Community Historian Feeling Compelled to Write Memorial Tributes

YOU KNOW YOU'VE ARRIVED AS A COMMUNITY HISTORIAN, WHEN YOU FEEL COMPELLED TO WRITE MEMORIAL TRIBUTES

I HAVE STARTED TO FEEL QUITE VENERABLE AND, A LITTLE VULNERABLE

     It's getting awfully close to home, you might say, if you were one to utter such statements, to reference the close proximity of death. I have lost a considerable number of friends and former associates, even hockey and golfing buddies in the past several years, and it does remind me constantly, that my days of spring chicken-hood have gone the way of the dodo. I'm not ancient but neither were they when they passed. It would scare me a lot, if I wasn't channeling my emotions into editorials. I feel a little more invincible when I'm sitting at a keyboard, penning my innermost thoughts, even about death, thinking I might be fooling the grim reaper with my showing of vigor and resolve to get life and death issues in perspective. Writing about death might actually deflect the Reaper's attention for awhile longer. But this is wishful thinking of course.
     Suzanne commented last night, after I began a coffee-time conversation, about a former neighbor who had passed away recently, that I missed my calling as a writer. "Well, why didn't you follow in Bob Boyer's footsteps, and write memorial tributes for the newspaper?" You know, I really never thought about it, but she had a point. I've actually come to dislike picking up the weekly newspaper from my driveway, these days, for fear someone else I know, will have their life's imprint, in black and white, beneath the column heading that suggests, they have left this mortal coil. And the few words printed below, are all that's left of them, in the public domain, at least. These days, when I find the name of a colleague, or acquaintance in the obituary listings, I want to add comments. I want to infill the blanks because there are usually a dozen I can identify quickly, that if left out, leave half of the portrait in black and white, when it should all be in color.     I feel the listing information is far too limited, and restrained, to such a point, that I will send in a bigger memorial tribute to the local funeral home, out of the utmost respect for the poor sod who passed. In fact, I've even written entire blogs about these old mates, and made a note in my funeral home submissions, that visitors to the site should also consult my blog-site; which may appear as if a shameless self promotion, but honestly, it's simply the case I feel there is so much more to add to the story of their accomplished lives. Funny thing about this, in retrospect, is the fact I used to work closely with associate editor, Bob Boyer, at The Herald-Gazette, in Bracebridge, when he was in charge of handling all obituaries and death notices that came down the pike. Which means over the front counter, and to his back office, that looked a lot like Charles Dickens had been in charge of decorating. No one else wanted to do it, obit writing specifically, especially for us in the news room, feeling we had more important things to look after each week; than to fuss with the details of visitations and funeral services. When two reporters would meet, in front of Bob Boyer's "smoking" office (Bob smoked cigars like I ate licorice), we'd wink at each other, when one asked, "What's Bob doing now," with the response being the same, day after day. "You know. He's on death watch." We hope he never heard those comments, but it was true. Bob, from a family with deep roots in Bracebridge and Muskoka history, and a former Member of Provincial Parliament, not to mention active regional historian, newspaper publisher and editor, knew almost everyone in the community, or at least, their families. It's what oldtime newspaper editors felt was important, and after all, intimate community news sold papers. Obituaries were second only to the newspaper's classified section, whenever we got the results of readership polls back. Community social news was next. It made us news hounds a little uneasy, that we weren't considered the most important resources of the paper, for what we produced each week, to headline the latest edition. But the readers knew what they wanted, and it was news about comings and goings, and that meant births and deaths. Cutting edge columnists were okay if they were writing about either, but otherwise, were well down the list of editorial to be consulted, after paying the news stand price of a weekly issue.
     Back in my era of the 1970's and 80's, the town's size was pretty small, and when our circulation crested 6,000, most of us on staff, thought we'd be going daily having reached that status of readership. But it was also the time of profound change, and urban expansion; and with the influx of many new families into the community, Bob was having a harder time each week, finding those obituaries that he could re-write, adding his own remembrances.
     Seeing as I had to pop into Bob's tiny main floor office, about a hundred times a week, to messenger mail and specific editorial copy for his perusal, I'd stop to talk and casually look at what he was working on, visible on the wrinkled sheet of white paper jammed askew into his battle-weary manual typewriter. When he wasn't working on copy for the Algoma Anglican, of which he was the acting editor, or his "Our Yesteryears" column, which was a regular editorial piece for The Herald-Gazette, or editing copy for his baby, The Muskoka Sun, he was re-writing, or composing first hand, these obituaries for that week's newspaper. Family members would come to the front desk, after the death of kin, and Bob would invite them into his office, so he could get the details first-hand of the visitation and funeral services, along with biographical details of the deceased individual's life. Day after day, week after week, year after year, Bob enhanced the obituaries that were submitted, with his own recollections of these former citizens, many he had been close with, as had his family with their family, many decades earlier. There was one rule the publisher imposed on me, from the time I took the helm of the paper, as news editor. "You will give Bob as much space as he requires for his obituaries," and other memorial tributes. They were to be left alone, as far as my editorial responsibilities were concerned. I may have had a quiet rebellion about this, and probably, at some point, brought this up at a staff meeting, only to be told to mind my own business, and the personal page, was out of my jurisdiction. Seemed a little absurd, but there was no way I wanted to write the kind of stuff Bob laboured at, every week, that involved dead people and their respective burials. He was both family friend, and historian, before he wrote his first word on that tattered paper. Bob recycled paper, and it drove typesetter nuts, trying to figure out which copy was to be set, and which to be ignored, as another week's news. His write-ups were for the record. They have become documented history, both for the family and the community, as archives material. His work was not only relevant for the immediate post funeral period, where people were still passing the notices around, but forever after, as they became permanent record to be proud of, as historians in the future will soon discover of Mr. Boyer's handiwork, that few knew as intimately as I did, working side by side.
     At the time, I didn't appreciate either how much work he did, to bulk-up those basic family-written obituaries, adding his own respectful observations, of long and important friendships. Maybe I thought Bob had too much space at his beck and call, that forced us to kill news stories in other parts of the paper. I know differently now, because low and behold, I have been doing much the same, for friends and associates who have passed, with obituaries, that to me, needed to have more personal information, that possibly, only I knew about the subjects. In at least half of the ones I enhanced with recollections, it was most definitely the case even family hadn't known of our mutual triumphs and recreations together, in our years of association. I didn't put any crude references into the stories for obvious reasons. I had a laugh in private, as I know my spirit friend shared.
     I have become a modern version of Bob Boyer, and I suppose it could be yarned about me, in local gossip, that I'm on my own community death watch, looking for obituaries that seem a little less fulfilling than they should be, knowing what I know about the deceased. After all the years, watching Bob Boyer sitting in his office, puffing on his cigar, hammering out memorial tributes, for citizens he knew well, now here, in this new century, a senior myself, I have become acutely interested in writing memorials and tributes; for families who may not have known some of the great stuff the deceased never fessed-up to, during his or her life. I have surprised quite a few families with these observations. Some are quick to respond with thanks, and others never offer a word either way; which is alright, because I don't compose them with any idea of getting a memorial writer's award. I certainly don't want to offend family, at the time of bereavement, so, like Mr. Boyer, I am careful not to make any mistakes, even typographical errors, which could be embarrassing.
     Point is, I look at a lot of published obits these days, and get mad at the newspaper for limiting content. Gads, you can't get much information out of the word limitation, if that's what it is, which dictates whether it will be published or not. For example, the editor of The Banner, refused to publish my father's obituary, because it was too long according to the paper's policy. I was livid, and let her know this was a disservice to the community. Mostly I was just pissed at being told I write too much! Go figure eh? Me, write too much. That's just crazy talk. Anyway, in order to get the notice published, I had to pare down the words, and write a blog as a companion piece. So she edited-out the blog address. Oh well, I got the message out none the less, by various means, but it still bothers me, that our citizens, who have passed on, are only entitled to so many words, before being assessed a cost over-run. It's why I love writing blogs, because no editor is going to tell me to "shorten it up" or else. The editorial board of these community papers, have no idea how well viewed these personal notices are each week, and how deserving they are of being beefed up with more copy of a personal nature. It's the way these publications were founded, on the personal comings and goings, and social occasions of its citizenry, beyond the double-banked headlines of the front page.
     Should I advertise myself as an obituary / memorial writer, in the spirit of the best community news writer in our regional history, Bob Boyer? Is there a future in writing about death? Of course there is, and apparently, I've honed the capability of doing them quite well; at least that's the message back from families of the deceased. I'm just not sure I can handle all the emotional baggage, like Mr. Boyer did, for decades; offering such kind words at difficult times. I never saw the man shed a tear. But I know he did. But he said goodbye to family, friends and long-time associates in the kindest way he could; with words that always resonated, their lives had been accomplished, and their missions, fulfilled. I don't know how many times, I'd find myself by happenstance, standing behind his chair, close to newspaper deadline on Tuesday afternoons, at the very moment he would end one of these tribute stories, with a profound, serious, editor's tap on the "period" key, and then sit there looking out his small office window, I suppose, wondering if what he had written would pass muster, for the living, and well, even the deceased.
     I'll let you know, if I put out a shingle, in front of the shop, that reads, "FOR HIRE: Ted Currie, Writer - Advocate for the Deceased." Problem is, South Muskoka has changed a lot since the 1980's, and I find I know fewer and fewer citizens beyond the customers who visit our shop. Now that's a real dilemma. Me thinks Mr. Boyer would suggest that was a poor excuse for a young fellow who calls himself a community historian.