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The Citizen, 2017-10-26, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2017. PAGE 5. Other Views Watching an old friend lose its way The demise of Sears Canada is tragic for the 16,000 employees who will lose their jobs and causes hardship for many of the landlords who own the buildings where the stores were located, but even though I virtually grew up in clothes from the Simpsons -Sears catalogue, I just don't care. Simpsons -Sears was a big part of my life as a farm boy. Although I've argued hard for the last 40 or 50 years for shopping locally, most of the clothes and shoes I wore as a kid came via the catalogue. Times were hard in the 1950s on our farm and I suspect that the attraction of catalogue shopping was not only that it was convenient and the prices cheaper than in local stores, but that the company offered credit. I know that we also bought our groceries from a store in town that would let us run a charge account until money came in to pay the bills. So, each spring and fall a huge cardboard box would arrive with our supply of clothing, shoes and household goods to get us through the next half-year. As kids, the most exciting day of the year, next to Christmas itself, was when the Simpsons -Sears Christmas catalogue arrived in the fall. By the time Christmas actually arrived, the book was in tatters — or at least the pages with toys and sporting goods were. Over and over again we kids would leaf through the pages looking at the wondrous toys we knew we had no chance of receiving. It was the country kid's equivalent of pressing his nose against a store window to admire the magical Christmas displays inside. Given this background, my heart skipped a beat when I went to university at Ryerson in downtown Toronto and discovered that just Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk down at the end of Gould St. was the huge warehouse from which those packages that had been ordered from the catalogue were shipped. They also had a catalogue clearance store there that I often shopped at during the years before I moved back home. Sadly, the greed and mismanagement that has been undermining many institutions (including many newspapers), destroyed this once -proud company. Robert Simpson founded his department store in 1872 and it stood across the corner in downtown Toronto from its rival the T. Eaton Company headquarters store for many years. Both spread their stores coast to coast. Both had iconic catalogues. In 1952 Simpsons was joined in partnership with Sears, Roebuck and Company of Chicago. The partnership went well and the company surpassed its old rival, Eaton's, raking in 30 per cent of the department store business in Canada. By the late 1990s, Eaton's had died. New rivals, big box stores like Future Shop, specializing in electronics or The Brick and Leon's, dealing in furniture and appliances, nibbled away at some of the department store's best moneymakers but the company continued to be profitable. There were missteps along the way and rivalries between the heads of the Sears Roebuck parent company in the U.S. and the head of Sears Canada (Simpsons was bought by Hudson's Bay Company in the late 1970s) but the company was a leader in the 1980s in using computers to modernize its distribution centre. As someone mentioned, it was Amazon before Amazon was invented. People had screwed up earlier but the downward spiral, according to multiple former executives quoted in a major Globe and Mail article last weekend, began when the parent company was purchased by a hedge fund that was supposed to be the company's saviour. Instead, say those who were witnesses, the Sears Canada became a cash -cow for this investor. Heads of the Canadian company realized their stores needed changes that would require major investments. One CEO sold off valuable leases. Instead of the money being used for the needed improvements, the head company gave it away as a special dividend to shareholders, the largest being the hedge fund. The same thing happened when the company sold its lucrative credit card business for $2.2 billion and $1.5 billion went to shareholders rather than to improve the company. A string of CEOs were hired to please the board of directors and its major shareholder, each taking the company in a different direction. Within the stores, the company seemed to be doing its best to turn away customers. The same goes for the catalogue where a new CEO, a buddy of the head of the hedge fund, insisted last year on implementing a new online ordering system that failed, leaving many shoppers without the Christmas gifts they had ordered. Here's a company that had a huge share of the retail market 30 years ago and a big head start in home-based shopping but through greed and stupidity messed it all up. This sad story proves again the fallibility of humans and the things they build. Facing darkness to respect light History is an incredibly important resource for every human being. Not just because it tells us where we have come from but because it helps us avoid the pitfalls of the past. Take, for example, the wedding of my editor Shawn to his lovely wife Jess over the weekend and its relation to my own marriage several years ago. I was honoured to be a part of the celebration as a groomsman. To be a witness to the celebration of Shawn, a man who has become one of my closest friends in the time I've been at The Citizen, and Jess, who has also become a great friend, was a great gift and one that I will remember fondly. However, it turns out, as I heard several times over the weekend, my own wedding and past served as a friendly reminder for Shawn and the other groomsman about the importance of co-ordination. On the day of my wedding, one of my groomsmen showed up with a suit that didn't quite match the colour profile for the rest of the wedding party. I won't go into details here because his sticking out wasn't the disaster some people might think it would be. Sure, he didn't match the rest of us, but, instead of getting upset or seeing it as a blemish on the day, my wife and I see it for what it is: a great story that elicits a laugh and reminds us that, if that was the worst part of our wedding day, it went pretty darn well. Shawn regaled me with a tale of one of his own groomsmen nearly missing the mark with the colour of his garments and said, when he realized the situation in time to avert it, all he could think of was the story I've told time and time again about my own wedding. It proved to me that history — good, bad, indifferent or even seemingly inconsequential — serves an important reminder to everyone on a daily basis. For Shawn, my own story made him aware that these kinds of miscommunications do happen, which allowed a problem to be cut off at the pass. It got me thinking about history and how it relates to social media and the records we leave behind for ourselves and for each other. For years I've explained to my siblings the importance of controlling your social media persona. Being 10 years younger than me, they grew up in an age where everything they did from their tweens on could be found on the internet some day. I remind them, on a regular basis, to be careful of what they put out there because you never know how it's going to come back. Unfortunately for me, the lesson I provide my siblings is one of those "Do as I say and not as I do" lessons because there are aspects of my own life on Facebook or Twitter that I think I should go back and delete but, at this point, they are a part of my history. We're not talking anything incredibly dark here — maybe there are some photos that weren't particularly flattering or proof of me wearing a hat I probably should not have — but there are things in my history that I would love to erase or massage. I don't though and I have to think part of that is because I respect history, be it my own recent history or what you read in history books. I could have, for example, never mentioned my tale of a mismatched suit at a wedding and maybe, just maybe, Shawn wouldn't have had that experience which to draw from. In the end, it comes down to acknowledging our shortcomings and hoping to be better. You can't erase history, be it something that happened a millenia ago or something that happened earlier this month, because there are important lessons to be learned from it. The idea of "curating" a more positive history has come to light locally and nationally in the recent past. Nationally, Canada's government is facing atrocities committed against its Indigenous Peoples and trying to make amends. Going through elementary and high school, I wasn't taught about the residential school program — that part of history wasn't deemed important I suppose — and because of that I didn't know how to be a constructive part of that conversation when I first faced it in a post- secondary history class. It's an example of history being edited to cover up something that Canadians didn't want going public. After all, the atrocities that have been committed in this country, including residential schools, don't really fit the image of the stereotypical Canadian. Ignoring history, be it yesterday or a century ago, creates a situation where people can't learn from mistakes Acknowledging those mistakes, however, instead of carefully curating an image, will lead to a better understanding of the story by everyone for generations to come. That's why, if you ever stumble on my Facebook feed, there are photos of a younger, carefree version of myself wearing ridiculous hats, making ridiculous snowmen and being, well, ridiculous. That won't change because I refuse to ignore my past — the good, bad and ugly — as it prepared me for the present. It's about that time For the last 11 years, I have been lucky to be just down the hall from one of the most wise men I have come to know in my 35 years on the planet. Keith Roulston, as many of you know, has now shifted into full retirement (although we have convinced him to keep writing for us for the time being). Yes, I've been lucky enough to learn from one of the most well-respected members of the industry across this country for over a decade and it has been great. Keith and I had lunch a few weeks ago — in preparation for this day — and, after some catching up, his first words to me were that I had come a long way. He's right, I have come a long way. And that's not patting myself on the back, it's just the truth and it's largely thanks to him. When I started with The Citizen, I was young and didn't know much about anything. I was also from the Toronto area and didn't know anything about the area. There was a definite learning curve, but Keith was always patient with me and helped me to get better when there were shortcomings, rather than berating me for making a mistake. When long-time editor Bonnie Gropp left, I doubt I was the first person Keith thought of to continue the legacy of the newspaper he, his wife Jill and community member Sheila Richards founded in the 1980s, but he worked with me and had faith in me. Now, with numerous awards under our belts (including that "Best in Canada" one we may have mentioned before), things seem to be working out with the team The Citizen has in place. I have learned plenty from Keith over the years. He has taught me countless things about reporting and journalism that you simply don't learn in school. You have to learn it on the streets, as they say. Keith went to Ryerson University to learn his trade and then came to Huron County, where he worked at the Clinton News Record, among other newspapers, before he and Jill struck out on their own and founded The Citizen out of the ashes of The Blyth Standard and The Brussels Post. They also founded The Rural Voice, a staple of agriculture in the region, and Stops Along The Way. What always impressed me about Keith and Jill, however, was that with as much as they did here at the office to serve the community through The Citizen week after week, their service to the community was matched away from the newspaper as well. Keith, of course, is one of the three founding members of the Blyth Festival (he was its General Manager for a number of years). He has written numerous plays that have been produced there, including some that have gone on to be produced all over the world. And he is still writing. Just recently he published In The Road, a serialized novel, on our website. He also founded the Blyth Idea Group, which was a precursor to the modern-day BIA, and was the driving force behind the farmers' market in Blyth. No doubt he and Jill have done a million things that were either before my time or that I don't know about because they don't herald their achievements. Now, we're hosting an open house on Saturday, Nov. 18. I hope many will attend to thank the Roulstons for all they've done for this community. Personally, I want to thank Keith and Jill for all they've done for me. I went from a city boy who wore soccer shirts and flip-flops to work (I still wear those things on the street) to the editor of an award-winning media outlet who owns a home in Blyth and is now married and looking to start a family here in Huron County. A long way, indeed.