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| Birch Hollow Photo by Suzanne Currie |
In the past two posts on this new site, "The Birch Hollow Antique Press" I have complained rather incessantly about the problems associated with being too big for one's britches, and too successful at what we do, to walk it back easily, in order to once again have our small family business; that by the way was known for, of all things, its fresh baked cookies from Momma Currie's (Suzanne) kitchen, served to our regular patrons every Saturday morning. It is true that we miss the lobby and music studio bull sessions and occasional jam sessions that developed on weekends, when business was a little slower, customers being, as they say, few and far between. But our booster club kept us from feeling sorry for ourselves, and they were worth all the cookies Suzanne served, because it reminded us that in this engaging smallness was big heartedness, and what we provided in treats and space to pontificate, was met equally by good friends who brought in a literal flood of coffees and donuts to juice-up club proceedings. Well, it wasn't really a club but rather a loosely affiliated association of musicians and family, who had nowhere else to be, and had a few leftover stories to tell that didn't get air time the week before. Minus the booze, it was the kind of weekly get-together's that a drummer, newspaper columnist like Paul Rimstead, of the Toronto Sun would have enjoyed and celebrated as he did so well, the good clean fun of those kindred spirits of old time entertainment. If it had been good enough for Rimmer, having gone to high school in Bracebridge, before hitting in big as a columnist in Toronto, it would most definitely have been the perfect business social for his writing colleague and trumpet player, Hugh Clairmont; it was at Hugh and Masie's Bay Street House where Rimmer spent some quality time back in the good old days.
Why am I telling you all this? While Suzanne and I most definitely did not, in any way, wish to create a business of our present size, occupying one hundred percent of the former Muskoka Theatre, opposite the Gravenhurst Opera House, we still have no regrets that fate took its turn, and like the motorist who, on a steep hillside, finds the breaks have failed, we just navigated the best we could with what we had to work with, in those fledgling, "finding ourselves" years. Back about fourteen years. We were the not-so-silent partners for sons Andrew and Robert when they began their initial music shop upstairs in the projector room, and theatre lounge, 16 summers ago this month. But what we experienced, almost from the beginning, was that these recent high school grads had the retailing gene in them, and Suzanne, the accountant was often dumbfounded by their sales for the respective week. It's why we continued to offer support, financially and in manpower to shop for more music related inventory, and of course, study the pros and cons of expansion inside the old movie house when numbers warranted. It wasn't all that long before we had over taken half the building, and that's when we became moderately interested in taking up some additional space at the rear of the building, for our then home operated antique business, if and when it became available. As it did about a decade ago, and the temptation was too great to let it fall into the hands of an incompatible business operation. By then Robert was operating both a small recording studio and teaching more than twenty students each week. Interruptions were costly to both operations, and so it was practical to have us join the Currie circus of entertainment services. Antique shops are known for being as quiet and respectable as is the local funeral parlor, so there was little possibility of Suzanne and I disturbing the peace. After the whole building was consumed by our family, not as was originally intended, but suffice to say it was an opportunity we couldn't afford to miss, and what has transpired since, has been remarkable mostly to us. Sort of like a Doug Flutie hail Mary pass, with nothing to lose but everything to win if the pass is caught, we managed a touchdown without being too sure if that was even remotely possible.
What did help I'm sure, is that the boys have some preamble training from a most unlikely mentor, especially as related to the music industry. Back in the mid 1990's, while still operating our Bracebridge antique shop, a block from the arena, I began some hockey research for a book I was planning to write, and seeing as our customers then were pretty thin, each day, I wandered back and forth to the community centre, to study the old team photographs and trophies going well back to the early years of the 1900's, to the era of Irvin "Ace" Bailey of the former Toronto Maple Leafs. There were a few choice pieces of Ace's hockey career, which of course, was cut short by a cheap blindside hit by opponent Eddy Shore, causing the Bracebridge hockey star to hit his head on the ice, causing a serious brain injury. But I wasn't planning to write about Bailey, but rather Roger Crozier, an allstar goaltender with the original six Detroit Red Wings. Crozier, born and raised in Bracebridge, also played for the Buffalo Sabres, and the Washington Capitals, before leaving hockey for a new career, later in life, with an American bank known as "MBNA."
What happened was that Roger was just in the process of establishing the Crozier Foundation for Children in Delaware and in Muskoka, where he had a cottage. As a result of the biographical work I was doing at the time, and the joint project we worked on together, to establish the Bracebridge Sports Hall of Fame, he invited me to join the Foundation as public relations director for our Muskoka services, as well as curator of the sports installation at the Bracebridge arena. For twelve years, long after his death following a relapse of cancer, the entire Currie clan worked with the Foundation, that ran a week long hockey and skate camp in Bracebridge, and it was Momma Currie and her boys, who looked after food services for a hundred or so kids. It was a great experience working with the Crozier family, and work associates from MBNA, helping as well, keep Roger's legacy in hockey and banking alive in his home district. The work was tough and unrelenting but by golly it was rewarding seeing those kids, who couldn't have afforded summer camp otherwise, celebrating winter sports in the middle of the summer. We still miss those days, because it was a neat involvement in benevolence.
From that commitment to starting a business for the boys, and then with the boys, we did carry some of that work and entertainment experience forward to our new location in Gravenhurst. It wasn't the same at all, but the work ethic never declined during the transition from running the hockey and skating camp, and the Crozier Foundation's Hockey Hall of Fame, to opening up our limited edition, first offering music shop, being operated by two lads who hadn't enjoyed a summer off since they were in their early teens. Even as kids they were helping mom and pop run their antique enterprise at dozens of market venues across the district, and let me tell you, it was damn hard work hauling a hundred or so heavy boxes of old books and antique furniture through parks, arenas and even fields, to set up yet another show display. So when it came to the liberation then, of putting their imprint on their own business, on their own initiative and creative foresight, they hit the ground running and this isn't a cliche. All the associations, training and volunteer work they did prior to that opening day of Currie's Music, 16 years ago, made sense when it came to the grueling days when they didn't have any help but what they alone could muster. Of course we were proud of them, and for good reason. They didn't have anything more than a shoestring budget, and a lot of hopefulness, they could improve on their circumstances. And this is pretty much what happened, and why, today, we have this huge shop, when we really only wanted a small one. But such is life and its nuances, when it comes to matters of opportunity and happenstance. No, we are not complaining, but we are tired already, and the summer has just begun.
Join me for my next post, about how we have played host to some of the truly legendary names in music, and kept it all under wraps. We still intend to protect their privacy, but we won't hide the reality, their presence in our shop has given us all an immense boost of pride, and sense of accomplishment, even at times when profitable business was more of a future potential than a reality; or so reminisces the accountant.
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