Katherine Day Part 3

Part Three -

Katherine Day - The Artist in Residence in Her Cherished Home, "Hawthornes"

From Katherine Day's 1935 sketch book

     "It is not enough to look out on nature, select a  few colours, and expect to have as lovely a combination in your rug, as you might find in your garden. You see every colour blending beautifully in the garden, and the same colours yelling at each other on your rug, and you are greatly taken aback to say the least."
     The above passage was taken from an unpublished booklet, Katherine Day wrote on the techniques for the creation of hooked rugs, one of her specialties, as was also the design of country quilts. The artist went well beyond the traditional work with paint and brushes, printing materials, and pen and pencil illustrations.
     "The Northern Lights came tonight, piercing the northern sky to the zenith, dimming the stars. A long beam touched the east, fluttering green and mysterious. Changing into a luminous body that stretched faint wings across the sky. Like an angel protecting this earth. This deeply needful earth. Look where it fades to a shadow and deep in the north comes a beam of brilliance again, heavenly search lights, peacefully guarding our northland. Oh heavenly search lights point us to peace."
     The poem above was composed by Katherine Day during the early days of the Second World War, having been most recently studying art in London and Paris a few years previous, before the outbreak of hostilities. She was slowly establishing herself as a full time resident of Hawthorne's in Oro-Medonte.
     Her retreat from the cityscapes of Europe, was at no disadvantage to her creative enterprises, because, as it turned out, the newfound sanctuary was a boundless hinterland paradise, where she found solace in wildflowers, the deep azure sky, the creatures of the woodlands, the smell of farm fields at harvest, the stars in the heavenly night sky, and the joy of the profoundly spiritual four season contrasts.
     "In his description of Huronia, in the 1954 book "Sainte-Marie Among The Hurons," written by Wilfred Jury and Elsie McLeod Jury, it is recorded that, "For variety of scenery the district is unsurpassed. Rolling wooded hills form lovely valleys and far vistas."
     The Jesuit Missionaries in the 1600's "wrote of the world (Huronia) that surrounded them. They described the trees, the shrubs, and the flowers; the animals, fish and birds. They told of lakes and rivers; of falls and rapids. They wrote of the extremes of climate and of the torment of the flies and mosquitoes. But chiefly they wrote of the people. Indians of the Algonquin and Huron Nations."
     In Francis Parkman's text, in the 1900 edition of his book, "The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century," the noted historian writes, "The ancient country of the Hurons is now the northern and eastern portion of Simcoe County, Canada West, and is embraced within the peninsula formed by the Nottawassage and Matchedash Bays of Lake Huron, the River Severn, and Lake Simcoe. Its area was small, - its population comparatively large. In the year 1639 the Jesuits made an enumeration of all its villages and hamlets, with seven hundred dwellings, about four thousand families, and twelve thousand adult persons, or a total population of at least twenty thousand. The region whose boundaries we have given was an alternation of meadows, deep forests, interlaced with footpaths leading from town to town. (Populated by indigenous peoples)."
     Now let us jump ahead three centuries, to the period just before the commencement of the war in Europe. There was another writer, by the name Kenneth Wells, who had lived in Orillia for a period of his childhood, who would arrive in Oro-Medonte, and for his writing prowess, and numerous books, brought about a new focus to the trending fascination for contemporary homesteading. The writer and his artist wife, Lucille Oille, were about to re-create pioneer homesteading in the area of Moonstone Creek, in Oro-Medonte, a short distance, as the "crow flies," as they say, from where Katherine Day had established her residence, on a fifty acre parcel of land closer to Bass Lake. It is yet to be determined which writer, Day or Wells, actually began writing about life in the country first, because for both, it was in and around 1937. Day most likely arrived later on the property, but had initiated writing about living in the rural clime, as early as 1937, with a story-line, that in places, seems remarkably close to the opinions expressed later by Wells, in his first book, "The Owl Pen," published in 1947.
     "In the Township of Medonte, between the Moonstone and the Coldwater valleys, is a flat-topped hill. Small farms, and smaller woodlands, dapple its sides. Trout haunted streams wash its base. A single road crosses it, running with prim straightness past gray rail fences and a magnificent dry stone wall, past venerable maple trees and cloud-fingering elms. The road runs on past a field that is notable now only for the fact that in its exact centre there stands, for no apparent reason at all, a lonely wooden pump," writes Kenneth Wells, a regular columnist in these years, for the Toronto Telegram, as taken from the second edition of "The Owl Pen," that I can proudly admit to having read three times in the past six months. Wells work helped greatly to understand the period of the late 1930's and 1940's, when he and his wife, and as it turns out, Katherine Day were setting up, and operating their fledgling homesteads with considerable trial and error.
     "The pump had a reason for being when Lucy and I first came upon it. Then it was part of all that was left of a pioneer homestead. Then it stood in the midst of a dying orchard, at the foot of a ruined garden, with roofless root cellar beside it, with the poor skeleton of a picket fence around it, and in front of it, between it and the road, the leaning wreck of a house," penned the good Mr. Wells; in the near desperate search for a log cabin that could be spared, moved to a suitable property, and rebuilt into a conserved relic of local history, to serve their future needs.
     Wells was a well appointed newspaper columnist and general writer, who had been living in Toronto with his wife when the idea was hatched to move to the hinterland, to write about all the adventures city slickers could get up to, trying to tame the land for their contemporary agricultural ambitions. It was on the brink of the Second World War, a conflict in Europe, that would eventually take Wells away from the Owl Pen for a number of years, being posted in England as a writer for the Allied effort. Lucille was left to manage the affairs of the new farmstead, and managed to survive quite handily, with considerable progress, as Wells was pleased to report upon his return to Oro-Medonte.
     The decision to re-locate from Toronto to the Orillia area, although a surprise to their family, friends and colleagues, from the city, it wasn't so extraordinary for the author, who had spent a number of years in the City of Orillia, earlier in the century. According to the biographical information on the dustjacket of "The Owl Pen," that as a child, he almost met "his maker" so to speak, while taking a little sojourn at roadside, to admire the good graces of the natural surroundings. "As a child Ken Wells didn't like Orillia. When he was seven, an electric wire fell on him as he sat by the roadside sorting wildflowers. Two thousand volts burned a hole in his head, his hand and his leg. Word went round that the accident was bound to leave him crazy as a coot." It's likely, at this time, Katherine Day would have known about the incident, considering that it was a news item in the local press.
     It worked quite the opposite for the young man, who made great progress in his educational pursuits, onward to considerable acclaim as a respected Canadian author. He, of course, in his own unique, folksy way, put Oro-Medonte "on the map" as the saying goes, in a literary way. His work is still revered and honored in the region, and he and Lucille Oille are both entrenched in its history. And most folks in these parts find it no hardship whatsoever to live with his legacy.
     As this biography continues, the reader will notice many similarities, if they have read "The Owl Pen" collection of stories, and it might even be considered reasonable to consider that Wells knew Katherine Day, because of their work in agriculture and their fledgling relationship with homesteading in the same rural neighborhood. Kenneth Wells most certainly would have recognized the "Day" family name, when he was living in Orillia previously, and it's highly likely Katherine Day had heard about Wells brush with death, when hit by a falling hydro wire as a youngster. Additionally, Isaac Day, Katherine's father, was a prominent citizen of Orillia, and a School Inspector for the region, which stretched all the way from Simcoe County, as far north as Bracebridge in South Muskoka. The Day family home, as I mentioned earlier, is a registered heritage building in the City of Orillia.
     The parallels of their work, especially the art both Katherine Day and Lucille Oille pursued, as a matter of profession, would have given them reason to communicate with one another, and with her penchant for writing, as we will explore in the coming chapters, Day and Kenneth Wells had a great deal in common. Even raising goats, chickens and trying to cope with the habits of bees. They would have experienced similar hardships working their small farmsteads, Day having more acreage than the setting of the Owl Pen log cabin, and been snowed-in at the same times, no doubt finding themselves similarly out of supplies, and feeling forlorned about the isolation when roads were blocked as the storms lingered.
     It is an interesting parallel between Kenneth Wells "Owl Pen," and Katherine Day's "Hawthornes" homestead, and then her second home, built a short distance away (based on her design) known with considerable affection, "Pax Cottage." When you are first introduced to Day's journal, entitled "A Home in the Country," you will notice similarities with the early entries in Well's opening chapter; both writing about the challenges of finding and restoring an old log cabin, on a parcel of land that could be restored to a working farmstead of modest proportion. With of course the potential that it would provide the food necessities to reduce dependence on the outside, city-dominated world.
     So here was a young woman, fresh from the art scene in Europe, having been in company of some of the finest and best known artists in Europe, and having an exhibition with painter Nicolas Eekman, in New York, and Wells, from a stellar career with a major Toronto newspaper, farmsteading in the region of Oro-Medonte, at the same time. What great stories of rural living were created by both writers. With the exception of a few select editorial pieces, one being "The Letters of Captain Steele's Daughters," being "the unpublished paper delivered to the Orillia Historical Society, in 1953," by Katherine Day, the larger portion of her writing, unlike the good Mr. Wells, has been left to this date, a new century, in this fall of 2016; to be offered at last to an enthusiastic audience, I might add, wishing to know more about this curious artist in residence.
     As a preamble note to the material upcoming in the coming chapters, it must be noted of her journals, that she writes very much as an artist paints with colors. Especially so, when she offers detailed explanations about the way her specially prepared and balanced gardens, at Hawthornes, are positioned according to blooming times, and color co-ordination which is, as you will read, a work of art with the partnership of nature. It may seem a little boring at first, but if you consider the artist-gardener's creative protocols, and you appreciate her lively illustrations, of the fanciful style, being fairies and their kind, it may be more apparent she was building a habitat for them all at Hawthornes. She inspired its creation, and it, being the gardens, inspired her in return.
     In our possession, as found in the archives collection, there are, besides a half dozen early sketch books, her 1909 school scribbler, filled with her classroom notes, an unfinished romantic novel, a short story about a court case involving the sale of a lazy horse to an unsuspecting farmer, a complete text on rug-hooking, her lengthy journal entitled "A House in the Country," including two separate accounts of "Keeping Bees," and "Divining a Well", all having strong parallels to the writings of Kenneth Wells, with numerous shared details about the intricacies and failings of farming in their respective Edens. Keep in mind, that in their unedited format, I have had to employ some editorial license, to correct spelling mistakes and other minor sentence structure errors, that would have obviously been corrected by Miss Day, if she had been preparing the copy for publication. I have made every attempt to maintain her copy in its original form, so rest assured, I have not taken it upon myself to modify content, at the expense of losing the integrity and creativity she so carefully applied to her stories. We did have to perform considerable cross referencing, especially to get the correct spelling of plant species she records in her journal, because at times, possibly because of being tired that day, her writing has been difficult to decipher. My research assistant Suzanne, was called upon time and again to help me research a species, or get the correct spelling of a type of flower or shrub that escaped me. I am out of my league when it comes to horticulture and for that matter, agriculture. So please appreciate that we have done everything possible to be true to the manuscript as it was written by Katherine Day, starting as far back as the late 1930's.
     "What you did not realize is that nature has two great blenders of colour influencing us outdoors. The sunshine is one - yellow. The sky is the other - blue. Grass also blends and harmonizes all colour - it is blue and yellow mixed. So you see, no colour is pure, even in nature. All colours reflect both sunshine and sky." Katherine Day. "The Art of Rug Hooking"
     Please join me for Chapter 4 tomorrow.

Katherine Day Part 2

From the Katherine Day's 1935 sketchbook. This may have been a self portrait.

Part 2

Katherine Day - Adventures in Art and the Influences of Painter, Nicolas Eekman

     Is it possible the stars are brighter, the northern lights so much more vividly colorful, and the moonglow more dramatic, in this region of Ontario, than viewed anywhere else on earth? Could it be in its topographical diversity, yet without mountains and miles of inland waterways, lakes and cataracts, a region could ever be truly considered an Eden, by what we know of paradise as described by the great bards, and shown to us by legendary artists?
     Katherine Day knew that what Oro-Medonte possessed was as historic and storied, as it was subtly remarkable in all its natural attributes. The communities were small and quaint, the farms were tended by lovers of the land, and homesteads were welcoming and the harvest was shared in the warm spirit of community. It was, above all, a nurturing place for her art work, and a source of endless possibilities to improve one's life and economy. Katherine Day possessed unfaltering faith and enduring spirit, and her art work exudes her respect for fantasy and the flame of expectation, tomorrow will be more exciting than today. Her modestly appointed, comfortable, fairy-style residence, at Hawthornes, and then later, at "Pax" Cottage, provided the fertile environment Miss Day required to fulfill ambition. We are richer as a result, as you will appreciate as this project advances.
     The graphic numbered print, to be published later in this biography, on the life and art work of Oro-Medonte artist, Katherine Day, is one of the most important and revealing biographical pieces of the entire archives collection. A collection which includes several biographical manuscripts and sketch books, I acquired earlier this year (2016), at an antique shop in the City of Orillia. The locale in Ontario, where Miss Day was born in the year 1889. Her father Isaac was a prominent figure with the district school board, employed as regional inspector. The Day house today is listed as one of the City's heritage buildings.
     The limited edition engraving, being in this case 53rd out of a hundred printed, undoubtedly by the artist Nicolas Eekman, was most likely the cover of a special limited volume invitation to the 1939 art exhibit in New York, shared between the master artist and his student, Katherine Day. It is signed on the bottom right corner by Eekman and imprinted on the same corner of the engraving with an "NE". It is apparent that Katherine Day, as co-exhibitor, signed the top right corner of the print. The meaning of the graphic suggests, at least on initial viewing, a somewhat more intimate relationship between Day and Eekman, being two jack-in-the-box characters, crossing necks; Eekman looking left, to admire a rather ominous looking spider, Day, on the right, studying a flower on the opposite side. It was in the mid to late 1930's when Katherine Day studied with Eekman in Paris, and to a lesser degree from painter Henri Jannot, also an internationally acclaimed artist. Eekman kept company with artists like Picasso, and it might also be assumed, Katherine Day, as his student for several years in Paris,  was also exposed to his social circle of artist and writer friends.
     At the time of this writing, we had made several attempts to contact authorities on Eekman, to find out more about his relationship with Katherine Day, and what this exhibition invitation to special guests, would have meant to the Flemmish artist, and to Day, in terms of their art collaboration at Grant Studios, in New York, that same year. Were they romantically involved? The biographer has no choice but to ask this question.
     Folded up tightly in the archives collection, kept by the Oro-Medonte artist, was a 1939 review published in "The Art News," regarding the impact of the collaborative exhibition, between a master artist, with growing international successes, and his pupil, then in her mid forties, not knowing, at this point, if she could even survive in the highly aggressive and demanding international art profession. Regarding the exhibition, the critique isn't flattering to Katherine Day, and her work, but moreso because of the deep divide between her work, and the profoundly opposite art exhibited by Nicholas Eekman, who had, in the same year, 1939, released his well known depiction of the wounded Don Quixote, published and re-published many times since. The review reads as follows:
     "A teacher and pupil exhibition at the Grant Studios (presumably in New York), reveals little if any influence of one upon the style of the other. The Dutch artist Nicolas Eekman, whose interest lies chiefly with the peasants of his own land, and deals with them in various phases of their work, is being shown in his first one man exhibition in this country. His wood engravings are in strong blacks and whites with little shading of values. Emphasis is placed upon facial expressions of naivete and upon the flow of line of figures in strong movement. The 'Accordion,' is one of the most attractive examples of Eekman's style. 'The Vagabonds With Birds,' is typical of the lyric spirit in which he approaches his material."
     Of his co-exhibitor, the critic notes with some obvious concern about Eekman's decision to partner with his student, "Katherine Day, a Canadian artist, whose work appeared last summer at the New York World's Fair, is showing a group of monotypes in the same room, in which hang the works of Eekman, with whom she has studied. There is not a trace of his strong feeling for contrast in her romantic studies of 'The Little Goose Girl,' and 'Diana and her Maidens,' which represent her style. These are in pale, almost pastel color, indistinct in outline and have more interest as decoration than as emotional expression." There is an "x" in the border of the clipped-out page, of the Art News, presumably put there by Day, marking the paragraph from the rest of the reviews below, which include one for Chinese painter, Chang-Shan-tse, Frederick Ballard Williams, and Edwin W. Dickenson. On the left side of the page, number 16 in the publication, are advertisements for New York and London galleries, that include artists such as Renoir, Degas, Rousseau, Morisot, Redon, Vuiliard, and Toulouse-Lautrec. On the reverse, there is an advertisement from the Bignou Gallery of New York, offering news of the lastest paintings and watercolors by Raoul Dufy, and exhibitions in other galleries that included artists such as Sebastiano del Piombo, Francesco Salviati, Antonio Moro, Reynolds, Gainsborough and Goya.
     As a fledgling artist, with high expectations for the future, it would be assumed the young Katherine Day would have been pleased by the company of acclaimed painters she had joined, in an editorial context, for that issue of the Art News. But being sensitive to such a critique, she probably felt a profound sense of failure, especially that her mentor, Nicholas Eekman had experienced a somewhat modest review, somewhat due to the fact he had agreed to partner with her, for this 1939 exhibition. It's to be expected that some critics were shocked, that an artist with his expanding international reputation, would have agreed to such a collaboration, with a student possessing a romantic preference for the kinder, more beautiful profiles of life and fantasy. In contrast to Eekman's darker views, and characterizations of peasants, and the mix of humanity he found most interesting to depict. After the success of her earlier exhibition, at the New York World's Fair, it's understandable she felt her career had been dealt a substantial blow, but there is no indication Eekman felt the exhibition, partnered with Day had been a failure, or damaging to his own reputation as an emerging master. Especially with his release of his wounded Don Quixote characterization in the same year. It was indeed a year of contrasts for both master artist and his pupil. Eekman went on to great successes in the international art community, painting through the years of the Second World War, and evading the German pursuers who wished to confine him, while Katherine Day returned to the place of her birth, and to a homestead she designed in Oro-Medonte, near Bass Lake, that she called "Hawthornes", and later, when she had a second house built to her design wishes, known as "Pax" cottage, on what is now known as Horseshoe Valley Road.
     Katherine Day was without question, a talented, bright, intelligent artist, designer, and writer, who had been privileged to afford art instruction from accomplished painters, in Canada, such as Franz Johnston, of the legendary Group of Seven Artists, and J. W. Beatty, who taught the Summer School of the College of Art at Port Hope, and then, in Europe with both Eekman, and Henri Jannot. Returning to Canada, a personal choice of the artist, was possibly influenced by the 1939 exhibit, which was not a clear success for either partners of the show. It isn't mentioned in Eekman's biographical material, nor is there any reference to Day that we could find. In her collection of archive papers we acquired, however, there are three notices of Eekman exhibitions in Paris, at the end of the 1960's, that he may have sent to his former student, residing then in Oro-Medonte.
     The onset of the Second World War, and the eventual invasion of France by Germany, provided reason for Day to avoid returning to Europe at this point, and Eekman found remaining in Paris a dangerous situation. He carried-on his painting from less obvious locations, and changing the way he signed his artwork, and Katherine Day found the pleasant seclusion of her fifty acres of land in Oro-Medonte a suitable respite and, in time, a most inspirational refuge. She had decided to return to her roots, and the place that had given her a good home and education as a student, and it was no hardship to her artwork, to be surrounded by the forests, wildflowers, and hills and valleys of the region. It was an enormous change of atmosphere from the cityscapes of London and Paris, and socializing with some of the most prominent artists at that time in history. It's not to suggest she didn't have regrets about what some critics would argue was an unfortunate retreat, from what she might have accomplished in closer company to these same artists, with glowing international reputations, and accomplishments, that were mounting year after year. These were not obscure, village or city known artists but personalities in the art community who were in the process of influencing the world's cultural tide. If Katherine Day had remained in Europe, and carried on her companionship with these same artists, might she have enjoyed a greater prominence, than she achieved in the rural clime of Ontario, specifically, working from her modest homestead, "Hawthornes," in Oro-Medonte; the same region, I should mention, that was highlighted by writer Kenneth Wells in his series of books from the legendary "Owl Pen," where he worked as a modern day homesteader, with his wife and artist wife, Lucille Oille. This is the intrigue for another chapter.
     At this moment, penning the last thoughts for today's chapter, the late afternoon sun of the harvest season, is glowing down upon this picturesque landscape, of Oro-Medonte,lacing all the natural attributes together in a basket-weave of gold. The rail fences look as if they have just been erected, and the evergreens seem taller and more vibrant, just as the autumn reds and oranges of the venerable hardwoods, appear to have just this moment of viewing, been painted by the artist in residence. I must set down my pen for now, but please join me again tomorrow, for another visit to the life and times of Oro-Medonte Artist, Katherine Day.

Katherine Day, Canadian Artist Part 1

PART ONE

Katherine Day - Canadian Painter, Illustrator, Quilt Designer, Folk-Artist, Writer, Homesteader -
Her Spiritual Place On Earth Was Her Cherished Property in Ontario's Oro-Medonte Region

By Ted Currie
     We must now offer a number of preamble apologies, to first of all, acknowledge, that even when every word is expended, to its final enclosing punctuation, in this particular artist-biography, it will, to our standard, be at best, a modest attempt to broaden the existing template of knowledge, regarding Katherine Day's personal and professional history. As we have with other biographies and histories, we have pursued over the past forty years, of our story-building enterprise, we created the enhanced template to facilitate additional information requirements, to be sought-out by all the biographers and historians yet to come. It is thus, and we are humble about our contribution, still very much a work in progress, that may become even more substantial in the coming years, by the diligent sleuthing of others interested in Katherine Day's story. To be part of the biographical process is of great satisfaction to us. We have pursued many similar biographies, which in raw form, would have been, admittedly, but with some regret for lack of development, safely stored in community and museum archives, but never written into a formal manuscript or published as a story for the general public. We do take great pride in the painstaking process of piecing the information together, like a giant puzzle, into a story that recreates a history and mood of an era, and its personalities; relevant to how our regional character, and both provincial and national identities have evolved, thanks in part, to the creative enterprise and cultural influence of artists like Katherine Day. We are admittedly indebted to this archives collection, left by Miss Day, affording us, quite by a collector's happenstance, this opportunity to expose ourselves to an artist, who was a fountain of creative energy. We welcome new information and we will add details to this manuscript accordingly, to make it more responsible and dynamic, to the purpose of what should and could be, a truly solid and well balanced biography for the benefit of future generations of art lovers,
     Before we actually began, in any earnest way, to engage in the arduous mission, of sleuthing-out facts, reading and re-reading manuscripts and regional histories, we felt it necessary to travel through the subject region of Ontario. It was this part of Simcoe County that fueled her creative ambitions. Earlier this spring, shortly after acquiring the archives material, we began, with great enthusiasm, our almost weekly travels along the many picturesque miles, of those long, characteristically beautiful stretches of heritage roadways, merging subtly into the twisting, rolling country lanes of Oro-Medonte, that writer Kenneth Wells once thrived-upon, for the editorial content of his famous "Owl Pen" stories.
     We felt it quite necessary, from the onset of this immersion into the artist's life and times, to ask permission of our partner, in this proposed and highly speculative biography. Katherine Day's memorial was of the utmost concern to us, and each time we visited her home region on a day trip, we pondered how she would feel, spirit or otherwise, to two strangers working with her most intimate biography and sketch books.
     I must pause momentarily here, in order to clear up misconceptions about our qualifications to write such a text, in this historical effort, of working, or at least attempting to seek the cooperation, of the spiritual qualities and quantities of, well, "the deceased". You see, strange as this may seem, especially if you are new to our story-lines, Suzanne and I have always proceeded in this way, in the preparation of local artist biographies. And whether it is actually possible to communicate with those who have passed, or not, is less the point than the results we generally get, from our willingness to allow for spiritual input to move our work along. The first step is to sense-out the positive energy and goodwill of the project, which doesn't mean we abandon the negatives of the story, or the sadness associated, which can be profound to the point of us becoming teary-eyed at the tragedy unfolding. Rather, it is important for us to feel we are being welcomed into the fold of the story, which means, for any biographer, a period of time deeply committed to intimate details, the subject, in life, would probably have preferred remain undetected and forever private.
    For what we knew was going to be a lengthy research project, for the purposes of this summary biography, Suzanne, my life partner and long-suffering research assistant, in regional heritage, and I, as we have with similar adventures, felt it was a matter of spiritual protocol, as a first step, to visit the gravesite of former Canadian artist, Katherine Day. Set in the mottled daylight and shadows of the beautiful, calming, hardwood-lined landscape, of St. James Anglican Cemetery, in the City of Orillia, where her mortal remains are buried, in the Day family plot, we paused for a few moments longer, to ask Katherine Day if it was okay to carry-on with research, and the plan to write and then publish her biography. As well as exhibit some of her sketches from the archives collection we had purchased.
    Our meeting with this highly skilled, wonderfully talented Ontario artist, came the moment I spotted a cardboard box filled with old sketch pads and tattered manuscripts at an Orillia antique shop. As a long time antique dealer, and regional historian, it is impossible for me to leave such a discovery without at least a cursory examination. Some of my best finds have come courtesy these casual encounters, and especially in overflowing boxes found in such obscure places, as in the dark neighborhood of tall-boy dressers and pedestal tables awaiting a decorator's affections. From our first meeting, and it only took a few seconds to convince me I had found a jewel in the rough, the relationship with Orillia area artist, Katherine Day was seeded; if only at first, as the rescuer of her bits and pieces of personal biography, contained in this rather plain container, pulled up, and free of the shadows of more attractive antiquities. As it would turn out, and as contradiction to the modesty of the original situation in which it was discovered, in the early spring of this year, it would influence our lives in a most positive way ever since. Suzanne and I both agree, that we are better for having found this box of archives materials. And our relationship with Katherine Day has become one of those curious cherished friendships that thrives on that spreading sense of goodwill I noted earlier in this introduction. What began with pensive concern about our compatability to represent a lifetime of her art work, and creativity in general, smoothed into a most attractive and inspirational relationship, much as if we had known her as a chum from as far back as childhood play, maturing into the intricacies of an adult friendship. To say we became kindred spirits is to assume too much, because we are dealing, of course, with the speculation of the deceased. But for our part, what fear we had in the beginning, that we might insult the memory of a fine artist, and a warm human being, has turned out pleasantly, to be something altogether comforting, and full of hope, that the memory of Katherine Day will be revitalized for the future. This then, has been well worth the effort of building a relationship with a biography, a story that should inspire us all about fortitude, and the gumption to promote and celebrate creativity.
     As we have with other regional Canadian artists, our main reason for pursuing completion of this biography, other than to bring a good story back to the forefront, is to offer the finished text and published illustrations, to the archives collection of the National Gallery, in Ottawa, the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, the Historical Society of the City of Orillia, and museums in the area of Simcoe County wishing to know more about Katherine Day. It is not intended to be published in book form and was never intended to be a for-profit effort, except for the fact, that it is, obviously, being released on our antique shop's facebook page. It was afterall, a purchase made for the benefit of our business, in the first place, but we could never, upon reading through the contents of the old box, and fully appreciating its national significance, have sold it on the rebound; as we most certainly would have, if the purchased item had been a Victorian parlor table or a pine pie safe. The contents held us spell-bound. We are grateful to  Carousel Collectibles, of Orillia, for making this collection available to us as lovers of Canadian history.

     On Saturday, October 2nd, 1915, Isaac Day was the Honourary Chairman of the first School Fair in Oro. In 1888, the year before his daughter Katherine was born, Isaac Day, of Orillia, was appointed "School Inspector of Oro," a positioned that broadened to include South Muskoka, until he retired in 1929. "The School Inspector (Day) reported on June 15th, 1888, (shortly after taking up his responsibilities with the school board) that the attendance at Oro Station was low because of Diphtheria, and the inscription on tombstones in the cemetery show that during this period, this dreaded disease took its toll." This information was found in the excellent regional history, "The Story of Oro," published in 1972. Isaac Day was a stalwart chap who was well respected in the region, for his handling of school affairs, and in the manner he sought improvements to the cash-strapped rural system, to create more equality in educational services. Strict, dogged about his work, and ready to scrap for what he believed was best for the students of the region, Isaac Day earned his place in local history. Katherine Day carried many of the same qualities, and was not adverse to making and defending a point of view, and working hard to achieve her objective. At no compromise of her kindly and cooperative character. She was of all things, a community supporter, and never turned away a friend in need.
     The first and most significant resource we consulted, beyond the raw manuscripts from the archive collection, was John Craig's 1977 first edition history, "Simcoe County - The Recent Past," published by The Corporation of the County of Simcoe," illustrated by Margot Anderson. Historian John Craig offers a wealth of information regarding the life and art work of Katherine Day, in only a few short paragraphs, which gives an accurate introductory profile of the young artist, daughter of a prominent family of Orillia, in the field of public education. The Isaac Day family home is today, listed as one of Orillia's heritage residences. In the words of Mr. Craig, "For some years Miss Perry (a noted area artist), painted with four other district women of considerable talent: Katherine Day, Mrs. James Harvie, Mrs. J.E. Hinds and Miss G.M. Kidd. They became known locally as 'The Group of Five'."
     He notes that, "Katherine Day," a member of this group of artists, "studied in Paris and London during the 1930's, before returning to her native district. In Paris she had been greatly influenced by the teaching of famed engraver and etcher, Nick Eekman, whose wood cuts recaptured so much from the great period of Flemmish art.
     "For a while Miss Day toyed with the idea of remaining in Europe, but came to the conclusion that art usually, 'draws one back to the place where one was born.' Back home in Simcoe County, she had a house built to her specifications on a peaceful, fifty-acre parcel of land between Price's Corners and Jarratt, which she called 'Hawthornes'. Then, in 1947, she moved to a new home, also built to her design, a short distance away. With its Gothic windows and cathedral ceiling, 'Pax Cottage' (meaning "Kiss Of Peace") resembled an old and beautifully designed country church, a place of retreat and seclusion, almost a shrine."
     The author indicates that here, at this precious sanctuary farmstead, "Katherine Day developed her unique monotypes, created by painting with oils on glass (the oil paints diluted with kerosene). The prints were made by gently pressing art paper over the still-wet designs. The technique was capable of imparting an almost ethereal quality to the rubbings, but it involved extremely delicate and hazardous work - about eight out of every ten paintings being ruined in the process, even under the most gifted hands.
     "Miss Day, who also designed many beautiful Simcoe County quilts, exhibited in New York and enjoyed the admiration of many art critics. But she was basically content to enjoy the privacy and security of her beloved 'Pax Cottage,' turning out a few exquisite pieces of work and leaving the highly competitive world of international art to others."
     According to biographical information contained in the archives of Concordia University, in the category of Canadian Women Artists, Katherine Day was born in Orillia, on the 7th of January 1889, and passed away on March 12, 1976. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Queen's University, in 1912, and initially decided to enter the field of social services, and volunteered as a nursing assistant in England, during the First World War, and beyond, serving from 1916 to 1920. After her return to Canada, she studied painting at the Winnipeg School of Art, under famed Group of Seven Artist, Franz Johnston, 1922 to 1923. Six years following this year of art instruction, she was accepted to resume her art education at the Ontario College of Art, in 1929-30, where she was tutored by numerous other influential Canadian artists.
     Shortly after this instruction, she ventured to Europe, to London's Central School of Arts and Crafts, and on to Paris where she was a student of well appointed and accomplished artists, Nicolas Eekman and Henri Jannot, from 1933 to 1936. When she arrived back in Canada she became a member of both the Canadian Society of Graphic Artists, from 1935 to 1954, and the Canadian Society of Painters, Etchers and Engravers, from 1956 to 1964. She often exhibited her work at shows sponsored by these art associations. A woodcut on Japan paper entitled "Sap's Running," was accepted into the permanent collection of the National Art Gallery of Canada.
     Tomorrow, we will continue with Part Two of the Katherine Day biography, detailing her friendship and artistic relationship to internationally acclaimed Flemmish artist Nicolas Eekman, again to be published on this facebook page. Please join us for this remarkable story.
     In the words of Wilson Key, in the introduction of "The History of Oro", "Let us go forward having faith in ourselves and our township, building as did our forefathers for the future generations."

Katherine Day Introduction

Introduction to the Biography of Canadian Artist Katherine Day

Illustrator, Print-Maker, Folk Artist and Contemporary Homesteader

     "The country of Odeonia, of which this book, (The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier), is in large part a chronicle, is one that the reader need never have visited in order to be among its citizens, in order to owe allegiance to it. One may even be a citizen of this country, without ever having known of its existence. For though Odeonia once occupied a specific place in time - the Rue de l'Odeon and its two bookshops on the Left Bank of Paris, between the wars - it survives timelessly as a country of the spirit, of the spirit that is embodied in, and disseminated by books," wrote biographer Richard McDougall, in his study of the two most famous booksellers in Paris, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1976, the year artist Katherine Day passed away. As an avid reader, until the end of her life, and a resident of Paris, while studying with artist Nicholas Eekman in the 1930's, it's more than likely she visited with Adrienne Monnier.
     "Paul Valery, Varley Larbaud, Andre Gide, Leon-Paul Fargue, Paul Claudel, Jules Romains, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce were among the citizens of Odeonia, while Colette, Rainer Maria Rilke, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Sherwood Anderson, and Ezra Pound - along with many other writers of several nationalities, were friendly passers-by whose visits from time to time to the country of Odeonia, also form part of its chronicle. And in the broader sense through the same spiritual attraction that draws the reader, they too became citizens of Odeonia, for the two bookshops of that country - Adrienne Monnier's des Amis des Liveres, truly a 'house of the friends of books,' and Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company - were the archives of not only the writers that frequented them but of their work as well; and there were those who felt besides, as Marianne Moore was to say about Adrienne Monnier's shop, that they had personally a place there, and never a presence."
     Writer, Richard McDougall, notes in his biography of Monnier that, "The migration to Paris was not only a flight away, but a flight to: 'The presence in Paris of Joyce and Pound and Picasso and Stravinsky and Everybody - not quite since T.S. Eliot was in London, - had a great deal to do with it'. Innumerable other names could be written under that general designation - 'Everybody'; or like Gertrude Stein, Sylvia (Beach) might simply have said that Paris was where the twentieth century was. The City of Light at that moment of history was beyond any doubt the center of Western civilization." Nicolas Eekman and Pablo Picasso were artist friends.
     The subject of our present biography, Katherine Day, was in the invigorating, inspirational midst of this historic uprising of the arts, as a serious force to reckon with, as it had never been, and among her tutor, Nicolas Eekman's shared friends, were important artists such as Jean Lurcat, Louis Marcoussis, Max Ernst and of course Picasso. She also received art instruction from another well known French artist, Henri Jannot, an artist with a growing importance in the art scene of Europe, at the time, himself, a former student of Lucien Simon at the School of Fine Arts in Paris. There is no doubt that when Katherine Day studied art in Paris, in the mid 1930's, she was in the company of legends of art, literature and music. It is an important consideration, because she would soon decide against remaining part of this international community of creative movers and shakers. The occupation of France by the Germans in World War II, certainly had an impact on the artist, but it wasn't the only reason she decided to return to the region of which she was most familiar, Orillia, Ontario.
     Katherine Day, in her apprentice years, studying art with Nicolas Eekman, in Paris, may well have dined and otherwise mingled with some of the most accomplished artists, musicians and authors of the 1930's. Legends of art, performance art and literature who were in the fledgling process of influencing the artistic and cultural atmosphere of Europe and, arguably, the world forever more. Paris was the place to be for an aspiring artist who was open to being influenced by the rich cultural current in this pre-war city oozing with history and creative enterprise.
     Although Katherine Day was eager to immerse herself in the art and cultural mix of the time, she was also keenly interested in finding a place in which to work, that more closely resembled a home where she could build a studio, and the gardens to surround it, for her own best suited source of inspiration. Miss Day could have remained a player in international art, and who knows what she may have accomplished abroad. Yet what she attained as a well-considered alternative, was no lesser achievement, when quality of life is given the weight it deserves.
     In the text of an unpublished how-to manuscript on rug-hooking, which she adored as a crafter, there is a small passage with an interesting local reference. "Burlap may be dyed, and takes a grand soft colour. The curtains in Stephen Leacock's house, in Brewery Bay, were of burlap the last time I was there, dyed a velvety raspberry colour, hanging in sumptuous folds down the window to the floor, very rich and suitable for the big windows in that lovely lakeside house near Orillia. The deep colour furnished the room. Burlap takes green or blue equally well, and indeed in the natural colour makes pleasant drapes. It is an unsophisticated material not suited to smart town rooms with wire and frame furniture, but it looks wonderfully at home with fat chairs and bookshelves full of books. (Obviously referencing Leacock's summer home)."
     This was Katherine Day's comfort zone. Working as an artisan / crafter, and I dare say, folk artist, rug-hooker, quilt designer, while at the same time, being an outstanding artist, print maker and illustrator. Her world was more beautiful and inspiring when she was at home. Her home was located on a picturesque stretch of country lane in Oro-Medonte, now known as the Horseshoe Valley Road, a short commute to Orillia, where she was born in the year 1889. She designed both her country cottages, the first being "Hawthornes," on a fifty acre parcel of hilltop, looking over Bass Lake, and the second, being built a short distance away, known with great affection as "Pax" Cottage. Both locations that satisfied her urges to create, and this she did for decades, living there until her mid eighties, never giving up her work and art until poor health ended her independence.
     Her father Isaac Day was born in Creemore, Ontario in 1858, and is first recorded on a national census in the year 1861. He died in the County of York on the 25th of April, 1932. Katherine is three years old when she is included in the census of 1891.
     John and Mary Day had seven children, and Isaac was listed as the second youngest son. In the 1881 census, Isaac is noted as being a student. In the census of 1891 it is recorded that Isaac had married the first of three wives (during his life), being Jane, the marriage having taken place in 1883 in Orillia. In the same census, Isaac is noted as being a School Inspector (having originally been a teacher), it is noted the young couple by this point, had three children, Reginald the oldest at five years of age, (Kate) Katherine, at three and John (John-Oswald) being four months. In the 1901 census the Days have added children Frederick, Clara, Allan and Ellen. In 1905, their mother Jane dies of complications from giving birth, two weeks after Ellen is born, and at seven months of age, the baby also dies.
     Isaac takes his second wife, Agnes Monon Bruce Hutcheson, a teacher, and then a third wife, Ellen Delmage in 1906, who died in 1930, two years before her husband. Katherine had lost her mother, Jane, when she was sixteen years of age, and had two step-mothers in her life. It must also be noted here, that on her birth certificate, her name appears as "Catherine," and not Katherine. There are many times when she is registered as "Catherine," yet on the cover of her 1909 school notebook, she has printed clearly "K. Day."
     During World War I, she travelled to England as a volunteer with the Canada Imperial War Service, as a nursing aid to assist wounded soldiers. When she returned to Canada in July 1919, she was able to apply for a gratuity from the government for her services overseas. Upon return, it was her intention to pursue social work in her home province, a career choice we have little information to go on, for this biography. She was a frequent overseas traveller, and is noted in respective immigration documents, as having arrived back in Canada, after being abroad, in 1919, 1920 (from England), 1926, from France, 1934, England, and in 1938, also from England. It is likely that during these years, when she was studying art in Paris, and London, she travelled from France to England to depart to Canada via ocean liner. While in England in September, 1934 she stayed at 10 Bloomsley Square in London, and in February, 1939, at the White Hall Hotel, in London. She was listed then as being an artist. In 1939 she would also co-host an art exhibit in New York, with her artist mentor, Nicolas Eekman, making it a busy year for the fledgling artist / print-maker.
     As part of the archives collection we were able to purchase, earlier this spring, being the papers, journals, and sketch books orignally from the dispersal of her estate, there is a fascinating accounting book, commenced on July 28th, 1970, listing her expenses and revenue from various sources, including the sale of her art work, and combs of honey from her bee hives, which had been a tradition since her first year residing at Hawthornes, in Oro-Medonte. In July 1970, Katherine was eighty-one years old, and still active in her art and crafts work, as evidenced by the purchases in the small notebook, where she recorded expenditures as small as thread, zippers, buttons and dress and pants patterns, and as large as the construction materials and labour, expended to build an addition onto Pax Cottage.
    Katherine, as she had enjoyed for many years of her home life, loved to shop in the traditional downtown of Orillia, and there are many notations about her taxi trips to and from the downtown, returning to Pax Cottage. She was well recognized on these trips, and always a welcome customer at the Margaret's Sewing Centre, Hunts where she got her bread, the post office, and where she was able to purchase sunflower seeds to feed her hundreds of birds, (from Battaglias), that visited her property in Oro-Medonte. She donated as much money as she could afford, being of modest income, to many different charities, and was faithful to the fundraising efforts of St. James Anglican Church in Orillia. Even if she purchased a poppy for Remembrance Day, Easter Seals for her outgoing letters, or contributed to get a tag on a special fundraising day; plus if she left a tip for the hairdresser, it was duly recorded in her accounting book.      She purchased her butter from the Dominion Store, shopped at Loblaws for general groceries, dined at the lunch counter frequently, that was situated between this grocery outlet, and the Metropolitan Department Store, in downtown Orillia, opposite the Opera House, where she quite enjoyed toast and tea, and a visit with her friends, many who were staff members of both stores. Other stores she visited regularly included Hall's Pharmacy, Bill Spence Groceries (mostly for dog food), Walkers, McConnell's, Ritchie and Mould, Raney's Fuels, Ruggles Upholstery, Woolworth's and the unnamed hairdresser in downtown Orillia.
     The final entry in the accounting book, dated November 1, 1972, clearly illustrates the decline of her handwriting capability, due to ongoing poor health, includes the references, "show storm doors, 2 main, & peonies missing," with no other reference to what she meant. There is a crumpled paper napkin tucked between the final pages, on November 1972, of this same accounting journal, that I can't bear to throw away, because it was most likely left there by the artist, folk-artist, writer and modern day homesteader, prior to another period of hospitalization, of which several are recorded in the book, as costing sixteen dollars and fifty cents per stay. She had purchased a cane on December 7th, 1971, in between periods of hospitalization.
     It is also recorded in her accounting book, that on the 12th of November, 1971, there was a "Sale of print - 'The Deer', for the sum of $10." She also made money during the Christmas season, by selling some evergreens from her property on the Horseshoe Valley Road. She lived on a small pension cheque during this time as well, so every penny had to be accounted for, including taxi fares and tips to the host of drivers, who made the trip back and forth from Pax Cottage to Orillia, so she could attend Church and attend to shopping which she did several times each month.
    Katherine Day was 87 years old when she passed away, in 1976, after a long and prosperous life. Her teacher / mentor, Dutch Artist, Nicolas Eekman, a man who she held in high esteem, passed away several years earlier. After departing company, after a 1939 joint exhibition in New York, Katherine continued to follow the progress of his art career in Europe, and other showings in North America. His exhibition notices were found in her collected papers, up to and including 1969.
    After spending the past six months researching details of her past, I feel today, much different than I did when research began in earnest last spring. I had considerable concern about whether or not it was a biography that was desired by the long since deceased artist. I worry about such things, and the vibes I was getting, initially, were not favourable for quite a number of reasons. It's a little hard to describe but to a writer, unresolved negative energy at the beginning of a project, can be a game-ender. Over time, and reading every shred of material I had available on her life and times, with a few additions I hadn't anticipated, as well as many motor trips through her neighborhood of Oro-Medonte, those negative feelings gradually began to diminish. To the point that today, it seems I've known Katherine Day forever, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
     What you are going to read, over the next fourteen days, (if that is...., you intend to remain with the story), is what I would call a "surface" biography, or "template" that has been prepared with the expectation more information with be forthcoming in the next few months to year, which will enhance and correct material already published. It's a way of reaching more information sources, in a shorter period of time, including art owners, courtesy this high tech era of communication. And because of the online format, not only have we spared trees, which Katherine would undoubtedly consider a good thing, (by not printing a book), we can correct, adjust and improve on the dynamic of the biography, without having to live with a hard copy text that wouldn't be altered until a second printing; if indeed there was market demand for a second edition.
     I've worked on dozens of biographical texts as a regional Ontario historian, but nothing has proven more interesting, and been more alluring, than this generally cheerful story about an accomplished Canadian artist and modern day homesteader, who was passionate about art, and her role in establishing her own social/cultural footprint, in Oro-Medonte; and most of all, enjoyed making patrons happy with her creations, whether a print, a painting, a quilt or hooked rug. She was just as pleased when a customer commented on the quality of the wonderfully delicious honey combs, made by her cherished bees, of which she was their mortal queen. She was content as a dweller in the rural clime, to have a cozy cottage in which to live and work, and of course the good company of her cats and dogs, the chickens and goats who knew her as a kind soul; a person who thought of them all as her willing partners that made the homestead work.
     Feeling my age these days, with all the hallmark aches and pains, associated with decades of poor posture, being huddled over a typewriter, particularly the wear and tear on these poor old fingers and joints, I'm not at all sure how many more of these biographies, I will be able to entertain before my own retirement. My wife and research partner, Suzanne, doesn't believe I have the emotional capability to retire, and she may be right. I love my job. If however, I was to conclude with this most enjoyable project, in the kindly company of dear Katherine Day, I would most certainly feel fulfilled as a writer, at the forty year peak of what has been a most entertaining career. I hope you will enjoy the story spread out over the next two weeks, and take a few minutes, on September 30th, to view the video my son Robert produced, to pay sincere tribute to the late artist, who enthralled all of us in the Currie family, for these past six months of research. She died at the time I was starting out as a fledgling writer. I must live with the regret that I never knew her in life, but suffice that I have had this opportunity to enjoy the fruits of her biography.
    Chapter one will be published tomorrow on this facebook page. If you have information about Katherine Day you would like to share, images of her paintings in your private collection, or components of her journals you may have acquired some time in the past, do not hesitate to contact us through this facebook page.
     Note - I have not given an exact location of Katherine Day's former residences for good reason. These are private residences and not public museums, and it would be inappropriate for me to send hundreds of visitors to the properties unannounced. Please respect private property and the owners' right to privacy.

Father Bernard Heffernan Never Missed The Opportunity To Use Sport To His Spirited Advantage

A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO FATHER BERNARD HEFFERNAN

What Father taught me about hometown values - it only hurt a bit
I didn’t have a clue what a "hometown" was until after our family moved to Bracebridge, Ontario, in the spring of 1966. On that first morning, full of fear and trembling, amidst gangly strangers and glaring eyes everywhere, my new teacher at Bracebridge Public School, asked me to stand up and tell her, and my fellow classmates, from what hometown I had haled. In a sputtering, tongue-tied half panic-stricken, dry throated response, I honked out something like.... "I don’t know what the hometown was called but I used to live in Burlington,... Mam," then looking quickly all around before sitting down again, to see who was laughing or angry. No one laughed. Not the teacher. Not a peep from the classroom. No visible anger anywhere They just looked at me, the teacher, and back at me as if waiting for some profound reaction. Maybe I had sounded sarcastic. "Great, the new kid’s a smart ass," I surmised they were thinking.
"You mean Burlington was your hometown, Teddy," she asked, looking down at a piece of lined paper sitting askew on the corner of her desk, which I’m pretty sure was my unflattering biography up to Grade Five. I nodded to Miss McCracken that Burlington had indeed been my home but I was pretty confident it was a city.....so I wasn’t really sure a city could ever be a hometown. "Well," she said with a wink and smile, "I’m sure a city-boy is going to like his new hometown,..... won’t he class?"
Well, for a few moments at least, I felt,... quite at home. Until I got beat-up at lunch by both the girls and the guys, the ones who had smiled at me earlier. I was told the shellacking was a pretty ordinary, nothing special initiation to the "home" school. When I didn’t cry or make any attempt to run away from my adversaries, even after a whole week of fun-for-them initiation, I must admit the "home-town" thing was a little disconcerting. Was this the way hometown life was going to be.....forever? By comparison, Burlington had been a less "giving" hometown because I never once found it necessary to wrestle for acceptance before and after class.
On that second Monday of my new hometown adjustment period, the recess began just about the same as all the others. Only moments in the schoolyard, I was back on the bottom of a nasty little dust-up, and between hooks, jabs and hoofs to the nether region, all of a sudden, as if heaven-sent, there was an aggressive parting of the mob.....a hand clenching my shoulder, pulling me up out of the tumbling humanity of half bullies-half buddies. "Hey guys, let’s play some football," said the tall handsome stranger in the bulky knit sweater, who had spared me another round of "hey, let’s make Teddy feel welcome!"
From the quagmire of feet and fists, this chap they all called "Father," had already picked sides by the time I had brushed the imbedded schoolyard stones from my arms and knees. "Come on son....you’re going to play on this side," he yelled at me over the din on the grid-iron. "One hand touch okay," he asked us, while clearing a little patch in the stones with his shoe, to set the football down for the opening kick-off. "Okay Father......we’re ready," the other team yelled out to the trim and athletic father of some kid. Or at least that’s what I presumed of the guy they called "Father."
Well, he could run like the wind, do pirouettes around us all, leap to make impossible catches, and hand-off to us running backs while making two or three bootlegs to confuse the attackers. If he told you to button-hook at twelve yards, he wasn’t off the mark by an inch. When he flipped out a lateral to an innocent bystander, he knew the receiver would learn by immersion that one hand touch was the protocol not the reality. It was tackle. A big one. But valuable experience
about the significance of Father choosing you to be the lead man on a huge march up field.
Every recess and lunch this nimble sportsman showed up to run another game. Even if you weren’t interested in playing, Father wouldn’t take no for an answer, and pretty soon there was a football in your rib cage and a dozen drooling opponents ready to drive your face into the gravel. You had little to no chance of survival unless your knees hit your chest in a pumping zig-zag down-field to the goal-line.
I can remember a large fight breaking out one day on the sidelines, between several of the more aggressive inmates I had learned to stay away from, and in a ballet of leaps and bounds, Father had jumped in between and wrestled the combatants apart. He had a powerful influence on the young and vigorous because by the very next down, the same still-growling gents were playing on the same team, and very much contributing to the pass and pass and pass offence he employed to keep the came exciting. He had a curious way of bringing the pacifists, the boastful, aggressors, thugs and bashful into a fun game of Canadian football suited to the school yard.
On my own first run against Father, I had a huge head start off a nice twenty yard pass from the quarterback, and the goal-line was a modest footfall away. And then I heard the train coming behind. Feet pounding that rocky turf like a racing locomotive over the ribbon rails. I made the near fatal mistake of looking back.....glancing to see what on earth was coming behind....and it was Father, awfully determined the rookie running back wasn’t going to score. Out of amazement at the unfurling rage of humanity coming behind, I lost my grip on the ball, tried to recover at the expense of knowing where my feet were headed, and the grand arse over tea-kettle spill had commenced. What I didn’t see through the dust and stones flying up, was the Cadillac bumper bullets of the parked car immediately in my future. Somehow Father had grabbed the back of my shirt just as I lost my footing, and I’m telling you honestly, by the grace of God, he stopped my head from hitting the metal. We wound up in a twisted ball of football good humor with my head still stuck awkwardly on my neck. Father also had to pick a few stones out of his elbows and knees but two lives were spared a head-on crash with a Caddy..
Miss McCracken had seen the whole ugly tumble. On the way into the school after that recess, she took me aside, dusted off my shoulders, patted down my hair and said, "so, how do you like your new hometown?" "Ah, it’s okay, I guess, Miss McCracken," I answered. "Don’t be afraid to toss the ball to one of your team-mates," she said about my down-field run. "It’s what he wants you to do." Undoubtedly with a bewildered second glance at my teacher, while passing into the school, she added, "Father Heffernan wants you to play as a team.....remember that the next time." "Father Heffernan?" I asked. I looked at one of my team-mates, who added, "Pretty fast for a Priest aint he?"
What Miss McCracken meant was that Father wasn’t interested in the heroics of the downfield romp but rather the unselfish passing back and forth between team-mates to make the touchdown. Just as he wanted to occupy bored kids with sport, he wanted us to appreciate each others strengths and capabilities. It worked. The guys who had been beating me up ten minutes earlier were now passing and then blocking for me on the grid iron.
There was a moral to the story of my introduction to this new hometown. I had met our own Father O’Malley.....he was a dear man by the name of Father Bernard Heffernan, of St. Joseph’s Church next door. He had been coming over for recess and lunch games for years, and he had very much instilled a prosperous sense of goodwill each time he arrived.
One morning about fifteen years later, I was playing shinny at the Bracebridge arena, and on a down-ice rush I could hear what sounded like a train coming behind, the blades hitting the ice like two axe blades strapped to my opponent’s feet. I got just past the opposition blue-line when, against Don Cherry’s sage advice, I looked back......it wasn’t just a train. In a hook right out of Peter Pan, a gnash of teeth, and a chin on my shoulder, we were both icing our way like a curling rock into the boards. I pulled up onto my knees and started to scream at this jerk who tripped me up.....and well, it came down to this.... "Good morning Father......I thought that was you! Nice to have you back in town.....staying long?" "What gave me away Mr. Currie?" he quipped. "Oh, I don’t know, maybe the crashing to the ice thing," I retorted, wiping the ice out of my eyes. "You should have passed the puck.....your winger was all alone in front of the net," he advised with a wee Irish grin. Talk about the Flying Father. He was a much a hometown icon as anything I ever experienced growing up in Bracebridge....the town straddling the 45th parallel of latitude.

I thought back to when I believed he was someone’s kindly father who just happened to have some free time. Well, he was everybody’s Father, and we loved him.

FATHER HEFFERNAN TAUGHT US A THING OR TWO ABOUT GOODWILL AND COMMUNITY - ON THE GRID IRON - THE RINK AND THE PLAYGROUND

THE CALL ON CHRISTMAS EVE

     THIS IS A TRUE STORY. A NICE SEASONAL FOLK TALE, THAT I MAY BE ACCUSED OF EMBELLISHING FOR THE SAKE OF AN AUDIENCE. THIS IS FAR FROM THE TRUTH. BUT IT IS, WITHOUT QUESTION, FOLKISH IN ITS RE-TELLING, AND OF THIS I OFFER NO APOLOGY.

     I HOPE HE DOESN'T MIND THE REFERENCE. FORGIVE ME FATHER. I'VE BEEN BORROWING THE NAMES OF HOLLYWOOD CHARACTERS, FOR YEARS AND YEARS, TO COMPARE LOCAL NOTABLES, TO THOSE WELL KNOWN ACTORS OF THE SILVER SCREEN. I HAVE BEEN HOPELESSLY BUT WILLINGLY CAPTIVATED BY OLD MOVIES AND TELEVISION, SINCE I WAS A CHILD. IT'S AN HONOR, AT LEAST IN MY MIND, WHEN I OFFER THESE COMPARISONS AND PARALLELS, IT'S ALWAYS WITH KIND INTENT. YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL COMPARING FICTIONAL CHARACTERS WITH THOSE OF FLESH, BONE AND SPIRIT.

     SINCE I WAS SNOTTY-NOSED STREET URCHIN, WITH THE KNEES TORN OUT OF MY PANTS, FROM ROUGH PLAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD, AND ALWAYS BLEEDING ELBOWS FROM FRICTION AGAINST LIMESTONE AND PAVEMENT, I EVEN COMPARED MYSELF TO MOVIE-LAND CHARACTERS. I WAS AS TOUGH AS ALAN LADD, WHO STARRED IN THE MOVIE "SHANE," AND AS RUGGED, YET KIND, AS HOSS CARTWRIGHT, OF THE TELEVISION SHOW, "BONANZA," PLAYED BY ACTOR DAN BLOCKER. IF I HAD OWNED A STETSON, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A WHITE ONE, LIKE ALL THE GOOD COWBOYS WORE. FROM AN EARLY AGE, I HAD A GOOD, WORKING IDEA, WHAT A HERO LOOKED AND ACTED LIKE, VERSUS SOMEONE WHO WANTED TO BURY ME IN A SNOW BANK ON A LARK.

     AS FOR FATHER BERNARD HEFFERNAN, AND I TOLD HIM SO ONE CHRISTMAS EVE, I ALWAYS THOUGHT OF HIM AS OUR OWN "FATHER O'MALLEY," PLAYED BY BING CROSBY, IN THE ICONIC MOVIES, "BELLS OF ST. MARYS," AND "GOING MY WAY." I MET HIM ON THE GRID-IRON OF BRACEBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOL, IN MY FIRST YEAR AFTER ARRIVING HERE, FROM BURLINGTON, ONTARIO. HE KNOCKED ME DOWN ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS, EXPLAINING AT LEAST ONE RIPPED KNEE IN MY NEW PANTS, AND ANOTHER ELBOW BURN. HE PLAYED COMPETITIVELY, AND ROUGHLY, ESPECIALLY ON THE HOCKEY RINK, BUT HE WAS THE FIRST ONE TO REACH UNDER YOUR ARMS, TO PULL YOU UPRIGHT, AND BRUSH OFF THE STONES AND DIRT, OR THE ICE CHIPS, IF WE WERE PLAYING HOCKEY. HERE'S HOW I MET FATHER HEFFERNAN, AND WHAT HE CAME TO MEAN TO ME, SINCE I WAS HASTILY INTRODUCED TO HIM, ONE SCHOOL-DAY, DURING THE HEAT OF BATTLE, BACK IN ABOUT 1966 OR SO.

     FIRST OF ALL, AS I'VE WRITTEN ABOUT NUMEROUS TIMES, IN MY NEWSPAPER COLUMNS, DATING BACK TO THE EARLY 1980'S, I CAME TO BRACEBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOL, WITH "CITY KID" ARROGANCE WRITTEN ALL OVER ME. FOR THOSE FIRST FEW YEARS, I HAD A TOUGH TIME PROVING TO CLASSMATES THAT I WAS THRILLED TO BE A "TOWN" KID. I STILL CAME OFF AS ARROGANT, I SUPPOSE, BUT IF THAT WAS THE CASE, IT WAS NOT INTENTIONAL. I REALLY DID LIKE MY KNEW SCHOOL AND HOME TOWN. I JUST DIDN'T EXPECT THE SCHOOL OF HARD-KNOCKS WAS GOING TO LAST SO LONG, AND HURT SO MUCH. MY FIRST ENCOUNTER, WAS WHEN ONE OF THE MOST PROMINENT OF STUDENTS, DECIDED ONE LUNCH-HOUR, TO IMPRESS THE LADIES, BY KNOCKING-DOWN THE NEW KID. WHEN HE CALLED ME OVER TO TALK TO HIM, I THOUGHT OF IT AS A BREAKTHROUGH IN RELATIONS. AS SOON AS I GOT CLOSE, HE THREW ALL HIS WEIGHT INTO ME, WITH A POWERFUL LUNGE, AND I FELL AWKWARDLY, HURTING MY LEG AND WRIST ON THE PAVED SURFACE OF THE YARD. OF COURSE THE GIRLS LAUGHED AT MY UNFORTUNATE SITUATION, WHICH ADDED TO THE ANXIETY OF THE MOMENT. EVERY TIME I WENT TO GET UP, THE BIG GOOF WOULD KNOCK ME BACK DOWN. I LEARNED THAT AT A SMALL TOWN SCHOOL, TEACHER SUPERVISION WAS AT A MINIMUM ALL THE TIME. BY ABOUT THE FOURTH TIME, OF GETTING ROUGHLY TUMBLED BACK TO THE GROUND, SOMETHING WONDERFUL HAPPENED.

     OUT OF NOWHERE, FLEW A MORE SUBSTANTIAL YOUTH, WHO STOOD BETWEEN ME AND MY TORMENTOR. THE BULLY TRIED PUSHING HIM OUT OF THE WAY, TO GET BACK TO THE BUSINESS AT HAND; BUT THE CHAP REMAINED ANCHORED TO THE SPOT, EVENTUALLY PUSHING BACK HARD ENOUGH, THAT THE INCIDENT ENDED AS STRANGELY AS IT HAD BEGUN. MY PROTECTOR, THAT DAY, WAS A FINE FELLOW NAMED PAUL DUFF, WHO AS IT TURNED OUT, WAS ALSO MY DEFENCEMAN IN YEARS OF MINOR HOCKEY PLAY.....AND ALWAYS THE ONE WHO WOULD COME AND HIT MY PADS AFTER A SAVE OR GOAL, TO GIVE ME CREDIT WHETHER DESERVED, OR JUST AS AN ACT OF KINDNESS.

     ON THE SAME AFTERNOON, THAT I MET A BULLY, AND A LIFE-LONG FRIEND AT THE SAME TIME, WE WERE ALL BECKONED TO THE PLAYING FIELD, WHICH WAS ACTUALLY COVERED IN LIMESTONE, BY ONE OF THE STUDENT'S FATHERS. FOR MOST OF THAT FIRST YEAR, THIS IS WHAT I ASSUMED, WHEN THE LADS YELLED OUT, "COME ON EVERYBODY, FATHER IS READY TO PLAY FOOTBALL." I JUST DIDN'T KNOW WHOSE FATHER HE WAS. ONE DAY HE CAME OVER WITH HIS COLLAR VISIBLE, AND I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD WHAT "FATHER" MEANT. HE WAS CONNECTED TO ST. JOSEPH'S CATHOLIC CHURCH NEXT TO THE SCHOOL. THAT'S WHEN I STARTED THINKING OF HIM AS FATHER O'MALLEY FROM THE MOVIES. MY MOTHER LOVED BOTH THOSE MOVIES, AND SHE USED TO REFERENCE BING CROSBY AS FATHER O'MALLEY, TO COVER A THOUSAND DIFFERENT MORAL ISSUES, SHE FELT NEEDED TO BE ATTACHED TO MY PYSCHE. AS SHE NEVER FORCED ME TO ATTEND CHURCH, WHICH WAS LIBERAL OF HER, AND SOMEWHAT CONTRADICTORY FROM HER OWN BELIEFS AND UPBRINGING, SHE LIKED TO DRAW FROM THE MOVIES WHEN IT CAME TO THE "HIGH ROAD," OF OPINION. THE ONLY HERO BIGGER, IN HER MIND, THAN FATHER O'MALLEY, WAS ALAN LADD'S PORTRAYAL OF "SHANE," WHICH ALSO DEEPLY IMPRINTED ON MY APPRECIATION OF GOOD GUYS AND BAD. FATHER HEFFERNAN WAS A GOOD GUY. AND HERE'S WHY!

     SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I WAS AWARDED A SPECIAL VOLUNTEER AWARD, BY THE TOWN OF BRACEBRIDGE, FOR MY WORK WITH THE CROZIER FOUNDATION, AND THE SPORTS HALL OF FAME EXHIBIT AT THE ARENA. SUZANNE ATTENDED WITH ME, AND THE AUDITORIUM HAD A LARGE ATTENDANCE THAT EVENING. I'M NOT GREAT UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES, AND I'VE BEEN KNOWN TO FREEZE AT THE MICROPHONE, EVEN OFFERING A SIMPLE "THANK YOU." EVERY AWARD RECIPIENT WHO GOT ON STAGE TO ACCEPT THEIR PLAQUE, GAVE A SHORT ACCEPTANCE SPEECH. I HADN'T EXPECTED TO GIVE ANYTHING MORE THAN A MODEST GRIN, A NOD, AND A HANDSHAKE TO THE PRESENTER. SO I STARTED TO PANIC. I ASKED SUZANNE FOR A PEN AND PAPER, SO THAT I COULD AT LEAST JOT DOWN A FEW NOTES, SO THAT I COULD OFFER A PARAGRAPH OR TWO TO ACCOMPANY THE WORD "THANK YOU." SHE FOUND A BIT OF PACKAGING, AND A DULL PENCIL, BUT I WAS ABLE TO JOT DOWN ENOUGH TO CALL IT A BRIEF ACCEPTANCE SPEECH. THEN I WAS CALLED TO THE STAGE, AND MY PREPARATIONS WERE JAMMED INTO MY POCKET WITH A SWEATY PALM, AND NEVER RETRIEVED THAT NIGHT. I DECIDED TO "WING-IT," EVEN THOUGH SUZANNE WARNED ME AGAINST DOING IT, BECAUSE OF PAST DEBACLES OF STAGE-FRIGHT. I HAD A SECRET WEAPON THAT NIGHT, AND YES, IT WAS THE LOCALIZED STORY OF FATHER HEFFERNAN.....AN UNSUNG HERO OF MY PAST.

     I ACCEPTED THE PLAQUE, SHOOK THE TOWN OFFICIAL'S HAND, AND TURNED AND WALKED TOWARD THE MICROPHONE. I LOOKED OUT AT ALL THE EYES STARING AT MY HAIRY FACE, AND I THOUGHT BACK TO THE DAY I MET "FATHER" AT BRACEBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOL. I REMEMBERED HIS POWERFUL AURA, AS HE STOOD AT CENTRE FIELD, YELLING FOR ALL THE STUDENTS TO COME AND PLAY A GAME OF FOOTBALL. YES, BACK THEN, IT WAS MALE DOMINATED BUT FATHER WOULD NEVER HAVE TURNED DOWN A FEMALE COMPETITOR, HAD ANY WISHED TO PLAY. FATHER PULLED THE BULLIES, WHO USED TO STAND AGAINST THE WALLS, AND THREATEN THE REST OF US WITH ICY GLARES, INTO THE MIX WITH THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SCHOLARS AND PACIFISTS, WHO WEREN'T REALLY SPORTS INCLINED. WHAT HE DID, WAS EQUALIZE US ALL, IN RECREATIONAL PLAY. THE BULLIES WERE NO BETTER, OR WORSE THAN THE KIDS WHO WORE THICK GLASSES, AND HAD NEVER EVEN TOUCHED A FOOTBALL, BEFORE IT WAS HANDED-OFF TO THEM, BY THE QUARTERBACK OF THE DAY. SO WHEN I STOOD AT THE MICROPHONE, THINKING I MIGHT FAINT INTO THE AUDIENCE, OR ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING OF NOTE, IT WAS THIS RECOLLECTION OF SPORTSMANSHIP AND COMMUNITY, THAT GAVE ME LOTS TO TALK ABOUT. I SAID IT WAS PEOPLE LIKE FATHER HEFFERNAN, WHO TAUGHT ME ABOUT THE POWER OF INCLUSION, AND THE GOODWILL OF FRIENDLY COMPETITION. HOMETOWN VALUES. I POINTED OUT, THAT RECREATION HAD THE CAPABILITY OF OVER-RIDING BULLYISM, POLITICS, WEALTH, POVERTY, RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES, CULTURAL DIVIDES, AND JUST ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE THAT WORKS TO KEEP PEOPLE APART....FOR NO GOOD REASON. LIKE PAUL DUFF, WHO SAVED ME FROM A SCHOOL-YEAR OF TORMENT, BY ONE BOLD INTERVENTION; FATHER HEFFERNAN INSPIRED GOOD CITIZENSHIP ON SO MANY FRONTS, FOR SO MANY STUDENTS, THAT IT IS STILL A CHERISHED MORAL, DEEP INTO OUR ADULT LIVES.

     SO I HAD LOTS TO TALK ABOUT, THAT NIGHT, AND MY BUDGET OF TIME AT THE MICROPHONE TOO SHORT.....AND IN FACT, I NEVER HAD A TIME IN MY LIFE, IN THE PUBLIC EYE AS A WRITER, THAT I RECEIVED SO MANY KIND COMMENTS AFTERWARDS.....AND AS YOU MIGHT GUESS, A LOT OF THE QUESTIONS WERE, "HOW IS FATHER HEFFERNAN THESE DAYS." OR, "I USED TO PLAY SHINNY WITH HIM OVER AT THE ARENA.....WE USED TO CALL HIM 'ELBOWS HEFFERNAN' BACK THEN." "YEA, HE USED TO WRAP HIMSELF AROUND YOU, IF YOU TRIED TO SKATE PAST HIM WITH THE PUCK,... JAM HIS STICK UNDER MY SKATE BLADE, BUT YOU KNOW, HE WAS ALWAYS THE FIRST TO HELP YOU UP OFF THE ICE.....AFTER HE KNOCKED YOU DOWN. 'ARE YOU ALL RIGHT', HE'D SAY, GRABBING YOU BY THE SWEATER TO MAKE SURE YOU WERE ABLE TO GET BACK INTO THE ACTION."

     IN THE MID 1980'S, I USED TO WRITE A COLUMN FOR THE NOW DEFUNCT, "MUSKOKA ADVANCE," ENTITLED "BRACEBRIDGE SKETCHES," WHICH WERE A COLLECTION OF NOSTALGIC STORIES FROM MY YOUTH, GROWING UP IN OUR SMALL TOWN. ONE OF MY COLUMNS, THAT PARTICULAR FALL, HAD BEEN ABOUT FATHER HEFFERNAN, AND RECOLLECTIONS OF THOSE SCHOOL-YARD FOOTBALL GAMES. IT WASN'T CHRISTMAS-THEMED IF MEMORY SERVES. AND FOLKS, I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP. I WAS CLOSING OUR ANTIQUE SHOP, LOCATED ON THE BOTTOM FLOOR OF MARTIN FRAMING, ON MANITOBA STREET, AT ABOUT FOUR O'CLOCK ON CHRISTMAS EVE. THERE WAS A HUGE STORM-FRONT MOVING OVER THE AREA, AND YOU COULD HARDLY SEE THE CARS PARKED IN THE STORE LOT, THROUGH THE DRIFTING SNOWFALL. I HAD JUST FINISHED PUTTING ALL OUR OUTSIDE DISPLAYS BACK IN THE SHOP, AND WAS PREPARING FOR THE WHITE-KNUCKLE DRIVE BACK TO GRAVENHURST. I SAID GOODBYE TO BARB MARTIN, PROPRIETOR OF THE FRAMING SHOP, BUT I DIDN'T GET TO FINISH MY CHRISTMAS GOOD WISHES, WHEN THE PHONE RANG UPSTAIRS, AND SHE HAD TO RUN TO ANSWER IT. I JUST WAVED FAREWELL AND HEADED OUT INTO THE STORM. AS I WAS CLEANING OFF THE CAR, AND SCRAPING AWAY THE ICE, SHE YELLED AT ME THROUGH THE HALF-OPENED DOOR, THAT I HAD A PHONE CALL FROM A FATHER HEFFERNAN. NO KIDDING. A LITTLE LIKE FATHER O'MALLEY OR WHAT? HERE IT WAS CHRISTMAS EVE, IN A SNOWSTORM, AND I WAS ALL NOSTALGIC CLOSING UP THE NICELY DECORATED SHOP FOR THE HOLIDAYS. IT WAS LIKE A MOVIE SCRIPT, BUT THIS WAS REAL LIFE. IT WAS A PRETTY REMARKABLE WAY TO START CHRISTMAS.

     A FRIEND OF FATHER HEFFERNAN, FROM BRACEBRIDGE, HAD SENT HIM A COPY OF MY COLUMN, AND HE FOUND CHRISTMAS EVE A GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO CALL, IN ORDER TO EXPRESS HIS GRATITUDE FOR MY KIND WORDS. HIS FRIEND ONLY KNEW WE HAD A SHOP ON THE LOWER LEVEL OF "MARTIN FRAMING," AND THAT CONNECTED HIM, AND THEN ME, THROUGH BARB MARTIN. BUT AS ALWAYS, HE WAS VERY HUMBLE. AS HE EXPLAINED, HE WAS JUST DOING WHAT ANYONE WOULD HAVE, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCE. THIS IS WHERE HE WAS WRONG. THERE WAS NO ONE, EVEN THE PAID STAFF OF THE SCHOOL, WHO OFFERED TO DO ANYTHING WITH US AT RECESS, OTHER THAN OBSERVE FROM AFAR. HE WAS A CATALYST OF ADVENTURE, WHENEVER HE SHOWED UP. I WANTED HIM TO KNOW THIS, AS HUMBLE AS HE REMAINED, THAT HE HAD IMPACTED THE LIVES OF A LOT OF WAYWARD KIDS, BY BEING A SOURCE OF RECREATIONAL INSPIRATION. AT THIS POINT, HE ACCEPTED THE GENERAL ASSESSMENT, THAT HE WAS TRULY "A NICE GUY." NO HALO. JUST A FELLOW WHO TOOK TIME TO SHOW A GROUP OF STUDENTS, STANDING AROUND, HOW TO USE SPORT TO DEMONSTRATE THE POWER OF CO-OPERATIVE EFFORT.

     I STOOD AT BARB'S DESK FOR ABOUT TEN MINUTES, OF PLEASANT CONVERSATION, WITH FATHER HEFFERNAN, THAT SNOWY CHRISTMAS EVE, QUITE A FEW YEARS BACK. I MUST ADMIT, TO BEING A LITTLE CHOKED-UP, BECAUSE OF THE RARE CIRCUMSTANCE, THAT HE WAS CALLING ME ON THIS DAY BEFORE CHRISMAS, WHEN FRANKLY, I WAS A LITTLE DOWN ABOUT THE ECONOMY, AND WHAT I HAD BEEN ABLE TO AFFORD FOR OUR BOYS, AS GIFTS FROM SANTA. I WASN'T SURE OUR CAR WAS EVEN GOING TO MAKE IT HOME, BECAUSE OF ITS FAULTY EVERYTHING (OR SO IT SEEMED), AND THE CALL JUST CAUGHT ME SO OFF GUARD.....I DIDN'T REALLY NO HOW TO RESPOND. SO I JUST LISTENED TO HIS GENTLE VOICE AND FELT THAT OLD TIME INSPIRATION COMING OVER ME.....AND AS CLICHED AS IT MAY READ, THAT NIGHT, AND FOR THAT CHRISTMAS SEASON, HE HAD BEEN MY GUARDIAN ANGEL. THINGS WEREN'T AS BAD AS I HAD THOUGHT. WE  A LOVELY CHRISTMAS, AS HUMBLE AS IT WAS, AND I HAD LOTS OF TIME TO COMTEMPLATE THE WORDS OF FATHER HEFFERNAN; YUP, THAT REMINDED ME OF FATHER O'MALLEY AND CHRISTMAS AT ST. MARY'S.

     IT MAY APPEAR TO SOME READERS, LIKE I'VE HAD A LOT OF BRIGHT BEACONS IN MY LIFE, BECAUSE I'M ALWAYS PAYING TRIBUTE TO ONE OR THE OTHER, FROM PAST ENCOUNTERS. ALMOST AS IF THEY WERE HUMAN CRUTCHES, ALWAYS POPPING UP AT THE MOST CRITICAL TIMES, WHEN I WAS FALTERING OR IN DEEP DISTRESS. I CAN ONLY EXPLAIN THIS, AS IT RELATES TO WRITING, AND WHAT I WANTED TO PRESENT TO THE PUBLIC, READING MY COLUMNS. THAT I WAS AS TOUGH AND ENDURING AS WERE MY MENTORS.    I HAVE NEVER ONCE CONSIDERED MYSELF A SELF-MADE MAN. I HAVE DEPENDED ON THE KINDNESSES OF STRANGERS. I HAVE HAD TIMES IN MY LIFE, WHEN I DIDN'T KNOW WHETHER TO TOSS MYSELF OFF A BRIDGE, INTO THE WHITE WATER BELOW, OR FACE-UP TO THE SEA OF GRIM REALITIES. WHEN I HAD, AT TIMES, SUFFERED FROM A LACK OF INSPIRATION, OR AN UNEXPECTED BOUT OF DEPRESSION,.... MAYBE A SUDDEN FLURRY OF ANXIETY, AND NOT BEEN ABLE TO PRODUCE EDITORIAL COPY, I HAVE RECALLED MANY, MANY TIMES, THE WARM SOULS WHO HAVE GIVEN ME REASON TO SOLDIER-ON; DESPITE ANY MISTAKEN PERCEPTION THAT THE ROAD AHEAD WAS IMPASSABLE. WHEN I TURNED TO DRINK FOR QUICK INSPIRATION, WHEN NOTHING ELSE SEEMED TO WORK, I'D WAKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, SICK AND DISGUSTED WITH MYSELF, BELIEVING I WOULD NEVER FIND THE MEANING OF LIFE. WHEN THERE WAS NO BOOZE LEFT, I HAD THE NECESSITY TO REKINDLE WHATEVER WAS LEFT OF FORMER MOTIVATIONS, JUST TO HAUL MYSELF BACK INTO THE NEWSROOM TO MEET YET ANOTHER DEADLINE. I SO OFTEN FOUND WHAT I NEEDED, THINKING BACK TO THE PERILESS JOURNEYS OF MY FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES, WHO HAD SHOWN ME THE WAY IN THE PAST. WITHOUT THEM KNOWING IT, THEIR MORAL CHARACTERS, AND KINDNESSES YEARS EARLIER, DID BECOME MY BEACONS. FATHER HEFFERNAN WAS, AND REMAINS, ONE SUCH GLOWING BEACON, I NEEDED GREATLY, PARTICULARLY ON THAT STORMY CHRISTMAS EVE; WHICH BECAME ONE OF MY MOST MEMORABLE. I WROTE A LOT THAT HOLIDAY SEASON, ESPECIALLY ABOUT MY FAMILY AND THE JOYS OF A MUSKOKA CHRISTMAS.

     IT WASN'T SO LONG AGO, THAT I READ ABOUT FATHER HEFFERNAN TAKING OVER DUTIES AT ST. PAUL'S CATHOLIC CHURCH, HERE IN GRAVENHURST. I RAN INTO HIM FIRST, AT A COMMUNITY CONCERT, HELD AT THE GRAVENHURST OPERA HOUSE. HERE HE WAS, WALKING UP AND DOWN THE OPERA HOUSE AISLES, SHAKING THE HANDS OF PATRONS, AND WAVING TO THOSE WHO WERE CALLING TO HIM. HE SEEMED TO KNOW PERSONALLY, MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE. I HAD TO RE-INTRODUCE MYSELF, WHEN HE GOT TO MY ROW. "FATHER," I YELLED, WITH AN OUTSTRETCHED HAND. "I'M TED CURRIE....I WROTE A COLUMN ABOUT YOU....AND." I NEVER GOT TO FINISH MY SENTENCE. "TED, IT'S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU," HE SAID, REACHING FOR ANOTHER OUTSTRETCHED HAND, FROM A GENTLEMAN IN THE ROW IN FRONT. "MAYBE WE CAN GET TOGETHER SOME TIME LATER." I WAS EVER SO PLEASED HE REMEMBERED ME, AS IT HAD BEEN ALMOST TEN YEARS SINCE WE LAST TALKED. BUT YOU KNOW, WE NEVER DID GET TOGETHER, BECAUSE HE LEFT ST. PAULS SHORTLY AFTER THE CONCERT, AND I HAVEN'T TALKED TO HIM SINCE. IT WAS NICE TO SHAKE THE HAND, OF A MAN WHO GAVE ME REASON TO WRITE-ON AND THRIVE......AND IT ALL CAME FROM GAMES OF PICK-UP FOOTBALL IN THE SCHOOL YARD, OF BRACEBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOL, IN THE SEPIA HAZE OF THE 1960'S.

     AS I DO EVERY DAY, WRITING THESE CHRISTMAS SEASON BLOGS, I COME UP WITH A THEME AFTER I SIT DOWN AT MY KEYBOARD. NOT BEFORE. TODAY, FOR WHATEVER REASON, AND SOURCE OF INSPIRATION, IT BECAME IMPERATIVE TO WRITE ABOUT MY CASUAL BUT POIGNANT FRIENDSHIP WITH FATHER BARNARD HEFFERNAN. AND SHOULD HE FEEL, ONCE AGAIN, THAT I HAVE GIVEN HIM TOO MUCH CREDIT FOR HIS KINDNESSES, I WILL REMIND HIM, THAT WITH THE SAME GRIT AND PROWESS, HE SHOWED US, ELBOWS CONNECTING WITH JAW, AND STICK POKED BENEATH SKATES, IN HIS COMPETITIVE VIGOR, I WILL STICKHANDLE THIS MESSAGE "DOWN-ICE" REGARDLESS.....TO PRAISE HIS MODESTY....A PUCK IN THE NET FOR ME. MERRY CHRISTMAS FATHER HEFFERNAN AND THANKS FROM ALL US WEE LADS, WHO CAME TO UNDERSTAND THE TRUE BREADTH AND DEPTH OF SPORTSMANSHIP, ON YOUR ENCOURAGEMENT.

BULLIES THRIVE IN THEIR DELUDED SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT - I WAS ON THE END OF THEIR FISTS

     FATHER BERNARD HEFFERNAN WAS SIMPLY KNOWN, IN MY SCHOOL-YARD DAYS, AS "FATHER." AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, AND I MEAN THAT, I THOUGHT HE WAS A FATHER IN THE PARENTAL SENSE, AND IT TOOK ME MONTHS TO FIGURE OUT IT WAS INSTEAD HIS RELIGIOUS CALLING, AND HIS ASSOCIATION WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ACROSS THE ROAD. I ALWAYS WAS A SLOW LEARNER.

     FATHER HEFFERNAN HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA, THAT AT THE TIME HE WAS ORGANIZING GAMES OF FOOTBALL, AT RECESS, BACK IN ABOUT 1966 OR SO, AT BRACEBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOL, HE WAS RECTIFYING AT LEAST TWO DEBILITATING ISSUES FOR THIS NEW, NOT-ADJUSTING STUDENT. FIRST OF ALL, I HAD JUST ARRIVED IN BRACEBRIDGE, FROM A CITY SCHOOL. AT THAT TIME, BEING A NEWCOMER TO A SMALL TOWN SCHOOL REQUIRED YEARS OF TRYING TO IMBED INTO THE MIX OF MUSKOKA-ROOTED KIDS. BEING "ONE OF THE LOCALS" WASN'T EASY…..AND SOME WOULD SAY EVEN TODAY, IT'S OUTRIGHTLY IMPOSSIBLE. UNLESS YOU MARRY INTO A LOCAL FAMILY. EVEN MY PARENTS FOUND IT NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE, TO SHAKE THE CITY-STATUS, THAT FOR SOME REASON, WAS THREATENING TO SOME LOCALS. MAYBE THEY SAW US AS THE KIND OF INTRUDERS, WHO WOULD TRY TO CHANGE THE TOWN, BASED ON OUR MISGUIDED CITY ATTITUDE. I'M NOT EMBELLISHING THIS, AND IT WASN'T UNTIL MANY YEARS LATER, AFTER MARRYING A LOCAL GIRL, WITH ROOTS BACK TO PIONEER TIMES, THAT I COULD FAIRLY CLAIM TO BEING A MUSKOKAN……BY MARRIAGE ONLY.

     SECONDLY, BEING FROM THE CITY, AND DISRESPECTFULLY VIEWED AS AN INTERLOPER, WHO NEEDED TO BE TAUGHT SOME COUNTRY MANNERS, I WAS THE TARGET OF THE SCHOOL BULLIES. ONE GENTLEMAN, WHO WAS FROM A WELL-OFF FAMILY OF LOCAL MOVERS AND SHAKERS, DECIDED ONE RECESS, THAT HE NEEDED TO IMPRESS THE YOUNG LADIES OF OUR CLASS. I WAS STANDING BY MYSELF, WATCHING EVERYONE ELSE ENJOYING THE SCHOOL DAY HIATUS, AND THIS CHAP WALKED RIGHT UP TO ME, AND WITH BOTH HANDS ON MY CHEST, KNOCKED ME TO THE GROUND WITHOUT WARNING. I BANGED MY HEAD AND TWISTED MY ANKLE ON THE WAY DOWN, AND I WASN'T IN ANY POSITION TO SCAMPER OFF TO SAFETY. I JUST STAYED ON THE GROUND, BECAUSE IT REDUCED THE HEIGHT TO FALL FROM AGAIN, IF ON THE OFF-CHANCE, HE PLANNED A SECOND UNPROVOKED ATTACK. HE DID EVERYTHING BUT PUT HIS FOOT ON MY CHEST, LIKE HE'D BAGGED BIG GAME, AS A SCHOOL-YARD HUNTER.

     THE GOOFY KID JUST HOVERED THERE, DARING ME TO GET UP FOR SOME MORE OF THE SAME. AS QUICKLY AS THIS KID HAD ATTACKED ME, CAME THE DEFENDER I DIDN'T KNOW I HAD. A TALL YOUTH, FLEW AT MY ATTACKER WITH MINOR FURY, AND KOCKED HIM OVER, JUST AS I HAD BEEN TUMBLED ONTO MY HEAD. PAUL DUFF HAD WITNESSED THE ORIGINAL BULLY TACTIC, AND REACTED TO DEFEND THE NEW KID. FUNNY THING THAT! PAUL WOULD BECOME A LIFE-LONG ACQUAINTANCE, AND WHENEVER WE MEET IN OUR BUSY LIVES, IT'S JUST LIKE THAT DAY IN THE SCHOOL YARD, WHEN THAT BIG HAND ARRIVED IN MINE, AS HE PULLED ME UP FROM THE GROUND. EVEN IN OUR HOCKEY PAST, HE WAS THE ONE PLAYER ON OUR TEAM, FOR MANY YEARS, THAT AFTER A GOAL WAS SCORED ON ME, HE'D ARRIVE TO WHACK MY PADS, SHOWING SUPPORT FOR A VERY BUSY NETMINDER. OTHERS ON MY SQUAD TOLD ME TO "SMARTEN UP CURRIE, YOU SEIVE," AND "YOU'RE GOING TO COST US THE GAME STUPID." EVEN IF I HAD ALLOWED TEN GOALS, PAUL WOULD NEVER HAVE REACTED DIFFERENTLY. WHEN HE WAS ON THE ICE, I PLAYED BETTER AND MORE CONFIDENTLY. NO KIDDING. THIS WAS HOW ONE KID, OUT OF HUNDREDS I INTERACTED WITH, MADE A LIFELONG IMPRESSION ON ME, BY BEING THE CHAMPION OF GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP. EVEN THE COACH COULD HAVE LEARNED SOMETHING FROM PAUL'S POSITIVE APPROACH. I KNOW PAUL GETS KIND OF SHY WHEN I WRITE ABOUT THESE INCIDENTS, BUT NONE THE LESS, WE NEED TO BE REMINDED HOW MUCH INFLUENCE "GOOD" CAN HAVE ON THE WAY WE ALL LIVE. FATHER HEFFERNAN WAS THE SAME, BUT I DON'T SUSPECT HE KNEW THE EXTENT OF WHAT WENT ON IN THE SCHOOL-YARD WHEN HE WASN'T THERE. WHEN HE DID ARRIVE, EVERYONE PERKED UP, AND GATHERED AROUND HIM.

THERE WERE MORE BULLIES - LOTS MORE

     At the time Father Heffernan was organizing the milling-about students, into games of recess football, he may have suspected there were bullying problems at the school. It wasn't hard to find a bloody nose, or a black eye amongst the upper grade kids. He would pop over, from the church, at morning recess, and sometimes the lunch break, and recruit all the wall-standers, and aimless strollers, to join with the eager athletes, already tossing the pigskin around the yard. Father wouldn't allow you to sit-it-out. Even if you didn't like football, or even hockey, he had a way of coercing even the non-athletes, to participate in the sportsmanship of pick-up competition. In that mix were pacifists, the over and under weight, the jocks, and the thugs. Even the toughest, bulging eyed, ornery thug, was subtly diminished by Father, and put into a team structure where the group counted more than the individual.

      If there was any exceptional performances, it was based on athletic capabilities, smart play, and networking with other team-mates……such as handing off the ball to a faster runner. Father was a tough player himself, and he was always one of the team-mates……side by side some of the toughest, and meanest kids I'd ever known. The tough kids, who wanted to play with their fists on my face, went from dreading the arrival of Father Heffernan, with a football under his arm, to yelling at the church, if he wasn't on time; reminding him that we needed his direction to start the game. Father was clever in this way. He did this on purpose, to show us how a pick-up game, whatever it is, can bring a schoolyard together. Bullies, non-athletes, and jocks all on an equal basis, until that football was snapped. It was surprising how quickly the bullies out performed the more athletic students, and the kids who weren't too interested in sports, became sleeper-players, who could suddenly erupt with a startling, hurtling end-to-end run for a touchdown, or catch an over-the-shoulder pass for a major gain of yards downfield. Even when Father didn't show up, we knew what to do with spare time, and some open field. He was teaching us, you see, how to channel our energy into something that made more sense, than pummeling each other before class. He gave us a template and we copied his directions. It did make a difference, especially to me. I was a pretty good footballer, as I had played in an organized league in the Mountain Gardens neighborhood of Burlington. It's amazing how my profile changed. Some things took a little longer. Let me explain.

     I had made a mistake one day, in my early relationship with the school, and the town generally. It's not that I did anything wrong, and I don't have any regrets about my involvement, but it did change my life and opinion about school in perpetuity. I don't like going in schools. Yup, I've got some bad memories. Of this, I do have regrets, as I married a teacher, and I get asked to attend school events frequently.

     A chum of mine, from my neighborhood, was getting beat-up regularly by a band of thugs. They waited for the kid after school, and they were such craven cowards, that they travelled together as a pack. The ringleader didn't participate in the "hunt and detain" mission. He had henchmen for this operation. My friend would get separated from his other mates, who were also scared they would be drawn into the mob beatings, by defending the victim. I was walking across Memorial Park one afternoon, with this poor chap, and all of a sudden, we were swarmed by these toadies, who didn't want me…..but they most certainly intended on thrashing my mate. Now I may be scrappy with words, but I wasn't a great fighter. If I was given a chance to prepare, I could box my way out of a corner, but nothing that could parallel "Shane," and his ability to whip five or six guys in a saloon brawl. But the beating they administered on these kids at our school was always severe, at least in my opinion as a reluctant witness.

     As I stood back and watched in horror, as they gave the kid a savage barrage of fist and kicks to the stomach, I yelled at them, probably mentioning "a-holes" or something similar, and that they should stop hitting my friend. It was heartfelt, and held every value in my human condition, but it meant that the gang had its newest victim. They stopped beating my chum, and tore off across the park, in pursuit of the new kid to town…..who had dared insult the little irish gang leader, who thought he had a God-given right to terrorize students he didn't like. My outburst cost me weeks and weeks of beatings. In the school yard most of the time! He worked in a group of three but most often there were five in the party….which wasn't very festive for me. Two held me by the arms, usually against a wall, (out of sight of the teacher on duty), and the mobster would start punching me in the face. He was very precise about where he hit me. It was always on the jaw. Two shots to the left and two on the right side. He never asked for money, my lunch, or for me to do any favors. He wanted a human punching bag, and I was his until he got bored. He was a sick puppy, let me tell you, and it brought up a whole bunch of family issues, at a time when I could hardly open my mouth to eat or talk. My parents were old school. They strangely believed it was survival of the fittest, and I had to learn how to defend myself. I always resented this, by the way, and it is not how I raised my own boys.

     My mother and father were tough cookies, without a doubt. Merle was short but fearless. She came from a well off family in Toronto, but she had lots of siblings to wrestle with, and she grew up somewhat of a tom-boy, unafraid of using her dukes to prevail upon a bully…..often her sisters and chubby brother. My father was of Irish ancestry, and had survived the mean streets of Cabbagetown during the Depression, and then as a sailor in the famed North Atlantic Squadron of the Second World War, he was by immersion, and survival skills, a tough son of a bitch. My mother had no idea how many times my father's nose had been broken, even after they began dating, but I think once, he remarked, in conversation with a house guest, about the dozen shots to the beak, he had sustained over the years. Which by the way made it look like a golf ball on the end of a thumb. The problem was that they believed their only son had to be almost brutally tough to survive. So tough, that they kept telling me, when I came hope with a face black and blue, that I needed to defend myself, and raise my dukes against the school bullies. I didn't have much opportunity to explain, how it wasn't a one on one situation. I wasn't Shane. I was just a big eared kid, at a new school, scared out of my mind, that the next beating was going to kill me. Now in case you're wondering…., the only reason it continued was that Paul Duff was unaware what was going on. My attackers were clever to stay out of the main play area of the school. I can still see their rat faces, lusting after the visible fear the victims showed, before and during the assaults.

     There came a day, when my mother Merle had no choice but to talk with the principal, Neil Haight (now Father Haight), about the problems with the gang. He said he was unaware of the problem, but he wasn't surprised the boys named, would be involved. He told my mother to have me come to his office, on the very next occasion there was an assault. Well, it didn't take long. That next morning, I was grabbed, thrust against the wall, and the only difference with this attack, was that it was one of the toadies that got to hit me in the face……which I suppose was a reward for loyalty. This bloke made one mistake. It was hitting me on the end of the nose. It really hurt. So I did what my mother would have done. I let go a field-goal weighted boot to his privates, dropping him like an anchor onto the tarmac. Guess what? Of all the blows that had been administered by the gang, the only one witnessed by a teacher, was my kick to his groin. I was physically hauled into the office to get the strap. At least that's what I assumed happened in there. But going through my mind at that time, was that I had earned the strap, fair and square. I was so mad I wouldn't feel a thing. The good news is that Mr. Haight was aware that I was going to be fighting back against my assailants. Merle had told him as much. The short version of this story, is that the gang was punished, my mates and I were set free at last, to play and walk home without being beaten up.

     It was at this time, that Father Heffernan was bringing us all together, for games of football. The newly disciplined gang was brought into the school yard games, and imagine this…….we were playing on the same team, and handing off to one another, in order to get a touchdown for the good guys. What a transition from adversaries to team-mates. Father Heffernan knew it would work. He was clearly aware of the problems of the school yard bullies, and he also knew how positive it could be, to expend all this surplus energy as recreation. He took away the pent-up frustration and anger, that gave these bullies the reason and power to be asses. He showed all of us, what it would mean on a grid-iron, when the bad guys and the pacifists, were on the same squad, with the same mission; to put points on the scoreboard. What Neil Haight had accomplished by administrative protocol, with what Father Heffernan set straight outside, on the playing field, meant an end to bullying for the rest of my public school days. God bless those men. I have to tell you, I was at the end of my tether, and I was ready to ditch school altogether, if the beatings had continued. When I hear this issues today, well, I take them seriously. When my kids were bullied, at the same school as I attended, I made an exception about my dislike for schools, and marched into the principles office, to nip it in the bud. It's a proactive solution that's needed, and unfortunately, even in our town, there are too few Shanes to go around……and Father Heffernan isn't organizing recess football anymore.

     If you suspect there is bullying going on…..with your kids or grandkids or the kid next door, then step up to the plate, and get them some help. Someone getting involved, saved my life.