I never worked at Dumont Press Graphix, so to me the “spirit” doesn’t have anything to do with a worker-run co-op.  But living at 192 King and 192 Strange St., working hard with On the Line, and participating in events like the Peterborough Examiner Strike and the Dare Cookie Strike, not to mention endless meetings of RSM (Radical Student Movement) – before we learned that the usefulness of a meeting is not proportional to the amount of time it takes out of your life – did teach me about working together, and that the ultimate goal is the defeat of capitalism.  Defeat of capitalism, as you are no doubt aware, didn’t happen; but it is the ‘working together’ lessons of my Dumont years that carried forward through my life.

I’ve always enjoyed working on volunteer endeavours – for the friendships that are built as well as the goals that are accomplished.  My most satisfying projects were the establishment of the Community Resource Centre (CRC) in Killaloe, and subsequent development of the Toy Bus.  Toy Bus brings support to parents of young children in many communities of our area, even the more isolated ones.  In the guise of a mobile toy and book lending library; it arrives in a big blue bus to host a playgroup in a local venue.  Established in the latter part of the 1980’s, both CRC and Toy Bus are still going strong.  These days, many of the Toy Bus parents used to participate as pre-schoolers.  The program has worn out at least three buses, and now boasts two mobile units.

CRC started as an information and referral centre, with seed funding of $15,000 annually.  It has grown to provide services to all ages, from babies to seniors – a pre-natal nutrition program, day care centre, youth programs, a used clothing shop, a community garden – and it helps to support other community organizations.  Not least of its accomplishments is the number of people (mostly women) it has employed over the years.  In the early days, our greatest skill was researching what funding was available and developing a program that did what we felt was needed, but also fit the requirements of the funders – not to the point of deception, but sometimes stretching the truth just a tiny bit.  The CRC experience let me work with an amazing team of (mostly) women and I learned through it that even the most annoying team member could prove invaluable – sometimes you need someone who isn’t afraid to be obnoxious.

I’ve worked on many other projects through the years:  The Killaloe Craft and Community Fair, Railway Station Park in Barry’s Bay and innumerable Business Development committees.  Currently my major involvement is with Green Burial Ottawa Valley.  We’re working to develop Natural Burial Grounds in our area, because natural burial lets your body give its nutrients back to the earth, while conventional burial practices pollute and poison the ground, and cremation consumes large amounts of energy (usually fossil fuels) and releases nasty by-products into the atmosphere.  As a community, we have tried throughout our lives to live in harmony with the earth so natural burial has a strong appeal.  We’ve experienced many deaths where none of the options available fit with the deceased’s values in life.

The years leading up to Dumont Press Graphix also taught me a lot about innovating and improvising – using what you have to get things done.  Some might call it bullshitting.  I made good use of those skills in my 35 years in business in Barry’s Bay.  It started with computer sales, service and training; with daughter Kelly adding her awesome abilities to the team in the early 90’s.  The government (probably provincial, but who remembers any more) was funding computer literacy classes for unemployed people, and we taught hundreds of people that they didn’t have to be afraid of the computer – using one could be fun; and how to use a word processor, spreadsheet, and basic accounting software. 

But when the training funding dried up, and Walmart started to sell computers, it was obviously time to move on.  We leased a colour digital printer from Xerox, figured out some web technologies and started to provide colour printing and website development.  Kelly ran the printing end of things, and I did the websites – and we both flew by the seat of our pants often enough.  But with the help of a very capable office assistant we grew the business to the point we could sell the printing end in 2017, Kelly could take over the website end of things, and I could more-or-less retire.

At one of the Dumont reunions, I was chatting with Rosco, and lamented that we hadn’t accomplished the defeat of capitalism, nor, I felt, much of anything.  Rosco assured me we had.  “Take food, for example,” he pointed out.  “Our influence had a lot to do with changing the way people eat.”  True enough.  Possibly the greatest contribution of our generation (can’t think of a better way to put it) is the refusal to just do what we’re told.  And while we’re not as active as we once were, we can hope the example we set has helped to pave the way for today’s young activists.

You’re welcome, Greta.