Blog - April 2008
Confessional of an antique dealer and the lure of the great outdoors
I don't imagine that there are too many people right now, in this neighborhood or in yours, wishing as a first and only.... one to-be-granted request, to be immersed in the misty heart of a spring awakening woodlands, and that the only intrusion be the occasional winged creature, large or small, beating its path across your line of vision....or the soothing wash of the hundreds of little waterfalls that sound in unison, dropping the little creek at my feet many levels on the black snaking path toward the lake. Oh, there are probably a few folks who would like to push away from the office grind, pull away from the business community, the chores of the day, to stand here with the writer in his field, and admire what the good earth is all about. But it's a pretty small number of souls of all those in peril, and we wouldn't have any problem fitting in the eager "takers" on a pretty small knoll situated above the bog. Most would prefer a day at the spa if it came down to an "either-or", versus getting soakers treking through this lowland looking for tadpoles and newly emerging wildflower blooms.
It is so beautifully sun-bathed here now, the wetland and wooded hillside being washed in a most soothing, restorative sunlight, the buds on trees and sundry other shrubs by the trillions, are all in the throes of passionate rebirth....meeting sun and sky and heavens above with great expectation of the rains to come later, nourishing the blooms of mid May and full boughs of early summer when this sunscape will be shadowy and cool in the afternoon heat.
When I began working in the antique trade I was very much inspired by farm culture, pioneer ways and means, and open spaces where the collector/researcher could roam old homesteads and forgotten graveyards of which there are many dotted across the countryside.....one day to be disturbed unceremoniously by the urban developer's bulldozing brigade, stretching the cityscape where once farms and cultivated fields wavered in the misty morning light of its own fading history.
As a young antique collector/dealer, I never missed a farm auction and any sale outside the urban area of Bracebridge, Ontario. The exception was the occasional estate sale in town where there were plenty of antiques and provenance to the old days, old families, who founded the mid-Muskoka community. My greatest joy was to hunker down against an old gnarled maple, affording a soft landing place below and the shade against the summer sun, to watch a good old fashioned auction sale unfold. I lost a lot of girlfriends in the early going because this wasn't their idea of fun on a Saturday. True it was shopping but not the kind they held near and dear. To me it was heaven on earth because I was immersed in the natural day.....no hall with electric lighting for me - and I could watch and bid on important pieces of our heritage in natural comfort. I never once got bored watching a country auction. I used to write a column for the local press about auctioneering with advice on how to get the most for the least, the best and authentic antiques, and how to avoid breaking the bank and still get desired pieces. I wrote a lot of copy in my head sitting there on that clump of soft grass with a contoured shade tree at my back. While some of the great writers in history sat in cafes in Paris, and in tiny cottages on bluffs above the raging sea, I wrote with a tree at my back and the scent of spring lilacs permeating the air.
I said to my wife just the other day....(Suzanne has come to a thousand auctions and even admits to enjoying several) that I would love to throw-back to that golden era of antique questing.....and put ourselves back in the country scheme of things the way it always was..... As some of the great old auctioneers passed on or retired, the new brand of caller is enamoured by indoor sales and the total reduction of job-lots, which was always my favorite auction purchase......ten or so boxes of goodies being sold as one lot in the essence of time.....and the stuff yet to auction off. I got some of my best finds this way. But it was the country air, the feeling of open spaces, of history, of the pioneering spirit, that attracted us to these farm and estate auctions. We adored being able to wander throught the wildflowers in the left-fallow pastures, and bask in the sun on a meadow incline in between items we intended to bid on....watching our wee lads make little straw boats to float in battle upon the overgrown farm pond.
I suppose it is at the pioneer's expense, the more recent farm owner's demise or default that we are enjoying ourselves, and believe me I don't like the thought of that possibility......because of course we'd rather see these beautiful country estates and sprawling farms survive another century......but it would be fiction to believe this. Many old homesteads I attended for those concluding auctions decades ago, are now a memory in the criss-crossing of subdivision lanes and tennis court fencing.....somewhere under the swimming pool is a remnant of the root of the old maple tree I once used as a backrest.....ah, that's the change that hurts the soul.
My heritage as an antique dealer has always been with the outdoors.....and by insistence I expect it always will be.....and in my collection at any one time you will see this reflected by the many landscape paintings, the folk art, the treen ware that reminds me daily of the importance of nature in all our lives all of the time......despite the fact admittedly, only a few folks, at this precise moment in time, would care to jaunt through these haunted woods, at the expense of a dollar lost being non-productive in the new century order.
Whenever I feel weak of soul and lagging in spirit, and my body feels particularly urban-drained, and my inspiration low, a retreat to the woodlands here at Birch Hollow, restores good faith nature hasn't abandoned us......though it can be said with some accuracy, we have most definitely neglected a history-imprinted partnership. I could never turn my back on a friend. I might even take root here, standing for the better part of this morning, admiring the honest, pure pleasure of our natural places.

Muskoka Blog-site
I have been consumed, this long-long-long winter season, by the work of American writer/ philosopher, Henry David Thoreau, and I've spent many hours by this cedar-fueled, crackling hearth, reading about his stay at the humble cabin he built at Walden Pond. I agree with most of his reasoning for retreating from the often mindless hustle and complicated economy of his modern world, which was pioneer by all standard...but I've always pondered why he left after only a modest stay in paradise. My downfall would surely be the outright refusal to abandon what offered me enlightenment and such natural joy. No, I couldn't leave voluntarily. Unless I was real hungry.
My son and I trundled through The Bog, across from our home at Birch Hollow earlier today, taking some more photographs to include with this "Muskoka Blog," and there are times when I can visualize Thoreau himself wandering this spring rejuvenated landscape, getting some soulful inspiration watching frost melt free of the myriad new buds glistening on a trillion little branches reaching hardily toward the sunlight.....and the frothing little creeks that criss cross in black veins across the hollow. I can find numerous places where one might find a Thoreauesque cabin, such as upon the level shelf overlooking the main basin of this Bogland, where he most assuredly would have been afforded a decent view, for all seasons, of the comings and goings, the evolution, and adaptations of this wild place so close to the hubbub of daily activity in our small community. Thoreau wasn't particularly isolated in his cabin at Walden, and it is said his family made sure he was kept in fresh baking and supplies, such that he wouldn't die of starvation.....and only be mildly affected by loneliness.
What draws me to Thoreau is the same characterisitic that attracts me to the work of Canadian artists like Tom Thomson and the legendary Group of Seven. I know I'm missing the profound and important messages of natural life that I might pick up by osmosis, living in a cabin like Thoreau's, and I'm pretty sure I would find a myriad sparks of inspiration, canoeing an Algonquin waterway, as did Tom Thomson on his painting expeditions into the deep and storied lakeland once long ago.
As a career writer, it is my one lingering dissatisifaction with my own work. Staying connected with the wilderness, and learning from it, and being nurtured by what occurs naturally..... not artificially which is the polluted and intoxicating reality of a majority of functions in my so called civilized world.
I want to re-connect with the hinterland. It's the commencement of my life's last significant mission. As a long time writer and researcher, historian and author, I simply can't leave this mortal coil without a much clearer knowledge, about the lifeline modern civilization has abandoned....and wishes to find again.....and if we are to save the planet, and ourselves, we'd better find it soon. I think Thoreau gave us the reason to quest for a better, more natural existence.....a simpler plan, a lesser expectation of mortality to be a greater player in the natural order than intended.......just a respectable, considerate, conscience componet in the cycle of life. Nothing more, nothing less. Our zeal for progress has in so many ways enhanced our lives, and in so many others, been a history of civilizations self-strangulation.
Join me for adventures in the hinterland, with influences of mentors, Thoreau and Tom Thomson, two sources of inspiration who have never let me down.

Newspaper days were good, blogging is better
I have been writing an editor's retrospective feature column for the past few months, for a swell publication in Ontario, known as "Curious: The Tourist Guide." It's about my days working in the editorial department of a weekly newspaper formerly known as The Herald-Gazette, in Bracebridge, Ontario. I began as a cub reporter at a sister publication known as the Georgian-Bay/Muskoka Lakes Beacon, then published from the community of MacTier, south of Parry Sound. In the early 1980's I moved over to the news editor's position of the Herald-Gazette, and then on to full editorship, which included management positions with The Muskoka Advance, and The Muskoka Sun, a popular summer time publication.
From 1979 to 1989 belonging to Muskoka Publications here in the hinterland was a dream come true. After graduating from York University my girlfriend at the time wanted me to accept a job in the Toronto area. I couldn't do it! I came home to Muskoka, opened up my first antique shop in Bracebridge, known as Old Mill, and as most collectable dealers need, I looked for a supporting job to cover my extravagances.
I worked at these publications until management decided my irreverance and failure to worship them with full heart and soul, meant I was no longer committed to editorial excellence. Well as you may detect sarcasm, it was true that I was irreverent to a fault and I offer no apology. I just didn't agree with their management decisions and I simply couldn't deal with the way I was being minimized as a writer. I was a journeyman writer who could compose a story quickly, efficiently, accurately and responsibly.....and that guaranteed the publisher wasn't going to face a lawsuit because of my reporting shortfalls. As for editiorial excellence, well, very few of us can be excellent about our tasks all the time but whenever I was putting material together for public consumption, I didn't cut corners or offer-up crappy copy. They had changes they wanted to implement and they knew, rightly so, that I wasn't going to be shaped by anyone or any wild and whacky editorial scheme they thought would be the next money maker. I wasn't adverse to negotation but I didn't dance on command.
My years at the helm of The Herald-Gazette was a cherished time.....I loved to go to work and the fact I had some fine colleagues who mentored me constantly with sage advice, it was better than having spent tens of thousands of dollars in a university journalism course......this was immersion at its most precarious. Every word we put out there to the public could have meant a lawsuit, a firing, a reprimand.....and statements from the publisher like, "you'll never work in this business again." Being responsible and honest about the job was manatory if you wanted to stick around. One miscue was all it took to be dumped. I had an amazing ten years in the day to day operation of a community newspaper and for the most part it was a hoot. Even the difficult moments with management non-confidence, and incredibly draining press nights into the wee hours, political run-arounds and smoke and mirror games with news sources, we never hoisted those frosty mugs of draft at the local watering-hole, (after the paper was put to bed), that we didn't feel it was all worth the battlefield of hassle.
When I was unceremoniously forced from the paper with a drastic reduction of hours, which I assume they knew would force me to seek employment elsewhere, I lobbed myself unceremoniously over to the competing publication, which ended badly a half year later. All my mates knew it would and so did I frankly but it was still worth a try for experience's sake. For a number of years I reverted to my old standby, as an antique dealer, and we ran a successful small shop on upper Manitoba Street, in Bracebridge, with my business partner-bride Suzanne. This new antique business was called Birch Hollow which we still operate online today. This is when I began writing a freelance piece (I didn't ask for any remuneration) in the Muskoka Advance, a weekly Sunday paper, called "Sketches of Historic Muskoka." Following this was a huge and prolific period of demand when I was researching and writing features for The Muskoka Sun each winter from first snowfall to first lilac bloom. I wasn't doing it for the money. I just enjoyed writing and selling antiques. Not very complicated. I needed my antique business for profit but writing was for the good of a thriving soul. Eventually however, management decided to impose a few controls on this seasoned, gnarled, curmudgeon of a writer, and I said, well, stuff it! I had no shortage of publications that wanted my contributions but I determined in this universe-reaching new century that it was time to make my antique obsession turn over an occasional profit. It's a problem of all dealers.....we like to spend and that doesn't always balance with what we earn....but we're surrounded by a lot of neat old stuff with potential.
I remember telling a boss once, in a heated debate, that I didn't take the editor's job because of any prestige, or for that matter because it offered a great wage. It sucked. I was in it because of writing, and even as editor, to fill the big hulking white spaces between the ads I composed seven to ten articles and more each week. It was a co-operative newsroom task that by by necessity demanded lots of editorial submissions. The ads were coming and the writing requirements were growing proportionally.... and then there was the fact I simply loved my job, and writing was like a paying hobby. I've had a lot of publishers and managerial overseers snear at this comment, when I'd tell them quite bluntly....."you think I put up with you guys just for the meagre beer money stipend?"
I was thrilled to be able to spend a day writing. Just writing. No distractions, no banging-door meetings, no intrusions.....just writing. It has taken many decades to finally attain a solitude for writing. Back then there were always intrusions, always distractions, and there weren't many days when management could find calm satisfaction without a couple of lively meetings to trim up the troops. I loved it when they tried to motivate us! We were self-motivating period.
When we closed our antique shop in Bracebridge in the mid 1990's, moving it to our Gravenhurst home, and I began a different approach to writing, having a much higher standard of who I'd work with and for, my home office with computer became a nurturing, resource laden, inspiration oozing paradise. I could write for hours on end and never have one urgent request for my attendance at a disciplinary meeting. I was able to run my antique business on-line and world wide, and my writing enterprise, geez, I was free at last. I could write at any time of the day or night and not have calls and frequent, annoying raps on my door intrude upon the story-line. Sure there was the household din sometimes, because I was a Mister Mum to my two lads Andrew and Robert (looked after them while my wife went back to her teaching job), yet surprisingly, I seemed to write more and better with the voices of the lads playing in the other rooms. They play guitars now and have a music store here in Gravenhurst......their replacement noise being the play of three cats and a dog, snoring, growling, shreiking with the timely interuption. maybe an occasional nuzzle, when they've determined its feeding time at the zoo. I miss the boys but these critters are good company. It's sort of a passive news room.....they don't bark commands and get in my face, or bloody hell, ask me to take a used car photo for the advertising department.
I don't think I could ever go back to that time in my life, where I had to listen to my fetters, tell me how to write. Since I began writing in the mid 1970's as a struggling poet at York University, I have never had a period when I couldn't find a willing publication or media outlet interested in a freelance piece, and to this point in my life, it's pretty much the same although everyone around here notes I'm spending a lot more time in the antique field than with writing. With the opportunity to "blog-at-will" it has opened up a lot of doors, not just for me but for many other proficient and talented writers wishing to express themselves without the whining and nattering of publishers....worried about losing ads and readers because of a controversial stand.....the side taken on a political debate.....the impact it might have in social situations. I got pretty sick of the "good time was had by all" approach to journalism, and it pretty much created the conditions for my diminished position at the paper. I haven't been fired yet from this blog site. I'm pretty buzzed about that!
You know it goes back to childhood, this problem with bullies as bosses. Shortly after we arrived in town, moving north from Burlington, Ontario, I was just delighted to receive a warm and welcoming invitation to join the rank and file of the Bracebridge Cubs, and I was working on my first badges of accomplishment. I didn't have my uniform yet but for this one evening get-together, my mother insisted on buying me a brand new dress shirt and church pants as we used to call them....just to look mildly dapper and respective of club standards. We weren't rich folks and I didn't get a lot of new clothes so I was pretty proud of my attire. Mid way through the evening it was recreation time, and we were told the group would be playing British Bulldog....which was pretty dumb considering the number of kids and the small size of the Scout Hall. We'd run back and forth and attempt to avoid being tagged. Some of the touches were a tad heavy I noticed, to the point a few kids were falling into the wall. I was pretty good at the game and lasted until there were only several players left. I made my foray across and a kid grabbed me by the collar and ripped the whole back out of the shirt. There was even a lengthy red, multi finger claw mark, down about six or seven inches on my shoulder. Some of the other lads had similar wounds that needed tending, and outfits showing the rigors of rough play.
I went to the leader and said, "Hey, look what that guy did to my shirt?" "So?," was the limit of his sympathy. "Well, he's going to buy me another shirt," I retorted with a half Irish-Dutch demeanour, dragon-like by any other description. "Buzz off kid," said the leader. What happened next would have impressed that white attired, gun slinging cowboy, "Shane"....although I never hit anyone or pulled a gun.....well sir, I told him about his "skunky" attitude (it was the 1960's), and suggested that he was a pretty poor excuse for a leader......and that yes, he would be dipping into his retirement funds to buy me a new shirt. This isn't intended to discount the good work of the Cub Scout movement, just to suggest that at this time, the leader was a jerk.
My father later let the chap know he should have had more sense that to promote rugby rules in a game of indoor British Bulldog....but I don't think I ever got money for a new shirt. My mother just fixed it the best she could and life went on pretty much as it had before the incident. The Cub leader tried to be my good buddy for the next thirty odd years, especially when he'd try to sell me on writing a promo for his failing business...... but I never forgot that shabby treatment he bestowed on a trusting kid.
Guess it sums up my attitude today. There are still certain names from the former publishing business that are not to be spoken in our homestead..... and that's my right. But I don't let it become an entanglement.....in fact, if I do inadvertently think about some of these folks at all, it's because I always write better when I'm madly gnashing my teeth.....I'm a beggar for punishment but it works, it works! You wouldn't believe the huge volume of manuscripts penned in anger. Surprisingly, they don't read as angry and vengeful as I felt at time of penning!
We all have our markers from the past that make us cringe, send fear and trembling through our hearts, and yet make us appreciate how far we've come, to become so pleasantly, successfully independent.
When my son Robert, who helps me polish and then publish this blog, asked me bluntly how I feel about blogging versus writing for a publication.....I said "Well, that's easy......liberated." It does take a while to get used to, so for comfort's sake I often write while imagining a former boss hovering over my shoulder, trying to read my copy......to make helpful, "I know better than you," additions and deletions...."to make the story more suitable to our readers." It's kind of like hitting your hand with a hammer because it feels damn good when you stop.
Thanks for joining me on this most recent blog submission.