IN THE WAKE OF DISASTER, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FEEL?

It’s hard to sit here at Birch Hollow, these days, without fidgeting all over the place, reaching for the remote for the television, or the control knob of the radio, to get the latest news updates on world tragedies unfolding. It is almost impossible to enjoy this wonderful scene, unfolding in my yard, and across the lane, where spring is settling so warmly and brightly upon the landscape.....without thinking about the nuclear disaster in Japan, and the radiation that might soon touch over these boglands, and contaminate our seasonal flowers in the gardens we built last spring. I have never been one to succumb to doom and gloom, and as a die-hard realist, it’s always prevailed upon me to live with truth, and cast off all the fiction that attaches itself to interpretations.

With this manic need to divest myself of embellishment, and void my thought process of the wonders of fairy dust, and magic beans, to cure what ails us, I have most definitely invited the universe to weigh heavily upon my soul. So that despite the naysayers and assorted vested-interest experts, who assure me that radiation won’t intrude upon the nature of the land......I will sit here calmly, but tuned-in, appreciating the realities I expect......and the need to break free of the falsehoods coming from those who wish only to minimize and de-stress what is known of actuality.

I am a happy and contented writer. I am an eternal optimist. I have been all my life. In fact, I come from a long line of optimists. Of this I am pleased at my lot in life. There is however, a time, in even the optimist’s life, when anticipation and worry can’t be quelled or removed by honesty or the purity of actuality. Sometimes fiction does seem to be the best choice for what ails me. I can’t imagine writing much at all, of an upbeat nature, if I was told bluntly, by an informed source, that the hinterland of our beautiful country, had been contaminated by one of the most deadly forms of man-made pollution.

What can one write about then......other than to adjust to the new normal.....and that we might all be consumed with reality with no buffer or privilege of fiction......no matter how badly we long for escape. We will be forced to deal with that inconvenient truth.....from a half a world away.

A PERFECT TIME FOR THE LIBERATION OF WRITER IN RESIDENCE

There’s an election coming. I think. Time to escape. Out into the great hinterland of Muskoka......out into the still snowy woods I’ve been admiring for months from my office window.

I can’t stand elections. I hate rhetoric and self-serving spin, and seeing as this makes up most of the content of advertising and speeches, working around the property for the next five weeks seems a good idea. Not to avoid my civic responsibility or anything. Just to sidestep the b.s. I know how I’ll be voting and it won’t be the result of an attack ad, or a story spinner working in the back room as a speech-writer. I think I’ll go and cut some wood before I get mad thinking about the way democracy facilitates fiction.......because surely we know what spin means? A tasteful and strategic manipulation of truth for gain.

Last fall I took down about twenty trees on our property, and each cut hurt like hell. All these trees were planted by me, back when we first arrived at Birch Hollow, and we had nothing but a sandy brown lawn, a few boulders for decoration, and a tiny scraggly woodlot in the side yard. I wanted trees. Lots of trees. I just forgot about things like “roots wrapping around sewer and gas lines,” and “vegetation from those trees growing on my shingles,” and “no light getting through for my partner’s flower gardens.” So I had to cull what I had sown, and it was a miserable harvest. I could almost hear them cry when I had to axe them to the ground. While I felt terrible removing those wonderful little maples, some brought from the Village of Windermere, where we had a family cottage, it did create more light for gardens this year, remove the threat of sewer line strangulation, and potentially save us from a gas line rupture. Roots can do that kind of thing. I just didn’t know it when I planted them in clusters, not far from gas line arteries.

This spring I’ve got a monstrous job cutting up the trees I cast onto a large pile in the sideyard last November. It will take about a month I’m sure, to tidy up. It hopefully will take the whole period of the federal election campaign. When I come in, I’ll be too tired to pay any attention to their barrage of advertisements, and I won’t even make it to the late evening news, before passing out from exhaustion. I’ve got those trees to trim, you see, and gardens to brighten this spring, and can blame all this handyman stuff, for not paying attention to the folly of political candidates......and unless they want to come and lend a hand here at Birch Hollow, I’ll just vote based on knowledge, not on the quality of spin foisted upon the masses.

I’m actually glad I set myself up for all this yard work. It will be so much more pleasant than watching candidates climbing all over themselves to get their message out. I’m staying out, and it’ll be great! Sure, there will be a few pesky candidates wandering through the neighborhood but they’ll probably stay clear of the axeman, rigorously chopping away in this own dimension of real and honest work.

No spin required. No spin wanted!

SITTING BY THE WINDOW, WATCHING, ENJOYING, BUT WRITING LITTLE

I have just enjoyed a wonderful week’s vacation at home. While many of my contemporaries were hustling all over the planet for the March Break holiday, Suzanne and I stayed home. Well, it’s not as boring as it may read initially. Afterall, we live in Ontario’s beautiful lakeland, and there are thousands of people every year, who endure long drives and heavy traffic to get here.....and well, we don’t have to travel far to enjoy the hinterland benefits.

The only things that got in the way of a thoroughly relaxing week, was world news of earthquakes, tsunamis, radiation leaks, unrest in the Middle East and rumours of a pending federal election here in Canada. Suzanne has always been somewhat burdened by my “need to know” stuff. Not that she’s void of interest in world events, or in upgrading her knowledge, but being married to an old reporter who still thinks he’s working the front-lines, means a constant din and clutter of news related sounds and publications here at the otherwise calm Birch Hollow.

It has been quite difficult to come up with blog entries recently, because the news has been so tragic and depressing. Even watching out over The Bog, our neighborhood wetland, has been less invigorating some days. Calming yes. Just not the kind of motivation this place provides the hungry writer. I have found myself sitting at this desk, for more than an hour at a time, just watching the birds and squirrels around the feeder on the deck, and studying the traffic down our lane. The world events, the devastation in Japan, particularly the escalation of radiation issues, have certainly made me appreciate more astutely, how precarious our survival is, much of it due to our own handiwork.

I love this view from here, and I know that in short order, I will find more to be optimistic about, and feel more compelled to write these blogs. In the meantime, I will just follow the news and hope for the best. And sit with the cats and old dog here at Birch Hollow, looking out at a fascinating lakeland, in the spectacular early days of spring.

GROWING UP POOR MADE US RESOURCEFUL - SMALL IMPROVEMENTS WERE ENORMOUS IN MY EYES - A GOLD BIKE, A CHEAP BALL GLOVE AND A MULTI-COLORED COAT FOR HALF PRICE

I knew our family was poor. All my chums were from families of modest income, most of them a little better off than us. We were a family of three, living in a two bedroom apartment, up on Alice Street, in Bracebridge, back in the 1960's, and my associates all lived in their own homes. They never held this as a social / economic thing because when it came right down to it, while their families owned homes, they didn’t have oodles of money either, or live extravagantly. These blokes had holes in their runners like me, and got wardrobe changes every August before school started. Maybe socks and underwear at Christmas. For hockey sticks we used ones found at the arena, that were usually broken, and we scavenged baseball bats from the garbage bin at Jubilee Park. I bought a new baseball glove from Bamfords’ Variety Store, up on Toronto Street, as a birthday gift from money given to me, and all my chums had hand-me-down gear that had belonged to older brothers and sisters. No one had much money, other than for corner store treats, and we got those funds from hunting down pop bottle empties and cashing them in for black balls and chewing gum.

My parents, Merle and Ed were good providers but their wages weren’t enough to escape the renter’s way of life. We had to settle for paying off someone else’s mortgage, someone else’s trip to Texas every winter. We just couldn’t seem to get ahead. We weren’t any different then than millions of other folks, who by circumstance, just couldn’t elevate much beyond cheque to cheque living. But I was good with what we had, and even at Christmas, I was contented with a new hockey stick, a couple of pucks, some mitts and a game board. Merle always apologized for not being able to afford more things for me, but I seldom if ever asked. I contented myself by playing outdoors, and used every resource available, for day to day entertainment.

I know that the social stigma of being broke bothered my parents way more than it did me. I remember in high school, being able to afford a neat multi-colored, mod-style fabric coat. I think it was twenty bucks. We used the order office of both Eatons and Sears a lot. I imagined myself looking very dapper in this new coat. Funny how I didn’t notice others wearing the same style of coat before I sent in the order. It was like we all belonged to some club, and should have had an emblem or patch on the front that identified us as “The Boys of Knute” or something like that. It seems a lot of folks were bargain hunting that spring, and it showed. When I told my wife this story, she smiled and said, “you mean the coat of so many colors?” “Are you telling me you remember that coat after all these years? We weren’t even dating then?” I asked. “When we came on the bus, we’d often pass you walking to school.....and there was no mistaking your nearly florescent jacket. Everybody on the bus knew it was you.” Great. Nothing like history to improve your lagging self image.

My mother was very proud and didn’t like to admit we were always a hair’s breadth away from financial disaster, at just about every moment. It affected her health and she suffered from high blood pressure from her early forties. Ed was a difficult guy to live with, and he liked to imbibe, and although a million miles from the story of Angela’s Ashes, he had, in his youth, lived very much a tragic life with an alcoholic Irish father, who abandoned four kids and a wife. Ed would quit his job in a heartbeat, if a manager got too cocky, but he always bounced back, and usually made it to a managerial position within several months. With a good knowledge of the lumber industry, he’d quickly show his prowess with customers, on the respective sales desks of a number of regional lumber companies. He was excellent at this job. But the wages were still low and even with both my parents working, it just wasn’t enough to....let’s say, put down enough to get a mortgage, let alone a cottage, which Ed’s bosses all had. We all had inner struggles with jealousy. It would be stupid to deny this. For example, I was jealous of my friends who all had neat bikes. I went for a long time without, and when they decided to go biking, I stood and watched their silhouettes disappear over the horizon. When one of the lads got a new bike for his birthday, he offered me his old one for five dollars. I had enough to swing the deal but it took breaking into my Christmas fund for a selfish, self-serving purpose. So I bought the most rickety, spokeless, wobbly, rusted piece of junk you’d ever seen. When my dad saw it he was moved to action. He took me immediately to the hardware store for spray paint.....no kid of his was going to be seen on a bike that looked so bad. I picked out gold paint and let me tell you, it didn’t do anything to improve the looks of the two wheeler. In fact, like my multi colored coat I told you about, the old bike just stood out more, and even seemed to glow when nightfall arrived. At least I got to keep up with my chums. Well, not keep up as much as tag along, which was fine. It was better to wobble in last place than remain behind.

Eventually my dad couldn’t stand to see this golden wreck beneath his proud son. So he gave Merle ten bucks to invest, on my behalf, as a downpayment on a nifty green bike, with a banana seat, from Ecclestones Hardware, on Manitoba Street. The bike was thirty-five dollars, and Butch Ecclestone, a dear man if ever there was one, let me take it home then and there, as long as I promised to come in every week with a small payment. It was a bumper season that year for lawn mowing, up at the Alice Street apartment, so the bike was paid off before the end of that summer. It was a metallic green and a joy to ride. I could not only keep up with my buddies but pass them. The only problem was, and it always seemed to be a color related issue with me, but during our neighborhood devilry, all the neighbors could identify me.....to my parents or the fuzz, as “you know, the kid with that snot-green bike!” I bet the shipping tag on that new bike didn’t identify it as being “snot green.” I wouldn’t have bought it then. So I apparently have always been identifiable by the color I attach to myself.

I loved living up at the Alice Street apartments because we were all in the same boat financially, and I’m pretty sure it was discussed, during those summer evening vigils out on the lawn, escaping the terrible humidity trapped in the apartments. But no one seemed to feel downtrodden,..... just living day to day without abundant resources. If you bought a new lawn chair you were living on the wild side. Two lawn chairs and you were getting ready to move on from Alice Street. There was a comradery in that apartment complex, and a sharing of what resources were most bountiful. Food and condiment sharing was a vigorous trade, and you seldom got through a dinner without someone poking their head in the kitchen door, begging a cup of milk, flour, sugar or a container of mustard. We gave what we had. We knew that whoever we loaned the items to, would be there for us, when we needed groceries but were cash restrained. I didn’t see anything wrong with this kind of financial modesty. We helped one another. When one car didn’t start in the morning, there was always a partnering in the very next vehicle that did start. I had a dozen parents in that building. Merle and Ed could ask neighbors if they’d seen me recently, and although the questions might have had to ricochet around the complex, someone as sure as pumpkin makes pie, knew where to find me ninety percent of the time. And yes it helped having a glow in the dark, gold bike, then a snot-green one, and later, a multi-colored coat......the only one in our neighborhood.

By all definition we were poor then. I knew it but for some reason, I found strength in being resourceful as a result of being poor. I had more patches on my pants and shoes than original fabric. The souls of my shoes used to flap in a strange, almost musical cadence, that simply eliminated having dry feet on wet days, or sneaking up on my friends....or enemies. When they couldn’t be held any longer by glue or tape, and I’d be suffering obvious skinned knees from the frequent falls, Merle would insist on getting me a new pair. Not PF Flyers but whatever shoe was on sale at Stedmans or the Economy Store. It didn’t matter to me. I held no stock in flashy shoes but I certainly liked ones that kept my feet dry. I used to run a lot so the not-tripping thing was pretty good as well.

I can remember at baseball, some of the kids, and even the coach, laughing at my cheap ball glove. I knew it was cheaply made every time I caught a ball. It had thin layer of leather and some felt I think under that, and a fabric covering. But basically it was my skin and bones stopping the fastball. The fastball was smaller than the softball most of the younger teams played with. Some of our players could really move that ball along, and all I could do was grimace and turn the frown upside down. As the coach would have liked me to admit, even the pop-ups into the outfield, hurt like hell, if I didn’t catch them in the small webbing of the tiny mitt. It was all I had and my parents couldn’t afford anything better. I think I did feel disadvantaged about this situation, yet I made some incredible catches with that corner store purchase. I got so used to it, that even when I got extra money, I felt it would be unlucky to abandon an old and very worn-out accessory. I probably used that glove into my late teens, and everybody took a shot at making fun of it. Then I’d make a diving catch and they’d be absolutely spellbound how I could have hung onto the ball with such a poor quality glove.

I did the same in hockey, with woefully inadequate equipment. I couldn’t afford goalie skates until my Midget years. Truth is, until it was ruled illegal, I used my baseball glove, with a special protective sleeve taped on, for a couple of seasons. The league didn’t have a lot of surplus equipment to loan out, and I had to settle for what no one else wanted. The pads for my legs were terribly thin and for years I played without arm pads. Until that is, I came home after one game with huge bruises on my arms from slapshots I’d stopped. I didn’t get a lot of rebounds off flesh and bone, I’ll tell you....just a searing pain and tears in the eye. I wanted to play so badly that I was glad to compromise. After nearly breaking my toes, on each foot, the coach finally insisted that I had to have proper goalie skates for insurance purposes. In my pre-juvenile year I was able to buy all new goalie equipment from money I’d made at a summer job.

It’s funny now when I think back on those days. It’s not that we’re wealthy today but infinitely better off than Merle and Ed were in the 1960's, living up there on Alice Street. As young parents ourselves, Suzanne and I did have some painfully lean years trying to afford a new house, a broken car, debt to the eyeballs, and raising two young lads. And we raised the boys with a keen understanding of what being resourceful is all about. Suzanne, who originally trained as a home economics teacher, which later became “family studies,” could make up a soup or stew from just about anything, and kept us well fed through some pretty tough economic times. The boys are still pretty resourceful running their vintage music business, here in Gravenhurst. I can’t tell you how many old guitars, they got cheaply, were fixed up and passed onto young folks and old, who wanted “something affordable.” I know where they were coming from. Settling for less isn’t so bad, even if it’s a wobbly gold bike, a ball glove with a capable hand within, and a multi-colored bargain coat that kept me warm and dry regardless.

I may have been poor but it never stopped me from enjoying each and every day.

JUST ONE MORE BURDEN TO HAUL DOWN LIFE’S HIGHWAY

The headline in today’s weekly newspaper, seared like a branding iron on my chest. Our town council has pared down this year’s tax hike to 8.9 percent. I’m pretty sure most readers of this headline, would have reacted the same as I did.......reading the article twice to make sure it wasn’t a typo, before screaming out loud, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more.”

It wasn’t a typo. It was the new reality of a new council. And I had such high hopes!

My disconnect with them, is that they undoubtedly think they did a terrific job, slashing the initial “committee grab” for money, by a whopping five percent. Five percent isn’t whopping by the way. I was being sarcastic. I’m thinking otherwise, that they did a crappy job. And it’s not over yet either. It might be higher. There’s still some begging going on, so I’m expecting more searing news from town hall in the near future..

The problem is a simple one. The previous council, while warned by ratepayers, went on a spending spree that involved opening a new town hall, giving the old hall to the local fire department, taking federal money to build a new pool / recreation complex, (but having to do it on short notice, or risk losing out), with the belief that we would be, on the bankable side, gaining all kinds of new development that would increase the tax base. Well, that hasn’t quite happened just yet, because there was this recession that blew in from the south.

The problem is that our town is going through some major economic changes, and the main street has suffered from the development of new commercial pods.....and from those inevitable changes of fortune every main street, in North America, has faced in recent history. But complicating this is the fact we spent too much, as a municipality, for too long, and now we’re having to face, on one hand, departmental cutbacks, and on the other, an 8.9 percent, or higher tax increase. Those on fixed incomes are facing a tough road ahead, and I’m not satisfied town council appreciates just how this, and the layering-on of other fiscal pressures, are creating some serious social /economic problems in our midst. Much of this collateral damage of the citizenry, is going to be heaped onto social services and to the local Food Bank, so generously operated by the Salvation Army. While some folks debate the value of a trolley, to connect the commercial pods with the mainstreet, I’m pretty sure that if it requires an increase in the tax rate for 2011, we’ll have our own home-grown rebellion foisted upon town hall.

What is offensive, is that council is not stating the obvious......that the debt and spending activities that got us into the 8.9 percent tax number, is the handiwork of a past council. While I do expect the present, new and hopefully improved council, is trying to deal with crisis-financing, to please committee chairs, they need to explain clearly to the citizens, who will have to haul this tax burden into the future, just how poor the previous governance was on towing the line.

In the case of our brand new pool / recreation complex, the money came from a federal source?, and was hinged on a hurry-up plan that demanded adherence to strict time-lines. What it did was create a panic to get gears in motion. Important stuff, like a high water table, apparently didn’t adhere to the strict time protocol. How dare it be there....in the way of progress! Nothing at all should have been fast-tracked just to snag the offering of instant cash. What have we all been told about temptation, and reasons we should be wary of anything too good to be true? While to many in this community, and I am in the minority, not accepting the money offer, for a long dreamed-of pool, would have been a blasphemous act. Downright “anti-hometown!” Yet if I’m not mistaken, the Lake of Bays turned down money to construct a large warehouse-type facility, to be erected in the municipality, for some use by the G-8, that was graciously declined by council. I think it might have become a central Muskoka archives, although I stand to be corrected. At the time, councillors could not support acquiring a new building, and then being responsible for its maintenance and operation evermore. Turning down money seemed a terrible thing to do. But not really. They knew what they could afford in the future, based on their ability to fairly tax constituents. We could have survived several more years without a new pool, and found or raised funds required to build exactly what we wanted, when we could absolutely afford it. With new site operating costs, and a tight budgets for the foreseeable future, I hope the new centre will fall tidily within a restrained budget. I think Parks and Recreation folks are in for an eye-opening experience, when the invoices start rolling in, during those first years of trial and error operation.

We find ourselves in a bad situation because of so many other substantial cost increases from fuel and food, to water, sewers and hydro. The tax burden is becoming a serious concern and one likely to carry on for years. When budgets are cut, and projects shelved, they return with a fury. With huge and unfair increases in property assessment values, in addition, this isn’t going to be a one year tax event. For a lot of folks just barely surviving, all increases are threatening and hurtful. And what I want to see from council, is an appreciation that justifying the increase in their own minds, doesn’t make it acceptable in ours.

I would love to see town councillors dawdle a while, over at the main street Food Bank, possibly asking a few questions of volunteers......and learning by blunt immersion, that what they perceive to be a prosperous, progressive town, is actually one that is suffering, the result of blatant indifference.

MARCH BREAK IN MUSKOKA - I’M JUST GLAD TO BE HERE

In over thirty years writing in, and about the District of Muskoka, I’ve never been asked.....not once, to write a promotional piece, specifically to attract visitors to our area of the province. I guess, in some ways it does bother me, especially, when over the years, outside writers and promotional services from places elsewhere, have been kept busy promoting life and recreation here. I’m sure the attitude has been, that local writers just can’t handle such an enormous project. Well, I’ve spent many years trying to figure out that ridiculous attitude. The best understanding of the social, cultural, historic patina of our region, is from those who’ve spent vast amounts of time here. Every year however, they’ll be some silly, generalized, obtuse promotion about our region, generated from an office or boardroom a hundred miles or more, from the subject hinterland.

Although I’ve never been asked to promote and highlight Muskoka, I’ve been doing it on my own since my first major writing gig in 1978, with the Bracebridge Examiner, and then onward to Muskoka Publications and the seasonal feature papers, The Muskoka Sun, and The Muskokan. In just about everything I write, whether it is a column on antiques and collectibles, or on golf, history, current events, or politics, Muskoka is always the background drawn from.....and I like to think that rather than being known as a Gravenhurst writer, I’m a Muskoka author. I’ve wanted to be known as a Muskokan from the spring of 1966, when my family thankfully relocated here, from Burlington, Ontario. It was my making, let me tell you. It’s as if my parents did it just for me. I felt pent-up in the cityscape. There was too much, when I was happy with a less grandiose and busy home region.

When I graduated university in Toronto, back in the spring of 1977, I couldn’t wait to get home to Bracebridge. Despite the fact our family was very much a part of the building history of Toronto.....my grandfather, Stan Jackson, has a Toronto street named after him, getting back to Muskoka was the end-all. I won’t say that it alone, meant the end of my relationship to a long-time girlfriend but it certainly was a contributing factor. Also from Bracebridge, she saw so many more opportunities in the city than I did. Her liberation was the urban landscape. Mine was the rural clime of Muskoka. It hurt for a long time after ending our years together but never once have I had a single regret that my decision to remain here in Muskoka, hurt my opportunities for a good and prosperous life. And it is certainly why over three decades, I have without reservation, promoted a Muskoka lifestyle at every turn, the intimate patina for thousands of written pieces, that hopefully, in some way, have reminded readers how fond I am of this rural existence......and why they should visit more often.

I will still get furious when I read about some distant public relations firm, being awarded a lucrative contract to promote Muskoka to the rest of the world. Nonsense. It can never be as heartfelt and believable, as from someone who has been nurtured and inspired by the environs since 1966. When my dad told us he had accepted a lumber company offer, from an old friend up in Bracebridge, in the vacation paradise of Muskoka, I was speechless.....but ready then to load up the car and leave the city for good. That moment! I never was very patient. As a preamble to this job offer, was a summer-time trip up to beautiful Bruce Lake, near Minett (Lake Rosseau area), to meet with Ed’s future employer. It was a three day adventure that hooked me from the first bear we saw, to the great fishing we enjoyed. Having the chance to live in this natural paradise year-round, was literally off the charts. It was very much a dream come true for an uninspired city kid.

Living rurally has its challenges. We’ve been told that by city-folks for several centuries, and that Muskoka is only worth visiting in the summer months. Well, I’ve been quite contented to let them know otherwise, since my first published columns back in 1978. Yet no matter how often and effective these pieces have been, creating a modest buzz about our district, I can predict in advance, I will never be approached by any local governance or tourism agency, to produce Muskoka themed editorial material. I’m good with this because my passion for Muskoka has never had a cash value attached, and for most of the editorial and feature inclusions, I’ve never been paid a dime. But promoting Muskoka is just a naturally flowing interest, and as it has been perpetually nurturing to me, and certainly my family, it’s the least I can do.......to represent it, enthusiastically, as the welcoming, hospitable, invigorating region it is.....and has been since the late 1800's.

My wife and I look forward to spending our March Break at home......in Gravenhurst, Muskoka. We’ll day-travel from morning to nightfall, and celebrate every square inch of this picturesque Ontario lakeland. We’ll come home to our modest little homestead, at Birch Hollow, and warm by the hearth, feeling quite contented we have had a good and memorable vacation.....again!

I’ve haven’t been paid to do this.......but I’m doing it anyway. Visit Muskoka. What a hauntingly special place on earth. I know it for fact! By immersion!

THE OIL LAMP GLOW OF MARCH - THE MERGING OF OLD AND NEW REALITIES

A former girlfriend’s father introduced me to vintage oil lamps. I was nineteen, at the time, and I was enthralled by Gord Smith’s (Algor Cottages / Lake Muskoka) diverse interest in antiques. He was a terrific furniture restorer, and a perfectionist in every way. The only time he got mad at me in five years, dating his daughter, was when I pointed out a brush hair left in the varnish, on an otherwise magnificently refinished oak table-top. It wasn’t my fault it was there,.... just my fault for upsetting his complete satisfaction for the piece. He knew it would leave of terrible mark in the surface if he dug it out. The last I remember, he had decided to leave it as provenance of modern era restoration. I’d told him that it wasn’t uncommon, and actually quite desirable, to find a brush hair on a fine work of art.....left by say A.Y. Jackson or Tom Thomson.

He would take a beaten-up dining room table with chairs, that you’d swear had no future whatsoever, and Gord would dismantle the pieces, strip them of the old paint, and rebuild them as they had been originally crafted. You wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between the new piece, when it arrived, via a horse-drawn delivery wagon in the 1890's, and its restored condition circa the late 1970's. He was that good. The furniture came out of his workshop ready for another hundred year haul. I do believe it was Gord who inspired me most, to start refinishing pieces myself, and while I don’t restore with the same vigor and volume of my youth, I still love to find a challenging piece to work on. I never quite attained Gord’s skill.

Gord had a particular fascination for vintage oil lamps. He never really explained why, but it was a real treat when he fired up the dozen or so he had positioned on a Victorian table in the livingroom. There were some fancy, colored lamps, with elaborate shades but most were examples of farm and utility oil lamps that I think must have reminded him of his own days on a homestead near Bracebridge. The smell of those ignited oil lamps did something to me, and when they were aglow, I was in a writer’s paradise. When Gail would be helping her mother in the kitchen, after dinner, I’d sit there and make copious notes about all kinds of things. One of the notes must have read something like, “Must start my own old lamp collection.” I did.

My first acquisition was a finger lamp.....a tiny wee thing with a wire collar that created a finger loop, that allowed it to be carried from room to room. I purchased it from a landlady in Toronto, and for the balance of that school year, I ignited the lamp every evening. When Gail and I went to an estate auction, in Bracebridge, I was able to buy a large clear glass farm lamp....that’s what Gord called it, and for years it was kept on my writing desk. As I worked on my vintage Underwood, clacking away the night, the illumination was the soft glow from these two wonderful oil lamps. Possibly not so pleasant for some folks, but I adored the scent of burning lamp oil. It was my modest form of historical actuality, and how fitting it was to be working on some history project, tapping away at an early century manual typewriter, with the assistance of such historic lighting.

The Smith family introduced me, to not only the amazing ambience of historic lighting but the joy of collecting antiques generally. Gail and I attended many auctions and hundreds of antique shops looking for interesting pieces. I opened my first antique business, as a family partnership in the fall of 1977, only months after graduating York University. Yes, with a degree in Canadian history. I moved on from that business, leaving it to my parents, and opened a new antique enterprise in the late 1980's, with my wife Suzanne, today known as Birch Hollow Antiques. Suzanne has been a huge motivating force in the business, with her interest in vintage fabrics, particularly wool blankets from Hudson’s Bay to locally produced Bird’s Woollen Mill bedding. She is an expert knitter and uses vintage wool, we find out on the hustings, and from estates, to produce great winter socks and mitts. She sells them at our sons’ music store on Muskoka Road, here in Gravenhurst. And yes, while she’s knitting away, there’ll be an oil lamp glowing beside.

Every fall I stock up on lamp oil for the winter season, just in case there’s a power shortage. Until I recently acquired a large camp stove for emergency heat, I could employ about thirty old oil lamps to heat Birch Hollow for about a week. In March, with lesser concern about power outages, and to keep a fresh stock of oil in reserve, I use-up the oldest of the coal oil, to burn in a half dozen lamps on the harvest table. The heat that builds up shuts off the baseboard heaters for most of the night. As coal oil prices have risen, the cost savings isn’t huge but the ambience of the golden light is worth a lot more. I think about Gord and the Smith family when I ignite these attractive glass lamps, and I certainly benefit from the inspiration they provide. I can sit here long into the evening making notes in my journal, feeling so much closer to the history I’m usually writing about. There’s nothing like a flame glow to enhance the patina of old pine and cranberry glass around them. It’s my night at the museum you might say.

To hear Suzanne clicking and clacking those knitting needles, and see her silhouette in the lamplight, is to feel honestly and pleasantly connected to the history of Muskoka. It’s what her grandmother and great grandmothers used to do at their Ufford farmstead, from the 1860's onward. She’s carrying on a Shea, Veitch and Stripp family tradition.

Whenever I come upon a neat old oil lamp, at an auction or yard sale, at a second hand shop or church fundraiser, I can’t resist adding it to my collection. The rule is, I must restore it immediately, get a new burner if needed, a new shade, or wick and provide a good cleaning of the font and exterior. Suzanne hates dirty lamps. I will get it topped up with oil, and for the next two weeks or so, it is our main working lamp. If I really like it, well, there’s a good chance it could get a year’s run in the annual lamp rotation. I’ve got about forty lamps now. I have sold a few off over the years to collectors. I’m not enthralled by fancy or colored glass lamps, as I very much prefer the utility lamps that were used in pioneer cabins and farmhouses. I often sell off the better quality lamps instead of my old standbys that can provide light and heat in the brightness and volume I need. Nothing fancy about it!

Using vintage oil lamps requires great attention and maintenance. I never leave the room when they are ignited. I have had flare-ups occasionally, from an air space developing between the wick and the tin sleeve of the burner, allowing the flame too much available fuel from the font. It will break the chimney glass, so you need to be on top of it as quickly as possible, to prevent a serious fire. A lot of pioneer dwellings were lost as a result of lighting misadventures.

To welcome in the spring, I will ignite several oil lamps this evening. It’s a March tradition here at Birch Hollow. Suzanne will complain initially about the smell, move a litter further from the harvest table because of it, and the heat it produces, and warn me throughout the evening to watch the flames. Just as I’m sure husband and wife interacted about the same issues, in those Muskoka homestead cabins of yore. I love my oil lamps. I love my wife.

Thanks Gord for giving me my start with antiques and historic lighting.