MUSKOKA BEYOND THE POLITICS, IS A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE, WORK AND WRITE

I have resided in Muskoka since the mid 1960's. I've worked in the region as a writer since the late 1970's. I became a regional historian by the early 1980's. By the late 1980's my partner Suzanne and I had celebrated our first child Andrew, then Robert, and by golly, we thought it would be neat to become antique dealers on the side. That was before we'd hit the 1990's. As a retrospective, I am thankful my parents, Merle and Ed, decided to move to Muskoka in the 1960's. I left city life and it has felt right ever since. When I write about my former hometown, Bracebridge, and my present home place, Gravenhurst, I do so as a transplant. After all these years, I still feel like a newbie to the region. Suzanne is from local pioneer stock, and my boys are, well, home-grown. We have all celebrated our lives spent in this beautiful district, and we have no intention of leaving any time soon. There are disadvantages living in Muskoka, primarily the seasonal economy. Our boys operate a vintage music shop on the main street of Gravenhurst, and after five years of learning the peculiarities of the seasonal tide, are still thrilled to be able to stay in the district……when many of their mates have had to seek employment outside the area.

This isn't an info blog to promote Muskoka living. It's just an honest appraisal of how we have become loyalists to this wonderful region, that has for long and long given us inspiration and natural comforts. If there is any one thing I dislike about the region, it's the local political follies. Even as a reporter, covering the municipal beat, I found it almost impossible to write an unbiased news piece about the incompetence I witnessed serving a number of district municipalities. Councillors and mayors who weren't in any way experienced enough, to be running a multi million dollar corporation……and staffers who seized opportunities to prevail their own mandates over the folks we elected to oversee the stewardship and prosperity of the region. I had to remind councillors, time and again, that the directives coming from some of their department-heads were ridiculous, and the way they administered their staff was beyond what they were entitled. On numerous occasions I let the public decide if a department's actions were fair or not, and usually it was obvious the poop was going to hit the fan. Even before the ink had dried on that week's paper, councillors reacted to the news copy, about rogue department heads, and things were corrected quickly. I wondered out loud many times why councillors felt they were of lesser relevance to the taxpayers, who elected them, than the employees. I still find evidence of this today, as a civilian, and frankly it makes me nuts. There's nothing wrong with a reliance on the professionals, supposedly trained in their respective fields, but occasionally, and in some case more frequently, employees quickly over-ride weak councillors…..and even a weak council. I worry a lot about our district because our political representatives seem terribly out of touch with what is going on at street and neighborhood level……where food banks are in great need to handle their ever-expanding client list, and wetlands and forests are still being mowed down to facilitate urban sprawl in the hinterland.

I recently applied to act as one of three citizen advisors for our mayor, here in Gravenhurst, and was, after months and months of waiting for a response, rejected……undoubtedly for speaking my mind about such things as the failings of local councils to protect our resources, and our good life here in Muskoka. I respect the mayor's decision. There is a fear, you see, of bluntness these days, and the preference is the protocol of gentle nudging. I've never found much that moved with gentle nudging, even the two cats that get up on my lap in the evening. I have always felt strongly about blunt honesty, and while I'm environmentally keen, my opinions have never been such that a council, or councillors should feel them the rantings of a madman. I have never poo-pooed development. Just development in the wrong places for environmental well being. I suppose my biggest fight, to protect a wetland known as The Bog, earned me a pretty big "thumbs down," because we challenged every councillor's knowledge of wetlands, first, and just how many had even, just once (even from their cars) had visited what they planned to destroy with development. The more I found out about their ignorance, and indifference, and that they would have, without reservation, voted on the sensitive matter without feeling any obligation for a site inspection, it meant, for me, a future of pro-active assertions at town hall. Council generally doesn't like over-zealous citizens who think they know more than they do.

I love my hometown. I adore Muskoka. As does my family, who have links to the first settlers. There is no place we'd rather be. Even if there was, well, we'd unfortunately expect a similar governance……and we're sorry to admit this…..that our faith in local government, like the upper levels, has had so many holes punched in it……there's not much durability of faith left. I won't change my opinion about the region, or the good graces of my hometown. But it will take a behemoth change in local politics, for me to ever feel it is truly and totally working efficiently, sensibly and reliably. I'm just a crusty old reporter, and a crustier historian, who has seen this manifest over decades…..not just months. And when I mistakenly think that these insights might help council develop a more pro-active, citizen-responsive way of conducting business, I'm reminded time and again, change is better with a nudge than a push. I'm pushy. I will not apologize for my bluntness. Bluntness is precisely what our elected officials need……and the recent Toronto debacle of tax cutting and program reduction, is clear evidence, that when you think you're smarter than the population……sometimes you find the opposite holds true. Ramming stuff through is really stupid for any council. It didn't take days to create the mess. So it will take years to correct. The restoration will depend on conciliatory action by all the partners in the city. The same holds true for our town, and our region.

AUTUMN THE TIME FOR WANDERING AND PONDERING

It was a busy summer in the antique trade. And it has been just as aggressive in this early part of September. I love my business, and its one I've been pursuing since my late teens. I was a hunter-gatherer child and I seldom came home from school without a collection of good-finds. My mother Merle didn't think so, and she'd regularly cull my bedroom when I trundled back to school. So I didn't just become a collector/dealer as the result of some sort of mid-life change of direction. I can't imagine not being a collector of stuff. I adore writing but antiquing gets me out on the open road, and well, that inspires the writer-in-me. I can't even speculate on how many pieces I've written in the past thirty years but it would have to be quite weighty.

Suzanne and I were habitual about our antiquing runs, despite the oppressive heat for a large portion of the summer. Usually the heat confounds us antique collectors, in Canada, as it is the cooler weather of early autumn that brings out the nostalgia of life's changing seasons. We lovers of history, fall back into those homestead days, and visiting antique shops and estate sales, flea markets and church fundraisers, puts us pleasantly back in time. We are time travelers, no doubt about it. At the same time, as we settle into what will be our retirement business a few years down the road, we have also become very mellow in the pursuit. We used to hustle. When we had a main street business location, back in the early 1990's, we were like fireballs on the auction and yard sale circuit. I can remember, one afternoon at a local auction, finding myself so uptight, that my heart rate was through the roof…..like I was running the 100 metre race at an Olympic event. I was so determined to win a bid, on an item we wanted, that I became as mean, and wretched a human being as Dickens penned of the legendary Scrooge. I wanted to jump over the audience in front, and tackle my adversaries. Suzanne and our boys, Andrew and Robert, watched as my face got redder than a baboon's arse, and my bidding became reckless. I was going to pay more than the item was worth, just to prove a point. The point, "I can spend more than you!" The real point, I shouldn't take bidding so personally. And, most significantly, not only did I win the auction item, and pay more than I should have, but I proved to my family, dad needs to review his business and life priorities.

We had a long discussion, and they told me that my actions, on this occasion, were part of a pattern of growing aggression to out-muster my competitors. As a team player in hockey, baseball, football, and as a rabid golfer, I was transferring my competitive qualities, good or bad, into my lifestyle-profession. What a donkey. Apparently, my head nearly exploded at many auctions in the past. I just didn't recognize the danger signs. It's one thing to be competitive but another entirely to stroke-out because you didn't win the Hoosier cupboard, or the jug and bowl set.

As a result of this "intervention," I have mellowed a lot these days, and if antiquing can be, in any way an ethereal experience, I've come as close to finding it as anyone. When I reference collecting and the road trips taken to uncover the wee treasures, it is all with a sense of calm and enjoyment. Not just wordsmithing so that it seems this way. I enjoy my work so much that it isn't any work at all. We travel all over the region, at all times of the year, and we stop frequently for picnics, and anywhere else we are afforded a beautiful view of our home district. I don't race out of the house on Saturday mornings to get to yard sales before my competitors. Yet even when we do start late, and take a slow jaunt around town, I'm always rewarded with a couple of good finds per outing. Even if we didn't find a thing, we'd still enjoy the ride, and the visits made with friends met along the way. With all the experience we've gathered over the decades in this profession, we can boast having a sort of sonar beam of knowledge to hone in on worthy pieces, and this affords us a little more time and pleasure in between sales. I watch a lot of frantic people running and driving to the sales, and frankly, I'm glad my family helped me see the greener pasture, where it has always been. Life's too short and precious to allow yourself to get embroiled in what should be an invigorating, contenting business.

Through this blogsite, I often write about our antique outings and finds. I have been writing antique related columns dating back to the late 1970's, when I had my first weekly column in the fledgling Bracebridge Examiner. A lot calmer about the industry today, I take a gentler approach to the whole enterprise, including the write-ups, which are not about making profit, or increasing big finds out there, but rather, like the book, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," paying attention to life, the world around us, the changes day to day in nature, and how we relate to the universe of stuff……interacting with us second by second. Suzanne and I now pursue our cherished industry because we have removed all the stresses that enter in to the traditional business model. We sometimes come home without one find, yet we happily enjoyed a splendid picnic in a beautiful park, found along our route, and may have even returned home with a basket of tomatoes, some corn, newly dug potatoes, or some magnificent just-picked apples. We adore the experience, not just in the antique trade but how it spins-off into the celebration of another day together, in an oh-so-precious environs. So when I do reflect on our retirement business, in this blog-site, it is relevant to note, in advance of reading it, that we truly adore hunting/gathering, but we are even more passionate about the experience, all inclusive,….more than just making a find that will eventually translate onto the balance sheet as a profit-maker. I suppose in the Dragon's Den (CBC Television Program about business propositions, winners and losers) tradition, my attitude sucks, because to most, profit is the message. And it is a passionate one. Well, I don't think anyone swings favor at the Pearly Gates, for business moxie in life. I'm pretty sure enlightenment about life carries a wee bit more weight, than what was a fat wallet over a lifetime.

Maybe we'll see you out there on the antiquing trail. Good luck hunting.

ANTIQUING THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER WAS HOT BUT A WORTHWHILE ADVENTURE

As with most summers throughout my writing career, with exception of the years with Muskoka Publication, in Bracebridge, I suspend my writing tasks due to hot weather. I have never been able to write much in the summer, and for years and years, I'd compose ninety percent of my required summer copy for the Muskoka Sun in January and February, my most prolific period of the year. There are few distractions except the burden of snow plugging the driveway, and water-lines freezing. So this year was no exception, and with the deep heat for so many days, Suzanne and I tended our other worldly projects, and concentrated on acquiring inventory for our antique trade. It wasn't perfect traveling weather either but it was infinitely better than sitting and dripping sweat all the live long day. We were still sweating but making good finds and better purchases of old stuff, at the same time. Admittedly, the antique trade has always worked in this way, to take us away from the day-to-day anxieties, and to say we zone-out is an understatement. The autumn season, is by far, the best time to be antiquing, and we have some great adventures planned. But writing becomes less onerous, and more exciting in the cooler climes, and that's the way it's always been for me. I'll be back soon with some more entries for this Muskoka blogsite.