Sports Day at Vardyville

Spring is coming (please please please, I’m begging!) and while its still early, it brings back to mind Sports Day at Random Island school.  Back for the first few years when we went there, every year we’d have a sports day, with races, discus, shot put, and the like.  There’d be ribbons, and prizes, and a great time.

The highlight of this was that it was held, at least early in the school’s history at Vardyville Park, also known as Reub’s Farm.  To the best of my knowledge, and I can only go from memory of conversations, Reuban Vardy had a farm on this land, which was just over the Britannia road from Hickman’s Harbour. In my day, it was a private park with a store/take out and pinball machine, and a rudimentary ball field (at least I think there was a ball field).   I remember fries and hotdogs and snacks throughout the day.

Events tend to run together over the years, and these sports days were in the mid 70’s after all, but I do recall the pinball machine.  It cost 10 cents and I’d play what felt like for hours, but of course it  wasn’t because I also remember spending a ton of time outside, racing, throwing shot put, and participating (badly) in whatever events we had.  And of course, watching Randy Baker and I think Shawn Avery playing stretch with every school boy’s crush, Miss Sargeant.

I’m not sure what became of the park, but in any event, it was a beautiful spot of land, with the rattle in the background, and we as kids had a great time there every year while it was still the host site, and it holds a special memory of my youth.

UPDATE: Added a couple pictures scanned from yearbook.sportsday1Sportsday2

March 25, 2013 by Uncategorized 13

Rovin to the Dunrovin

A few years before I moved away from Newfoundland, I took what for me was a memorable trip on ATV.  I’m sure for many it wasn’t so special, but I was working in St. John’s and didn’t get to make as many longer excursions as I would have liked.

Anyway, this one weekend, at some unknown or at least not remembered prompting, Elvis Cooper and I decided to head to his cabin, which was in behind Burgoyne’s Cove, several miles in the road. It was winter however, and this wasn’t a maintained road, so we couldn’t go by car, which was a big part of the reason for going!

We drove the ATV and Elvis’ Skidoo over the road and ditches to Elliotts’s Cove, and filled up our tanks and some extra gas cans.  Then we drove across Random Sound on the ice and got on the old railway bed.  We made a little detour to Shoal Harbour as Elvis needed some skidoo part, but then we drove the railway bed down the Bonavista Peninsula till it hooked up with the private road on that side, near Lethbridge, then drove several more miles in that old road to the cabin. According to Google Maps, its about 43 km just from home to Burgoyne’s Cove, not counting the convoluted way we went, so I’m sure we added on nearly as much again if not more.

When we got there, his mother, Joyce, had been there for a day or two, and had a big turkey cooked, which we devoured.  After supper we all got on our machines and drove back out that road to the Dunrovin Motel to a dance, and a few drinks.  Later that night we all made our way back to the cabin to sleep, and made our way home the next day.

In some ways it was nothing special, but in more, such a long ATV trip, to a quiet cabin with a feed and friends was awesome.  A memory I’ll always look back fondly on.

March 22, 2013 by Uncategorized 1

Damn you Sheila!

It seems every year, right around St. Patrick’s Day, we have one last blast (well we can hope its the last anyway) of winter.  This year is no exception with a snowfall warning for tonight.  Growing up, and likely still, people called this storm Sheila’s Brush.

I’m sure there are many variations on the legend of Sheila, but the one that stuck with me is that she was Paddy’s wife, and tired of his drunken partying on his namesake day, gets her brush and cleans up after him, stirring up a storm of bad weather for those mere mortals like us.

In any event, after all these years I wish the two of them would learn to get along, I’m sick of winter already!  Stay warm everyone, and if necessary, make like Paddy and have a sip of Bushmills :).

March 19, 2013 by Uncategorized 0

Up, Down, Out, Over the road

It may be prevalent elsewhere, but one thing Newfoundlander’s know is that distance isn’t measured in miles or kilometers, its measured in time.  How far to St. John’s? 2 hours.  Gander? Hour and a half. If you don’t do it in those times, then you’re obviously driving too slow.

One other thing we have is how we point out communities and locations on the way.  Back home, Apsey Brook was at the end of the road, so we of course had to go “up” the road to go anywhere, and everyone knew coming from that direction you were coming up.  A confusing side effect of this was that Snook’s Harbour meets at the bottom of three hills or grades, and so that portion is of course named “bottom”.  It was always amusing to see CFAs (come from aways) confusion when we said we were going up to bottom.  Of course, since the road took a 90 degree turn there, we had to go “over” to Elliott’s Cove.

Going to school was down to Hickman’s, and if we went shopping we went up to Clarenville. It all makes perfect sense, no?  Then again we also had to deal with going out the arm, out the sound, in to town, and so on and so on.  Yet we all knew which was which, and if someone got it backwards (like maybe me now, is it out to town? or in? I keep forgetting?) god help them for the fun making about to be heaped on them.

Anyway, was always fun to head up to bottom and play ball, and then run over to the store to get a snack.  If you get a chance, pick me up something while you’re over :).

March 12, 2013 by Uncategorized 0

The Swizzle

Back not so long ago, after I was technically “grown up” (yeah right, as if that’ll ever happen), my buddy Bernard had a Sega Genesis.  Like a lot of things in rural Newfoundland of the like, it didn’t necessarily have a steady place in any home though, as it was always borrowed by somebody, lots of times that somebody being me.

My favorite game on it was called Landstalker, an RPG that I played for hours, and cursed the zone known as Greenmaze over and over.  This was before the internet, and figuring out how to play and finish the game was done all by yourself or with friends.

But the best memories of playing the Genesis were over at my cousin and friend Derek’s house.  We’d have it hooked up to the old floor model TV, and a group of us would take turns playing PGA European Tour Golf.  Usually it was Derek, Eric, Cory Avery and I, and we’d play for hours.  But the thing I remember most, other than Derek tilting the controller trying to make the ball turn, is Cory’s exclamations.  “Look at him swizzle that one in there!”, “Watch me swizzle this one boys!”.  It became part of our vocabulary (reminds me, will have to tell you about the word “git” sometime) from then on, anytime we’d try to make something work, or fit, or really even go somewhere, we were swizzling it.

Would be fun to have it hooked up now and share a beer with the boys and try to swizzle a few shots in!

March 9, 2013 by Uncategorized 1

Painting the boat

In fall of the year, we all pulled our boats up on the beach, and turned them upside down for winter.  Typically this became somewhat of a social event, as one man can’t pull a boat up by himself.  We’d put down some time washed round sticks, and some wet slippery slabs and get a few people on each side and pull it up, and then most people on one side, with a couple on the back to brace it as we’d turn it over onto some supports.  Often we’d pull up several boats at once, and a few beer would be drunk, drank, drinked, whatever the right derivation is, and a few yarns would be told.

Once spring came, preparations began to get the boat in the water again.  This involved scraping the flaked paint off, adding oakum where necessary, and repainting with marine paint.  This chore often fell to the kids of the family, and really wasn’t that hard, nor onerous so, I at least, didn’t mind it.

However paining a boat does involve one piece of knowledge that apparently for one year at least I forgot.  I took the paint and oakum down to the beach, and proceeded to scrape the boat, and give it a nice new white coat of paint.  Dad went down later that day or the next to check on my work, and came back laughing his head off.  I of course asked him what was so funny.  He said “Well you did a good job on the boat! Too bad it was Ralph’s!”

While Dad is gone now, he never let me forget that, nor will Eric I’m sure, as its his favorite story.  Maybe someday I’ll get a boat back home and Vince can return the favour!  Miss you Dad, and Ralph too!

 

March 4, 2013 by Uncategorized 2

The Three Dons

This is curling season in Canada.  The Scotties Tournament of Hearts just ended, and starting tomorrow the Tim Horton’s Brier begins.  Curling brings back memories of growing up and watching Sportsweekend and other sports programming on CBC on Saturday afternoon and weekends.  Back then every weekend, there was a 1 hour curling program on every Saturday evening in winter.  What was more memorable than the curling in some ways were the hosts.

No they didn’t make you any offers you couldn’t refuse, but it seemed comical that all three hosts were named Don!  Don Wittman, Don Duguid and Don Chevrier.  Curling is a big part of the canadian sports scene, and these guys introduced us to the likes of Al Hackner, the Wrench, Ed Werenich, and the ever so quiet Russ Howard.  I’m not sure what they squeezed into their hour long show back then, but I remember watching religiously as a kid.  I remember dad laying on the couch, me laying on the floor, with my feet over the furnace grate, and watching closely. Not only is it a fun sport to watch, but brings back great memories of growing up.

Looking forward to watching more this weekend and next week!

March 1, 2013 by Uncategorized 0

Jiggs Dinner

I’ve been told that the term “dinner” is used to reference the main meal of the day.  Back home in Newfoundland, that was traditionally the midday meal especially for fisherman, who had been out in boat since 4am.  The evening meal was usually lighter and called supper.   This carried over for most everyone, and we all called the midday meal dinner in school and elsewhere, even though for commuters, the supper meal was the bigger meal.  On Sunday though, midday dinner was usually the feast meal of the week, and that feast was usually Jiggs Dinner.

Jiggs Dinner was made up of all the traditional Newfoundland vegetables  boiled up with salt beef.  Salt beef sounds disgusting to some I know, but og my god, its like ambrosia for the initiated!  Missing from our dinner on the left is peas pudding.  Yellow peas boiled up with the rest of the vegetables in a cloth bag.  I never liked the stuff, so perhaps there’s more of a secret to it than that :).

Accompanying Jiggs Dinner was some sort of “roast”.  Nowadays, chicken or beef from the store is more usual, but back home, it would likely have been

Rabbit and Chicken in the pot, lots of onions.

Rabbit and Chicken in the pot, lots of onions.

moose, caribou, a duck or, as seen here, rabbit.  Whatever the meat, traditional Newfoundland roast was smothered in onions.  And the coup d’etat was the gravy.  The secret to the gravy was to add some of the vegetable juice to the meat drippings, make a flour and water thickening, and of course, add the Cross and Blackwell gravy browning.

After dinner, dad would likely help with the dishes, and then head off for a nap as the post meal coma would kick in.  Later that evening, we’d have the left overs potato made into potato, mustard and beet salads along with pickles, beets and cold meats, and perhaps some Kam to make a cold plate for our Sunday supper.

February 24, 2013 by Uncategorized 3

Random Island Ghosts

In books, it seems every small town has numerous ghosts.  But I really can’t remember many ghost stories from back home growing up.  There may be many I’ve never heard, and if so would love to hear about them, so let me know!

I do have two stories of a “ghostly” nature, though how ghostly you can decide.  One remains unexplained and backed up by rumor I’ve heard, the other, well…. you’ll see.

The first story may have been a prank, I don’t know, and not sure anyone would remember the story now but me.  But back home in Apsey Brook, near the old one room school, was a shed for coal, aptly enough called the coal house.  Years after the school was no longer used for school, the coal house was still there, with its kilroy was here drawn on the wall, and small pieces of coal caught in the seams and corners.  It had sliding doors; just wood in a groove, with a hole through for a handle to pull.

Usually the main door was usually partly open, but the day in question, Keith and Lorne and I (I being the younger brother tagalong) were over near there, and the door was shut. Suddenly Lorne points at the door and says look!  We look, and, and to our (or mine anyway) surprise, and a little fear, a big eye was looking out of the hole in the closed door.  We stared for a few seconds and finally Lorne runs over and yanks the door open.  To the tune of a loud “Baaaaa” one of Jim Phillip’s sheep runs out.  Looking back now I can’t imagine anyway it got in there, so I’m going to assume the kid had a prank played on him!

The second story is mostly rumor I heard, and “common knowledge”.  How true any of it was is anyone’s guess, but I do have a small recollection that backs it up.  Uncle Ingham Smith died in 1972, and his wife Sybil eventually(maybe immediately? I don’t recall, I was only 7 :)) moved in with her son, Roy.  Their grandson Roger when he got married moved into the old house for a period before building his own in Elliott’s Cove and moving.  Rumor has it though, that the reason he moved was that Uncle Ingham was haunting the house.  Lights would go on and off, the fridge would open, footsteps would be heard.  Of course this may have been just that, rumor, but it was an interesting story.  I do have one memory though that backs it up, though perhaps faulty electrical could be the cause.  I recall one evening in particular, when no one was home in the old house, looking over across the brook and seeing the light over the door go on and off several times.

Ghosts? Perhaps a sheep got in the house as well? I don’t know, but those are the only ghost stories I know of from Random Island.  Share yours in the comments?

February 24, 2013 by Uncategorized 3

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