Robert @ MindSay

Early last week, Rusty Bob and Timbits tripped north to Barrie Ontario in hopes of meeting Peter Chiodo, the owner of the Robert Simpson Brewery. The award winning brew master crafts the best beverage in Ontario, Confederation Ale. The drink is steeped in history, and the taste imparts the flavour of earlier times when lumber barons and Canada West settlers did business in Barrie.  

This brewery is situated right in the heart of old Barrie and although that's not its original historic location, it looks pelenty historic across from Barrie's legendary Queen's Hotel. And it’s the real thing in here - good beer is made (and consumed) right on the premises.

When we visited Peter he was in the middle of bottling 7500 bottles; the sales room was bare and needed to be restocked. Its been a cold and wet summer, but people don't usually forget the taste of Confederation Ale and sales are strong.

The local beer is made and sold in the name of a very successful Canadian, an historic figure who played a prominent role in nation building. One of the foremost men of his time, Robert Simpson was the 1st Mayor of Barrie in 1871, and a master brewer. Even back then he'd been brewing beer for almost thirty years up and down Yonge St.  

Tim Braithwaite is a stoneware collector. He posses a very rare Robert Simpson stoneware beer bottle that was made in 1849 as per the 1850 Toronto Business Index which lists Robert Simpson as a brewer in Toronto. This was a dark chapter in this historic brewer’s life. He disliked Toronto which was crowded and competitive.  After that experience he moved everything he had north to Barrie Ontario in 1851 and set up a brewery there. He was no doubt anticipating the railroad would bring more settlers and logging companies and he was certainly hoping that perhaps Barrie Ontario would continue to grow into a prosperous settlement.    

Robert Simpson lived in a different age when it was impossible to go online and get fire insurance or even the most basic homeowner’s insurance.

Robert Simpson had yet to find commercial success as three deadly fires had destroyed his earlier breweries in Tollendale and Newmarket. This move north to Barrie Ontario would be his fifth move in fifteen years, and at this point his wife and family were used to hard times. Remember, fires were ruinous and usually coincided with great loss of life. Survivors were usually just very happy to be alive, and they merrily went about trying to borrow money and raise capital to start over again… Simpson found such opportunity in Toronto in 1848, and then shifted his assets north to Barrie in 1851.

Now this particular stoneware beer bottle, which was made by an unknown pottery shop in Upper Canada in the late 1840s, is one of two survivors and certainly worthy of display in any museum. Tim was very generous with information and told Peter a lot of secrets concerning the manufacture and trade in period stoneware. Knowing what to collect comes from knowing how these things are made, and that’s all very important knowledge these days. Tim Braithwaite has developed a wide readership because of this rare knowledge, and his thoughts are sometimes privileged information – but something he shares freely on Dumpdiggers.  Timbits had a lot of questions for Peter Chiodo too, and this modern day expert shared a lot of great insights about the modern day business of bottling beer. Peter was just thrilled to be able to see and touch and connect with the namesake of his enterprise. Robert Simpson would also be proud of the association.   

This cover represents Shmuel, the boy of the Warsaw Ghetto as represented by the brilliant surrealist artist of the Holocaust, Samuel Bak. The book is one of a dozen or so on Christian antisemitism by the distinguished scholar, Robert Michael.

Well its that time of the year again for Burns Suppers, haggis, malt whisky and reading Burns' poems. Here is one of my favorites:

Address To The Unco Guid, Or The Rigidly Righteous
by Robert Burns
1786

My Son, these maxims make a rule,
An' lump them aye thegither;
The Rigid Righteous is a fool,
The Rigid Wise anither:
The cleanest corn that ere was dight
May hae some pyles o' caff in;
So ne'er a fellow-creature slight
For random fits o' daffin.
Solomon.-Eccles. ch. vii. verse 16.

O ye wha are sae guid yoursel',
Sae pious and sae holy,
Ye've nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibours' fauts and folly!
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
Supplied wi' store o' water;
The heaped happer's ebbing still,
An' still the clap plays clatter.

Hear me, ye venerable core,
As counsel for poor mortals
That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door
For glaikit Folly's portals:
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences-
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,
Their failings and mischances.

Ye see your state wi' theirs compared,
And shudder at the niffer;
But cast a moment's fair regard,
What maks the mighty differ;
Discount what scant occasion gave,
That purity ye pride in;
And (what's aft mair than a' the lave),
Your better art o' hidin.

Think, when your castigated pulse
Gies now and then a wallop!
What ragings must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop!
Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail,
Right on ye scud your sea-way;
But in the teeth o' baith to sail,
It maks a unco lee-way.

See Social Life and Glee sit down,
All joyous and unthinking,
Till, quite transmugrified, they're grown
Debauchery and Drinking:
O would they stay to calculate
Th' eternal consequences;
Or your more dreaded hell to state,
Damnation of expenses!

Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Tied up in godly laces,
Before ye gie poor Frailty names,
Suppose a change o' cases;
A dear-lov'd lad, convenience snug,
A treach'rous inclination-
But let me whisper i' your lug,
Ye're aiblins nae temptation.

Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark, -
The moving Why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted

I keep thinking about the Robert Frost poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". It is a wonderful poem with vivid images. I can connect with the horseman, essentially wanting to give up on his life's journey and "sleep". It seems so inviting, and so unnatural that I would agree that the "dark and deep" woods are "lovely". If anyone has any interesting interpretations of Frost's poem, I'd be happy to hear them. Anyone else feel the draw of the dark woods, the peace and calm that comes with hiding from the world?

hey dudes. called robert back and got his little sister i told her to tell him to never call bree again cause i dont like him and hes way to young for me. hopefully he will stop calling. pray to god that he will stop.