CHRISTMAS IN MUSKOKA - CONSIDER A DONATION TO THE ONTARIO SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS - AND HUMANE SOCIETY
WOULD YOU CONSIDER ADOPTING A PET FROM THE MUSKOKA ANIMAL SHELTER?
Would you, by chance, be interested in sharing a little of your home space, with a wonderful pet currently without a permanent residence? Might you be in a position to offer a donation to a worthy cause, to help rescued and surrendered pets, currently housed at the Muskoka Animal Shelter, of the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Well, it would be swell if you could offer assistance of any kind, even as a shelter volunteer. Here's a Christmas story to warm the cockles of your heart.
At this moment, sitting comfortably, and warmly I might add, in front of the brick hearth, and in the festive glow of the Birch Hollow Christmas tree, I write this blog under friendly siege. I have two of our cats on the back of the chair, Angus occasionally hitting me with his paw to get my attention, and Zappa tapping at the window to, I suppose acknowledge the neighbor's cat that just trotted across our verandah. Tucked to my side, on the chair, is our other cat Chutney, the runt of the litter, her mother "Beasley" had a few years back in our garden shed. The three were born under our old lawnmower, which Beasley had somehow been able to burrow beneath, as added protection for the early July delivery. It was Chutney's meowing that got our attention, when we came home late at night. Fortunately son Andrew had some high powered studio lamps, that we deployed to see into the shed. There they were. Mom and her tiny babies. Beasley was a thin, small framed cat barely more than a kitten herself, when she wound up at our back-door looking for something, anything to eat. We had a day-time cage unit, where we could house another stray named "Buddy," to get some outside time (our cats are not allowed to prowl the neighborhood where they could get hurt), and we would watch Beasley sneak up to the cage, and sneak some dry food from the dish inside. She wouldn't let us get too close, before bolting into the woodlot, and disappearing into a pile of cut tree limbs. Eventually, we assumed it was a stray, and she was quite thin at this time. We had no idea she was also very pregnant. We began setting out a separate food and water dish, and it didn't take long, before Beasley would be eating morning and night in front of the cage, while Buddy seemed to look forward to her predictable arrivals. It took a month before either Suzanne or I could get close enough, to pat the top of her head. Once, she even rolled over to let us scratch her tummy, and we couldn't believe the development of nipples. We wondered if she had already given birth, and the kittens were somewhere in the pile of yard waste at the side of the house. Nothing turned up, and we never heard anything that would lead us to search anywhere else. We supposed they might have died at birth. There was no way this thin little cat was still pregnant. Well, will wonders never cease. There were three kittens inside mom, and thank goodness, we had a little more than a month to get her some body weight back, as well as nutrition for the work she was going to have, feeding the kittens. We got suspicious when she disappeared for a couple of days, leaving her food uneaten. If wee Chutney hadn't been squeaking that night, at the time we were heading into the house, it's likely she and Zappa would have died before morning because of their smaller than normal size. Angus was much more substantial, but even then, it was possible, a delay getting a regular food source for Beasley, was going to hurt her offspring. She was still so thin and frail looking. But she turned out to be a great mother and with our help, she got them fed up to the point of taking their first taste of cat food, which Suzanne offered each, on the tip of her finger.
We had an interesting summer that year, and I recall sitting out on the verandah and having these three kittens running all over the big sofa we have against the wall, wrestling with each other, and attacking my hand as if it was another cat. I had scratches all over, but it was the most fun I've had in years, especially comforting, when they'd eventually wear themselves out, and curling into our laps for a little sleep. I look at them today, and I have a hard time believing these are the same felines we helped raise with Beasley more than six years ago. And there all still here at Birch Hollow, the place where they were born. When it came time to consider handing them over to the OSPCA, after we were sure they were all healthy and strong enough to leave their mother, Suzanne and I pondered when exactly, we should contact the Muskoka Animal Shelter, as we had intended, when we stepped-up to help them survive the first tough months. What we did know at the time, was that the shelter was at capacity with cats up for adoption, and as kittens were more likely to be adopted first, we knew that it would mean it would be at the expense of an older cat getting a good home first. We were in no hurry. We would wait and see if the shelter would be able to make some room in the near future. Then you know what happened, of course! The longer we kept them, the more difficult it was becoming to think of Birch Hollow without them. We decided as a family, to share the work load of adopting mother and babies, to companion our other three cats, Buddy, Smokey and Fester (the second). That's right, we were turning into a happenstance cat shelter. We have since bid farewell to Smokey and Fester who both died of old age. We have five cats all comfortably situated here at Birch Hollow, and while they cost us a fortune in food, and damage to my door frames with their claw-work, all the inmates get along pretty well.
Suzanne and I have taken in many strays during our marriage, including Fester (the first), found as a kitten, huddling for warmth on a sewer grate, one Christmas Eve, Tommy, who used to sleep in my hockey equipment bag outside, Animal, who was tossed out of a moving car, and injured, outside the Herald-Gazette office in Bracebridge, and Smokey, our only adoption, from a family in Huntsville that had to get rid of their cats due to allergies. Fester 2, was also a give-away, Suzanne got from a student, who was forced to get rid of the cat because of her father's allergies. Buddy was dumped out of a car as well, here on Segwun Boulevard, and we rescued it just before the neighborhood hawk made a dive for its dinner. It was a close call for Buddy. Every one of these cats, has imprinted on our family life and times, just as today, Chutney is kneading the flesh on my leg, and Angus has now become the fur collar I don't need. Chutney cleans her paws an inch from my ears and Beasley is sitting up on the china cupboard at the back door, watching Seymour the squirrel and his brother Eldridge, scurry along the top of the fence. I am being influenced by purring, a little scratching, cleaning, and scratching on the chair pad behind my head. It is all so pleasant and cheerful, and after a long day traveling, having them as company right now, is about as calming as getting a massage. If they weren't here, and surrounding me at this moment, I would only be partly inspired, instead of totally consumed by their neighborly purring.
This Christmas season, please consider giving a cash donation to the Ontario Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, The Humane Society, the Muskoka Animal Hospital, or consider adopting one of the surrendered or rescued animals currently in need of a good home. We Curries can attest heartily, to the enhancements in our lives these pets have bestowed our Muskoka homestead. We couldn't feel the true comforts of home, if we weren't able to share it with our critter friends. As a writer, they influence everything I do, whether it is about pets, or about anything else. They calm the savage beast, believe it or not, and it's hard to explain the mellowing influences, of trying to wordsmith a blog, with three cats in the midst. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Please help the staff and volunteers of the OSPCA give the pets in their care, a nice Christmas; by giving either a donation or making an application to adopt one of these beautiful creatures, that would flourish in a kindly home of someone who has a kind heart and some time to be a dutiful pet owners. Give them a call this Christmas season, and ask what you can do to help.
FROM THE DECEMBER ISSUE OF THE GREAT NORTH ARROW
Nothing Like Those Old Tin Arenas And Frozen Toes
By Ted Currie
It's around this time of the rolling year, when I look outside, in the black of night, and see the latest snow squall booming-in off the lake, and the cold etching of frost on the upper panel of window glass, that I think back to our road trips in minor hockey.
This may seem rather weak to build a feature column upon, but honestly, those nail-biting, steering-wheel clenching, wild rides to and from those old natural ice, tin arenas, dotted all over rural Ontario, were the foundation of hockey legend.
My father Ed, died a few years back, ironically I suppose, from a stroke suffered, in part, by a fright we'd given him late at night one stormy, snowy night in November.
My wife, Suzanne, had called him, well after midnight, to ask him if our eldest son Andrew, and his friend, could stay the night at his Bracebridge apartment. This depended, unfortunately, on Highway 11 being opened again, as at that moment, their car was stranded on a southbound stretch, by a number of accidents a mile away. As it turned out, the boys had to stay on the highway until about six in the morning, when the plows were finally able to clear away, the huge drifts across the four lanes. It was one of the worse late autumn snowfalls in recent history. While we don't know exactly what caused my father's stroke, it didn't help to be informed his grandson was in danger of freezing to death, stuck on a highway of no return, in a massive blizzard.
Ed survived for several days, trying the best he could to get around his apartment. When we were finally able to get from Gravenhurst to Bracebridge, once the roads were passable, we made it to his apartment, only to find him in terrible condition, needing immediate hospital care. Well, he didn't survive. In the weeks leading up to his death, we did have some interesting bedside conversations. He would drift in and out of reality, but he had a amazing memory despite everything that had happened to him. We talked about the night he had suffered the stroke, and how it reminded us both, of the terrible weather nights, he used to drive us to hockey games all over our part of the province.
I never remember a game, at one of those old tin palaces, with its natural ice, that was cancelled due to inclement weather. It was just expected, that winter was to throw out some ugly weather, and that if we lived in the semi-north region, we'd have to get used to snow and ice, or simply move back to Southern Ontario, where we originally resided. The years of winter driving for our minor hockey team, was from about 1966 to about 1972 or so.
First of all, we never owned even close to a new car. As an overview, our car had a faulty heater and defroster, a wonky pair of windshield wipers that used to hit each other, during their sweep back and forth, and a muffler that often sent fumes into the vehicle interior. So we had to have the windows partly rolled-down, in order not to die from carbon monoxide poisoning, and my father used to have his window rolled down, sometimes all the way, in order to see the road, when the wipers got jammed up in a pre-game fight. Then we'd have a headlight failure, with one lamp failing to deploy, in a snowstorm, with the windows open. When I read stories about what old time hockey has meant to this country's social / cultural / recreational heritage, I very seldom find any mention, of what hockey moms and dads had to do, in order to have their kids involved in minor hockey. Back when it was a somewhat less prestigious sport. Back in a day when registration cost between ten and twenty-five bucks, but I never remember a kid being turned away, because there weren't enough family resources, after food and lodging, to cover the fee. I know for fact, that the league let my dad slide, until some future pay-day, in multiple years, and that was awfully nice of those folks. We weren't the minority either. My father, feeling a little bad about this shortfall, made up for it, by volunteering to drive players to "away" games in a most rustic fashion. At least by horse and buggy, we wouldn't have arrived at the game, smelling like exhaust fumes.
This dedication of time and effort, of course, was complicated by the fact, my father had been up since dawn, to get ready for his work at a local lumber company. He worked all day, and seldom on these road-trips, was afforded the turn-around time, to have his dinner, before having to drive us to rinks in Baysville, Port Carling, Bala, and MacTier. When I was asked to tend goal, for the all star teams in my age division, we got to travel much further north, including stops at Sundridge, South River and Powassan. We had a better car by this point.
With as many as five players crowded into the car, and surviving what can only be called, in retrospect, a death defying craziness, just to play hockey, we'd get to the arena half frozen and ill-prepared to play the game. In some of the old arenas, we'd have to climb stairs to the dressing rooms (up and down in our skates), and dress in a tiny room with a woodstove pipe, running up the centre of what was cubicle sized, through a hole in the floor. It was okay at the beginning of the game, because we needed to be warmed up. At the end of the game, when we were trying to get undressed, in crowded quarters, it was quite common, to leave some of our skin on that same stove-pipe. It didn't take much jostling, to get pushed up against this red hot metal chimney. When we tried to warm our toes, our socks would start to burn, and our flesh as well.
Our feet were frozen from the trip to the rink. We'd get the circulation going, and burned at the same time, preparing in the dressing room, before we put our skates on. Of course, most of us would be crying by this point, as when the circulation resumed, the pain commenced. Then while playing the game, our feet again froze, because as the oldtimers used to enjoy saying, "it's colder in here than it is outside." Ah, the joy of natural ice, and the tin buildings that facilitated the refrigerator effect. Many of our players, by the end of the second period, were crying on the bench, and there was nothing the coach could do to help us out. We played with frozen toes. In net, the more work I had, clearing pucks, the less I thought about having my toes frozen solid. Sometimes there wasn't a full intermission, but it was worse, if we had one, at the end of the second period. Just when we got to the huge pain part, trying to warm our toes on the pipe, we'd hear the whistle for the start of the third period.
At the end of the game, we just cried in pain, and didn't worry whatsoever, that it wasn't the macho thing for tough hockey players to do. Seeing as we were all in roughly the same strait of pain, no one was going to tell our girlfriends at home, that we cried as a team. These were tears of passion, in a passionate game. That's what we told ourselves to make it fit our circumstance.
On the way home, if our guardian angels were traveling with us, the heater would generate itself into a stream of glorious heat, for a few miles at least, and the snowfall may have even calmed in the late evening. But as a rule, everyone who got out of my father's car, back at our home base, at the Bracebridge arena, walked home with frozen toes. The most frightening part, was when the same jalopy wouldn't start the next morning, when my dad was getting ready for work. As I was out, bright and early, give him a push, thanking God, the car hadn't broken down during the hockey trip the night before. I suppose we were blessed; sort of, except on the score-sheet.
These situations and wild road trips, as unsafe and reckless as they were, were imbedded in the rural hockey experience. I kid about this now, but I was pretty thankful back then, that my dad would give up his time, to drive us to these "away" games, after a day's work. Covering the fuel costs, and potential towing expenses, just to keep us kids playing our national sport. I thanked him for this many times, in those few weeks that he understood our conversation. He needed to know this, and that I was sorry I hadn't thanked him sooner. Our teams back then, had a shortage of parents with cars, who could drive us to the far reaches of the region, especially on snowy nights like I've described above. The all star teams were the ones to get buses for road trips. In Canada, there were thousands of unsung heroes of the infamous hockey road trips, who sacrificed for the sake of this love for hockey. I often wonder how my father dealt with frozen toes himself, because I know for fact, he wouldn't afford the price of proper boots and winter socks. Never heard him complain once, in all the miles he travelled, and all the cold rinks he stood in, or sat up in the bleachers, supporting our club.
In the January issue, I'll share a few more hockey tales, of those magnificently meagre tin arenas, that facilitated a million hockey games in this country.
I also want to wish all the readers of this fine publication, a wonderful, joyous and safe Christmas holiday season. I especially want to thank the editor and publisher of this unique Ontario paper, and wish everyone associated with its publication, a Merry Christmas and Happy New Years as well. I have very much enjoyed my relationship these past few years, with The Great North Arrow, and have found many folks down here in the tropics of the Muskoka region, are taking an interest in the paper as well. I think it has a great future, and I'm proud to be associated as a monthly columnist. I hope readers appreciate the work and sacrifice that goes into producing such a well balanced publication like the Great North Arrow. Believe me, as a long time newspaper columnist, and former editor, it's not a business you get into, looking for a quick million dollar pay-out. It is most definitely, however, the kind of enterprise that can be defined as a true labour of love; and a pursuit for the benefit of a good neighbor community. It does, and in the case of this publication, bring people closer together, through the medium of print, to celebrate living in this beautiful part of Ontario, and Canada. Thanks to the publisher and family, we have a conduit to get our message out there, and something to look forward to each month, awaiting the very next issue to hit the news stand.
See you again in January 2015. Imagine that. I though it was weird to say it was the year "2000." Now its fifteen years later, and I still feel the same.
CHRISTMAS IN BRACEBRIDGE
THAT OLD GHOST OF MINE - ARSE OUT OF HIS SNOWPANTS - A SLIVER STICK - TWO ICE GOAL POSTS AND WISHFUL THINKING
I TOOK A DRIVE UP TO BRACEBRIDGE'S ALICE STREET TODAY. SAW MY GHOST. I DIDN'T NEED THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST TO DO THIS. NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO TO THAT STREET IN THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS, SOMEONE WILL LOOK OUT OF A CONDO WINDOW, FROM THE NINETIETH FLOOR, AND SEE MY GHOST PLAYING HOCKEY, CALLING THE PLAY BY PLAY…….ON HIS OWN UP-ICE RUSH. I DIDN'T NEED MUCH MORE THAN THAT OLD STICK, LUMPS OF ICE (THEY WERE CHEAP), AND A PUCK. I HAD LOTS OF THOSE AND SLIVER (BLADE) STICKS, I HAULED HOME FROM THE ARENA FOR ROAD HOCKEY. MY PARENTS DIDN'T HAVE MUCH MONEY TO SPEND ON TOYS, AND WHILE I PROBABLY GOT A NEW HOCKEY STICK UNDER THE CHRISTMAS TREE, IT WAS USUALLY THE CHEAPEST MONEY COULD BUY. BLESS THEIR HEARTS, THEY TRIED, AND I APPRECIATED IT. UNFORTUNATLY, AFTER A COUPLE OF GAMES, THERE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN EVEN A SLIVER OF THAT BLADE LEFT. IT'S TRUE, I LIED TO THEM ABOUT THE WELFARE OF THE STICK….AND AS FAR AS THEY KNEW, I NEVER BROKE ONE THAT SANTA HAD PROVIDED.
WHEN I GO UP THERE, TO ALICE STREET, I CAN'T HELP BUT GET MISTY-EYED. WHEN I WENT OFF TO UNIVERSITY IN THE FALL OF 1974, WE WERE ON THE VERGE OF MOVING TO A SMALL COTTAGE ON ALPORT BAY, OF LAKE MUSKOKA. IT WAS A SMALL COTTAGE AND WE GOT A GOOD RENT FOR BASCIALLY BABYSITTING A LAKESIDE PROPERTY FOR AN OUT-OF-THE-COUNTRY FAMILY. BY THIS TIME, MY FAMILY WAS DOING MUCH BETTER FINANCIALLY, AND AS I WAS AWAY FOR MOST OF THE YEAR, THE FOOD BILLS DROPPED DRASTICALLY. I REMEMBER CATCHING A RIDE TO TORONTO, THAT SEPTEMBER DAY, AND LOOKING AT ALICE STREET AS IF IT HAD BEEN A LIVING HELL……A PLACE I'D RATHER FORGET, AND NEVER COME BACK TO…… I WAS FREE. OFF TO CONQUER THE WORLD. IT SEEMED THE BEGINNING OF SUCH AN AMAZING ADVENTURE. THAT LAST LOOK BACK, SHOWED A RUN-DOWN OLD BUILDING, WHERE TEN FAMILIES HOLED-UP INDEFINITELY, WAITING FOR THEIR PROVERBIAL SHIP TO COME IN…….FOR SOME IT NEVER CAME AND THIS WAS THE LAST PLACE THEY SAW BEFORE HEADING OFF IN THE AMBULANCE OR HEARSE.
I can't tell you how rotten I have felt for all these years, having had such a terrible opinion of that apartment building. I was wrong. I came to appreciate this shortly after graduating university, and returning to Bracebridge…..and another new residence on upper Manitoba Street….the former home and medical office of Dr. Peter McGibbon. It all began, really, when my girlfriend, at the time, didn't respect my plan to move home, at a time when she was turning-on to the great aspects of city living. I tried it her way, and it didn't work. It was okay going to school, but not living in Toronto year round. This is odd, because both my parents had long relationships with the city, and my grandfather, a builder, has a street named after him…..Jackson Avenue, where some of his houses still exist. I was living in the area of Jane and Runnymede, where my mother's family lived, but it didn't matter. My decision to move back to Muskoka cost me a girlfriend, two jobs I quit within hours of starting, as well as losing many of my friends, who left Bracebridge for good, around the same time.
I can remember the Christmas season, that Gail gave me the proverbial heave-ho, wandering in a stupor, around the streets of the town, over by Bracebridge Public School, the High School, down along the tracks by the train station, and up eventually to Alice Street. I went to the variety store, we used to know as Black's, and then Lil and Cec's, and bought a pop and chips, and despite the snow, I stood there and weathered all the memories I'd turned my back on previously. I came back to Muskoka for a reason. As my family left Burlington, in the mid 1960's, as an escape from city life, to the Muskoka wilds, the prodigal son had returned…..humble, alone (all our friends were hers too….and they had to choose and it wasn't me), and looking for answers. Why had it been so important to come back to Bracebridge? What compelled me to wander up, tears in eyes, lost in love, to retrace the steps of an Alice Street kid……who, I realize now, had been having the time of his life. It had never been a hell on earth. This most likely came for the fact my parents fought a lot in those days, and my father enjoyed the drink to excess……and all the problems this can cause a family with financial woes. But it was also a comforting place, in many ways, and if it's true what some sage folks claim, that buildings can have a soul…..then the soul within that three story complex, must have been related to Burl Ives. Every time I see that "Frosty The Snowman" cartoon, with Burl as the host snowman, I always think of that Alice Street apartment, circa 1966 to 1974.
Merle and Ed are deceased now, and when I look up at that third floor window, on a frosty night as this, I know that in the heart of that home, once, the three of us are together this Christmas Eve, enjoying the simple pleasures of the season. We didn't have much but it was enough to make us feel wealthy in spirit, if nothing else.
Suzanne and the boys, understand my pilgrimages up to Alice Street, each Christmas, and although I won't make it a stipulation in my will, I kind of expect they would turn up there in my absence, to connect with the once, long ago, of a fellow who felt a strange debt of gratitude about a place, a time, and a circumstance; like the faded old family photograph, Merle stuck in a beaten-up family Bible she left behind. She knew I'd find it…..and pause in that confluence of contemplation, of whether to tuck it back inside, or let it inspire a little warmth on a cold, cold Christmas Eve. She knew me well!
I come away from these short, silent vigils, with good memories. I don't wish for my own return to those days, and I don't feel any necessity to make amends now. More than this, I suppose, I want to keep those few memories fresh…..and these little editorials in a modest biography, for my sons, for their knowledge….and for their children, and grandchildren…..to know what it was like growing up in Bracebridge, Ontario…..in an era that was an awful lot of fun.
Merry Christmas, folks.
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