2024 A Year of Challenge and Patience

August 20:  July 16 was an important date for me. It was, in many ways, the midpoint of the 2024 cottage season. It was also the anniversary of the day I signed the offer to purchase Regatta Island in 2021, and the mid-point of the 5 year term of the mortgage I took I took to buy the island. When I did that, I had a “5-year plan” to work on the cottage and make it over in my own taste: take the old girl and bring her back to a comfortable and enjoyable place to spend the summer.

To that end, worker-mate and good friend Roy and I have added new decks,  and built a new kitchen and bathroom. We have also finished dozens of other smaller projects, and new plumbing, wiring, septic and roof have been completed by contractors. I was thinking of all the progress that had been made on July 16 when I started to consider how the next half of the 5-year plan might unfold. To be clear: my intention is to try to return the cottage to its’ glory days of several decades ago. The restoration and hard work are key reasons that I dream of the island, and two things I enjoy most about being here.

Then I turned to the question of finances and my long-term financial security, and things became troubling. While most of my financial assets are tied up in the cottage. this was never a project intended to make a small fortune* in the real estate market. As the work has progressed, those assets have diminished to the point where I have had to confront the idea that, as my expenses continue to mount, I may not be able to complete all of the work I have in mind, or indeed, be able to continue to own the island for more than another 3 or 4 years. At that point, the money runs out and literally everything would be invested in Regatta Island.

Confronted with the fact that I will have to sell the cottage sooner than I anticipated, it seemed prudent to put a plan in place to finish up some more small jobs and see if the market for cottages has returned. Sales this year are virtually non-existent (except, apparently in the $5+ million range where sales continue), so I am working toward a possible decision next Spring.

Suddenly the cottage no longer feels like mine. As I walk from room to room I still see images of how I would like to finish the place, but I have to realize that I will not be the guy to do it. Someone else will have the joy of bringing Regatta fully back to life

• An old witticism, attributed to various people, posits that the surest way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one.

June 23:  A few days ago, worker mate and good friend Roy and I were working on a new deck at the back of the cottage.  An aluminum boat approached and the driver tossed an envelope on the dock in the manner of a guy delivering a daily newspaper. Sadly, it was not the news of the world which arrived, but rather promotions for local contractors and service providers and, most importantly for some, a magazine with the latest real estate listings in Muskoka.

There were two glossy magazines. The first carried ads for cottages currently for sale, and the second was all advertisements for contractors, home decor experts, and service providers ready to take your dull and boring cottage life to new heights.

There is no doubt about the importance of the cottage construction and maintenance sector to the local economy. Stats Canada tells us that the construction industry is the biggest employer in the municipality of Muskoka, employing 5,310 people in 2021. The retail-trade industry employed 4,615 people, while the accommodation and food services industry employed 2,295 people.  Cottagers spend a lot of money on maintaining and improving their summer residence – believe me, I know. What amazes me is the lengths people will go to “get away from it all” by creating monstrous “McMansions” for summer homes that bear absolutely no relationship to cottaging as I know it.

Case in point: this place featured on the cover of the real estate magazine. Four bedrooms and five baths, it features a lower-level recreation room complete with a home theatre, sauna, and gym, alongside an attached one-car garage. “The spacious kitchen is ideally set up for entertaining. The Muskoka room, a highlight with its wood-burning fireplace, opens onto a walkout barbecue deck. A golf cart pathway winds down to an impressive three-slip boathouse, which houses 2 bedrooms, an upper and lower bath, a kitchenette, and an inviting living area which leads out to a magnificent sundeck, offering a private space to enjoy the serene water views.” All yours for $10.5 million. And if you want more, there’s a neighbouring place for sale at $15.5 million.

I’m familiar with this property because it once housed a smaller cottage sitting alone at the top of the cliff right at the entrance to the Indian River leading into Port Carling. We saw it every time we went “to Port” and as a kid I often thought it to be a strange place for a cottage so high above the lake and with obvious problems accessing the dock for a swim. Apparently, these things are easily overcome with enough effort and money.

The property has been cleared of most of its mature trees, and the clifftop rock has been covered with acres of outdoor decking and the massive cottage. Where once there was a small cottage fitting in to the landscape, there is now a gigantic mansion visible for miles down the lake. What is being lost in that trade-off is what I believe to be the essence of cottaging itself.

Muskoka has been a place where the well-off come to spend the summer since the days when they arrived by steamboat with family and servants in tow. Perhaps the cottages of that era were every bit as ostentatious in their time as the modern cottages are in ours, but to me, a major difference seems to be that previous generations built large cottages to be comfortable for their vacation, whereas the current generation are building cottages to display their wealth and and make a statement about status. The proliferation of these monster homes diminishes the character of the lakes and destroys the very things people will claim they come here to enjoy: peace, tranquility and being in nature. It’s hard to see the sunset from the basement movie theatre….

The battle for the soul of Muskoka – Macleans.ca

For sale: 1086 PENNWOOD Road, Muskoka Lakes, Ontario P0B1J0 – 40587127 | REALTOR.ca

June 2:  I’m sure that many of us have had “close encounters” with bicycle couriers and delivery people who seem to believe that they have carte blanche to ride wherever they please on their way to drop off tonight’s dinner.  The following article by Shawn Micallef appeared in the Toronto Star. I think it nicely captures the issues around this relatively new phenomenon and expresses them much better than I could. I offer it for your consideration.

It reminded me of my first part-time job as a bicycle delivery guy for Tamblyn Drugs at the corner of Yonge and St. Clair. I started work in March at the age of 12. They provided a bicycle with an enormous carrier over the front wheel which I would fill with a cut-down paper towel box large enough to carry whatever needed to be delivered. This ranged from small packages of prescriptions to cases of pop which in those days were in glass bottles and weighed a ton. They were sufficiently heavy that in snow, they could unweight the back wheel leaving me with little or no traction.

We were given a cash float of $20 and ran a tab of what we delivered each night. It was not unusual to have $70 or $80 by the end of the night and it amazes me – looking back on that time – that I was  a 12 year old kid delivering narcotics alone on a bicycle (without lights or a lock) and carrying what was pretty close to a week’s working wages in cash. Different times for sure …..

Here’s Shawn:

Everyone’s talking about delivery people zooming around on e-bikes, riding and parking on sidewalks, blocking paths and overloading GO trains. If you listen to all the complaints, they’re a dangerous scourge. Maybe the worst.

May 25: I have concluded that I am dealing with a borderline addiction to alcohol. My drinking has progressed to the point where I drink 3 or 4 glasses of wine each night, and that habit is having an effect on my health and psychological well-being.

I have had alcoholics (active and recovered) throughout my life and I have always been aware that an addiction was not something to be taken lightly. I have seen the devastation it causes to those addicted and those who surround them. I am alert to the potential of going down that road in my own life.

I believe that I have had a “typical” relationship with alcohol: I started drinking at 18 and went through periods when I drank more than I should. Ultimately, caution took hold and I retreated from those situations; my life changed and I moved on. Still, there has never been a time during those years when I did not drink to some degree. There was always a bottle of wine on the counter to accompany dinner, and weekends were a time to “celebrate” with something more. When I travelled in Europe, a glass of wine (or more often two or three) was a reward at the end of the day, a good way to relax and coincidentally, try a different kind of wine from a different region most days. Research, if you will…

When I bought the cottage, several cottage owners pointed me to boxed wine as the “daily go-to” refreshment. It has the great benefit of being relatively less expensive than bottled wine  – important if 6 or 8 people show up –  and it’s far easier to transport and recycle than cases of glass bottles. The downside is that there’s always another glass waiting. A box is virtually bottomless and I have found it increasingly easy to rationalize a third or fourth glass because “I have nothing to do tomorrow, it will do no harm to have another now, so…”

Drinking to that degree is beginning to have an effect on my health and psychological well-being. I am not sleeping as well as I should, and recent studies show the potential health risks of drinking any amount of alcohol, never mind three or four glasses each night. It is easier for me to postpone work and I am becoming less committed to seeing jobs through to the end. I hear the little voice in my head saying “just a bit more and then the day is done and we can have a glass of wine”.

The thing is: I don’t want to be in a place where I can’t have a glass of wine. I enjoy the feeling it brings. I want to be able to share that feeling with others, and while I know that life can be enjoyable with or without alcohol, for now I am not prepared to stop drinking completely. I am trying to break a habit before it becomes an addiction (perhaps angels dancing on the head of a pin). For now, I will borrow a phrase from my friends in AA: “One day at a a time” as I try to come to terms with this latest phase of my drinking life.

April 24:  Attentive reader(s) will recall that I have a tradition of acknowledging the start of Spring by gauging the blossoming of a huge Saucer Magnolia at the end of the street. As you can see, the blossoming is well underway about two weeks earlier than in previous years. This seems to be consistent with the warmer-than-usual Winter season, and the very moderate weather over the last few weeks.  There was very little snow and, until recently, minimal rain. I was very hopeful that I could be cottaging a few weeks ahead of the usual opening date during the first week of May.

However, we have endured several  very wet days over the last few weeks and the anticipated trip north has been postponed several times. Last week, the docks at Allport Marina (where I store my boat) were underwater and flood conditions had been declared along the Muskoka River.

That said, the water level has dropped somewhat from that date, and the weather looks promising after another period of rainy days. Spring may be a bit early this year, but cottaging looks to be right on schedule, or perhaps even a bit delayed (with more rain forecast this coming week). So break out the shorts, the rosé, and celebrate the season. But maybe keep the rubber boots handy.

April 10:  Barb says: “it’s going to be an interesting night. All sorts of people in the line. And feathers too.”  Barb is a volunteer with me at the Out of the Cold program, and when I go out to open the door for dinner service I see one of the regulars – a tall, handsome first-nations guy – with his upper cheeks and eyes painted green and black, his lower face covered with some sort of jaw bone (perhaps off a deer), and feathers in a large head-dress. We nod and fist-bump as he goes in, apparently dealing with some sort of alcohol or mental health delusion.

A week later he shows up minus the make-up and paraphernalia, and we spend 10 minutes or so talking about his aspirations. He says he was a gang banger and that, when things go wrong, he reverts to being the big strong guy and that gets him into trouble. He wants to change but he is not sure how to go about it. After a while, he’s ready to go and asks for a hug. As we awkwardly grip shoulders, it occurs to me that this guy has probably not had a meaningful hug – an expression of understanding or affection – for a very long time. I’m amused by the slightly horrified looks of the folks passing by on the street…..

I’ve gotten to know a number of the “guests” like him during the 20 weeks that we are open, and have established a good rapport with some of the other volunteers and agency folk. I find it all really rewarding and uplifting. Sad sometimes too.

We close the Out of the Cold program this week and I will not see the familiar faces until October. I lose touch with those I have seen every week, and the hopeful – sometime hopeless – stories that I have been privileged to hear in the last few months. Some time ago, I wrote about David (who has terminal cancer) and his friend James who is caring for him during his last days. James has been able to have David admitted to Kensington Health where he has been visited by his sisters from out of town. This is a long and touching story and it’s unlikely that I will hear the final chapter until October.

To be sure, there are small success stories: people who get off the street; people who get clean and sober, maybe have a line on a job. The simple desire to change their life.  These moments are tremendously rewarding, and I look forward to contributing to those moments in some small way next year. Perhaps simply opening the door to a new chapter.

                *   *   *   *

When I was a boy, my Father was drinking heavily. In my naivety, I imagined that he might end up as one of those older men stumbling around on Jarvis Street clutching a paper bag. Perhaps for that reason, this song has always resonated with me and – if the mood and moment are right – it can still bring a tear to my eye.

Bing Videos

February 28: In my mind, I’m ten years younger than my chronological age. I can run five to ten kilometers three or four times a week. I have a workout routine that mimics CrossFit, and I honestly feel that I am in better shape than most of my contemporaries. It’s difficult for me to acknowledge that I am fully a decade older than those days.

Vulnerable: susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm: (of a person) in need of special care, support, or protection because of age, disability, or risk of abuse or neglect.

The past few weeks have brought sad and disturbing news about those close to me. A sibling has died; another is “getting his life in order”, while another is facing a debilitating loss of cognition. Two others have had strokes and thankfully survived. Closer to home, my friends and I are told that we should have work done on our teeth, our eyesight is failing and we should get hearing aids. The morning brings new aches and pains and we walk like Tim Conway doing the old man sketch on Carol Burnett’s program. So, I hear you say, you are in your eighth decade and getting older every day. What do you expect?

I still think I should feel as good as I did ten years ago. Returning to those days is simply a matter of working harder. But no matter how hard I want to do the work, no matter how much I want to return to those days, I also know that I will not likely do so. Without making that commitment, my future will likely follow the path of the majority of my contemporaries: increasing infirmity and progressively worse health.

Should: used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone’s actions. 

My friend Kate occasionally takes me to task for using the word “should” in reference to things I feel I want to do. “I should be running more. I should work out…” She correctly points out that “should” is a judgmental word in that context; and when I use it in reference to my own actions, I am reinforcing the idea that somehow I am not measuring up. When I say that I should go for a run and then don’t do it, I feel that I am a failure; I’m not succeeding at those things that are important to me.

Could: past of can; used to indicate possibility. 

Lately, I have begun to try using the word “could” in reference to my plans. I could go for a run. But if I decide not to, I could still go for a walk and achieve something of benefit to my health. As it says in the definition, there is still the possibility of a positive outcome and some reinforcement of the idea that my best is still good enough.

Nearing the middle of my eighth decade there is certainly a forceful sense of vulnerability as I see the challenges that me and my friends will face sooner than we may wish. These are not surprising; they are pretty much inevitable. What may not be inevitable is the attitude with which we approach our future, and with that in mind, I’m working toward a more positive and hopefully beneficial outlook to the days that remain. The best days could still be ahead.

February 7:  I recall watching an evening news report in early 2020 saying that five cases of “the Asian virus” had been found in Washington state and thinking “Here we go…” At that time, the thought that a virus could shut down the world seemed like science fiction, even though scientists had been warning us of that possibility for decades. Now that it has happened, and as we continue to deal with the effects of the pandemic, I suppose I should have known this was coming. It’s not like there haven’t been warnings and lists of precautions that I should have taken, especially since I am frequently exposed. But no. Wasn’t going to happen. Not to me anyway.

Well, guess what ?  Last Friday I began to feel a very mild sore throat and a slight stuffiness that is usually the precursor to a cold. No worries. Been there, done that. But on Saturday I was aching, feeling a bit feverish, and really starting to become congested. Out of an abundance of caution, and knowing that everyone would ask whether I had done so, I decided to take a COVID test.

Bingo.

Over the weekend, things got more interesting.  I didn’t really have an appetite, and trying to sleep was a torture of congestion and coughing at all hours.  I went through snot rags at a huge rate, and my digestive system seemed to partially shut down for a day or two.

None of this is news. I’ve heard from virtually everyone I know of their experience with COVID and, with few exceptions, the script is fairly similar.  I’ve been immunized 6 times so I suppose I can take comfort in the view that it might have been quite a bit worse had I opted against protecting myself.

The worrying part for me is the potential for some form of “long COVID” where health issues seem to continue for an indefinite period. The virus seems to be quite variable in its effect on those infected and the outcome never seems to be entirely certain. It’s now Wednesday – 5 days after the initial symptoms – and I’m anticipating another 2 or 3 days of mopping up before I know for sure whether or not this will turn into something more significant. For now, the only lasting effect I have is tinnitus triggered by the 3rd immunization and now made more forceful by the virus itself.

So, after almost four years, I join the not-very-exclusive club of COVID survivors. Instead of siting smugly quiet at the side, I can expound on my experience with the virus, hopefully soon to be fully behind me.  Fingers crossed….

January 24: When I was in late public school, I went tobogganing with my friends in a neighbours back yard that went downhill to the Yellow Creek ravine. It was not a long hill but if you got going fast enough, you went over the edge of the yard itself, and then rapidly downhill through bushes and the occasional tree into the ravine itself. It was here that I fell walking back up the icy hill and put my top teeth through my bottom lip, creating a scar I bear to this day.

Some years later and admittedly with the assistance of recreational narcotics, some friends and I decided that we should try to toboggan down the access road from David Balfour Park into the opposite side of the ravine. The fact that it was entirely covered in ice only added to the potential for excitement. Of course, about half-way down the hill, we left the road at a high rate of speed and careened into the trees, fortunately without significant injury.

The same ravine was crossed by the St. Clair viaduct. The bridge was built on arched beams that spanned from one side of the river to the other. Vertical box beams that resembled ladders reached up 25 or 30 meters to the bottom of the deck where there was a catwalk. We spent many happy hours climbing over the top of the arches and up the outside of the box beams to the catwalk. You might be fooled into thinking that the catwalk was a safe refuge, but of course it was as old as the bridge itself (say 60 years), and suspended from the bottom of the bridge deck by rusted rods that swayed with the added weight of a couple of 12 year-olds. And the boards that made up the walkway were rotting out. No worries

A recent Toronto Star article tells us that the City is considering closing as many as 45 hills to tobogganing  citing the potential danger of collision with fixed objects such as fences, trees and light standards on the hills. I understand this decision from the very narrow perspective of a taxpayer not wanting the City to be sued after a toboggan collision. But the same article quotes Mariana Brussoni, a developmental psychologist  and professor at UBC’s Faculty of Medicine, who states that taking risks breeds confidence in children, as well as an improved ability to manage stress, uncertainty and anxiety. “We’re robbing kids of opportunities to get those positive effects. So what we’re seeing is a huge increase in children’s depression and anxiety.

Trying to reduce the risk to children by closing hills is part of a trend that has been unfolding for decades. You need only go by a school during the morning or afternoon rush to see fleets of gigantic SUV’s dropping off kids who are no longer permitted to walk the few blocks to school, never mind taking an apparently death-defying run down an icy hill on a toboggan. I think we are doing kids a great disservice by not letting them explore danger. Yes they may put their teeth through their lip, or break a bone, but in the process, they learn valuable lessons about themselves and the world in which they live.

Toronto’s tobogganing bans: The unintended consequences (thestar.com)

position-statement-on-active-outdoor-play-en.pdf (outdoorplaycanada.ca)

December 25: Two men appeared at my door: James somewhat larger and stronger, David smaller and introverted. James took charge, finding a place to sit, got some food and made sure his friend was looked after. They are regulars at the Wednesday evening Out of the Cold program where I am the greeter on the front door.  I learned later from James that they have been friends for many years. David had recently been diagnosed with a form of cancer and, on that night, he was suffering from the after-effects of a chemotherapy treatment that afternoon. James told me that although David would be staying indoors with us that night, he usually slept on the outdoor GO station platform at York Mills. James would ride the TTC bus for the night, often stopping in at the station during the night to check on David.

Along with several friends, I have had reason to be involved with the investigation and treatment of cancer. I’ve routinely heard of the issues around treatment, care, and follow-up appointments. How would accessing the system and getting appropriate treatment be remotely possible if you were living without a permanent address, without healthy food and supportive care, without a consistent way to access the system itself ? Given these impossible impediments to his treatment, it didn’t surprise me to hear James say that David “just wants it all to end…”

And for many this year it will end.  Several years ago, I passed a young man asleep on the sidewalk a few days before Christmas. It’s impossible to know how this guy found himself passed out on the sidewalk at 8AM, but I couldn’t help wondering where his family was, and how they would react if they knew of his circumstances. It broke my heart to think that he would spend Christmas without them, alone and trying just to survive.

We know the circumstances of many people like him in this city. The shelters are full, there’s no money for more beds. Without basic shelter, more than 90 people have died on the streets this year alone. Food banks are stretched to the limit. Mental health issues are on the rise and people lacking adequate treatment are left wandering the streets. Rates of addiction and violence are rising.

Ultimately, the system – our society – works adequately for “the average person”. If you have an address, an identity, and a modest income, you have access to the things you need to survive, if only at a modest level. That system is operated by people like me, for people like me. We come from privilege and comfortable surroundings. We have family and friends; we have more than enough money; and, we can make choices about how we choose to live our lives.

But it seems that far too many of us have become complacent with a system that forces more and more of our fellow citizens into untenable conditions. If a society will be judged by how it treats its’ least fortunate members, I fear that we are demonstrably failing.  In a land where so few have so much, and so many have so little, this is no longer acceptable or understandable.  Yet I see little indication from our politicians, our bureaucrats, or our trained professionals, that any of this will change any time soon. When you are in a comfortable and privileged place, there is no impetus to change.

I didn’t see David or James this week, so I have no idea how they are making out as we pass the holidays. I hope they will return next week, but in the meantime I will be thinking of them, and the many others, who will not be enjoying the same holiday as me.