There’s no time to write this. Magazine deadline is dove-tailing with newsletter deadlines in the midst of December madness.
It takes this much to get that adrenaline rush, if you know what I mean. Huffing on time constraints and cascading work loads is a bad habit, right up there with nicotine, they say.
I never smoked cigarettes, never even tried, but I’ve seen people struggle to get off that shit. Many can’t seem to do it. My drug is deadlines. In the top three, at any rate, because it’s not my only vice. Is swearing and cursing a vice? If so, I’m tweaking bad.
Between September 14 and December 14, I’ve produced two 32-page Back in the Bay magazines, 15 Small Town Times interviews, and 10 video stories of events. In my spare time I put together and uploaded 40 Echo Essential newsletters to the digital sphere while helping develop 30 episodes of Echo’s To North Bay With Love podcast.
You’ll like the Winter Edition. We finally give Ed Eng some well-earned ink and Pete Handley contributed a great interview with the late George Maroosis, recorded a year prior as the long-serving city councillor wrapped up up his 34-year municipal career. Nancy Avery shares some high school memories from her years at North Bay Collegiate Institute and Vocational School. The Fall Edition paid homage to the Northland Echo yearbook by sporting a cover full of teachers from 1957, many of whom transferred over to the new Chippewa High School the next year. We heard that a lot of people enjoyed that cover because it had so many familiar faces and names.
John McGale at Mattawa Voyageurs Days in 2016. Keith Benard Photography
Another great feature of the Winter Edition is the transcript of Mike Gelinas’ interview with the late John McGale, which was also recorded a within a year of the iconic musician’s passing due to a car accident on his birthday. There’s also a piece on old gas stations after attending the North Bay Museum’s Coffee and Conversations in November. Dave Saad wrote about the North Bay Sports Hall of Fame formation, plus there’s a few other things spread around.
I’ve been getting a lot of positivity from the video interviews, which provide the basis of some of the magazine and newsletter content. I’m really looking forward to a new show we’re developing that will be connected directly to the digital newsletter and other podcasts. Watch for it in January.
While I was digging around in my digital abyss of a file system, I stumbled across an interview at George Maroosis’ framing shop and gallery, KBros Art Centre, with about five minutes focused on former North Bay mayor Merle Dickerson. It’s a keeper and posted below. If you’re not one of the 498 subscribers to my YouTube channel, you might want to subscribe to the free Echo Essentials newsletter where promotion of the new videos are included. It’s sent to your in-box Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The Echo website also offers the latest 15 of the Small Town Times podcasts and video stories, which can be watched right there on the site without having to go to YouTube.
Ok, that’s enough for now. You get the picture, I’m all over the map these days. Time is up, gotta get back at ‘er.
I’m a little disappointed, though, that I haven’t kept up my own website with more frequent posts. I’ll try to do better. I’m still threatening to post a running blog where I put all my “observations” fit to publish in one daily journal entry. It might happen, you never know. Until then, subscribe, support, e-transfer donations to davedale@backinthebay.ca, comment, like, share, recommend, fill out reviews when there’s a chance.
Don’t make me join Tik Tok.
Writer, photographer and proud father. My mom’s family is from the Soo with its Algoma Highlands, dad hailed from Cobden in the Ottawa Valley and I spent my teen years in Capreol. Summers were at the beach on the Vermillion River and winters at ‘The Rink.’ Born in East York but Toronto never was my thing. Ever since a kid looking out the window on long trips, I imagined living on the highway in a little house with a big yard and trees growing all around me.
