Christmas in Muskoka 2016 The Ghost of Mine

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.