SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR BEING ORDINARY - AND UNASSUMING, BUT NOT WITHOUT BIOGRAPHY
GRAVENHURST'S HISTORIC WORTH WAS…… AND IS……. ITS HUMANITY - AS IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN.
MOST COMMUNITIES, AND THOSE WHO JUDGE IT AS A MATTER OF THEIR PROFESSION, OFTEN BASE HISTORICAL ACCOMPLISHMENT, AS AN OVERVIEW, BY THE RICHNESS AND GRANDEUR OF ITS ARCHITECTURE.
A MONTH OR SO BACK, THE TORONTO STAR DID A REMARKABLE FEATURE STORY…..I WISH I'D THOUGHT ABOUT FIRST. THE EDITORIAL CONCEPT, WAS TO RANDOMLY PICK AN OBITUARY NOTICE, AND DO AN IN-DEPTH PROFILE / BIOGRAPHY OF THE DEARLY AND RECENTLY DEPARTED. THE IDEA WAS TO OFFER US, THE READERS, SOMETHING IMPORTANT AND REMARKABLE ABOUT WHAT COULD ONLY BE ASSUMED, WAS AN OTHERWISE ORDINARY, MODERATELY INTERESTING, NON-CELEBRITY LIFE. THEY PICKED THE OBITUARY OF A WOMAN WHO HAD ENJOYED A GENERALLY POSITIVE AND GOOD LIFE, WITH SOME MEDICAL ISSUES FROM AN EARLY AGE, WHO WAS KIND AND CARING, TO ALL THOSE WHO CALLED HER A FRIEND, NEIGHBOR, SISTER, COUSIN, AUNT OR DAUGHTER. THE WOMAN SELECTED, TO EXAMINE AND PROFILE, WASN'T A CELEBRITY, AND SHE WASN'T KNOWN TO ANY OF US, BECAUSE OF HER ABILITY TO MAKE HEADLINES, OR WRITE THE STORIES BENEATH THE HEADLINES. SHE WAS A HARD WORKING WOMAN, WITH A LOVING FAMILY, WHO TOUCHED A LOT OF PEOPLE IN HER UNDRAMATIC, ORDINARY, UNASSUMING LIFE. WHAT WAS REMARKABLE, FOR THE READERSHIP, IS THAT WE FOUND "COMMONPLACE" QUITE EXTRAORDINARY, WHEN IT WAS LAID OUT FOR US TO OBSERVE AND CONSUME…..AS A HUMAN INTEREST STORY. A MAJORITY OF US WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN ABOUT THIS WOMAN, EVEN IF WE HAD READ HER OBITUARY……AS THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH YOU CAN PUT INTO SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS, LEADING UP TO THE FUNERAL DETAILS. THE STAR GAVE US AN INSIDER'S LOOK, AT A PRIVATE LIFE…….AND WE WERE SPELLBOUND. HOW COME WE NEVER HEARD ABOUT THIS LADY BEFORE? WELL, WE DIDN'T LIVE IN HER NEIGHBORHOOD, OR EAT AT THE SAME RESTAURANT, STROLL THE SAME PARK, OR RIDE THE SAME BUS.
THE SEVERAL PART SERIES, SHOWED US THE RELEVANCE OF HUMAN LIFE AND SPIRIT, WE SELDOM EXAMINE WITH SUCH INTRUSIVE SCRUTINY. IN OUR PRIVATE LIVES, WE NEVER EXPECT SOMETHING LIKE THIS….EVEN IF WE WERE TO SUDDENLY DIE. MAYBE AN INTERESTING WAKE? A TOAST? BUT WE'D ASSUME GENERALLY, WE HADN'T EARNED THE RIGHT TO A FULL PAGE STORY IN THE NATIONAL PRESS. BUT IN THIS CASE, IT GOT US THINKING ABOUT THE RELEVANCE OF ALL OUR EXISTENCES……AND HOW MUCH WE INFLUENCE THE WORLD AROUND US, WITHOUT HAVING TO BE A CELEBRITY AS A FIRST STEP TO RECOGNITION.
IT WAS A CLEAR DEMONSTRATION THAT SOCIETY'S OBSESSION WITH CELEBRITY, HAS AS ITS CONSEQUENCE, A PROFOUND AND GROWING IGNORANCE, ABOUT THE VALUE AND IMPACT OF HUMANITY GENERALLY……NOTHING HAVING TO DO WITH WEALTH, SOCIAL STANDING, OR INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY. IT'S ABOUT THE JOYS AND SUCCESSES OF JUST BEING HUMAN……LIVING ALL THE LIFE YOU CAN JAM INTO A MODEST NUMBER OF YEARS, AND CELEBRATING THE CONTRIBUTIONS MADE TO THE WELL BEING OF COMMUNITY…..LARGE OR SMALL. LIKE THE MORAL OF THE CHRISTMAS THEMED MOVIE, "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE," WHAT WOULD OUR LIVES BE LIKE, IF THESE PEOPLE HAD NEVER BEEN BORN……FOLKS WHO IMPACT US PROFOUNDLY AND SUBTLY EVERYDAY OF OUR LIVES, IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.
THE WOMAN, SUBJECT OF THE FEATURE STORY, HAD DIED SUDDENLY, AND AT A RELATIVELY YOUNG AGE. BUT FOR THE YEARS SHE WAS ALIVE, HER IMPACT WAS IMMENSE……AND ALTHOUGH IT WAS ORDINARY IN THE SHADOW OF EXTRAORDINARY THAT WE EXPECT OF CELEBRITY THESE DAYS, MANY LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN AFFECTED ADVERSELY, IF SHE HAD NEVER WALKED THIS EARTH.
WILLIAM HENRY SMITH. THE BOOK, "GRAVENHURST; OR THOUGHTS ON GOOD OR EVIL." WELL, IT'S A MORAL / PHILOSOPHICAL STORY ABOUT COMMONPLACE…..ABOUT THE IMPACTS OF GOOD AND EVIL UPON HUMAN CHARACTERISTIC AND COMMUNITY. IN SMITH'S FICTIONAL "GRAVENHURST," HE EXAMINES THIS RELATIVE COMMONPLACE, AND HOW GOOD AND EVIL INTERACT. THE AUTHOR BUILDS ON THE THEORY THAT WHAT IS "GOOD" MUST BE WEIGHED AGAINST WHAT COMES TO BE CONSIDERED AS "BAD" OR IN THIS CASE "EVIL." HE MAINTAINS THAT IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND ONE EMOTION, OR ONE PERCEPTION OF SOMETHING AS "SAD" OR "CONTENTING," THERE MUST BE THE TRUE APPRECIATION OF WHAT SEPARATES THESE FEELINGS. TO KNOW WHAT IS GOOD, ONE HAS TO EXPERIENCE EVIL. HOW DOES THIS WORK WITHIN A COMMUNITY? AND HOW DOES IT RELATE TO THE COMMONPLACE BALANCE AMONGST INDIVIDUALS IN THIS SAME COMMUNITY. SMITH SEEMS TO FIND ORDINARY AND COMMONPLACE QUITE WORTH STUDYING, AND WILLIAM DAWSON LESUEUR WAS SO IMPRESSED BY HIS WORK, HE IMBEDDED THE TITLE OF HIS BOOK IN OUR COMMUNITY'S HISTORY IN JULY 1862. HE DID SO, AS A POSTAL AUTHORITY (PHILOSOPHER AND LITERARY CRITIC ON THE SIDE), WHILE SMITH WAS STILL ALIVE. I WOULD LOVE TO FIND OUT IF SMITH KNEW OF THE HONOR BEFORE HIS DEATH, TEN YEARS LATER.
When I read local histories, I usually feel at the end as I did in the beginning. I'm glad the particular history was recorded, and important events documented, that we should always be aware of, even if we don't know why. Yet despite how much I read, and learn about these milestones of community heritage, I finish with a familiar void of appreciation. The histories are usually sterile. They have generally told me very little about what these community builders were all about. What were they like as human beings? What is the human side of the history being recorded? How did these people live and play back then? I get frustrated with this typical void of human emotions…..that while knowing mortals founded the town, it ends without even the faintest assessment about the true character of our history makers. But we've got meticulous date registration, and precise details about the laying of cornerstones. They are histories, that seem to avoid the character-side of those who led the charge, much as if it didn't matter. It does matter. As it always has. I'd be enormously satisfied to know what kind of mayors they were? Were they work-driven? Good tempered or nasty characters? Did they socialize? Too much or too little? Did they make incredibly moving speeches to inspire the citizenry, or were they shy and reserved beneath the chain of office? I realize the degree of difficulty, doing personal biographies of all those citizens, responsible for building our community, from the 1850's onward. Yet there is information that has been passed down, through families, to provide some color to the soul-less black and white portraits crammed into family albums. As much as well-intentioned historians try, you can't really book-end history, quite as simply and orderly, as these community histories seem to portray. And unfortunately, I think it's one of the reasons local history, just for the sake of argument, is often disregarded, and even at the highest level. Just ask your local councillors, how many have read and memorized the history they officially represent. You'd be shocked to find out, how little they do know. It just isn't all that palatable, because it doesn't have much allure. It's boring by yesterday's standard. Today most of what has been produced, isn't of interest to a majority of the citizenry…..that should be interested. With young people especially, even the school curriculum couldn't spare more than a dime of attention, on the community heritage they're built-upon. They're not exciting books to read for entertainment. Researchers make good use of these resources. But when, for example, an historian might wish to sell the community, on celebrating some aspect of local heritage, what are the exciting and contemporary circumstances, that would make us want to host a fete in recognition? We're about to find out? Or I am at least. Watch me sink or swim, trying to sell ordinary and commonplace as things we should know about our home town.
For example. As I am trying to pitch the idea, of recognizing a British poet / philosopher, William Henry Smith, as the chap responsible, (in part) for the name given to our community, I have no choice but to make this a contemporary issue. My advantage, however small, is that since I brought it to the town's attention, before the turn of the present century, (1999-2000) not much has stirred anywhere, anyhow, about the literary provenance we have been honorably bestowed……but never really cared to explore. It's not like Stephen Leacock, and his relationship to Orillia, through his fictional town of "Mariposa," made famous in the historical text, 'Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town." Leacock became a famous Canadian author, and best known as a humorist. William Henry Smith was a philosophical / moral critic of contemporary literature, for Blackwood's Magazine during the time of Charles Dickens and Washington Irving. He wrote quite a number of books, but by Leacock's standards, they would have been considered pretty dry and unremarkable. Not that Leacock wasn't scholarly, or liked the occasional chapter or two on philosophy. Smith was just overly philosophical, without much to offer in the way of light heartedness of jovial characterizations. Not much to laugh at, or about. Okay! This is true!
As I have led readers of this blog, to the "Google Books," site, and the online publication of "Gravenhurst; or Thoughts on Good and Evil," I don't suppose anyone who has started to read the text, has been prompted or tickled to laugh out loud, even once thus far. If you start laughing to the point you lose your breath, chances are, and I'm just making an educated guess…… you are misunderstanding what Smith is getting at…..or simply reading the wrong book. So the task I have taken upon myself, is to make this a contemporary sales pitch, to try and encourage even local high school and university students, with an interest in their home town, and a bit of philosophy, to give Smith a modern-day fighting chance to win our affections. Smith saw himself as an ordinary, run-of-the-mill writer, who happened to have a fair number of readers and well known contemporaries, who spoke kindly of his work. W.D. LeSueur was one of his fans, you might say. It can be said Smith was well respected by some of the great writers of his time. But that doesn't matter a hoot, if no one is interested in his thoughts about society and communities……of which, looking all around us, we are certainly imbedded. It was far easier to sell Bracebridge, (as I attempted in 2000) on the merit and value of their "literary provenance" with Washington Irving, courtesy Postal Authority William Dawson LeSueur (circa 1864 when post office was named), because of the still-popular stories he wrote, like "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." I'm still working on selling this as a great literary legacy to glom onto, for future marketing in the town, and to date it has been 12 years of my protracted suffering. I never give up. I'm still closer there, because of their general interest in Christmas-season, "Bracebridge Hall," banquets, taken right out of the pages written by the good Mr. Irving. I can't take credit for this but I may have influenced them a tad, to at least try and exploit (why not) this literary wealth, LeSueur gave them as a tribute to Irving. As for Smith, and contemporary Gravenhurst, it's been twelve years and counting, but I know that it will be a hard sell…..and a lonely one. I believe I owe it to the humanity of author, Smith, and the town that inherited the name, of a well thought-of piece of international literature. No, there's no headless horseman in his story, or flaming pumpkins, as with Sleepy Hollow. There's no really neat Mariposa-type references, or larger than life characters for comparison's sake. It was said Leacock had his identifiable sources of inspiration, from characters he knew in the town.
Our history is not just bricks and boards, log cabins and churches, roads and highways, subdivisions and plazas. This community was built by human resources. It was sawn and hammered together, by mortals. Characters. Those who showed emotion, and those who preferred not to present themselves as they felt at the moment. There were those who prayed, and those who cussed and then prayed for forgiveness. There were natural leaders, and contented followers. There were singers and hummers, poets and artists, country philosophers, hard workers and slackers. Those who wore anger like it was a badge of merit, and more than a few who thrived on adversity, and worked twice as hard, when told a task was impossible. There were those who dug deep holes with short handled shovels, and those who formed the foundations with intense focus, on supporting all the layers to be built on top. Then came the builders and brick layers, painters and shinglers. On Sundays these work weary characters stood in church and sang the hymns in Praise of the Lord. We had some feisty boat captains, storied engineers, firebrand politicians, and fire and brimstone preachers, who lifted the roof on passive religious worship. But it's all so imbedded in the commonplace, isn't it, and that's just fine……as long as we recognize history was never black and white, brick and mortar, politicians and citizens……without the color of the beating heart.
I happen to adore commonplace, and it is this character, of survival as a town, that has appealed to our family since we moved here. As a population, since our first inhabitants, we have had a pretty decent game plan. Yet we've taken a lot of hits. We get up, and get hit some more. But we're not quitters, and we sometimes impress ourselves, by what we can absorb of disadvantage……and still be chipper the very next moment. We've been beat out by politics and circumstances, over the decades, having lost government situations awarded to another town, and maybe South Muskoka Memorial Hospital should have been located in Gravenhurst instead. Possibly the Court House, and Regional Government headquarters. Some will declare we got ripped off. There may be those who claim we got slam-dunked by the politics of the day, that made Bracebridge the centre of the universe. Who knows for sure? But what is definite, is that our town survived without the silver platter, or anything served on top. A lot of changes have occurred that economically speaking, did cause some disadvantage. Consider how the Provincial Government has screwed around with the Muskoka Centre property, instead of putting some economics to work. If that same property was in Bracebridge or Huntsville, there would have been hell to pay……and as a political watcher, I can pretty much guarantee, it would never have remained in limbo this long……without some action. Are we too complacent for our own good? Possibly? Maybe we're just so used to getting the short shaft, to bother making a big deal when we perceive it has happened again…….and simply move on to the next big project, with collective head held high. Yet this doesn't mean we're unwise or unable to muster the same political energy of our neighbor towns. We're just a little shy about pushing our weight around, and potentially annoying someone. But none the less, we have survived a lot of economic turmoil, and there would be those historians, who would say, "well, then, you've learned how to deal with hardship, when others haven't. The future is yours!" Maybe it is. Wouldn't that be nice.
Our history was made my everyday folks. In some ways, it's as if William Henry Smith knew about us…..before we even made a dot on the Muskoka map. It is nothing to be ashamed about, to be associated by name and circumstance to both Smith and William Dawson LeSueur, a faithful Canadian and historian, who thought……well, that we deserved a break to get started on this community-building thing. Before the 150th anniversary of the official naming of the Post Office, I've set it up as a challenge……for myself, to be able to sell you…..and the citizens of Gravenhurst, on the contemporary relevance of being associated with these two literary giants. I've got to pitch this to the young citizens of our community, and give them the reason to find the value in this provenance, to carry forth into the future……as if it truly means something to dwell in the comfortable commonplace of our life and times…..and be prosperous, passionate, adventurous and happy.
I was impressed by the Toronto Star profile of the young lady who passed away, suddenly, leaving a rich legacy and warmth of friendship, despite being neither celebrity nor a wannabe star…….settling for having a good life, in the company of good people, in the celebration of commonplace as a lifestyle. We have millions of people who are making important inroads, for society's benefit every day, but they'll never make it into the print of local history. They won't get an award for being ordinary, or doing the job they were employed to do. So what? Their contribution isn't any less, because they're not recognized by the select few, as important people to know. It takes a lot of citizenry to work this complicated network of being a community. Bakers, waitresses, carpenters, construction workers, park maintenance staff, undertakers, cooks, painters, accountants, police officers, nurses, caretakers, clerks, office workers, bank tellers, managers of all sorts, and a hell of a lot of business people, in a myriad of disciplines, trying to pull an economy together for the benefit of us all. Everyone has a biography. Everyone has a relevance and a roll to play. What would our community be like without you? If you had never been born? You'd never opened your business, or got married and had kids, to go to our schools? Never to have a lawn sale, or go to a church fundraising sale…..or never to volunteer to coach minor hockey, or sell raffle tickets for the Cub Scouts? Of course you would be missed. And it hasn't got a darn thing to do with celebrity. It has to do with fulfilling a lifetime on your terms; and the vigorous involvement and social intercourse, is up to you.
The Toronto Star story was a little bonus for me, trying to present the moral philosophy by William Henry Smith, who was pretty interested in the role of ordinary people, and routine circumstance, in day to day functioning of our civilization's establishment of "the community." Now I've got to sell this as something we should all know, and be proud of, because the book is still in demand, 150 years after it was originally published. University studies apparently feel Mr. Smith had something important to share. It can be said William Henry Smith wasn't in the same league as Stephen Leacock, and it can be said as counterpoint, Leacock certainly wasn't in Smith's. I don't see Gravenhurst having a "Smith" Festival, like Orillia has their "Leacock Festival," but one can always dream about the possibilities. More in the months to come.
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