YOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN IN THE PROFESSION LONG ENOUGH TO BE CONSIDERED AN ANTIQUE……
WHEN THE RELICS OF YOUR OWN HAND START TURNING UP AS COLLECTABLES
I STILL GET A FUNNY FEELING, FROM TIME TO TIME, COMING UPON MY BOOKS FOR SALE ON THE SHELVES OF SECOND HAND SHOPS, USED BOOK STORES, OR IN THRIFT SHOPS. OF COURSE, I BUY THEM BACK AND OFFER THEM FOR RE-SALE IN OUR OWN SHOP. I'VE BEEN AN ASSISTANT EDITOR ON FIVE OTHER BOOKS, AND I FEEL IT'S NECESSARY FOR POSTERITY, TO BUY THEM AS WELL, CONSIDERING MY NAME IS ATTACHED TO THE CREDITS. I MAY JUST BE A LITTLE VAIN TO DO THIS.BUT I'M NOT A NARCISSIST! REALLY! I'M WRITING A BIOGRAPHY AFTER ALL. I HAVE TO BE A LITTLE SELF CENTERED OR IT WOULDN'T BE A BIOGRAPHICAL.
IN AN ORILLIA ANTIQUE SHOP, RECENTLY, SON ROBERT WAS EXCITED TO SHOW ME A LATE 1980'S COPY OF "THE MUSKOKA SUN," THAT I WAS ASSISTANT EDITOR OF, FROM ABOUT 1985 TO 1989. I TOOK A WEE PEEK, AND SAW ARTICLES ON THE "HISTORY OF BRACEBRIDGE BAY," FOR EXAMPLE, AND ABOUT A HALF DOZEN EDITORIAL FILLERS I USED TO WRITE, FOR EDITOR BOB BOYER, WHILE WORKING FROM MY HOME OFFICE…..AND ENJOYING MY ROLE AS "MR. MOM."
BOB WAS A REAL TASK MASTER, AND HE REFUSED TO RUN WHAT WE CALLED "CANNED-COPY" WHICH REPRESENTED GOVERNMENT PRESS RELEASES THAT WERE CONVENIENTLY "CAMERA READY," TO BE CUT AND PASTED ONTO THE NEWSPAPER FLATS (IN THOSE EARLY DAYS BEFORE FULL COMPUTERIZATION IN THE WORKPLACE). BOB WOULD HAVE ME EITHER RE-WRITE THEM, TO LOCALIZE THE CONTENT, OR I'D JUST WRITE HISTORICAL VIGNETTES. EVERYTHING ROBERT (WHO WAS NAMED AFTER BOB) WAS POINTING AT, IN THE QUICK FLIP THROUGH THE PAPER, FOUND IN THE "EPHEMERA BIN" IN THIS SHOP, HAD BEEN WRITTEN BY YOURS TRULY. BOB ALMOST KILLED ME IN THOSE YEARS, WITH COPY DEMANDS, BUT I GOT LOTS OF WRITING PRACTICE AS WELL; AND MANY, MANY BYLINES. TO SEE THIS PAPER TODAY, MAKES ME A LITTLE SAD ABOUT WHAT I DID A DECADE AGO, IN A FIT OF ANGER, FRUSTRATION, AND A LITTLE BIT OF WRITING ANGST.
THE PROBLEM WITH BEING A NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST, VERSUS JUST WRITING BOOKS, IS THAT EVERY WEEK, AND SOMETIMES MULTIPLE TIMES OVER SEVEN DAYS, I WOULD HAVE MY WORK ON THE NEWSTANDS THROUGHOUT THE DISTRICT. AT TIMES MY CIRCULATION BACK THEN WOULD COME CLOSE TO SEVENTY THOUSAND A WEEK, CONSIDERING WHERE I HAD CONTRIBUTED MATERIAL. I WOULD WRITE FOR THE HERALD-GAZETTE, WHICH HAD A RELATIVELY MODEST CIRCULATION, OF ABOUT SIX THOUSAND WEEKLY. THEN THERE WAS "THE MUSKOKA ADVANCE," WHICH WENT TO EVERY HOUSEHOLD IN THE DISTRICT, ON SUNDAYS, AND IN SEASON, THE MUSKOKA SUN. I MIGHT HAVE TWENTY EDITORIAL PIECES IN THOSE THREE PUBLICATIONS. SOMETIMES MORE, DEPENDING ON HOW MUCH SPACE MR. BOYER HAD TO FILL BETWEEN THE ADS. THIS WAS A NOSTALGIC DAY, MY FRIENDS, WHEN "THE MUSKOKA SUN," WAS A LEGEND AS A PROVINCIAL SUMMER PAPER, AND ON HOLIDAY WEEKENDS, LIKE THE FIRST OF AUGUST (CIVIC HOLIDAY), WE WOULD BE UP TO ONE HUNDRED PAGES. THIS WELL RECEIVED PUBLICATION SERVED THE COTTAGE COMMUNITY, AND COTTAGERS COLLECTED THE ENTIRE SEASON'S OUTPUT, WHICH THEN, WAS STRETCHING FROM MAY 24TH TO THANKSGIVING. THOSE HUNDRED PAGE ISSUES WERE KILLERS TO EDITORIAL STAFF. IT'S WHEN WE BEGGED MR. BOYER TO USE MORE PHOTOGRAPHS, BECAUSE WE WERE "TAPPED OUT" AS FAR AS BEING ABLE TO PRODUCE ENOUGH MATERIAL, TO FILL ALL THE WHITE SPACES. I WAS HAUNTED IN MY AFTER-HOURS BY THOSE WHITE SPACES. AND I KNOW ALL ABOUT THOSE HUNDRED PAGE ISSUES, BECAUSE THE WRITING STAFF CHIPPED IN ON DELIVERY DAY AROUND THE LAKES, AND BY THE TIME OUR ROUTE WAS DONE, ALL OUR HANDS WERE BLOODIED BY THE BANDING THAT USED TO CUT INTO THE FLESH. NEWS PRINT, BLISTERS AND BLOOD. THERE'S A TITLE FOR MY BOOK ON MUSKOKA'S NEWSPAPER WARS, IF I EVER GET BORED ENOUGH TO WRITE ANOTHER BOUND TOME.
I WENT ON TO A SHORT PERIOD AS EDITOR OF "THE MUSKOKAN," FOLLOWING MY DEPARTURE FROM MUSKOKA PUBLICATIONS, AND THESE WERE MY OWN HALCYON DAYS IN PRINT. WHILE I DID RETURN AS A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR OF COLUMNS TO THE MUSKOKA ADVANCE AND MUSKOKA SUN, IN THE 1990'S, MY CIRCULATION DROPPED SUBSTANTIALLY. I DIDN'T HAVE AS MANY NEWSPAPERS TO HANG ONTO, AND STORE HERE AT BIRCH HOLLOW. RIGHT UP TO THE NEW CENTURY, I WAS BEING PUBLISHED MULTIPLE TIMES WEEKLY, AND I FELT COMPELLED TO HAVE ONE OF EACH. I HAVE DONE THIS WITH OTHER FEATURE PUBLICATIONS I HAVE WRITTEN FOR, INCLUDING "THE WAYBACK TIMES," "CURIOUS; THE TOURIST GUIDE," AND "COTTAGE TIMES." MY POINT? I WRITE A LOT. DAH! NO SURPRISE ABOUT THAT! NOW CONSIDER MY FEELING OF NECESSITY, FOR THE RECORD, OF KEEPING ALL THESE PUBLICATIONS, AND SOMETIMES MULTIPLES, IF I REALLY LIKED THE STORIES I WROTE FOR THAT ISSUE. IN ONE CASE, I HAD TWO BUNDLES EQUALING ONE HUNDRED PAPERS, OF A SPECIAL INSERT I WROTE, AS A BIOGRAPHY OF BRACEBRIDGE BORN, NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE ALL STAR, ROGER CROZIER (DETROIT RED WINGS). I DON'T HAVE ANY IDEA WHY I FELT I NEEDED THIS MANY, FOR MY PERSONAL FILES, AND THEY TOO FELL VICTIM TO A VICIOUS PERIOD OF RECYCLING A DECADE AGO, WHEN I GOT MAD AT THE WORLD, AT PUBLICATIONS, AND MY ROLE AS A WRITER. AS I DO EVERY FEW YEARS, I BECOME DISENCHANTED WITH MY OUTPUT, AND START THWACKING AND DISCARDING EVERYTHING UP TO THAT POINT. I WOULD HAVE HAD MULTIPLE COPIES OF "THE MUSKOKA SUN," ROBERT WAS SHOWING ME, BUT ALAS, IT WAS PART OF THE COLOSSAL CULL OF 2003. I KNEW I WAS GOING TO REGRET IT, BUT I KEPT TOSSING THE BUNDLES INTO THE BINS AT THE LANDFILL SITE. IT FELT LIKE I WAS SHEDDING SKIN, SO THAT A NEW ONE COULD GROW ATOP THE OLD BODY.
I COULD HAVE BUILT A HOUSE FROM THE PAPERS I KEPT
My newspaper archives was supposed to be my most important asset as a writer. As an historian, these were valuable print resources, to use for the rest of my life as a researcher. As a collector, there was a monetary value attached……just like the asking price of a few bucks, on the single issue of "The Muskoka Sun," in this antique shop. I didn't buy this copy but if it eventually sells, by golly, I'm going to feel real bad, that I pissed away a lot of money, by re-cycling what was once, the validation of a life spent in the the writing profession.
But to look at the several walls thick with newspaper piles, the casual observer to Birch Hollow, back then, would have said to another visitor, "Our host is a hoarder!" They would have been right, of course, to think this, especially if I hadn't been able to clarify precisely why I kept four thousand old newspapers in my archives. Eventually Suzanne insisted I move them to the shed, and for years after this, she'd let me know, "One day Ted, we're going to have to clean it out…..and you're going to have to do something with those newspapers." For years I would tell her it was all looked after, until the day I caught her in there, poking about, and finding out that I'd been lying to her for years. I felt as if she'd all of a sudden found an article of clothing from a lover (I didn't have), accidentally left behind during a sordid "in the shed" affair. I sort of felt that my collection was a mistress, best kept concealed. Then she said it! What I had feared more than "Pack your stuff, cause you're out of here!" She informed me, that this particular summer, we were going to sit and go through these papers, and clip out important articles…..not just mine; but anything that was important to us as regional historians. This by the way, would have taken six months to accomplish, and I am hugely impatient.
One day, during a yard sale, I spent some time trying to create order amongst the piles of newspapers, dating back to when I began, as a columnist on "Antiques and Collectables," for the Braccebridge Examiner, in the spring of 1978; shortly after the publication was launched. I moved twenty or so papers, and the avalanche began. Slowly at first, and then pile after pile came pounding down on my head, shoulders, and a few bundles connecting to the groin. I was buried by my own creativity. I snapped. I started tossing some of the bundled newsprint around the shed, and that brought down other boxes onto my thick noggin. Suzanne has always been kind, when I'm in one of these moods, and although she doesn't buy the artistic privilege of being moody, and prone to angry outbursts, she does understand how much time I spend at the keyboard…..and some of the demands I face on freelance projects to meet deadlines can get pretty crazy. But I don't resort to booze any more to lubricate me from one job to the next. Suzanne makes me cookies and Sleepy Time Tea. I begin to purr in unison with five sleeping house-cats.
For the rest of that day, I made runs to the landfill site, and the recycling bins, to dump off my entire collection of newspapers. Thousands upon thousands of bylines, on stories I felt so positive about, and labored on for so long, gone in see-through blue bags, deep down into the bins with haunting, terrible thuds…..much like I imagine a corpse would sound hitting the metal bottom. It felt a little like this, because the work I was tossing away, represented decades of my career. Yet, at almost the same time, as it felt weird to separate from my life's work, surprisingly enough, it also felt quite liberating; but I would have needed therapy to determined why I felt this way. As is tradition for me, a month after dumping all my personal archives, including a lot of rough notes and article drafts, I got a research gig, that in part, necessitated having those back issues. It created many hours of extra work, because I now had to seek out other sources and archives instead.
Writers, artists, musicians and a host of other professionals, who rely on creativity to make a living, often suffer these little emotional set-backs, when everything done to that point, seems more like an anchor than a paved road from there to here. While I have only ever ceased being published, for one year since 1978, due to a dispute with a publisher, I started to lose my way, despite the fact I had enough personal mapping to never, ever get lost. I had a huge number of precedents in those file papers…..articles that were turning points for me, like the Crozier feature publication, that changed my life for the better. So I should have been able to take that print road map, and pull myself out of every funk that got in my way. At this particular time, after the events of 9-11, and feeling a lot of political disenchantment, including general discontent with local publishing, it was easy to bypass the idea of clipping articles……and just turf the whole lot…..and live with the regrets as a sort of self punishment for having been a writer too-long for my own good.
When son Robert facilitated my entry into the blog-asphere, my whole perspective on writing and the future changed. I wasn't killing trees to carry the ink of my stories. I was also keeping a copious record of my work published, in a micro amount of space, that didn't necessitate its own special room. I could recall old copy back to the screen, in mere seconds, and as well, reach many more readers internationally, than I ever could have, only working in the traditional print industry. My circulation today, as an old fart in the same profession, is much greater and broader than ever before, and I now recognize it's exactly why I had to rid myself of that burden of the past……by recycling thousands of pounds of newsprint strangling our household. Going through minor depressions, is pretty much routine in the creative enterprise. I give up writing at least three times a week, until something triggers the very next inspiration to soldier-on. I get a lot of emails through this blog, and a few of them are actually complimentary, and make suggestions about other topics in the collecting (and political) forum, to explore and explain. I love this lightning speed interaction, and I'm greatly appreciative of the international audience, which got a big boost when I wrote the biography, last year, of Polish-Canadian Artist, Richard Karon. Karon had an art studio for many years in the Township of Lake of Bays, near the Village of Baysville. I received an astonishing swell of readership in Poland, and from there, I've broken into a number of other markets, especially in the discussion of basic "country" antique hunting, in rural Ontario. I'm still a long way from hauling home a Pulitzer, or a major literary award, but maybe there's a lifetime achievement plaque out there with my name on it……..with an inscription that reads, "We can't believe this guy is still writing daily after all these years, having successfully endured all the criticism, taunts, jeers, and boos!"
So that's the story of when I ceased being a textbook hoarder, and unburdened myself…..and my family, of a lifetime's worth of newspapers…..I really didn't need at all!
Editorial Note: I'm not kidding. Due to the pressures of respective work places, for both Fred Schulz and I, we are going to take a wee break for awhile, publishing the "Muskoka as Walden" blog. With our expansion plans at our shop sucking the hours out of our family, big time, I've been getting home so late in the evening, it's been nearly impossible to provide fresh copy. Suzanne's "Cookery Nookery" is in the final month of preparation, and in order to keep it on schedule, we've had to put in a lot of over-time hours as well, leaving little time to sit and compose at this keyboard, for two blogs each daily. Fred has similarly been in a tough work environment, and there seems to be less hours to pursue what we mutually enjoy in both writing and landscape photography. We have been running the blog for two months now, and anyone who has been following us, during this time, will certainly realize just how accomplished Fred is, as a regional photographer. I've been delighted to have his work to use, for these two months, but alas, it has been a lot to ask, to have daily photographs, when there are only a few open hours of daylight left, to take pictures, following the chores of the day. If he does catch up on his photographic interests, he is welcome to submit them, once again, to be used in this blog instead. I hope you will stick with this blog, and there is a lot more to write about, in the field of antiques and collectables……and antique hunting adventures here in Muskoka. I might even write a few "Zorro-pointed" political pieces, which would at least, save me grinding my jaw instead. I was told by a local councillor, recently, that I had a Zorro-like articulation, as a political critic. Hey, it probably wasn't meant as a compliment, but I'll take it anyway. And honestly, I've been called a lot worse, like the time another local author, and minister, named a character in his play, "Turd" Currie, apparently in my honor. The audience got quite a chuckle on opening night. As for the published review the next morning, by this author's hand……well sir, I chuckled while I was writing it, but me thinks, the "Turd" got even by the last smoking paragraph. Ah, the joys of being "The Reviewer!"
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