The Joyous Gathering of Folklore With its Character Story-Spinners is Strong and Resilient and its Chain Grows Link by Link, Day by Day

Birch Hollow Photo by Suzanne Currie

    Folklore and Folk Tales, and by an large gainful gossip, told, retold, embellished and adjusted to meet the demands of the listeners, is not a cultural vestige of the past. It is as contemporary as it is antiquated, and that's what makes it so resilient to the oft said reality that "Time waits for no one." Present tense story building falls under the familiar reference - "urban legend." South of the border, "fake news" pretty much sums up the new level of folk story and companion folklore. It will be interesting to know how future historians and folklorists look back at these contemporary exaggerations and truth bending in politics, that is playing such a huge role now in actually "bending" and manipulating public opinion and emotion. But the folk lore root is particularly relevant to appreciate today, as to how it has been rooted comfortably in the "other book of history" and comeback in essence, to show its true relevance in current events and our social / cultural identity in transformation with the musty scent of antiquity still attached.

     For my interests back about thirty years, I couldn't deny feeling that with strict attention to historical record, to advance my editorial projects, I felt as if I was building a coffin from the inside out. I was worried about confining myself to a small space of working, and developing new projects. And after a few more years of the same old, same old, it seemed as if I was then fastening the lid and beginning to bolt it down, while someone else hammered in a few nails from the top-down. I am frightfully claustrophobic and this really bothered me. I wasn't about to give up on my work as a regional historian, but I had to find a better way of handling the overwhelming intrusion of facts upon facts, and more on top of the already cumbersome load. I gradually, and sensibly, began examining the spaciousness and universality of "story telling," and for me, story listening. I have had the privilege over many years of my writing life, to have had the companionship of quite a few oldtimers of the community, who were known as hobby folk historians and accomplished story-spinners in their own right. In our Manitoba Street antique business back in the 1990's, our store when it wasn't tending customers, which was most of the time, was the main street location of what I used to call, "The Liars' Club." It was a name borrowed off Toronto Sun columnist, Paul Rimstead, (a former Bracebridge kid), who wrote about "The Liars' Club" he knew, formed at a local water hole in Mexico, when he went there one year with the intent to write his long wished-for book, which never happened. And it was because of said "Liar's Club" that Rimstead spent more time with his story-spinning mates, and consuming significant amounts of booze, than being parked at his typewriter in the Hemingway-esque setting of a Mexican village. But he placed considerable importance of his story weaving mates at the bar, and his column readers in Toronto loved to read of his storied associates. It was an immersion in social - cultural history class, that weighed heavily on the biographical milestones of the tellers, and it made good copy for Rimmer, known then as one of the most popular newspaper columnists in Canada. He was a folklorist in his own right, but not at that moment. His bios of athletes and well known characters were most significant because of his observational candor, and casual way of never allowing fact to ruin a perfectly good story.

     My own brand of "Liars' Club" story spinning was to let it all hang out so to speak, as my array of regular customers talked about their own lives, growing up, the war years, economic hardship, yet economic prosperity as times changed. They brought up the names of folks who had helped them navigate the often treacherous pathways of life, and gave these folks credit they never got during their own days hustling about their daily existences. These were forgotten people who were being re-introduced as if they were still alive, and counseling others about the joys of work, play and being a decent, contributing boon to society. I had so many hours back then, of enjoyable listening, as these good neighbors spun their curious reminiscences and made their early days in Muskoka seem so much more interesting and celebrated than I had ever read in a neatly packaged history in book form. Of course liberties were taken and I got to hear all about the incredible occurrences and slights of protocol that were never, and I mean never, recorded in either the newspapers of the day, or in the books written and overly edited that have been printed about the same community. Yes, a lot of neat stuff was left out of the books because the material didn't pass muster, when it came to what inclusions might offend readers. I used to get that a lot, and it's one of the reasons that I shifted away from the traditional re-telling of history. I knew a lot of it was wrong, and misguided, and the truth of hard facts wasn't the truth of what actually happened in the full light of unfettered investigation. Folk stories appealed to me for this very reason. That I was more likely to benefit from the uncensored version, even with its embellishments, than be overwhelmed by the facts as presented that have passed the smell test. I have challenged a lot of accepted historical evidence in this district, over the past forty years, and it has got me into a lot of trouble. I've faced a shunning like you wouldn't believe, simply because I was dissatisfied with accepted historical record. You hear a lot about this nowadays, as historical record is being challenged harshly, and new realities are popping up all the time, and many have tragic consequences in the present tense. Folk story spinners didn't worry too much about covering up the harder realities, as they heard by word of mouth, passed down tales that didn't jive with what they had previously understood, of community events and situations; and seeing as their audience wasn't buying their book, or the newspaper they wrote for, keen listeners just accepted the accounts and kept in mind, it was after all, just an untutored, uncensored oral history, to be taken with, as they say, a grain of salt. Folk history. Rounded at the edges, embellishments allowed.

     In the coming weeks and months, I would like to delve into the folklore, folk stories, and tall tale spinning, that gave me an open sky so to speak, to treat history in the way I have become most comfortable. While not dismissing the critical importance of truthfulness in historical record, not allowing the hard, blunt, no-looking-away  evidence, push away the folksy side, that after all, was created in its own likeness; news inspiring story tellers to weave it all in a gentler, softer way, into the social - cultural mosaic that takes fact as a suggestion but not as the absolute end-all to the story. My impression of Muskoka history, after well more than forty years of specializing in its amazing neighborhood and district character, is based on the hard evidence of a storied past, and seasoned by the sage advisories of its hobby historians, the story tellers, spinners, weavers, who had nothing to gain other than the temporary attention of an audience, never leaving a story hanging in mid air, without that wink of the eye from both teller and receiver, acknowledging that there is an entertainment value not to be diminished just because it is deemed the lesser carrier, or the poor cousin, of accepted however biased, historical record.

     Much more to come.