a transitional main street, in the midst of its own drastic and ongoing renewal. But it is an old one, and like, life itself, some of our heritage buildings will simply not survive the test of time. We can not know what a future council, a future population, in our town, will decide, over and above whatever protective designation it has been afforded, whether the Opera House should stay, or be removed for something better. Even as a lover of history, and supporter of efforts to protect heritage architecture, there is an inevitable end, that passion can not restore. And like those tightly wrapped pieces of silver my mother hoarded, for some future posterity, the error of our ways, is to under-appreciate, and under-utilize our heirloom property, that we should be celebrating constantly.

The Gravenhurst Opera House is an old and tired building. Councils in the future, will have a difficult time, selling the taxpayers on the idea, the Opera House is a good ongoing investment. There are those people today, who see it as a money pit. In the future, and we can't seriously guard against this, a new council, and a new generation, may decide that instead of spending millions of dollars refurbishing an old building…..that will still be old when the work is complete, to instead, tear the present building down, and re-build a modern, efficient, low maintenance community centre. With all the bells and whistles. It's being done all the time, all over the world. So don't think it can't happen in Gravenhurst. In fact, if you go back a tad in Opera House history, you'll realize it almost came to this, during the last major renovation, when some members of council found it quite difficult, to justify the restoration expense, on a building that was going to cost taxpayers big-time forever-more. The citizens rallied, Manager Fred Schulz started making some phone calls, got a pretty substantial amount of donation dollars, to cover the restoration, and by golly, thanks to Fred, the town, and a lot of generous businesses and citizens, we've had an open Opera House ever since. I've talked with Fred about this many times, and he's pretty proud of that period of town history. And so he should be. Yet it would be hard to deny, even if I put Fred on the spot, that even after the extensive work he helped pay for, there was always more that could have been done, repairs that should have been completed, and improvements that had to be left-off, because there wasn't enough left over, after the most pressing issues were covered. Today we are faced with the requirement for more repairs, more restoration and ongoing upgrades, and that's going to be expensive for a town already embracing an austerity decade. To replace a roof? Wow!

My point is a basic one. I adamantly support any well thought-out plan, or proposal, that would see our heirloom architecture, on the main street of our pleasantly appointed town, used and enjoyed while it is still in good overall condition. To me it is no different, than under-utilizing something, so as not to wear it out, or cause it to fall into disrepair. Time alone will do that. This is a time in our town's history, that renewal is on everyone's mind, who has an interest in seeing the main street, returned to a the thriving, bustling artery it has always been. Admittedly, as history has its period of transition, prosperity and decline, life and death, we are faced, whether we like it or not, with a difficult period of change. All main streets face this dilemma, at some time or other. For some, the transition and improvements take decades to settle into a new model. Even then, time and prevailing conditions will pronounce change upon us, whether we wish to accept it or not. So as we seem hell-bent of under-utilizing the Opera House, in the midst of all this transition and restoration of main street commerce, it can only be considered a waste of resources, that we have allowed this treasure to mire in relative obscurity in the field of entertainment. It is hard to accept. It is almost impossible to understand, how it could have become this way, under the stewardship of an ever-watchful council…..or at least this is what we are led to believe. And it has not just been the present council, that has watched it quagmire into near irrelevance, as a provincially acclaimed entertainment venue…..of which it was once well known. This has been a seven or eight year dive in potential, that has been duly noted by hundreds of citizens in this town, who remain frustrated and annoyed, we are paying for the survival of this grand venue, with little if any positive return. It is neither a hub of activity, and can not be described as a "going concern." While it may not have lost its attractiveness, its luster as a heritage building in this town, it is no longer the showplace it was, (and could be again).

When I suggested recently, that a citizen's advisory committee, be set up, to act as a liaison between the local population, the town, the Opera House management, and potential entertainment promoters, it is my own belief, that it is also a final foray, to convince our elected officials, to unwrap the heirloom, and let it be used for our benefit….right now. Future considerations are one thing, but the reality we're missing out, is our present chagrin. While I do care that my grandchildren might one day enjoy us taking them to see a children's program at this same Opera House……I don't have grandchildren at present. But I still want reason to go to the Opera House to be entertained. Today. Tomorrow. The next day. Hell, what about a week from now? Two weeks? I guess I must be a fussy son of a gun, because nothing scheduled, in the foreseeable future, is up my alley.

I believe a citizens committee, of entertainment savvy folks, who have known better days at the Opera House, could make a huge difference in the current entertainment program that frankly, does not appeal to a majority of people in this community. Take a survey. Please. Town council needs help with this. They are befuddled. It happens. But by golly, it doesn't have to stay this way. There are many qualified folks out there who would love to take a crack at this stalemate in entertainment. So what's standing in the way? The will of our elected officials! It's as simple as that! As council has benefitted from citizen advisory groups in the past, and at present, in a variety of support roles, an entertainment / Opera House advisory committee, isn't a great imposition to create. It's the benefits that we may profit from, that may change our fortune here……now, and in the future. It's not an expense thing! It's a wisdom thing!

My recommendation to establish such an advisory committee, is not an attempt to raise some sort of political coup d'tat at the Opera House, or a bid to replace a single soul in the network of management, right to the core of town hall. It is to work with the present management to provide some added measure of insight, and responsiveness, to bridge a widening gap in this community…..of what we own, and how it is utilized for, at the very least, our enjoyment. The Barge is a perfect example, of a venue that has been spared, for a little longer, to provide entertainment to the masses. The crowds that attend are substantial. People are not just attending from Gravenhurst. They are coming from our neighbor communities, including the Orillia area. Each concert brings some prosperity to vicinity businesses, who sell patrons what they need for the evening, whether it is sun shade lotion, lawnchairs, or the picnic lunch to go into the new cooler that just may have been purchased locally. Keeping the tradition of The Barge alive, is very much a business investment, as much as it is an entertainment victory……at least for the many hundreds who line that beautiful shoreline of our Gull Lake Park. One only needs to think, or recall, for a few moments, the legacy of the Opera House, to appreciate the same potentials have been reached, and handsomely surpassed, at this main street entertainment venue, known throughout Ontario. What happened? The will of council to accept status quo. This didn't happen with The Barge, because of more fervent participation by its friends, to demand improvements, and maintenance of a town tradition. And shazam, the will of Council to follow through, on their rightful stewardship of a town resource, came thundering along like a long-given-up-on cavalry.

A Town appointed advisory committee, to assist re-institution of entertainment variety, we once knew of the Opera House, does not, by its nature, have to be intrusive or abrasive, powerful or power-seeking, to provide an effective liaison for all parties involved. The idea of this committee, which could be reconstituted a variety of ways, to meet council protocols, is to work with the town, and in co-operation with the Opera House management, to bring the desires of the community to the forefront of ongoing operation. If it is seen as intrusive, and leverage to overthrow respective management, then it is being viewed from a precarious bias to begin with. As the founder of this little idea, I will not have it misconstrued, that there is any attempt on my part, to change what presently exists as the governing chain of command. What I would like to hear, is that these same overseers, would welcome the observations and suggestions of an advisory committee, that has as its mandate, improving what most councillors, and most citizens at present, agree, is in need of reclamation. It may also be perceived by some, as an attempt by the writer-in-residence, to take over the town as its savior, because all I apparently can offer is stark realism, and doomsaying diatribes, about what could happen…..but maybe never will. Of all things that I might be, and I've been afforded a wide variety of unpleasant parallels, I am not an armchair critic. Those who know me, appreciate I will defend with great enthusiasm, anything that I might suggest is good for someone else. I have always taken my own medicine, and received my "just desert." If ever there was a time, that I would be sought out, to discuss these suggestions, and proposed solutions to perceived problems, I would be delighted to participate. I can not expect to qualify my critiques, without standing the stress tests, of debate and trial-application. I shall look a foolish man, indeed, if crowds are half what I have boasted, for this summer's Concerts on the Barge. I will be in my favorite hillside alcove, directly across from The Barge, counting the Sunday evening patrons. If the numbers aren't as good as they should be, I will ask Mr. Schulz, if he'd mind, if I donated my time and writing skills, to help drum up some more business. I don't promote what I can't defend.

If the town doesn't like my idea for a citizen's committee, well, maybe they could find something parallel that is more palatable to their governance model. None the less, as I began this column with a little family tome, I shall end with the same sage advice……"Use it, or lose it!"

THE COMMUNITY NEEDS TO FIND WAYS OF ENTERTAINING ITSELF

There's a long way to go on this issue, of bringing the Opera House back to its former self, but one of my strongest recommendations, is for community groups, service clubs, fraternal organizations, church committees, local schools etc., to come up with ideas for the main stage in this fascinating building. I realize the limitations, with the austerity budget the town has just passed, that there isn't a lot of money left, to spend on the "Rolling Stones" or "The Who." But you know, the history of the Opera House, is very deeply rooted in homegrown talent, and the many variety shows, theatrical performances and musical events, that have showcased our citizens in widely varied rolls. It is even documented in a specially prepared book. This historic venue should be used by the High School, for their Pure Gold event, every year. It's how my boys got their start in the entertainment business themselves. Now they've gone on to host music events at the Opera House, usually twice each year, to benefit the local Food Bank, operated by the Salvation Army. There are many other groups, me thinks, that would like to use the Opera House, for their play, or musicale but can not afford the rental fee and associated costs. This is an issue that does need to be addressed, because it is wrong. Holding to these higher rental costs, is chasing business away. My question is, well, what are we getting as a consolation prize? Not much! Generally nothing comes back to us, except criticism that our Opera House is unaffordable! We are losing business as a result, and the BIA is short-changed activity, along the main business corridor of our town. A building that should be used and enjoyed, and a showcase for our community, is limited from use because of a general unwillingness, to look at what happens when you over-price something. When it's done in free enterprise, it closes a business. When its done by government, it's policy, and profit has nothing to do with it!

When the building sits idle, we are paying for it. If the building is being used, we still pay for it, but not as much. I can't imagine the citizens of this town, agreeing that free enterprise, and a lease arrangement, is the best way to go, to put the Opera House back in full service. Maybe it's the only way. I still think it's worth a shot, first, to put the community back in the driver's seat, to see if it can make a difference. What's the down side of a little experiment? It can't be any worse than watching a building get older, and having few reasons to venture inside.

I will return. Thanks for visiting this blog site.