I Was Brought Up This Way - To Play Hockey Because It Was The National Obsession

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

A Preamble to Today’s Post.

I WAS BROUGHT UP THIS WAY, AND TO MY PARENTS, IT WAS THE CANADIAN DREAM TO PLAY HOCKEY ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY

By Ted Currie

     I have purposely stayed away from penning any more sports related stories, but there are a few, especially at this time of year, that I can’t really avoid because of their significance to everything else. You see, my parents, Merle and Ed, God bless their souls, never gave their young son an option to decline, when it came to being told it was “hockey registration day” at the arena, which was to them, one of the most important days of the fall and winter season. They did exactly what a million other parents did, when in their respective minds, their kid had a chance to make the big leagues one day. Keep in mind, that when I started playing novice hockey when we still lived in Burlington, Ontario, there were only six teams in the National Hockey League, and that meant there was next to no chance of a kid like me making the pro ranks. But it was, I suppose their preference to dream of my stardom, even when I was too young to make it from one end of the ice surface to the other, and not hitting the ice four or five times in a very slow end to end rush.

     I did come to love hockey as a kid but as an adult, with enough aches and pains to remind me just how tough it was to survive in the rigors of the sport, I do at times wonder why the heck I played so long into my adult years, such that my knees and hip, my hands, and fingers, ache every day especially when it gets wet out there, because dampness is not my friend. I was a goaltender for most of my hockey days, and I took a lot of pucks in places that did not have a lot of padding, back in the early days of net minding; when it was more important to stop rebounds from incoming shots, which was easier to do when there wasn’t a lot of defensive plastic on my thin protective gear. My arm and shoulder pads for example, were basically thick layers of cloth padding, with some stuffing or other, but definitely nothing to stop a slap-shot from connecting with bone through a kid’s thin covering of flesh. I played for many years with ordinary hockey skates, and not actual protective goalie skates with iron toes. I had a lot of devastatingly hard shots hit me on the toes, and there was one occasion, while suffering from an ingrown toenail, a direct hit dinted the toe material, and pushed in against my toe such that the nail sliced through the tip, causing a pretty substantial injury and bleeding. But it was at a time when most teams only dressed one goaltender, and if the starter had to be replaced, the back-up was most likely a defenseman who had to retire to the dressing room to put on the goalie gear. The coach didn’t prefer this plan, and it was made clear that despite injury, unless you happened to lose a leg or your head, you had to stay in net until the end of the game. I did this, and nearly bled to death. That was the hockey conundrum I didn’t particularly care for, but like most lads my age, you just did what you needed to, in order to please the coach, and teammates, and your parents sitting up in the bleachers cursing the referees and the opposition players. My parents used to yell at me for letting goals into the net. My coach actually had to ask them to not come to the games any more, because it was distracting me from actually stopping the puck before it hit the mesh. Can you imagine that? Your parents being barred from attending their kid’s game because they were being too critical of their own flesh and blood. Sure it is our national sport, but it has a lot of deficits, some that still rear-up that are quite disturbing.

     If I had been asked as a kid, to offer an opinion about what type of hockey I most enjoyed, it would have been the case I’d have chosen frozen pond shinny, or simply road hockey like we played up on Alice Street in Bracebridge, with our away games up in the Henry’s driveway on Liddard Street, behind the hospital. There was no pressure. No expectations by parents, of a road hockey star going on to play in the N.H.L. Games were played under the street lamplight, and often the goal posts were made from clumps of ice pulled from the snow banks. We’d stand out there, awaiting a few mates to show up from the neighborhood, to even out the sides, and watch the gently falling snow spiral down to our toque-clad heads, thinking to ourselves, this sure is a wonderful life…..in its most uncomplicated, uncompromising roll of hours. It only became impended when cars came up or down our road, which at night was seldom, and my mother bellowed that it was time to come in, which back in those days, was usually nine o’clock. We’d all beg Merle for at least one overtime period, that would last at least another half hour before the follow-up scream that “time was up - it was a school night for gosh sakes.”

     It was during the Christmas season that I most enjoyed hockey, even at the arena, but I can’t define why this was exactly. It was just a kinder, gentler period of the hockey season, not because it wasn’t as painfully aggressive, but I think because we had a better attitude about the actual recreational relevance of what we were actually doing; pursuing this Canadian dream thing. I liked the lesser pressure, and I did pay more attention to the fellowship of the sport, and even when we played road hockey, or took to a frozen pond down along Monck Road in the pastures of the old Ball Farm, we seemed much more festive in our resolve, to keep these moments near and dear for the rest of our lives; as having been the communing occasions, where we were simply kids doing what kids should do with their spare time. And “fun” pretty much sums in up. And yes, if given the chance, I would love to start a game of road hockey up there on Alice Street, some time this Christmas season, just to see if any of the old gang might show up. Sadly, we lost one of our most faithful forwards recently, being Don Clement, one of the stalwart movers and shakers of the Hunt’s Hill gang, of which I was a proud member. But I will, on Christmas Eve, hoist a glass of egg nog to that fraternity of neighborhood kids, who made my childhood so fulfilling and always entertaining. Now that was more the National Dream for me, and them, and there was no referee or coach, or bellowing parents, to dampen our contentment; being outdoors and celebrating the Christmas season in a most old fashioned way. I do half expect the lingering free spirits of those faithful participants, still play in the shallow silence of a winter night, those now fabled road hockey games, that meant nothing in particular, but something in enduring reminiscences that still make me feel heart-fully warm when I look out into the lamplight here in front of Birch Hollow.

CHRISTMAS IN MUSKOKA - A WINTER-TIME CONUNDRUM AND THE MECHANIC-WELDER - THE GAME MUST GO ON!

AN ACT OF KINDNESS FOR A KID WITH A BROKEN SKATE

     I HAVE BEEN THINKING A LOT ABOUT OLD-TIME HOCKEY RECENTLY. NO, I DIDN'T WATCH THE MOVIE "SLAPSHOT" LAST NIGHT, ALTHOUGH I HAVE ABOUT A HUNDRED TIMES IN THE PAST. SHORT OF LACING-UP THE SKATES, AND FINDING A HOCKEY STICK THAT DOESN'T HAVE FUNGUS HANGING OFF IT, AND THEN FINDING A FEW OPEN METRES OF ICE ON THE POND ACROSS THE ROAD, SUFFICE THEN, BEING AS WONKY KNEED AS I AM, TO WRITE ABOUT IT INSTEAD. LAST WEEK I PULLED TOGETHER A LENGTHY EDITORIAL PIECE ABOUT THE EARLY CAREER OF ROGER CROZIER, FORMERLY OF THE DETROIT RED WINGS, WHO HAD TO FACE THE GREAT JEAN BELIVEAU, IN THE 1966 PLAYOFF FINAL AGAINST THE CANADIENS. HE ADMITTED IT WAS PRETTY DAUNTING, LOOKING UP THE WING, AND SEEING THE EVER SO SMOOTH, LIGHTNING FAST BELIVEAU, EASILY STICK HANDLING PAST THE DEFENCE, AND BREAKING IN ON HIS GOAL CREASE. THE WINGS LOST THAT SERIES, TO MONTREAL, ON A QUESTIONABLE GOAL BY HENRI RICHARD (AT LEAST IN MY OPINION. AND THE REST OF THE RED WING FANSHIP BACK THEN), BUT ROGER WON THE CONN SMYTHE TROPHY, FOR HIS PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE. IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE CONN SMYTHE TROPHY, THE YEAR EARLIER, IT HAD BEEN BELIVEAU WHO HAD WON THE TROPHY, IRONICALLY NAMED AFTER THE FOUNDER OF THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS. LOSING JEAN BELIVEAU THIS WEEK, WAS A BIG BLOW FOR HOCKEY IN THIS COUNTRY. HE WAS A GENTLEMAN AND WAS ONE OF THE MOST SPORTSMANLIKE PLAYERS IN THE LEAGUE, BACK IN THE DAYS OF THE ORIGINAL SIX. HE WAS MY MOTHER MERLE'S FAVORITE HOCKEY PLAYER. WELL, HER FAVORITE PLAYER BEHIND FRANK MAHOVOLICH, THAT IS. AND THEN THERE IS GORDIE HOWE. WHAT AN AMBASSADOR FOR HOCKEY THEN AND NOW. MR. ELBOWS. IF YOU WENT INTO THE CORNER WITH HOWE, THERE WAS A GOOD CHANCE YOU WERE GOING TO TASTE THE SWEATER FABRIC ON HIS ELBOW. I KNOW ROGER THOUGHT A LOT OF GORDIE, HAVING PLAYED WITH HIM FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS IN DETROIT. THERE'S A STORY TOLD BY A SPORT'S WRITER, AT THE TIME, WHO WATCHED CROZIER JUMP ON GORDIE'S BACK AT A PRACTICE, AND REACTING TO THE GOALIE'S PRANK, GORDIE TOOK HIM FOR A SKATE AROUND THE ICE, AS IF ROGER WAS RIDING A HORSE WEARING SWEATER NUMBER NINE.  I GREW UP WITH POSTERS OF THESE ALL STARS IN MY BEDROOM; SO YES, WE WERE VERY INTIMATE BACK THEN, AND THEY WERE THE INSPIRATION EVERY TIME I HAULED MY EQUIPMENT TO THE ARENA FOR THAT WEEK'S MINOR HOCKEY GAME.

   

THE PROBLEM WITH TUBE SKATES!

     The story I'm about to spin for you, is absolutely true. No embellishments for personal glory, or for the gain of the fellow who tried to help me, that day, in the midst of a pre-game crisis. It is, however, a story that reflects on the kindness of citizens when I was growing up, who epitomized what our family was learning about small town life. We had only just arrived in Bracebridge, and were still trying to adjust from the city influences of Southern Ontario. I believe this event happened in the winter of 1970, four years after moving to town, and the Weber apartments on upper Alice Street. I was tending net for three teams back then. I was playing in what was called then, the Town League, then a "B" team that travelled to neighboring communities, like Baysville, Port Carling, Bala and MacTier. Then, on weeknights, I was the back-up goalie to starter, Tim Morrison, for the "All Star" team. So I was at the arena a lot in those days, which was great fun. Here's the hiccup. My parents couldn't afford to buy me goalie equipment back then, so I had to use the badly worn, vintage pads the town owned, which offered very little protection for the new style of slapshot. I was forced to wear a baseball catcher's mask, because there was only one other solid, fiberglass mask, and it would often be in-use by another of the town league netminders. It was okay, but there was no protection on the top of my head, or on the back, and the puck could fit into the openings between the metal bars. I had to have referees remove a couple of them, after stopping shots with my face. I loved hockey so much, I didn't care about getting injured. I just wanted to be on the ice with my team; and I, like every other kid back then, thought about the exploits of Beliveau, Howe and Crozier, amongst dozens of other all star N.H.L.'ers.

     One of the most significant shortfalls, for any goalie, was to play net without proper goalie skates. It might have been okay in the history of hockey from its beginnings, but not in the modern sense of faster player and harder shots. My parents tried the best they could to keep me outfitted, but always gravitated to the bargain skates, just to keep me on the ice. The safety issue, is that regular skates, back in the 1960's, didn't always have the best toe protection or side padding. Goalie skates were designed with metal toes, so that the puck, driven at a hundred miles an hour, wouldn't break the player's toes, if it was a direct hit. My skates had a plastic insert, but nothing that would save my toes from a nasty impact. Now, let me scare you. I had an in-grown toe nail, that had become infected. My parents were of the school of thought, that their child had to be tough, and endure suffering to become a man. I'm not kidding about this. My mother would look at my toe, and rub some ointment from a tube, she presumed would fix me up, and then send me off to hockey. If you have ever had an in-grown toe nail, with an infection, you will then be able to imagine the kind of awful pain, one would experience, taking a blistering shot off the toe, from an incoming forward. I did, many times. The issue was, I couldn't look to the bench for a replacement, because I was, with two out of three teams, the only goaltender, other than my opponent in the net at the other end of the rink. And I couldn't stop the play every time I got hit, which could be three or four times each game. I had to endure the pain, and keep tending "the pipes," regardless of the blood in my sock. It was my coach who finally asked my mother to please get me to a doctor, to get the nail looked after. Well, that's another horror story, but the treatment worked. But I still had to deal with wearing inadequate skates, with no protection on the toes and the sides, where goalies have to make skate-saves.

     One early afternoon, before Christmas, I was skating on a little pad of ice, in the Hillman family's back yard, on Toronto Street, just prior to this particular equipment malfunction. As you probably know, natural ice is much harder than artificial ice, frozen by a network of pipes below the concrete pad in an arena. Natural ice, on this day, was too hard for my skates apparently. On this day, Al and Rick Hillman, and neighbor Don Clement, and I, were playing a two on two, in the afternoon, when I began to hear some strange and troubling creaking from my left skate. I could feel the blade moving up and down. When I'd lift my skate, the blade would spring down, and when I took a stride on my left side, the blade would push up into the tube. I sat on a snow bank, and let Rick and Al have a look at what happening to the blade, and at that point, the back end was buried in the tube part of the skate, with only about a quarter inch of blade exposed to connect with the ice. The rivets had failed, in the back part of the skate. The front was fine, but it was allowing for the pivot of the back, to slide up and down from the tube. I had never seen anything like this before. The big problem that day, is that I had a late afternoon game at the Bracebridge arena, and I couldn't possibly skate the way the blade was moving up and down. Even in net, it would have been hard to move from side to side without tripping myself.

     I went home and phoned my dad at work, to ask him if he knew anyone who could fix the skate. He was working at Building Trades Centre at the time, but he knew hundreds of people from the town, from clerking at the store. I suppose I had wanted him to offer to buy me another pair in time for the afternoon game. Couldn't do that, he said. He suggested I take them to one of the area gas stations, to see if one of the their mechanics could weld the blade back in place. As I really hated to miss a game, I pulled on my winter gear, and ran all the way back to the main street. I went to the Uptown Garage first, where Ted Smith told me he couldn't fix it right away. Across the road, at Muskoka Garage, they were behind in their shop repairs, and advised that it would be the next week, before they could make the welding repair. I even went to Ecclestone's Hardware, to see what they would recommend, and the clerk that day, pointed me at the skates they had on sale. I didn't even have a quarter for a pop, and I really needed one.

     I'll tell you, I was feeling pretty down-hearted, when I came down the Thomas Street hillside, and met Al Hillman again, who suggested I should go and talk to his dad's business partner, Art Crockford, at the Downtown Garage. I don't know why I hadn't thought of this earlier, seeing as I had to pass it on the way uptown. I went into the dark old-time service station, with its dim lights, and found Art looking through a parts catalogue. He asked me politely, as was his manner, what he could do for me that fine winter day. He must have sensed my deep desolation, because he closed up the book, and took the skate from my hand. I told him I had to play in a game at the arena, in an hour, and was without a skate. On this day, I was to be the only goalie to dress. I didn't want to let my team down.     He looked at the skate, and I thought I had explained the situation pretty well. He studied the placement of the blade, and noticed the missing rivets. "I think I can fix this for today," he said. "But it looks like you're going to have to get some new ones (skates) pretty soon, because the other rivets are going to let go eventually." I was so darn pleased I'd met Al, at the entrance to the garage, and that Art was willing to do a spot-weld, to get me through the afternoon game.

     Art didn't charge me a nickel. Not a cent to do the repair. After he handed me back the skate, and warned me not to touch the blade, because it was still hot, I ran out the door, nearly got hit by a car, and trotted merrily all the way back home. In a flash, I was bounding back down the icy Hunt's Hill sidewalk, and soon climbing through the back alleys up to James Street, for the short trot up to the community centre. I was feeling pretty good. I made it to the dressing room a little late, as most players were dressed, but I was pretty efficient donning the pads. A few minutes before our warm-up, I stood up to adjust my pads, and check that all the straps were away from my skate blades; this was a good way to kill yourself, stepping on a leather strap at full stride. While I was standing in the dressing room, the coach asked me why I was off-kilter. I felt off-kilter as well. My left skate was the problem. The one welded by the kindly Mr. Crockford. When the coach looked down at the skate blade, he asked me to sit back down for a minute. He lifted my leg, to study something about my skate. "Did you have someone fix your skate blade Teddy," he asked. "Yes," I responded. "Art Crockford welded the blade so it wouldn't slip up into the tube." "Well son, this is going to be a problem for you today, because he didn't pull the blade out, before he welded-it in place." It was my fault you see, because when I handed him the skate, I didn't make sure that the solid blade was pulled all the way down, before being welded. So there it was. My left skate blade was higher at the front, than at the back, which made for some interesting on-ice adventures. I had no choice but to use it on that day. As my parents financial situation didn't improve for the rest of that winter season, I kept using the wonky skate, but I'll tell you one thing, the blade stayed in place until I finally retired the pair the next hockey season. Bless Art for helping a kid out of a jam. I guess, when he skated as a kid, the blades were solid iron without any tube structure whatsoever. He didn't study them close enough to see how the blade was uneven in slope. We won that game. I didn't get a shut-out, but I made some pretty good saves.     My coach couldn't believe I was able to stand on the skates, let alone tend the net successfully. When I tell my sons, about "getting by," and "making do," I always spin the Art Crockford story. It was a memorable Christmas gift from a very good neighbor. Whenever I write stories about the town I knew back then, I always have folks like Art Crockford in the back of my mind; as small town role models, unsung, but always willing to help someone down on their luck. On this day, I was the recipient of his act of charity. I didn't have any money that day to pay for the welding job. I think he saw it in my eyes, that I was penniless, and heart broken about not having a pair of skates to wear for the big game. Thanks to Art, I was able to play that day, and the weld held secure for the rest of that season, playing at least three games each week, plus one practice. I can't remember thanking him that winter day. I must have, but it bothers me that I don't remember.

    I know this is a simplistic overview of Bracebridge in those days, but I was a needy kid back then, so I tested the good neighbor thing many times; and got everything from free pie freshly made, to hamburgers right of the backyard barbecue, and even bikes when my parents couldn't afford to buy me one. My parents didn't like it much, when I was afforded these treats, through sincere generosity, but I had no problem accepting the kindnesses of strangers.

Christmas Shopping in Bracebridge's Bamford's Store

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

Preamble to Today’s Post.

I REALLY DID ENJOY GROWING UP IN A SMALL TOWN IN RURAL ONTARIO -ENJOYING WHAT THE SIXTIES AND EARLY SEVENTIES HAD, BUT THE TOWN DID NOT

By Ted Currie

     I can remember the view from the backyard of the Henry home up on Liddard Street, in Bracebridge, where I happily hung out during my elder teenage years, as guests of Frank and Ivey Henry, and their kids, Linda, Susan and Steven, who was my road-hockey, side yard baseball, for a lot of swell years, in what was our own version, Muskoka style, of the recent “70’s Show,” being one of the safest places for teenagers to have their respite. We’d sit in the backyard “shooting the breeze,” about our most recent girlfriends, and watch as the bulldozers shaped the pastures of old Lance Hardy’s farm in preparation for the first nine holes of the newly proposed South Muskoka Golf and Curling Club. It was the beginning, in my opinion as a town historian, and the chap who wrote the golf club’s history a few years back, that the expansion of the urban services area beyond what it had been, to facilitate new development knocking at the proverbial door, the small town that I grew up in, would never be the same. The early seventies saw many urbanizing trends and a great new wave of investment, from commercial, industrial to residential, and it was obvious the characteristics of the old town I rather liked, was going to be altered in any number of ways. Some we liked as teenagers wondering if this might be a place to stay and invest ourselves, or whether it would mark a revolution of values, and bring the city to the rural clime to our general social disadvantage. The potential however, that development would increase job opportunities and infuse needed momentum to the economy in general, was the greater consideration. I still didn’t buy into the idea of creating something that would compromise what I believed was in essence, a fine small town that may have needed refinement and improvement in many sectors, but not the negatives of an urban sprawl that inevitably comes with new and progressive investors, from Southern Ontario, immersing the population into the reality of having a two horse town instead of one; and having many more traffic lights than the first one at the Manitoba and Thomas Street intersection.

     I will confess this not-so-well-hidden truth. The urbanizing trends and sprawl over places like Ball’s Flats where we used to delight on nights like this, playing pond hockey over acres of frozen creeks and puddles, made me wonder about how our young lads would cope with more urbanizing dilemmas as they passed through their school years. I didn’t want them to lose the small town way of life, and it inspired Suzanne and I in the late 1980’s, to consider relocating to Gravenhurst, ten miles south; and still at that time, a genuinely small but vibrant community with its rural values pretty much intact, while other similar towns and villages were being hit by expansionist forces in all types of packaging and with many promises of corresponding prosperity. It worked pretty well for us at least as far as the lads are concerned, because they had the pleasure of growing up in, yes, a quieter town, where there was less emphasis on accepting growth for growth’s sake; and more concern about protecting the quality of life the town had enjoyed since homesteading days, where Gravenhurst was truly the gateway to Muskoka.

     Today, well, development investment is pouring into Gravenhurst, and its character is being changed dramatically, and the long time residents are befuddled to put it mildly, about what it will all represent over the next decade. Especially considering that it is almost impossible for our young citizens to purchase a property let alone a house, without forking over a king’s ransom for the privilege. It is even a major issue to rent an apartment for a reasonable monthly amount, and there are more folks than ever either couch surfing with friends and family, or living in undeclared rooming houses, which is a throw-back in time. Town councillors know this transformation is happening, but they’re not willing to offer much sympathy or compassion for those who are now finding that the urbanizing trend is seriously compromising their right to a good and secure life in the place where their grand parents, and parents, had made their family homes, and enjoyed prosperous living despite what would be perceived today, as disadvantages and shortfalls in what magic beans can offer those of vast imaginative capacity.

     I grew up with so many advantages afforded by a small community, one horse, one traffic light or not. I had lived the first eleven years of my life in the city, and I played my hockey games at between two and five in the morning, because of a shortage of ice time and huge demand. When we moved to Bracebridge, my games and practices were in prime time nightly, and on Saturday mornings for the Town League players. My dad was relieved, as he had been forced to wake up in the middle of the night, just to take his kid to the arena for some needed recreation. Then he’d drive me home, and take off for Hamilton where he worked at a lumber company. In Bracebridge, we could all sleep in, and that was just one of the perks of living in a wonderful small town in amazing South Muskoka. Here are a few recollections of what it meant to be a small town kid; disadvantaged? I never once felt that way.

    

DOWNTOWN BUSINESSES IN BRACEBRIDGE ACCOMMODATED OUR LIMITED BUDGETS AT CHRISTMAS TIME

     When I lived in Burlington, Ontario, which was a heck of a nice place for a wanderlust kid like me to live, back in the late 1950's and early 60's, my mother didn't like the idea of me wandering Brant Street, which of course, was the main business corridor back then. I wasn't allowed near the shore of Lake Ontario either but I found my way there anyway, just as I was able to make it to the main street by accidentally (intentionally) taking a wrong turn coming home from school. There was a neat variety store known as Walmsleys, where I could get a big bag of candy for a quarter. Of course it was a constant temptation, as corner stores have always been for me, and my big sweet tooth.

     When we moved to Bracebridge in the late winter of 1966, I had to pass through the downtown core, which was serviced by the main artery known as Manitoba Street, just to get to Bracebridge Public School. And to get there, I had to cross the width of the North Branch of the Muskoka River, as cold with sweeping wind, as Winnipeg's intersection of Portage and Main. There were far more distractions and dangers going downtown in Bracebridge, than I had to concern myself in Burlington. Ramble Creek was just a trickle of water, to cross over, and it was bridged such that I could never get a soaker. Unless I deviated from the route and went down to the shore to play around. The Muskoka River had deadly potential because of its depth, water volume and undertow which worsened after storms and in the spring of course.

     Let's be clear. My mother worried more about my travels to and from the main street, in both communities, moreso than any danger I might have met-up-with shopping there for cent candy and comics. We worried about our sons the same way, so it's one of those parent things we have to grow out of, eventually. Right? Thus moving to Bracebridge, introduced me to dangerous walks, and downtown strolls, to and from BPS; even at lunch hour, because I used to run home to our Alice Street apartment for a little respite from the bullies who ruled the playground.

     From this point, I developed a strong and passionate relationship for the Manitoba retail community, both below the Queen's Hill, and to the north, above the incline named after the former Queen's Hotel, on the corner opposite the clock tower of the retired federal building. I loved my Friday nights shopping (mostly browsing) there, throughout the four seasons, and Saturdays were golden for us Hunts Hill lads, who quested for Dinky Toys, cent candy, comics, hockey cards, and at this time of year, gifts for our parents. On a snowy Saturday afternoon, it was magical to a wide-eyed kid like me, and it had that snow globe appearance when you stood at one end of the street looking either north or south.

     I have been writing in retrospect, about these glorious, and happy times, these haunting memories of youth, spent roaming in the old downtown, for the past four decades because I don't want these times lost in the fog of history. I moved to Bracebridge only a few years from its period of urban expansion, that began to unfold in earnest, by the mid 1970's, to the boom years of the 1980's and 90's. It was a special small town atmosphere that lingered in 1966 when we arrived as urban refugees. I wish all my readers could have experienced this time in Muskoka history, in actuality, but possibly I can take you on a trip back via some of my archived stories written many years back. I hope you enjoy these Christmas season tall tales that were very special to us rapscallions of the 1960's.

I PROUDLY DID MY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING AT BAMFORD'S STORE ON TORONTO STREET

FRED AND MARY RAN THE CRAZIEST CORNER STORE ANYWHERE ON EARTH

     NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY, I CAN NOT ACCURATELY DESCRIBE THE INTERIOR MAGIC OF BAMFORD'S CORNER STORE, THAT WAS SITUATED UP ON BRACEBRIDGE'S TORONTO STREET....ONE BLOCK EAST OF BLACK'S VARIETY STORE, WHICH LATER BECAME "LIL & CEC'S," AND THEN "FRASERS." IT IS STILL OPERATING TO THIS DAY, AND I THINK IT'S CALLED THE KWIKI MART. I OFFER AN APOLOGY IN ADVANCE, IF I GOT THIS WRONG.

     I'VE WRITTEN REIMS OF EDITORIAL COPY ABOUT THOSE WONDERFUL CORNER STORES OF MY YOUTH, DATING BACK TO THE YEAR 1966, WHEN WE ARRIVED IN THIS SNOWY BURG FROM THE LIGHTLY WINTERED CITY OF BURLINGTON. THOSE TWO CORNER STORES MADE UP A GOODLY MAJORITY OF MY RECREATIONAL, SOCIAL / CULTURAL ACTIVITIES BACK THEN, AT LEAST IN THE DAYS BEFORE I FOUND A GIRL THAT WOULD HAVE A GUY LIKE ME FOR A PARTNER. GOD BLESS THEM FOR TRYING TO FIND THE GOODNESS IN ME. I LIKE TO THINK I'M A KINDER ADULT THAN I WAS AS A CHILD....WHO DID ENCOURAGE HIS CONTEMPORARIES, WHEN CIRCUMSTANCE PREVAILED, TO PLACE THEIR MOIST TONGUES ON THE METAL RAILING OF THE HUNT'S HILL BRIDGE, AT THIRTY BELOW.....WHILE WORKING WITH OTHER TOADIES, IN OUR PARTY OF HOOLIGANS, TO DROP THE VICTIM'S TROUSERS. NOTHING SAYS PRANK LIKE A YOUNG SHIVERING LAD WITH PANTS AROUND THE ANKLES.....TONGUE EXTENDED, CRYING MUFFLED BY THE SCARF RE-ATTACHED AROUND THEIR UPPER LIP. DON'T WORRY FOLKS, I GOT REPAID MANY, MANY TIMES.

     I LOVED BOTH CORNERS STORES, AND SEEING AS WE LIVED ON ALICE STREET, ONE BLOCK REMOVED, THE PROPRIETORS OF EACH, KIND OF ADOPTED ME LIKE A STORE CAT. I LIKED TO BROWSE, AND OCCASIONALLY GET MY HAND STUCK IN THE COKE COOLER, TRYING TO NAVIGATE THE METAL TRACK THROUGH THE COLD WATER. I COULD BREAK ANYTHING DEEMED UNBREAKABLE. IN THIS MATTER, OF MOSTLY CONSEQUENCES, MY MOTHER FOUND OUT EARLY IN OUR RELATIONSHIP, THAT IF IT HAD A KNOB, FINIAL OR DIAL, I COULD SNAP IT OFF CLEANLY, IF GIVEN A COUPLE OF MINUTES UNATTENDED. I HAVE A CAT NOW, NAMED CHUTNEY, THAT REMINDS ME OF HOW BAD I WAS AS A KID, FOR BREAKING STUFF. CHUTNEY DOES WHAT SHE WANTS TO DO, CONSEQUENCES BE DAMNED. SHE HAS BORROWED A CHAPTER OUT OF MY BIOGRAPHY, AND I KIND OF THINK MY MOTHER HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS CAT'S ARRIVAL ON OUR DOORSTEP....AS A SORT OF HEAVEN-SENT REMINDER OF WHAT I WAS LIKE AS A NEVER-LISTEN KID. SO IN THE SHOPS, I DID PRETTY MUCH THE SAME THINGS, AND THE OWNERS PRACTICED PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE, BY STANDING OVER-TOP, JUST TO PROTECT THEIR GOODS. IF THEY DIDN'T, I'D HAVE TO HAND THEM THE THINGS I BROKE, FROM OFF THE FLOOR. THEY WERE FORGIVING FOLKS, SO AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED, THEY EARNED MY ALLOWANCE MONEY FAIR AND SQUARE, THROUGH THIS ONGOING KINDNESS, WHICH LASTED UNTIL MY LATE TEENS. I WAS STILL BUYING PAPER BAGS OF BLACK BALLS WHEN I WAS EIGHTEEN. UNTIL MY GIRLFRIEND REMINDED ME HOW CHILDISH IT WAS TO HAVE BLACK TEETH AND EXPECT TO SMOOCH. I THOUGHT IT WAS ENDEARING. IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF MY REFORMATION. SO THEN I STARTED CHEWING A GUM, I THINK WAS CALLED "THRILLS" AND IT WAS LIKE EATING A HANDFUL OF LILACS. MY GAL PALS SEEMED TO LIKE THE AROMA. I HATED IT. IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF MY INDENTURED EXISTENCE. PLEASE OTHERS FIRST.

     AS A KID, I HAD A VERY MODEST CHRISTMAS BUDGET; BUT THEN I WAS AN ONLY CHILD, AND JUST HAD TWO PARENTS TO BUY GIFTS FOR ANYWAY. WHEN I WAS REALLY UNDER THE FINANCIAL GUN, I SHOPPED WITH FRED AND MARY BAMFORD, AND THEIR LOYAL CLERK, CORA WHITE. THE TINY SHOP, PART OF THE WOODLEY PARK MOTOR COURT, WITH ITS EIGHT OR NINE SMALL TOURIST CABINS, WAS AN INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE FOR THE FIRST TIME VISITOR, AND ALWAYS A MARVEL FOR THOSE OF US WHO ATTENDED THE SHOP TWO OR THREE TIMES EACH DAY. MY MOTHER AND FATHER BOTH SMOKED LIKE CHIMNEYS, AND I WAS THE CORNER STORE "RUNNER." I GOT TO KEEP THE CHANGE, AND I WOULD SAVE IT UP FOR THE CHRISTMAS SEASON PURCHASES. THE STORE WAS SO FULL, IT WAS OVERFLOWING. THE CLERK SAT IN A LITTLE CUBBY HOLE, AND ALL COMMERCE WAS DONE THROUGH A SERIOUSLY COMPROMISED WINDOW. ALL THE CIGARETTE STOCK WAS BEHIND THE CLERK, SO THAT OUR NIMBLE LITTLE FINGERS COULDN'T POACH ANY OF THE PACKAGES....WHICH WE WOULD HAVE BY THE WAY.....EVEN THOUGH WE ALL LIKED FRED AND MARY BAMFORD FOR THEIR MANY KINDNESSES BESTOWED OUR FAMILIES. ESPECIALLY PUTTING US ON "TABS" IN BETWEEN PAY DAYS. IT WAS A THICK BOOK LET ME TELL YOU. IT WAS A BLUE COLLAR NEIGHBORHOOD AND MOST FAMILIES EXPERIENCED THE SAME FINANCIAL SHORTFALLS EVERY MONTH OF THE YEAR.

     THE BAMFORDS UTILIZED EVERY INCH OF STORE SPACE TO THEIR ADVANTAGE, AND I WISH I HAD TAKEN A PICTURE OF AT LEAST PART OF THE INTERIOR. THE WHOLE STORE WAS ONLY ABOUT SEVEN HUNDRED SQUARE FEET, IF THAT, AND MERCHANDISE WAS HANGING FROM THE CEILING, AND EVERY WALL WAS SERIOUSLY COMPROMISED WITH STOCK; A LOT OF SOUVENIRS, BECAUSE IT WAS A TOURIST-THEMED OPERATION AFTER-ALL. BUT IT HAD A GOOD LOCAL CLIENTELE YEAR ROUND. THERE WAS A MAGAZINE RACK JUST INSIDE THE DOOR, TO THE LEFT, AND THEN THERE WERE TWO COOLERS IN AN "L" SHAPE, IN THE FIRST SECTION OF THE THREE PART SHOP. IT WAS LIKE A LARGER GROCERY STORE, PURPOSELY JAMMED INTO THESE TINY SECTIONS, AND BY SOME GRACE OF RETAIL MAGIC, IT MADE COMMERCIAL SENSE. THE LITTLE SHOP, WITH A STRONG COMPETITOR ON THE OTHER END OF THE BLOCK, MADE A LOT OF MONEY OVER ITS TENURE ON THAT NICELY TREED LOT.....WHICH THE HUNT'S HILL GANG CALLED "BAMFORD'S WOODS." IT'S WHERE WE HUNG OUT A LOT OF THE TIME. IT WAS OUR SAFE HAVEN. WHERE WE TALKED ABOUT OUR CONQUESTS YET TO COME. OUR BAND OF MERRY LADS, DID MOST OF OUR JUNK FOOD SHOPPING AT EITHER BAMFORD'S OR BLACKS. I'M STILL ALIVE, SO MY MOTHER WAS WRONG ABOUT JUNK FOOD KILLING ME AT A YOUNG AGE. "IT'S GOING TO KILL YOU TEDDY....YOU JUST WATCH AND SEE....AND ALL YOUR TEETH WILL FALL OUT, AND NO GIRL WILL WANT YOU," SHE'D SCOLD ME, WALKING FROM ROOM TO ROOM, DUSTING EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE, WITH RANDOM STROKES OF A TORN RAG THAT DID NEXT TO NOTHING IN THE BATTLE FOR CLEANLINESS. IT ACTUALLY SPREAD THE DUST AROUND INSTEAD. SO MUCH SO THAT I COULD TASTE IT.

     WITH VERY FEW COINS IN MY POCKETS, I ALWAYS KNEW THAT FRED AND MARY WOULD HAVE SOME ITEMS IN STOCK, THAT WOULD BE PERFECT FOR MY MOTHER AND FATHER. I REMEMBER TAKING ADVANTAGE OF A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS SEASON CLEAR-OUT SALE (AND I KNOW WHY) ONE YEAR, OF SMALL, NICELY PACKAGED PERFUME SETS. SO I FOUND THE BIGGEST OF THE LITTLE SETS I COULD, AND I FELT SO GOOD ABOUT IT AS A QUICK RESOLUTION TO A PROBLEM OF GIFTING A FUSSY MOTHER, THAT IT NEVER CROSSED MY MIND THAT IT WOULD SMELL SO BAD, MERLE WOULDN'T EVEN OPEN THE BOTTLE, AFTER THAT FIRST NAUSEATING SAMPLE ON HER WRIST. INSTEAD OF A SMILE, SHE GOT A LOOK OF SHOCK ON HER FACE. "WHAT THE HECK IS THIS ANYWAY?" SHE SAID IT BEHIND MY BACK BUT I WAS STILL LISTENING.

    WE USED TO KID ABOUT IT IN LATER YEARS, BECAUSE SHE KEPT IT AS AN ORNAMENT ON HER DRESSER, NEVER EXPENDING EVEN A SINGLE DROP ON HER SKIN, FOR FEAR IT WOULD BURN. IT WAS BEAUTIFULLY SCRIPTED ON THE LABEL, AS "CREPE SATIN," BUT WE JOKED ABOUT IT BEING MORE LIKE "CREEP SATIN," OR BETTER STATED, "THE SATIN CREEPS WOULD WEAR." I USED TO BUY MY DAD ICE SCRAPERS FOR THE CAR, FAKE LEATHER GLOVES, NOVELTY ASH TRAYS, MAGAZINES, (NOT THE ADULT ONES), AND OF COURSE, CREPE SATIN FOR MEN. THEY DIDN'T ALWAYS SELL NAME BRANDS, SO I BOUGHT WHATEVER LOOKED CLOSEST TO AQUA VELVA OR OLD SPICE, WITH A NICE ARRAY OF PACKING MATERIALS MAKING IT LOOK NAUTICAL OR TROPICAL. BUT NOT QUITE. THESE LIQUIDS SMELLED BAD AND I WAS SAVAGELY ALLURED BY PACKAGING ONLY.....AND I'M STILL THAT WAY TODAY. ED WAS A TOUGH GUY SO HE WOULD NEVER LET ON, THE COLOGNE I BOUGHT HIM AT BAMFORDS, BURNED HIS FACE....UNLESS THE BLISTERS BEGAN TO SHOW. MERLE AND ED GOT EVEN WITH ME, SORT OF, BY BUYING MY PRESENTS THERE AS WELL. MOST OF THE MERCHANDISE WAS OLD STOCK FROM THE NINETEEN FIFTIES, SO IT WAS PERFECT FOR ANY ONE WHO HAD A GENUINE INTEREST IN PRISTINE NOSTALGIA. I COUNTED MYSELF AMONGST THIS NUMBER. YOU WERE ALWAYS DELVING INTO THE PAST WHEN YOU WENT INTO THAT STRANGE BUT WONDERFUL SHOP, CLUTTERED, CROWDED, BUT ALWAYS OCCUPIED BY KINDLY FOLK, BEHIND THE COUNTER, OR THE VISITORS SHOOTING THE BREEZE. IT WAS A STRANGE BUT ACCOMMODATING MEETING PLACE, IN A QUICKLY CHANGING TOWNSCAPE. IT WAS HOLDING ON TO A CORNER OF HISTORY, AND REFUSING TO LET GO. I LOVED THAT ABOUT THE BAMFORDS. AND GOING IN THERE, AT AROUND CHRISTMAS, WAS A CHARMING RESPITE FROM ALL THE OTHER TYPICALLY APPOINTED RETAIL VENUES THAT USED TO PERPLEX ME WITH TOO MANY OPTIONS. MY FAVORITE ALL TIME BASEBALL GLOVE, I USED FOR MOST OF MY MINOR YEARS, CAME FROM BAMFORDS....AND IT WAS PAPER THIN, BUT BY GOLLY, I MADE SOME AMAZING CATCHES IN THE OUTFIELD WITH IT HANGING LIGHTLY OFF MY HAND.

     I WAS HELD SPELLBOUND BY THE ARRAY OF CANDY TREATS THE BAMFORDS SET OUT FOR THE CHRISTMAS SEASON, AND IT WAS AMAZING HOW THEY COULD TRANSFORM THE SHOP INVENTORY, AND ENHANCE IT ALL, SO MUCH,  WITH LARGE CANDY CANES AND TACKY PLASTIC DECORATIONS.....NOT TO MENTIONS THOSE WONDERFUL, SEASONALLY APPOINTED COKE CUT-OUTS, AMONGST OTHER PRODUCT ADVERTISING, THE BAMFORDS WOULD SPLICE INTO THE JAMMED-UP STORE. I'LL TELL YOU, IT PULLED AT THE PURSE STRINGS. THEY WERE WISE ABOUT MERCHANDISING, EVEN THOUGH IT SEEMED TO DEFY, EVEN THEN, ALL THE RULES OF RETAIL MARKETING. I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW WHAT THEIR REVENUES WERE, AT THAT TINY, CORNER STORE, IN A NEIGHBORHOOD OF MODEST INCOMES.

     I BOUGHT MY CHOCOLATE SANTAS AT BAMFORDS, AS WELL AS THE BAGS OF ASSORTED CANDY THAT WERE ALWAYS STALE...AND WE LIKE THEM THAT WAY. WHEN YOUR NEXT TO BROKE, AS A GENERAL RULE, GETTING YOUR TREATS CHEAPLY IS ALL THAT MATTERS. I LIKED THE HOCKEY STICKS THEY SOLD AT BAMFORDS, AND THE ROAD HOCKEY PUCKS AND TENNIS BALLS, THAT WE WENT THROUGH BY THE DOZEN, FIRING THEM OFF INTO ALL THE SNOWBANKS AROUND OUR ALICE STREET APARTMENT. WE'D GET THEM ALL BACK IN THE SPRING. THERE WAS AN AMBIENCE IN THAT SHOP THAT I'VE NEVER FOUND SINCE, AND THAT I STILL FEEL IS IMPOSSIBLE TO EXPLAIN....EVEN THE CONFLUENCE OF AROMAS. IMAGINE THE SMELL OF NEWSPRINT, FROM THE DAILY PAPERS, MIXING WITH COFFEE, PIPE TOBACCO, BAKED GOODS, CHEAP PERFUME, SOAPS FOR THE HANDS AND FOR CLOTHES, ALL IN SEVEN HUNDRED SQUARE FEET OF RETAIL BLISS. HAVE YOU EVER SMELLED A FRESH, OUT OF PLASTIC, ROLL OF FRICTION TAPE, THE KIND WE USED TO WRAP ON THE BLADE AND END OF OUR HOCKEY STICKS. WELL, IT'S STRONG, AND THEY SOLD IT AS WELL. IT WAS A SENSORY BOMBARDMENT BEING IN THAT SHOP, BUT IT'S EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED AT THAT YOUNG AGE.....SOMETHING OF WONDERMENT CLOSE TO HOME, WHERE MY MOTHER DIDN'T FEAR FOR MY LIFE. SHE ALSO WORKED AS A CLERK FOR MARY AND FRED FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS. THE BAMFORDS LIVED IN THE BACK OF THE BUILDING, WHERE THERE WAS ALSO A STORAGE ROOM FOR SURPLUS INVENTORY, ESPECIALLY STATIONARY. I WAS A STATIONARY ADDICT IN MY YOUTH, AS I WAS ALWAYS WRITING BOOKS AND NEEDING MORE LOOSE LEAF REFILLS. I LOVED RUBBER STAMPS AS WELL. SO GETTING LOOSE IN THERE WAS PRETTY EXCITING. I COULD CHEW UP QUITE A BIT OF MERLE'S PAY, BUYING NEAT STUFF TO KEEP HER SON HAPPY. AND SHE DID. I'M GRATEFUL, LET ME TELL YOU. I STILL GET TURNED ON BY STATIONARY.

     THE BAMFORDS DIED MANY YEARS AGO, AND ARE BURIED IN THE PICTURESQUE ANGLICAN CEMETERY, ON UPPER MANITOBA STREET. THEIR HEARTS WERE GOLDEN, THOSE TWO, AND THEY PUT UP WITH ME FOR QUITE A FEW YEARS......UNTIL MY GIRLFRIENDS TOLD ME HOW UNCOOL IT WAS TO LINGER IN SOCIAL CIRCUMSTANCE, IN MOM AND POP CORNER STORES. IT'S AT CHRISTMAS TIME, THAT I MISS THESE CORNER STORES THE MOST. I'LL NEVER FORGET THEM, OR THE DECENT NEIGHBORS WHO RAN THEM....SOMETIMES AS CHARITIES, FOR US OF LESSER INCOMES. MERRY CHRIS TMAS TO THE MEMORIES OF FRED AND MARY BAMFORD, THE BLACKS, LIL AND CEC., AND THE FRASERS, FOR WORKING HARD ON OUR ACCOUNT....FOR BETTER OR WORSE.

A Vintage Walk In Downtown Bracebridge

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

A Preamble to Today’s Post

By Ted Currie

     It may surprise you,  or not,  that I have no relationship to speak of, with other regional historians, past, present, and unlikely to change in the future. It’s not about my unwillingness to co-operate when my input is required, but more so because of my complete insistence on independence. Meaning that I don’t often agree with the points of view from my colleagues, and I don’t have much interest in the kind of histories they find of great importance. They are not much into my passion for the conservation of regional folk stories, folk tales, or folk history generally, because it doesn’t offer the hard realities like the cornerstones secured into historic buildings, with time capsules containing absolute vessels of historical entities of the period it was cemented into place. I don’t argue against the “fact is everything” histories, and they serve an important part of historical accounting, but I grew out of that dominating burden of responsibility a long time ago; and I haven’t felt any personal shortcomings because of my personal choice to favor a less than rigid historical retelling. So suffice say, I don’t get invited to the “historian’s ball,” at this festive time of the year, and as far as getting on their mailing list, for Christmas card distribution, forget about it Ted. It’s not going to happen. I’ve always thought it might have been nice to work a little closer together for the advancement of some large heritage projects, but whenever there has been one that modestly interested me, we sir, my invitation was undoubtedly lost in the mail. It makes me feel better to say this, because it means that my colleagues really did want my input, but it was the darn mail delivery service that screwed up, leaving me without my invitation to participate. 

     It’s important to note this because it is the validation I possess, that folk histories have never been a priority for most of the historians who have lived, worked, researched and known-well, the community in which they have spent most of their lives. The fact that I have been insistent on the exact opposite, much to their chagrin, so I’ve been told on numerous occasions, it has made me even more determined to fly into the wind at my own risk. It hasn’t been easy without colleague support and encouragement, but it matters more that the old stories, and not just the old facts, are given as much significance as the hard core facts that are the brick and mortar of what we best know of how our communities were built up from pioneer times. For me, well, I have been a keeper of old tales and oft told nostalgia for so long, it is hard for me to imagine ever abandoning what has brought me so much joy for so many years. When I began writing a series for the Muskoka Advance in the early 19000’s, I was given some guard-rails by the publisher, and editor at the time, as to what I should write about each week, and that it be a popular and bright piece of writing, to bring attention to whatever page I was adorning on any particular week. That’s important in the newspaper business, as it brings in advertisers, and let’s them know that readers are spending extra time on the page in question; for example, reading my column, and then dwelling a little longer on their ads published on the same page. I grew weary of the more factual stories they most desired, and shifted gradually to what could be labelled frivolous tales from my old neighborhood, that had very little in the way of historical fact. But it certainly wasn’t fiction either.

     In these weekly columns that ran for about eight years, I made Alice Street the centre of the universe for not only myself, but for many of my readers, making that Hunt’s Hill neighborhood in Bracebridge of the mid 1960’s and early 70’s, seem so much more interesting and human, than what had been the dry cracker crumbs of a well known and over-written-about history of local architecture, and political mainstays who get most of the credit or the progress we have achieved thus far. I don’t buy that of course, as you may have thought already. Our towns, not just Bracebridge, were established and progressed by the blue collar working stiffs, who did the grunt work all week long, decade after decade, to keep the bricks and mortar from collapsing into the streets. The so called common-folk were running the baker’s ovens, the waiters and waitresses were keeping the citizenry fed, and with ample beverage; the carpenters hustled, the sales clerks in the old general stores, worked long and hard hours, and the laborers at the woolen mill, tanneries, logging camps, mills,  and on the logging drives each spring, made the economy grow and prosper, just as the nurses and doctors tended the injuries they sustained, and the staff of fledgling medical facilities, like the Red Cross Hospital in Bracebridge, kept the place clean and safe for the many patients who needed care. The teachers who taught, the janitors who kept up standards, the good folk that kept the horses in shape, and in the best horseshoes in town, the mechanics who kept the fire engines and ambulances in top gear,….and by golly the list goes one and on and on. The working folk of our towns are the heroes, and when I wrote about my home neighborhood, of Bracebridge’s Hunt’s Hill and good old Alice Street, it was based on my own inside knowledge, of just how much this one generally modest income bailiwick kept the town businesses going full steam ahead; maybe as steam fitters keeping the boilers firing, or the electricians and plumbers who tended our household problems. It’s why I took a more in-depth look at what it had really been like as a kid growing up amidst these unsung heroes, and how their kids, as my mates, dealt with the realities that they didn’t have anything that looked or felt like social standing. They were just the kids day to day struggling citizens trying to live a good life and provide for their families the best they could be expected under the limitations of life and times in a small town.

     My long standing series on these Alice Street reminiscences was a hit from the beginning. Even when I had been editor of The Herald-Gazette, and then the Gravenhurst Banner, I had never known so much general appreciation, for validating the citizenry of the town who did not aspire to become anything more than successful at the enterprise they had chosen to follow in life and business. These were kids from often poorer households who had to get by with holes in their pants, their shoes that flapped down the sidewalk admitting all the moisture encountered on the way uptown and downtown, and who never thought of themselves as disadvantaged in any way; other than when they showed up at the rink or the ball park with lesser equipment, because it’s what our folks could afford. It’s at Christmas more than at any other time during the year, that I most think about those wonderful and sharing folks in that modest old neighborhood, who never betrayed their neighbors even when they could afford to move upward in local housing; they knew just how comfortable that neighborhood was, back then, and how easy it was to be a part of what was, by tradition, unpretentious and excepting. No one made fun of the tatters of my pants, coats and shoes, until I got to school. Oh well, it wasn’t a weighing-down burden of my family’s situation,  not be able to spend much of our reserve on new clothes, because it was made up for, in so many other ways a family comes together to battle the odds. And, yes, it was at Christmas when we shared our modest bounty with others, and they certainly shared with us. Up in that Weber apartment, gosh, now that was a living, breathing folk story that will never lose its significance, and, yes, magic, for this gnarled old story teller…..who has no hesitation whatsoever, bypassing the brick and mortar “somethings” to keep alive the heart and soul stories that really did build our towns from the pioneer homesteads to the present.

CHRISTMAS IN BRACEBRIDGE -

I WISH YOU COULD HAVE SEEN IT - BUT LET ME TAKE YOU FOR A WALK DOWNTOWN ANYWAY - FROM MY VINTAGE OF 1967 OR SO - JUST WHAT CAN YOU SEE FROM A BARBER SHOP WINDOW?

YES I CAN. I DON'T NEED MUCH EXERTION OF RECALL, TO PUT MYSELF BACK IN BILL ANDERSON'S BARBERSHOP, SITUATED ON THE CORNER OF WHAT WAS THEN, THOMAS STREET AND MANITOBA……A TINY OIL PAINT / HAIR TONIC SCENTED SHOP, IN THE OLD PATTERSON HOTEL…..FORMERLY OF COURSE THE QUEEN'S HOTEL. IT WAS ANY THIRD SATURDAY OF A MONTH. THAT'S WHEN MY MOTHER MERLE, TUCKED A BIT OF PAPER MONEY INTO MY SHIRT POCKET, AND TOLD ME TO GET DOWN TO SEE BILL ANDERSON FOR A HAIRCUT. WHILE OTHER YOUNG LADS OF MY VINTAGE, WOULD COME UP WITH A WHOLE BUNCH OF IDEAS AGAINST, AND FEIGN ILLNESS RATHER THAN WASTING TIME ON A SATURDAY SITTING IN A BARBER SHOP, I LOVED TO SEE BILL IN HIS, WELL, ART STUDIO. REALLY. IT WAS WHERE HE DID SOME OF HIS WELL KNOWN MUSKOKA LANDSCAPES. A WELL TRAVELLED AND ACCOMPLISHED ARTIST, BILL ANDERSON COULD ALSO CUT A LAD'S HAIR……SUCH THAT NO ONE, AND I MEAN NO ONE MADE FUN OF IT IN THE SCHOOL YARD. AT VIRTUALLY THE SAME TIME, I'M PRETTY SURE, THOUGH I NEVER ACTUALLY SAW SCISSORS AND PAINTBRUSH AT WORK SIMULTANEOUSLY, HE COULD HAVE DONE IT WITH OUTSTRETCHED ARMS AND THE SENSORY PERCEPTION OF THE ARTIST/ BARBER. HERE'S HOW IT WORKED.

THERE WAS ALWAYS AN EASLE WITH A PAINTBOARD IN THE CORNER OF THIS BARBER SHOP. THERE WAS A TEA KETTLE, A TEA POT, AND A CUP. NOT FOR ME. FOR THE ARTIST-BARBER. THE FUNNIEST THING TO ME, WAS WHEN BILL WOULD BE TRIMMING MY HAIR, OR SOMEONE ELSE'S (AS I SAT AWAITING MY TURN), AND HE'D STOP IN HIS TRACKS, LOOK AT THE EASLE, AND JUMP FROM THE TASK AT HAND, TO ADDING SOMETHING TO THE ART PANEL. MAYBE A BIT OF WHITE TO A CLOUD THAT LOOKED TOO DARK, OR A BIT MORE BLUE WHERE THE LAKE LOOKED A LITTLE TOO GREEN WITH REFLECTION. I NEVER ONCE HEARD BILL OFFER AN APOLOGY FOR ABANDONING MY HAIR, SO HE COULD FINE TUNE HIS ART WORK. I WAS FASCINATED, AND BY GOLLY, I WOULD HAVE PAID HIM JUST FOR THE PLEASURE OF WATCHING HIM DABBLE AT THE SUBJECT LANDSCAPE.

Heck, Bill would stop and make himself a cup of tea, if the mood struck, and it didn't really matter if he was finished my hair or not. He didn't look like a particularly relaxed human being, but anyone who sat in his shop for any length of time, couldn't help but be calmed by his demeanor; and of course, handiwork about the head (mine for example), or jumping back and forth from palette and brush, to application. I figure, during my youth, I probably watched him work on twenty or more landscapes in that tiny corner barber shop. Now think of this. Just down Manitoba Street, toward the silver bridge, was the pharmacist-artist Bob Everett. On top of the Queen's Hill, there was a painter-gas jockey, by the name of Ross Smith, a fine landscape artist who was also a school chum. He'd pump your gas, take the money, and sit back down to a small painting he was working on, just inside the station. He had a lot of sudden art admirers when folks came into the office to pay. He painted a lot of Muskoka landscape, particularly around the Camel Lake area, where there was a family cottage. I have a Ross Smith original in my livingroom today, and I wouldn't part with it! It was a custom order, you might say. I helped him correct his spelling on university essays, and he painted a small landscape I had wanted.

Leading up to the Christmas season, the downtown shops of lower Manitoba Street fascinated me. I'd leave Anderson's Barber Shop and slip next door to see Mrs. Green, in her gift shop. She always had a small quantity of models and games that I liked to see…..and imagine what my very next allowance could afford. Then I'd amble south, across the Thomas Street intersection, to Elliott's five and dime store, where I could spend considerable time watching the gold fish swim about, and the budgies hop from bar to bar in the giant cages. I loved the Dinky Car and Corgi displays, and the toy section, while not huge, seemed gigantic to a kid who'd seldom been to a large department store. At Christmas, I was picking out my gifts and store owner, Bill Elliott gave me all the time and room I needed to make a decision. He had a great compassion for us dreamer-kids, and I was never once, chased out of that store for not having money jangling in my pocket. He looked at us kids as good future investments, and that when we did get part-time jobs, or professions in the future, we'd return the favor he afforded us for so many years.

I'd go across the street to the Thomas Company, to buy my mother Merle a pretty china cup and saucer, for Christmas, and I remember joining my dad one Saturday, before Christmas, when we went into Thatcher Studios, and bought two busts of her favorite composers…..the head of Bach and one of Beethoven. They would be given as presents, to Merle, and would come to adorn the cabinet stereo they bought from Banks Brothers T.V and Audio, also a wonderful business on that storied main street. There was the smell of freely made chelsea buns from Waites Bakery, and the greasy aroma of freshly made french fries from either Irma's Restaurant or the Muskoka Restaurant……or the Top Hat, if you were far enough down the street. If you happened into Ecclestone's Hardware, or Myers Brothers Hardware, Brooks Drug Store, or Everett's, there were always congregations of friends, family and neighbors, the same ones who had just finished shopping at Lorne's Marketeria…..where I was enthralled by the old building, the grand advertising posters and cardboard cut-outs, and the fact we would opt for next day delivery, if we shopped on a payday…..the Friday night when Manitoba Street was bustling. Did I mention the wheel of old cheese I used to lust for, down at Muskoka Trading, or the bike accessories we longed for, at BB Auto. I'd be standing with the old-timers at the Downtown Garage, one moment, with the Hillman lads, to then running along the rail platform of the train station……sitting on the parking rail, for a time, to see who would get tossed out, by the seat of their pants, from the former Albion Hotel. I saw a lot of incredible summersaults out that front door, let me tell you…..and watched most of the disgraced patrons, take a second and third run at getting back in. Some were more successful than others.

I might be in the newly opened children's section of the Bracebridge Public Library, for awhile, or sitting on the window ledge of the Uptown Garage for a visit with Ross, and then spend some quality time, as an on-duty rink rat, for arena Manager Doug Smith, who paid us for shoveling the ice, with snack-bar credits. My favorite was a hot dog and Coke. I'd have about eight of them in a day. When I did wind-up at the arena, it was never for a short visit. My dad always knew where to find me on Saturday afternoon, around this time of the year. I sure as heck didn't need dinner when I got home. That made my mother crazy.

As I walk along Manitoba Street, on pre-Christmas days like this, I can't help myself. I fall back into that splendid, harmless nostalgia, that so splendidly rekindles those carefree days, when we roamed and lived, and played, and well, played some more. I miss seeing folks like Russ Salmon leading a Manitoba Street hockey talk, or seeing Bill Elliott shoveling off the walk in front of the store. I want to look at that corner block of the former Patterson Hotel, and see Bill Anderson standing in the doorway, with a cup of tea in his hand. I can hear the high pitched voice of Randy Carswell, an old chum, chatting with friends on the steps of the post office, talking about the hockey scores of the night before….and then seeing Fred "Bing" Crosby, our hockey coach, walking to the arena with skates hung over his shoulder, and his toque leaning a little to the right…..dusted with just enough snow that he looked wintry. Harold Frow might be standing outside his Muskoka Trading grocery store, and you might see Redmond Thomas, Q.C. in a gray overcoat, making his way to the arena, to watch a Saturday hockey game, or see Tommy Halliday ambling over to his boarding house on the corner of Dominion and Manitoba Streets, with a newspaper tucked under his arm……he needed to know the sports scores, in case Randy had heard them wrong. I can still see Father Mitchell, of St. Thomas Church walking through the snow of Memorial Park, from his home to St. Thomas Church, and watch the brothers of the Society of St. John The Evangelist, in their long black gowns, walk up the hill to the post office, next to the library, the black fabric bags to be loaded with the mail of the day…….and then walk back up Hunt's Hill, as mysterious silhouettes, to the "House on the Hill," their religious retreat.

In street corner scrums, the talk of the day might have been about Roger Crozier, the hometown boy who had made it big in the National Hockey League, or about that young rascal Paul Rimstead, working as a writer for the dailies in Toronto…….what about the fine work of music composer, director, Howard Cable, who had bestowed the honor of composing music for the annual Winter Carnival. And of course there were the usual political debates that were never quite resolved, but always entertaining to over-hear. It was all pretty good natured, and part of the culture of small town life. Just as town police officer Rod White might have said to me……"Teddy, your dad's looking for you……it's time to go home." Before I'd get down that short stretch of Manitoba Street, that refrain would play over and over. Butch Ecclestone might remind me the same, as would Mr. Shier of BB Auto, or Bill Elliot (my mother worked at his store), and even Bill Anderson, if he saw me dawdling at dinner time, just as he was closing shop. No, I can't help but get a little misty-eyed about what has been and gone of a neat main street. You know, I can still see my mother Merle, walking with a noticeable limp, with my two wee lads in tow, hand-in-hand, on a snowy winter night, as this…..so many years ago. I have a great span of memories in this town, and of course some regrets, that many citizens here have no idea what it was like……..when the shop-keeps here knew every kid by their first name…..and family name, and when you could get hauled aside, without warning, to "take a loaf of bread to you mother Ted. She just called, and figured you be by sooner or later." That might have come from personnel at the grocery store or the bakery. "Pay me later," they'd say.

I know the past is what it is, and that "time waits for no man." But the great privilege of the imaginative time traveller, is to recall again, those grand days of the old town, in that faded sepia tone of album photographs. The voices are distant, and tinny, with an echo of all the years past……the hands outstretched, still too far apart to connect in greeting, of one time to another……the sound of the daily trains, the chimes of the clock tower, the horns and worn-out truck mufflers echoing in the winter air. I will always see those wonderful old ghosts, and ponder if they see me too.

Congratulations Bracebridge on a magnificent light show, in the neighborhood trees, in celebration of the Christmas season, on the historic, oh so familiar main street. To a sentimental old fool, it is a beautiful walk, down a full to overflowing memory lane.

If you need to rekindle, well, this is the place to do so!!!!

The Sound of The Train Horn Echoing Through Town

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

A Preamble to Today’s Blog

ON BEING PERCEPTIVE OF LIFE AND INDUSTRY AND THE SOUNDS THEY COMMUNE ON DURING ANY GIVEN DAY

By Ted Currie

     The sound of the northeast wind coming in off Muskoka Bay has always been a treat for me, the watcher in the woods. I have long celebrated the beautiful music it makes, with its haunting wind-song in the high full branches of venerable pines that infill the rim of the woodland bowl that surrounds The Bog across the lane. I even enjoy the sound of the first snow pellets of early winter, hitting the frozen newly fallen leaves, that cushion my wanderings in the period leading up to Christmas; when there is just enough snow to make a sentimental crunching sound, step by step, but not too much ground covering to necessitate snow shoes or skis. I’m not very proficient any more on either of these choices, and if I was to attempt a foray wearing these, there would indeed be a more compromising sound in these peaceful woods; that being the crash of the poet “me” into a tree, tumbling down into an intimate tangle of sporting gear and humanity.

     As a kid who spent so much time out of doors, which was to my mother’s delight (because I was a mess-maker of the highest order), I occupied my time by paying attention to everything that was happening around me, and what sounds were breaking through the town neighborhoods, in the cold of early evening; possibly the sound of the town clock tower chimes, the faint thunder of the Bracebridge falls, when the wind came from the right direction, the main town fire siren which was audible, in my youth, emitting so disturbingly from a tower on the fire hall on Dominion Street. In the milder seasons of the year, I would hear the haunting skirl of the bagpipes being played by one of our neighbors up on Alice Street, after a snoot full, and the strange sounds of swooping swallows after insects, that seemed to prefer the area near my bedroom window. I enjoyed listening to neighborhood owls, and the sound of rock ’n roll music coming from the parked hot rods over at Lil and Cec’s Variety store on upper Toronto Street, as the sharp dressed fellows tried to make time with perceived sweethearts who really only liked the music and the cars it was coming from. But you know, it was always the sound of the distant, but approaching train, its rumble and clacking over the tracks, followed by the echo of the powerful horn blaring through the forest hollow where the tracks sparkled in the moonlight of summer nights, but especially so in the early days of December, where there wasn’t a lot of snow to hush the harsher tone. I might have been out playing with my hockey stick, puck and broken old net from the Christmas the year before, or walking home from the arena after watching the junior club practicing, that the sound of that distant horn would bring me to a sharper reality of all that was important about living in this small town in South Muskoka. It was so wonderfully rural Canadian, and so void of pretense and expectation; but major in the creation of clear, sharp images, and a breeder of refined imagination about those strange fictions that we create in our personal solitudes, that somehow trace out the illustrations we ponder, about all the marvelous “what ifs” of a free and full life yet to manifest for the “willing traveller”; the willing creator of fact from make believe, and opportunity from possibility. And although I never once drove one of those magnificent locomotives that used to pass through our town, through the young days of my life, I did in reality, become a lifetime train hobbyist, that although, has mostly been in the form of collecting books about railways past and present, has never ceased to allow me the very dear pleasure of imagining myself at the throttle, the silver rails sparkling out in front, and passengers aboard who need to make it home in time for Christmas. And yes, it is true, that “The Polar Express,” is my favorite seasonal movie, that I will also delight in watching in the middle of the summer.

      Surely you have many similar memories regarding the sounds of your past neighborhoods; former homes and school playgrounds. Honor them, cherish them, and recall them often, because they are important/

THE SOUND OF THE TRAIN HORN - THE ECHO OF HISTORY PASSING ON THE SILVER RAILS

I WAS ATTRACTED TO THE SOUNDS OF HOME - AND I DON'T KNOW WHY

      WHEN I LIVED IN BURLINGTON, BY REGULAR IMMERSION IN THE PEA SOUP OF THE LAKESIDE ENVIRONS, I GOT USED TO THE HAUNTING BELLOW OF THOSE DEEP, MOURNFUL FOG HORNS, SOUNDING ABOARD THE GREAT LAKES FREIGHTERS. I GOT USED TO THE FOG ROLLING IN OFF LAKE ONTARIO. I'D WALK TO SCHOOL, SOME MORNINGS, ON THE WAY TO LAKESHORE PUBLIC, AND ONLY BE ABLE TO SEE A FEW YARDS IN FRONT. SO I UNDERSTOOD THE IMPORTANCE OF FOG HORNS OUT ON THE LAKE. US KIDS JUST KEPT YELLING TO EACH OTHER, IF ONE GOT TOO FAR AHEAD. IT WAS KIND OF FUN UNTIL WE'D GET TO A ROAD, TO CROSS, WITH NO ASSISTANCE TO GET US TO THE OTHER SIDE. I CAN ADMIT IT NOW, BECAUSE MY MOTHER IS DECEASED, BUT WE HAD SOME CLOSE CALLS, WHEN MOTORISTS CAME SPEEDING THROUGH THE MIST, ONLY TO FIND US LADS, STANDING THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROADWAY. IN MY PUBLIC SCHOOL DAYS, GETTING HIT BY A CAR MEANT LOSING THE RIGHT TO FLY THE ELMER THE SAFETY ELEPHANT FLAG. SO WE FEARED HAVING A SHOWDOWN WITH A CAR BUMPER, AS HAD TRAGICALLY AFFECTED OUR CLASS-MATES. I CAN REMEMBER A KID WHO GOT HIT, OUT FRONT OF THE SCHOOL, GETTING THE CRAP BEAT OUT OF HIM, WHEN HE RETURNED TO SCHOOL, AFTER RECOVERING FROM INJURIES. WE HAD TO TAKE THE FLAG DOWN OFF THE POLE AT THE FRONT OF THE SCHOOL, WHERE IT HAD FLIED FOR A FULL YEAR. SO KIDS BLAMED THIS POOR LAD FOR RUINING OUR ACCIDENT FREE REPUTATION. GO FIGURE. SO WE ADD TO HIS INJURIES, BY WHACKING HIM FOR HAVING WHAT COULD ONLY HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED AN ACCIDENT. IT WASN'T LIKE THE KID WANTED TO GET HIT, BUT THAT'S THE WAY OUR TEACHERS SEEMED TO FEEL, BACK THEN, UNDER THE BANNER OF ELMER, AND IT WAS MIRRORED BY THE STUDENT BODY. TALK ABOUT BULLYING.

      GROWING UP IN BRACEBRIDGE, IT WAS THE TRAIN HORN, AND THE ECHOE AND VIBRATION OF THE ENGINES THAT KEPT ME COMPANY, ON MANY OUTDOOR VIGILS, AND WALKS HOME FROM DOWNTOWN. I HAD TO PASS THE TRAIN STATION EVERY MORNING, ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL, AND I WAS ALWAYS, AGAINST MY MOTHER'S DIRECTIVE, LINGERING ON THE PLATFORM, WAITING FOR THE NEXT ARRIVAL AND SUBSEQUENT DEPARTURE. IN THE LATE 1960'S, IT WAS ONE OF OUR FAVORITE HANG-OUTS, AND HONESTLY, I NEVER REMEMBER ANY STATION-MASTER SITTING IN THE GLASSED-IN OFFICE, BESIDE THE LOUNGE. THE DOOR WAS ALWAYS OPEN BUT NO ONE SEEMED TO BE IN CHARGE. I DO KNOW THAT MR. STACEY HAD BEEN IN CHARGE OF THE STATION, BUT DURING MY YEARS, THE ONLY TIME I SAW HIM DOWN THERE, WAS WHEN HE WAS PAINTING AT HIS EASLE, WITH HIS WIFE HAVING SET UP BESIDE. I SUPPOSE THEY WERE BOTH ARTISTS, AND THEY SEEMED FASCINATED BY THE RAILWAY LINE, GOING NORTH AND SOUTH. I SAW THEM PAINT IN BOTH DIRECTIONS, BUT THEY DIDN'T LIKE US KIDS GETTING IN THE WAY.....EVEN DOWN THE RAILS. I ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT WOULD HAVE ADDED TO THE DIMENSION OF WHAT THEY WERE PAINTING, BUT APPARENTLY, THE SILVER RAILS AND WHAT WAS COMING TO THE STATION, WAS OF GREATER IMPORTANCE ON THEIR PAINT BOARDS.

     ON A COLD SATURDAY, AT THIS TIME OF YEAR, THE HUNT'S HILL LADS, WOULD HANG AROUND THE STATION TO WATCH A FEW TRAINS PASS, AND ENJOY THE WARM COMFORTS OF THE LOBBY, THAT APPEARED FROZEN IN TIME. IT ALWAYS REMINDED ME OF THE 1940'S FROM WHAT I HAD SEEN IN OLD BLACK AND WHITE MOVIES WE WATCHED ON TELEVISION. IT WAS NEAT AND WELL MAINTAINED, SO OBVIOUSLY, THERE WAS SOMEONE RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS UPKEEP. IT WAS MEMORABLE, YOU KNOW, SITTING IN THOSE COMFORTABLE LOBBY CHAIRS, LOOKING OUT THE WINDOWS ONTO THE PLATFORM, WATCHING THE SNOW FLURRIES DUSTING OVER THE BASIN OF THE MUSKOKA RIVER, AND THE LENGTH OF TORONTO STREET OVER THE HUNT'S HILL BRIDGE. WE DIDN'T STAY LONG, BECAUSE WE KNEW IT WAS THE KIND OF PLACE THAT PEOPLE CHECKED-UP ON, ALTHOUGH WE HAD NEVER BEEN CHALLENGED ABOUT OUR TEMPORARY RESIDENCY. I'M SO GLAD I HAD AN OPPORTUNITY TO SPEND SOME TIME THERE, BEFORE IT WAS DESTROYED ONE DAY, IN THE EARLY 1980'S, WHEN US HISTORIANS WERE ASLEEP AT THE PROVERBIAL SWITCH. THERE WAS NO WARNING. JUST BUSTED TIMBERS WHERE A BEAUTIFUL TRAIN STATION HAD STOOD FOR LONG AND LONG.....ALONG THAT SECTION OF RIVER BANK. ONE DAY, A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, I FOUND THE OLD TRAIN STATION SIGN, FOR SALE, IN A DARK CORNER OF A HUNTSVILLE ANTIQUE SHOP. I THINK IT WAS SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS, AND I HAD TWENTY BUCKS TO BLOW. SO I DIDN'T COME HOME WITH IT. BUT I WANTED IT FOR OLD TIMES SAKE. SUZANNE EXPLAINED THAT IT WAS TOO BIG FOR ANYWHERE IN OUR HOUSE. SHE WAS RIGHT. I'VE STILL GOT THE IRON LETTERS FROM THE OLD "HERALD-GAZETTE" SIGN, FROM 27 DOMINION STREET, THAT I HAVE NO PLACE TO MOUNT INSIDE OR OUT AT BIRCH HOLLOW.

     WHEN IT WASN'T TOO COLD, WE'D OPT TO SIT-UP ON THE PLATFORM OF THE FREIGHT SHED, WHICH AFFORDED US A GOOD AND SAFE PLACE TO WATCH THE ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF TRAINS THROUGHOUT THE DAY. IF THE HUGE IRON-WHEELED FREIGHT CART WAS ON THE PLATFORM, WITHOUT ITS ANCHOR CHAIN, OUR LADS WOULD TAKE IT FOR A LITTLE SPIN DOWN THE RAMP. TALK ABOUT A RUSH. WE'D SURELY GET A JOLT WHEN WE HIT THE END OF THE WOOD BRIDGING, AND THE LITTLE RIDGE OF WOOD STRAPPING, DESIGNED TO STOP THE CART IN THE EVENT IT WAS PUSHED OVER THE EDGE. WE'D FINISH A RIDE WITH SPLINTERS IN THE ARSE, LET ME TELL YOU. POKING RIGHT THROUGH OUR SNOWSUITS. THE EXTRACTION WAS PAINFUL AND EXECUTED BY OUR CONTEMPORARIES. WE SURE AS HECK DIDN'T COME HOME WITH FREIGHT CART SPLINTERS, BECAUSE OUR PARENTS WOULD HAVE KNOWN EXACTLY WHERE THEY CAME FROM. THERE WAS ALWAYS THE ASSUMPTION, WE WOULD GET UP TO NO GOOD. THIS WAS THE CASE, ONLY FIFTY PERCENT OF THE TIME. IN FACT, MOST OF THE TIME, TRUTH BE KNOWN, WE WERE A LOT LESS DANGEROUS AT PLACES LIKE THE TRAIN STATION, BECAUSE WE DID HAVE RESPECT FOR THE WHOLE INDUSTRY OF MOVING PEOPLE AND STUFF. THE ONLY REPETITIVE, STUPID THING WE DID, WAS SETTING OUT PENNIES ON THE RAILS, SO THAT THE INCOMING TRAINS WOULD FLATTEN THEM. WE USED TO MAKE A NAIL HOLE IN THEM, AND STRING THEM AROUND OUR NECKS AS TROPHIES. I GOT CAUGHT DOING THIS ONCE, BY A RAIL WORKER, AND HE TOLD ME HOW I COULD EASILY DE-RAIL A TRAIN. "WITH THIS LITTLE PENNY," I ASKED. "IT COULD KILL HUNDREDS OF PASSENGERS, SON," HE CLAIMED, AND "YOU KNOW KID, IT'S AGAINST THE LAW. I COULD PHONE THE COPS AND HAVE YOU PUT IN JAIL FOR DOING THIS." A LOT OF ADULTS THREATENED US WITH JAIL TIME. IT HAD MORE OOMPH THAN JUST SAYING, "YOU'RE IN TROUBLE!"

     WE LIKED PASSENGER TRAINS MOST, BECAUSE WE FANTASIZED ABOUT TAKING A TRIP ONE DAY.....AND JUST AS TODAY, THERE WERE ALWAYS A LOT OF VACANT SEATS. WHEN THE CONDUCTOR YELLED OUT, "ALL ABOARD," WE WANTED TO BE ON THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT.....OFF ON AN ADVENTURE TO NOWHERE IN PARTICULAR. IT ALWAYS REMINDS ME NOW, OF THE ANIMATED MOVIE, "THE POLAR EXPRESS," WITH TOM HANKS, PLAYING THE SPIRITED CONDUCTOR FOR THE CHRISTMAS EVE JOURNEY. MOST OF US OLDTIMERS, WITH A LITTLE UNSPENT ENERGY, STILL HAVE REMNANT CHILDISH WONDERMENT, LEFTOVER, ABOUT ALL THE PLACES THOSE PASSENGERS WOULD SEE AND EXPERIENCE, GOING NORTH OR SOUTH. SO WE MADE IT SEEM A LOT MORE LIKE FICTION, THAN IT WAS ALL ABOUT....BECAUSE WE WERE USING REAL TRAINS AND REAL PEOPLE, TO CONCOCT OUR FANTASY RAIL ADVENTURES. OUR SHORTFALL, WAS THAT WE WERE ALL BROKE. IF WE'D POOLED ALL OUR COINS TOGETHER, WE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN ABLE TO BUY A POSTAGE STAMP, LET ALONE A TRAIN STATION. EVEN IF WE'D HAD A FEW DOLLARS MORE, ONLY ONE OF US WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GO.....THE OTHERS LEFT TO EXPLAIN TO FAMILY MEMBERS, HOW WE HAD HIT THE RAILS TO A NEW FUTURE. FOR THOSE FREIGHT TRAINS, WE HOPED TO FIND AN OPEN BOXCAR WE COULD HITCH A RIDE, LIKE THE HOBOS DID, (WE'D VISITED THEIR JUNGLES) BUT EVEN THOUGH WE HAD A FLEETNESS TO JUMP ONTO A MOVING TRAIN, THE WARNING OUR MOTHERS GAVE US EACH MORNING (SUSPECTING WE WOULD FIND OUR WAY DOWN TO THE STATION AT SOME POINT) REMAINED IN GOOD STEAD. MY MOTHER WOULD DESCRIBE HOW OTHER BOYS AND GIRLS HAD LOST THEIR LEGS, TRYING TO JUMP ONTO THESE BOXCARS, ACCIDENTALLY FALLING BENEATH THE WHEELS OF THE MOVING TRAIN. I FANCIED ADVENTURE, BUT NOT LOSING MY LEGS. SO WE JUST ENJOYED THE BANGS AND CLATTER, AND THE ROAR OF THE OLD DIESEL ENGINES, AS THEY PASSED BY THE FREIGHT PLATFORM, TIME AND AGAIN, WITHOUT EVER ONCE STOPPING THAT I CAN REMEMBER. PASSENGER TRAINS WERE MUCH MORE APPROACHABLE, ALTHOUGH THE CONDUCTOR ALWAYS KEPT AN EYE ON OUR PROXIMITY TO HIS PORTABLE STEPS, THAT HE THREW OUT TO ASSIST THOSE DISEMBARKING....OR CLIMBING ABOARD. I THINK HE SUSPECTED WE WERE GETTING READY TO LAUNCH A MULTI-KID ASSAULT ON HIS CAPABILITY TO DIRECT TRAFFIC, GETTING ONTO THE TRAIN WITHOUT A TICKET. WE MIGHT HAVE, BUT HE KEPT US BACK WITH STERN LOOKS, AND A SHAKING FINGER IN OUR DIRECTION. HIS GENEROSITY WAS CONFINED TO GIVING US A WAVE, WITH THE WHISPER FROM HIS LIPS, "BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME YOU LITTLE BUGGERS." WE'D HAVE GIVEN HIM THE FINGER, BUT WE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANT IN THOSE DAYS. SO WE JUST WAVED.

     I DO SEE MY GHOST OF CHILDHOOD, GETTING ON THE POLAR EXPRESS HOWEVER, AND IT HAS BECOME MY SEASONAL MOVIE FAVORITE, BEHIND ONLY "A CHRISTMAS CAROL," "WHITE CHRISTMAS," AND "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE." I LIKE IT SO MUCH, BECAUSE IT WAS EXACTLY HOW WE FELT AS KIDS.....BUT COULD NEVER REALLY SPELL OUT WHAT OUR EXPECTATIONS WERE. GOING TO THE NORTH POLE WOULD HAVE BEEN SWELL. WE JUST WANTED TO GO SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN WHERE WE WERE STUCK. IT'S NOT THAT BRACEBRIDGE WASN'T A NEAT HOMETOWN, BUT WE KNEW THERE WERE PLACES DOWN OR UP THE LINE, WE'D LIKE BETTER. THESE WERE MYSTERY PLACES THAT INSPIRED US TO DAYDREAM, AND IF WE'D BEEN IN SCHOOL, OUR TEACHERS WOULD HAVE SCOLDED US.....AND WRITTEN IN A HEAVY, IMPRINTED INK, ON OUR REPORT CARDS, THAT WE WERE "INATTENTIVE IN CLASS;" THUSLY, WASTING OUR LIVES DREAMING ABOUT THINGS WE COULDN'T HAVE, IN PLACES WE'D NEVER BE ABLE TO VISIT. IF WE DIDN'T GET AN EDUCATION YOU SEE, WE'D BE DESTINED TO A PENNILESS FUTURE WITHOUT ENTERPRISE WHATSOEVER. ALL MY TEACHERS FELT IT INCUMBENT TO WARN ME FROM USING MY IMAGINATION, TO ESCAPE THEIR BORING CLASSROOMS. WHEN I'D HEAR THAT FAMILIAR TRAIN HORN CALLING OUT TO ME, AND I WAS SURE OF THIS, I STOPPED DOING EVERYTHING IN THAT CLASSROOM SETTING.....FOR THOSE FEW MOMENTS IT WAS PASSING OUR TOWN. LIKE THE FOG HORNS I USED TO HEAR, IN BURLINGTON, THE TRAIN HORNS MEANT SOMETHING TO ME, WAY BEYOND WHAT MY MOTHER OR TEACHERS COULD UNDERSTAND. EVEN NOW, AT BIRCH HOLLOW, IF I'M OUTSIDE AND HEAR THE TRAIN HORN, I WILL STOP IN MY TRACKS, NO MATTER WHAT THE TASK AT HAND, AND LISTEN AS IT BELLOWS OFF IN THE DISTANCE. THE FURTHER AWAY, THE MORE HAUNTING AND NOSTALGIC IT SOUNDS. AND I ALWAYS THINK, AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR, IT MIGHT JUST BE THE POLAR EXPRESS COMING RIGHT UP THE FANTASY TRACKS, AND WILL BE STOPPING RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. ASK YOURSELF THIS.

   SO GIVE YOURSELF A LITTLE BREAK FROM THE FETTERS OF STARK REALITY. THINK AS A CHILD. LIVE LIKE A CHILD. IF ONE LATE CHRISTMAS EVE, IT DID APPEAR, ITS HUGE YELLOW LIGHT BEAMING THROUGH THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODLAND, LIKE A FULL MOON IN BLOOM, IN THE DREAMY, POETIC SPIRAL OF BLOWING SNOW, AND JUST AS SUDDENLY, STOPPED FOR YOU, (NO MATTER WHAT AGE YOU ARE), WOULD YOU CHERISH THE OPPORTUNITY TO JUMP ABOARD, TICKET SECURELY IN HAND? WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE TO LOSE? IT WOULD BE A DREAM, RIGHT? SO WHAT'S THE HARM? IF IT GETS TOO WILD AND CRAZY, YOU'LL JUST WAKE UP ANYWAY. NO HARM, NO FOUL. BUT WHAT IF YOU COULD TAKE THAT FANTASTIC TRIP, ALL THE WAY TO THE NORTH POLE, TO VISIT SANTA'S MAGICAL DOMINION? WHAT WOULD THAT TICKET COST? I MEAN, FOR ALL THAT MILEAGE TO SANTA'S WORKSHOP? "FREE" YOU SAY? THAT'S THE ONE GOOD THING ABOUT A FERTILE AND CULTIVATED IMAGINATION, CONSERVED FROM CHILDHOOD. I'M NEVER AFRAID OF GIVING IT A LITTLE SLACK.....BECAUSE WHAT DAMAGE WOULD IT CAUSE? OTHER THAN A LITTLE CONTEMPLATION TIME INVESTED; SITTING BACK THOUGHTFULLY, COMFORTABLY, AT FIRESIDE, PONDERING, REFLECTING, WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO HAVE AGAIN, THE KEEN EXPECTATION AND FASCINATION FOR LIFE, ONE POSSESSED AT TEN YEARS OF AGE. SENSING THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE, THROUGH THE SNOWY COUNTRYSIDE.....IN THE MAGICAL WHIR AND WHIZ OF TRAIN WHEELS SPARKING BLUE AND ORANGE, ON THE GLISTENING STRETCH OF SILVER RAILS, RIDING OVER THE BLANKET WHITE OF SNOW AND ICE; CAST SO UNEARTHLY, IN THE ENCHANTING MOONLIGHT OF A MUSKOKA WINTER NIGHT. AH, TO BE A KID AGAIN. I FALL PREY TO MY IMAGINATION AT THE STRANGEST TIMES. BUT I AM THE WILLING PREY. I WOULD SO GLADLY JUMP ABOARD THAT ENCHANTED POLAR TRAIN. MY FRIEND, AND BLOGGING ASSOCIATE, FRED SCHULZ WOULD ALREADY BE ONBOARD. WHAT A GOOD TIME WE WOULD HAVE! TWO KIDS IN AGED BODIES. EYES WIDE OPEN. ENERGY TO EXPEND.

     HOPE YOU ARE HAVING A GOOD LEAD-UP TO THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS. MORE STORIES OF OLD AND FAMILIAR CHRISTMAS SPIRITS YET TO COME.