Friends

The Lunch Can

Recently, an old family friend, Gary Cooper, passed away.  Gary was more than a family friend though, he WAS family.  To everyone!

I’d lost touch with him, and many more for that matter, since I’ve moved away, and more so since my own Dad died. Not necessarily through anyone’s fault, though I’m sure my own anxieties and stresses have not helped my own efforts at keeping in touch either.  For that I’m sorry, and I miss you all more than I can say.

Thinking about his family’s loss, and my own, it made me think back to what was my first real memory of Gary, though probably not my first encounter.

Back in the days before paved roads in Apsey Brook, I rode the bike you see me on above.  And, if you didn’t know, my dad worked at the highways (I guess Department of Transportation, but we never called it that).  At the time I’m thinking of Jim Phillips also worked there.  Jim, to my recollection, never drove a car, but at the time he used to get a ride back and forth with Dad.

Everyone, or most everyone, in those days has the same gray lunch can, or very similar anyway.  I think I even took one to school!

In any event, on the day in question, Dad and Jim had mixed theirs up in the car.  I believe it was after supper, most likely so, because by the time they got home from work, it was supper time, but I went, or probably was sent, down to Jim’s on bike to swap them back.

Now anyone who knows McGraths’ Cove, knows there are two big hills, going down in the cove, and then back up to the point.  I’ve made that ride (and push) hundreds, if not thousands of times, but on this occasion, on the way back, with Dad’s lunch can looped over the handlebars, I hit a patch of loose gravel and went over the handlebars.

I don’t remember much about the actual incident, per se, though I remember lots of scrapes and scratches.  And I chipped a tooth as well, but what I do remember was Gary, picking me up in that huge old Monte Carlo (at least thats the way I remember it, but we all know how our memories can lie to us) he had and driving me to the house.

I’m not sure if he put the bike in the trunk, or if Dad or I went and got it after, but he took me home for Mom to fuss over, and probably add Mercurochrome to my scrapes.  Over the years, he’s done much more than that for me, and many more besides.  I remember asking him to take me somewhere once when I was, for whatever reason, carless, and he just tossed me his keys and said bring it back when you’re finished.

RIP Gary.  Love you.  Rest easy, till we meet again.

March 22, 2021 by Uncategorized 3

The Cremation

Back in the early 90’s I think it was, one of our regular clan, and one of the hosts of our semi-regular poker games, Ivan Patey, went away to the mainland for work.  He’d been gone a while, and none of us (the gang of people, I can’t speak for his family) had heard from him in quite some time.

Anyway, we had no clue how he was doing, or where he was, and yes we kinda missed and worried about him.  But of course we can’t show that!

We also have our streaks of dark humour, morbid if you will, and I’m sure most do, and while we were pretty sure he was ok (and he was) we also joked around that he had died.  Yeah it may not be funny to you, and sorry if not, but at the time, in the moment, we did, and I think he would see the humour in it too.

Around the same time, someone, Don Hart or Gary Cooper had the old club open again for a spell.  Never a very “going concern” business I don’t think, but was convenient for us.  In the closet there was an old jean jacket vest over a hoodie (memory fades, not exactly sure the look now) and no one ever claimed it.  I think it may have been there since before the club re-opened, but no idea.  It did however look exactly (to a few of us anyway) like one Ivan used to wear, so we claimed it as his.

One night, feeling especially mournful, a couple of us, who I’ll leave nameless, felt it was time to pay our respects.  So we took the jacket to the beach and set it afire and said a few words for our departed friend (departed for Toronto that was).

Missed ya then, and miss ya now buddy.  Sometimes I wish things could be as they were.

April 1, 2017 by Uncategorized 0

Oh that Dogberry Wine

In rural Newfoundland, store bought anything in earlier days was rare. People fended for themselves, and their neighbours, and as I’ve mentioned before, trades of things were common.

Store bought alcohol was as well rarer than now.  People made their own home brewed beer with their own recipes, not the kits like we used. I remember even hearing of potatoes and raisins in the mix.  Lemon Gin was popular, though it may or may not have had any lemons or juniper berries for that matter though they do grow back home.  Wine was also common, usually from blueberries which are plentiful.  I’ve heard some made some from apples and other berries as well. And I’ve even heard tell of people making dandelion wine, though I can’t say its something I’d ever want to experience.

But the granddaddy of them all had to be dogberry wine.  Dogberries are plentiful most falls back home, people would often use them as a portent of winter.  More berries meant a longer winter. Being so plentiful, people used them as another source for wine, and one year Eric and I decided we had to try it.

Finding a recipe for it from either mom, or a book, I forget, we followed it, and fermented the berries into wine and bottled it into, whatever bottles we had on hand.  And of course we tried some.

Well lets just say the results were less than spectacular in the way paint thinner is a little unlike champagne. It has to be pretty bad when we couldn’t even manage to drink any of it.  Other than a taste here and there to remind ourselves how bad it was.

That said though, we did manage to get rid of it.  To this day I’ll never understand how he could drink it, but one day Eric, Junior and I (and likely more) planned to meet and head off ice fishing and atv/skidooing.  I remember we went to round pond and L pond, and on the path between them there was an old one room cabin.  We went in there and lit a fire, warmed ourselves for a while, and had a drink, and watched and laughed as Junior was somehow able to manage to drink a whole bottle of the stuff.  As for me, I’d rather have drunk a bottle of varsol!

Good times with good friends.  Those are the things we miss most.

 

For anyone foolhardy enough, here’s a recipe from Downhome Recipes: Downhomelife.com
Dogberry Wine (Beverages)
Ingredients:
• 2 quarts dogberries
• 1 doz. apples
• 4 quarts water
• 8 cups sugar
• Yeast
Directions:
Cook berries and apples in water. Strain. Add sugar in a large crock. When lukewarm, add 1 pkg.
yeast. Store in a warm place until all bubbles have gone. Strain again and bottle.

December 15, 2013 by Uncategorized 6

If you can’t steal from your friends…

The winter and spring before I moved to Nova Scotia was the first and only time I drew EI. I had left the hotel/accounting business and was looking for something different, and eventually decided to go back to school, and then, then and then…. well that’s a whole long time ago, and a different story.

While I was off, I was lucky to get to spend a lot of time with a good group of friends from back home on Random Island.  Eric, Derek, Lorrie, Julie, Corey, Barry, Bernard, Jim, Trina, and I’m sure I missed someone.  Don’t feel insulted, I’m old and forgetful 🙂

We spent many a day ice fishing, trouting, barbecuing, playing cards and up to general no good.  One of our up to no good plans started before that year, and was a staple pastime of Eric and I for quite a while.  And that, as the picture indicates, was making home brew.

Everyone told us we were nuts, because it wasn’t fit to drink, and I’ll admit some of the brews (John Bull) out there that people used weren’t.  But Eric and I read up, visited the brew shop, asked questions and decided to try Coopers Lager.  We took our time, followed instructions, bought some gear, racked the brew, let it settle, re-racked it.  Bottled it, let it sit…. and when we were done, well we had something that tasted very like Canadian Lite.  Say what you will about that, it was a popular beer back then, and for a home brew we were pretty happy.  I remember Randy being especially skeptical, but he enjoyed it when he tasted it.

Hmm, off topic here, I wonder whatever became of the home brew Rod Smith put away for years and years in his basement, will have to ask him….

Over time we tried more varieties, ales, stouts, and some were good, some less so, but for a while, we always had about 15 dozen beer on hand in my basement.  Like all Newfoundlanders, when a case of beer is open, you offer your friends one, and we shared the home brew as well.

But sharing has its limits! One night, as I was nearly asleep in my room, one friend, who shall remain nameless (cough Lorrie), with some gentle persuasion, (she didn’t need much) from someone else (Eric) walked into the basement, bold as you like, and made off with some home brew!

What a bunch of crooks I have for friends!

December 6, 2013 by Uncategorized 2

Its flippin September, time for flippin school, and …. flippin cards!
I think Roy Marsh and Paul George, not sure who's facing away. That may even be me, not Roy, I did have hair back then! (Photographed from RandomMemories Yearbook)

I think Roy Marsh and Paul George, not sure who’s facing away. That may even be me, not Roy, I did have hair back then! (Photographed from RandomMemories Yearbook)

In Random Island Integrated, spending my days
Classes from Randall and Loder, makin me dazed
When along came a couple of guys up to no good
Flippin their hockey cards, like bad boys would

Apologies to Will Smith for the bad interpretation!  School time is here again, and that was often met with a lot of groans and sighs from us kids, but there were some positives too, often we didn’t see our friends for the whole summer.  While Random Island doesn’t have a lot of people, its also not so easy for a kid of 10 or 12 to get the 15 miles to his best friends house unless he biked it.

Like all kids of that generation, we were also all hockey mad, and of course we all collected the o-pee-chee hockey cards.  We’d buy a pack when we could, or bug our parents to, but of course the real way to collect hockey cards is in the school hallway, flippin them! Odds! Evens! Oh man, you won my lucky checklist! I’m not flippin for that one! That’s a trophy card! I’ll give you 10 for it!

I can still hear the familiar refrain after all these years, and the pleasure of winning a stack, and the agony of losing all your cards and trying to borrow 5 from someone.  And I still swear to this day that checklists were luckier than the rest!

September 2, 2013 by Uncategorized 7

The Great Railway Phone Call

In the summer of 94, Bernard and I, and a couple more, Junior and Craig I think, I forget who because a larger crowd met us in car later on, took a trip on the old railway bed on atv’s camping.  I know Eric missed this trip because he was out further west working with some forestry project.

We loaded up the gear, and headed out the tracks, seeing lots of unfamiliar country as the bed deviates from the highway quite a bit.  For our first night, we set up tents near Terra Nova, and of course a few beverages were consumed, and much food eaten.  That night we headed out around the “town” if it is a town, I honestly don’t know if anyone lives there or not, but it was pretty deserted while we were there.

At some point Junior decided he was going to pull the pay phone that was there off the wall with his trike.  He never actually did it, but at some point, he hit something metal and it made a gong like sound.  I will always remember Junior, a big AC/DC fan saying “Hell’s Bells”.  Later on while we were trying to sleep, he kept going around saying, “hear that? they’re coming! Phone cops!”

The next day we decided to see some more country and drove the ATV’s toward Gambo, cross I believe the road I mentioned previously in Git!  I could possibly have the days confused, but at some point during the trip, we had arranged that rod would contact us.  I had an old Motorola bag phone, and Rod had connected an old lighter socket to his quad.  He wasn’t with us, someone else was using his quad, but he was to meet us and made arrangements to call us at a specific time.

Well the time was approaching, so we pulled up the bikes and hooked up the old lighter socket to the battery and plugged in the phone to wait.  Now back in 95 cell phones weren’t nearly as common back home as now, and since they were pretty bulky, you didn’t see them much outside of cars.  Well just as Rod called, a woman walked across the tracks in front us, berry picking I believe.  The ringing phone never startled anyone so much since the world was made.  She nearly jumped out of her skin, and we were left trying not to burst with laughter.

Ahh the fun times! Even with Craig threatening to knife us all later that night!

June 8, 2013 by Uncategorized 0

Waking up the camp

After a late night at the bonfire at Rickman’s Harbour Pond, with many a beverage in hand, Eric and I are usually the first to stir.  Always a morning person, no matter how late the night, I am usually awake with the dawn.  Its May 2-4 weekend, Victoria Day, probably the biggest party weekend of the year back home, and for quite a number of years, we always made our way to Elvis’ cabin for it.  We get the naphtha in the old Coleman stove and start pumping it up, while someone else heads to the pond for a kettle full of water.  Firing up the stove we get the kettle on and the frying pan too, and soon the scent of bacon is wafting around the place, causing the rest of the crew to stir.

Big heads require a beer to start the morning, a hair of the dog, to help cure the hangovers, that and a nice greasy plate of bacon, toast and coffee get us started for the day.  The sun is shining, unusual for May 2-4 to be honest, but its about 2 degrees Celsius outside, and we got about an inch of snow over night.  Doesn’t matter, the few of us who actually want to trout pack up or rods, tackle and baskets and make our way to catch lunch before the partying starts again.

We laugh about Junior and the beer box on his head, him swearing the whole time it was me.  We make fun of Kendall and Jamie singing the wrong lyrics to Lightning Crashes at the top of their lungs the night before.  We laugh at me lighting the barrel on fire with white gas and singing my eyebrows when I thought it was barbecue starter.  Its a ritual, a rite of passage, and all good natured.  We drive that back road, stopping at ponds we can reach easily, and catch a few trout.  Of course Eric catches more than anyone else as usual.

Back for lunch, pork fat in the pan, trout coated in flour we make our lunch, while the barbecue goes outside stacked full of hot dogs, hamburgers, steak, and everything you can imagine. Lunch over, beer in hand, we start visiting everyone else’s camp sites.  Its like Christmas visits, and part of the event. Moonshine and drinks are shared.  Everyone has a slight glow for the day.

Its friendships, events, memories created that last a lifetime. Its the 24th of May and we likes to get away.

May 18, 2013 by Uncategorized 0

Who you longs to?

Not sure if I mentioned this one in my sayings post, but this was a common question back home, essentially asking who your parents are.

Well the sarcastic portion of me was likely to respond, I longs to me mudder bye!

My mother, like a lot of Newfoundland mothers was and is parent to many more than her own.  The door was always open, a crowd was always welcome.  We’ve been know to have to take shifts eating to make room at the table.

We never had a lot, but it was shared, and many people called my home theirs, as I did with many others.  We don’t ask for anything when at these extended mudder’s houses, we go to the fridge and take it, cause their home was ours, and ours was theirs.

So to my mudder, my sister, all my extended mudders, and to all the wunnerful mudders I’ve never met, happy mudders day!

 

May 11, 2013 by Uncategorized 0