Are you Your Buttons?

A lot of inspiration for my stories these days comes from decluttering work I’m doing around the house.

Okay, I call it decluttering.  That is a bit of a nose stretcher. Let’s call it cleaning up messes.

You’ll have some pin back buttons that champion a cause, make a statement or support a candidate.  I have many campaign buttons.  At my house they are in drawers; they are in boxes; they are in bags.  Down in the basement I actually found a large button that read I’m Slow but Sure among other items scattered across the floor. I wish that was true!

About two years ago, according to some notes I have written, I started to organize these buttons (another embellishment) and then got sidetracked. I need some incentive so that I’ll finish the project.  Perhaps if I call my “collection” of campaign buttons a hobby, that will hurry me up.

Let’s see. Coin collecting has a name – numismatics. If you are a stamp collector you are a philatelist.  These hobbies have labels that give their devotees a certain cachet.

What is a collector of buttons called?  I looked it up.  She/he is called, it is sad to say, a button collector.  Sadly, my new putative hobby doesn’t have a fancy name with which I can impress friends and influence people.

Maybe the pursuit of button collecting is not the hobby for me.  After all, composting, my primary retirement hobby, leaves little time for anything else.  Do I really have time for buttons?  I wonder though if my so-called collection has anything to say about me - what I’ve done and where I’ve been?

Some History of Campaign Buttons

The first buttons go back to George Washington’s time.  The earliest one I can remember seeing is from 1968. I was in Buffalo and it was a Nixon’s the One button.  “The One” what, I wondered at the time?  Later we found out.

Canadian Campaign Buttons came a bit later. It seems the historic 1891 federal election might have been the starting point.  More recently, Elbows Up buttons are on sale at Ebay for $4.00.

A Few of My Buttons 

I have quite a few buttons representing election candidates, promoting products or speaking to social issues of the day.

For example, Toronto Works with Mayor John Sewell is a medium sized yellow button.  Sewell was a controversial mayor of Toronto from 1978-1980.  He was an environmentalist, who rode his bike to work.  He supported gay rights when not everyone did.  

I found that out after being chased by a homophobic east Toronto resident when I was canvassing for Sewell in the 1980 election where the one-term mayor was ousted from office.

Sewell has written a dozen or so books on policing, planning and politics. His book on Toronto’s first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, shows that 19th century Upper Canadian politics can teach us something about politics today.

I first heard Sewell at my place of employment. I was a youthful youth worker in 1978 at WoodGreen Community Centre (A Family Centre in the Centre of the Community.)  Sewell understood the issues but, as importantly, could explain them and his positions in a way that anyone could understand.

A colourful square button stating simply Dave Barrett stands out.  Barrett, the former Premier of British Columbia, held a fundraising dinner at Hamilton’s swanky Royal Connaught Hotel in 1989 that we attended.  

The fundraiser was in support of Barrett’s campaign for leadership of the federal NDP. The cost of $50 was a lot of money for us at the time even if you would get half back as a tax receipt.

Around the same time the Brundtland Report (Our Common Future c’est l’affaire de tous) was being much talked about. Brundtland popularized the concept of sustainable development - “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”   How are we doing on that front?  Not so well, I’d argue.  My Support Your Local Glacier button reminds us that glaciers like the Columbia Icefields are shrinking at an alarming rate – just one impact of Climate Change.

The Brundtland report also emphasized the goal of providing for the essential requirements of the world’s poor. Years after that report I became involved in a number of poverty reduction initiatives.  One such initiative was organized by The Stop Community Food Centre and the Campaign to Put Food in the Budget.  In order to promote understanding of poverty issues these groups created a web-based budget tool.  Do the Math asked a simple question aimed at decision makers with whom we met.  Did a single person on social assistance receive enough income to live with health and dignity?  The answer was no. Predictably some decision makers were surprised.  Not much has happened as a result. Fifteen years later things are much worse.

There are more buttons, maybe one hundred.

There are straight forward clarion calls like   Need not Greed and Homes not Bombs.

Some buttons have aged well. Shop Canadian. We all Win!

Other messages have been lost/forgotten. You Can – I can’t recall this one, can you? 

So, what has been learned from my faux decluttering endeavour?  Are you your buttons?  The answer will have to wait for another day.  I’ve just found more campaign buttons.