Did My Alleged Angel Dream Make Me a Kinder, Gentler Human Being? I'm Told By Some That My Protestations Can Cause Ulcers!

 

The portrait of this crusty old writer / antique dealer / historian doesn't tell the whole story about the firebrand of once, that was said to be so aggressive and determined it could cause ulcers in those I made my adversaries. Mostly town councillors who once tried to sell off our beautiful lowland reserve of land here in the Calydor Subdivision, where Birch Hollow rests on the knob of land just across the lane. I would have had a dickens of a time trying to explain that I was once touched by an angel, in a sick bed dreamscape, because even those not schooled about this kind of divine intervention on the mortal soul, know that shared benevolence providentially speaking, does leave a forever essence. I was however, being thoroughly benevolent, believe me, to the creatures and natural splendor of The Bog that was preserved after a short, sharp action-packed protest at Town Hall. I'm sorry about the ulcer thing but if anything lingered from childhood, as regards to interventions from my Guardian Angel, it was the heartfelt necessity to speak honestly, and act sensibly to achieve an important objective. And there were many other citizens who were equally touched by goodwill toward the environment, because it was the number of involved citizens, and their sensible arguments to preserve the wetland, that ended the conflict prematurely. Before the lawyers and planners got involved. Each day I look out upon this most wonderful natural urban garden, I sense a little of that sanctuary aura with a touch of the angelic, but that's as much as I can explain about the continuing good feelings of having helped save this twenty acre green space.

     I might still have enough juice left in this gnarled old body to muster another fight, should the municipality ever decide to reopen a plan to subdivide The Bog.

     I have been involved in dozens of environmental and community development proposals since I moved back to Muskoka after a stint at university in Toronto. When Bet Smith, the significant other of my son Robert, sketched my portrait several years ago, I must have shown a softer, gentler, old guy side, and to be honest, I rather like the characterization more so than those adversarial folk, who might have thought it best to adorn my head with horns, and fangs protruding from my lips. I can forgive them for wishing to draw these features onto this portrait, but I can't ever apologize for following my passions and trying against all odds to fight town hall and the developers who have decided Muskoka should look more like the big city than an enchanted lakeland. The image Bet created seems almost cuddly in a comical way, and if I was to seek a seat on Gravenhurst Council in the next municipal election, it would probably be the wrong face to present to voters. I mean it doesn't appear as if I would fight the good fight to lower taxes, and beat the heck out of the lingering municipal deficit. I don't think voters would think this image of a councillor would inspire the kind of considerate meanness one must possess at times to stand up to bullies who want to challenge officialdom. But well, you never know what might inspire the electorate these days anyway in this coming post Pandemic world.

     We moved to Gravenhurst in the late 1980's from Bracebridge because we were not entirely appreciative of the urbanizing sprawl we were watching manifest in its early stages. We had a young family and Suzanne and I both enjoyed small town qualities and quantities. And yes, at that time, Gravenhurst was charmingly historic, entirely nostalgic, and the kind of quiet place we felt was perfect to spend the next decade or so. We have now been here for thirty two years, and both our sons are graduates of school here, and my wife is a retired teacher from Gravenhurst High School. We liked the town so much that we opened a main street business fifteen years ago, selling vintage musical instruments, records, new and old, and a general inventory of antiques and collectables. Our success has been overwhelming to us, and we have, what we believe, are many great plans for the future.

     But in this modestly appointed characterization of the writer-me, topping this page, brews a modicum of discontent about the massive infusion of urbanizing investment and hugely escalating real estate prices, that are quickly changing the small town we have enjoyed for so long. As a regional historian, in these same natty clothes illustrated above, I have never experienced anything as community altering, as I have witness in the past year, ironically, also the period of Covid lockdown. It is bewildering to say the least, and frightening in many ways, to watch urbanizing influences bulldozing through our forests and lowlands, remaking the hinterland into something most of us don't recognize of our hometown. It's not a case of my rebelling against progress, or casting a blanket critique upon town council for facilitating the urban invasion, but there must be a reckoning here, that what we have benefitted from in small town virtues, is about to be enhanced to something we may not recognize as in our best interests. If you accept the investment, you must live with the consequences whether they be positive or negative, and that puts a tremendous stress on local politicians to make sure that what they're approving and endorsing, is what will make us a better and more accommodating community. Expansion in the form of urban sprawl has made many changes to the appeal of cottage country, and there are critics who don't believe some developments accepted in the past have made us better or more progressive, yet this is what the proponents sold us on from the onset.

     The carnival that has developed in the real estate industry, in many rural areas of Ontario and Canada, has created a crisis that I'm told was unavoidable. Well, I don't believe this assessment, but the reality of record and sustaining low interest rates, and the desire of urbanites to move to the hinterland, is hurting a lot of local folks, especially renters, who are being displaced in large numbers, as property owners opt for the big pay-out of housing sales that often rise well beyond asking prices. A sort of gold rush era of real estate buying and selling, and gosh who wants to see an end to this kind of prosperity? I am told the house we live in here at Birch Hollow could fetch a half million dollars if we listed it right now. By the way, the house is only worth two hundred and fifty thousand at most, and the rest is froth in the form of cash purchasing power. "I want it, and I want it bad, and I'm willing to pay more and more and more to get it." We even get advertisements in the mail and in unwanted signage in our neighborhoods, telling us that "we will pay cash for your house as - is." Well isn't that special! For those of us who may have "car-dens" on our properties, this "as - is" aspect seems appealing.

     I am a believer in the free market system and I am truly a lover of democracy, and God forbid that I would critique anyone from paying too much for a house, or pocketing an obscene amount of money the result of a bidding war for that house you vowed to will to your kids. But I could never misrepresent my profound concern for the welfare of all the tenants and lodgers out there in our community, who have been and are soon to be made homeless by this same carnival of real estate madness. There are folks who crab about paying high prices for bread and eggs at the local supermarkets, who think nothing of dropping big bucks to acquire a slice of once small town topography. I want to remind them, these new citizens of our town, that they have in part contributed to the creation of a new urban jungle, reminiscent of what they left behind of city life. Not quite Green Acres any more. Take a drive around our town and check out the new subdivision work, and the survey stakes that indicate pretty clearly what is yet to come of someone else's idea of paradise in creation. I may be a fool for admitting this to my critics, but I rather enjoyed what we had, even though it was a little thread-bare in places due to some hard times of the past two decades.

     The town fathers and mothers must take stock of what they are heralding for the future of this town, and what they are bestowing on the unsuspecting citizenry. We don't have the newspaper coverage of once, and on numerous occasions residents have been unaware what transformations to the landscape were coming down the pike. Until that is, the chainsaws were fired up and the earth movers began creating the moonscape out of once thriving forests. Be careful what you wish for, my mother used to say, when I'd hope against hope that a planned Bracebridge development would improve my day to day existence. Sometimes the progress cheered by investors, was a let down to the citizenry, who didn't benefit from what had been promised of newfound and lasting prosperity. The bigger the town, the bigger the responsibilities and the consequences that some would rather bypass as inconvenient truths. If the town doesn't address homeless issue quickly mounting, and the plight of the economically challenged who need food banks and soup kitchens, we can never fully claim to being prosperous or progressive. As I have lectured councillors for years, the constituents they serve are not just property owners in this municipality and the wider District of Muskoka. All residents have a right to be heard and players in this often misunderstood and misrepresented local governance.

     I may look like uncle Fuddly in the above characterization, and I'm okay with that assessment of my more mature, well travelled, slightly humbled self in the present tense. But I am a better watcher of things, a comfortable voyeur, looking out upon the town neighborhood where we have lived comfortably for more than three decades. I might truly be more passive than twenty years ago, and less likely to chain myself to a tree in The Bog, to save it from being hacked down in the name of future progress,  yet within this retiring demeanor of a life reasonably well spent, I still, from time to time, feel the stir of anxiousness, that tells me all is not as safe and secure as once. I do know however, that Gravenhurst is undergoing the most profound change in its history, and for that milestone recognition, there does need to be a greater and more sincere reverence to what these influences of change will impose on the future well being in entirety, of what was once, a celebrated small gateway town in one of the most beautiful and alluring regions in all of Canada.

     I shall rest my weary spirit now, to enjoy the sunset glow on this enchanting acreage of tall pines, plump cedars, and venerable old oak trees that have been here for long and long. And I will never tire of the faint but cheerful wash of water through the tiny cataracts of the snaking creek that winds its way through The Bog; the urban green belt we saved from the developers who wanted to build over paradise in that insatiable mission to profit and then profit some more. Thank God for the kind souls who were ready, back then, to strap themselves to these same trees, to stop the chainsaw massacre that was being proposed. If we had lost the fight, we would have had no choice but to move. And it would have meant that our family business would have never opened on the main street. Yes, we are pretty fond of history and equally, of the nature that is such an integral part of the good graces of this region.