Memories

Bonfire Night

Tuesday is Bonfire Night! Guy Fawkes night for some, though I can’t remember ever, as a kid, knowing what bonfire night represented except a good time!  I don’t think the tradition is as strong as it once was.  When I was a teen, we’d have been cutting trees for months, I remember one year starting in August!

We’d gather them, and anything else we could burn, boats, driftwood, garbage, pretty much anything.   Come supper time on the 5th, we’d light it up, keeping much off to one side to keep it going all night. Many times we’d have enough fuel to restart it from its coals the next night and do it all again.  Old tires had to be a favorite to burn for sure, they’d burn and pop, and stink everything up, and turn us all black with soot, but we had a ball.  Off to one side we’d have smaller camp fires to roast potatoes, wieners, marshmallows, and maybe some less traditional roasting foods, like kippers!

I remember many if not most of our fires were on the beach.  I remember one year in particular it being down on McGrath’s Cove below Colin Miller’s house, and us getting up on the bank to watch. I think i remember Rick throwing a bag full of aerosol cans in that one, for our own form of fireworks.  The beach was covered in shaving cream!

As we grew up, most of us stopped the smaller community fires and many of us would gather and help at the one on Randall’s garden in Snook’s Harbour.  I remember the huge piles of brush and tires. It was also fun to look up and down the sound in the night and see the fires in Georges Brook, Harcourt and Monroe.

I think though the best memory has to be the time there was an empty propane tank on the fire, and Gar Whelan risked life and limb to run into the fire and yank it out before it exploded!

Many “beverages” were consumed, and often the police were there too, though they never interfered, or stopped us from having our “beverages” in public.  I do think they got too close one year and the paint on the door melted a bit!  Though perhaps that was someone else’s car, memories run together as you get old.

The link below is to a video on Memorial University’s site.  Have a watch, and feel the memories flood back.

Bonfire Celebration in Brigus, Newfoundland

Hope you all have a great bonfire night!

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November 3, 2013 by Uncategorized 0

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet

Give me something good to eat

Not too big
Not too small
Just the size of Montreal

I remember chanting this old rhyme in school, but I’d never think of actually saying it at the door! I don’t think the old timers back home would have been very amused!

But Halloween was and still is a highlight I’m sure.  Nowadays kids get their parents to take them to the best neighbourhoods in cars, and almost treat shop.  In my old fogey days, we just went around our own community, and maybe the next one.  My community at the time consisted of about 65 people, so you’d expect that I didn’t get quite the haul of kids today.

But that’s not true, with a lot less kids, and everyone knowing everyone I still hauled home a huge bag of loot! Of course there were always a few dreaded apples (I mean I had an apple tree, why’d I want store apples?) But lots of great candy too.

Rockets, chips, and even those molasses candy that you could chew for days (I actually like those), salt water taffy, peppermint knobs, spearmint leaves.

Costumes were often just a mask, because the best we were likely to see was a paper store bought ones, and to be honest they didn’t fit well over a parka or ski-doo suit.  I remember one Halloween night walking down Ralph’s driveway and the snow blowing sideways, sticking to the fence palings.

I also remember my most favorite idea I ever had, being the geek that I am, I tried to dress as the half black half white charatcers from the Star Trek episode Let That be Your Last Battle Field.

Anyway, I hope you got lots of ghosts and goblins last night and that everyones kids had a great time.  I know the kid in me did 🙂

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November 1, 2013 by Uncategorized 0

Ew… Goulash Day!

When the “new” school opened up on Random Island, it had a cafeteria for hot lunches.  For those of us who had bussed it to Shoal Harbour before this was something new, we had only had the lunch can before that.  Those who had gone to school in their local one rooms, in all likelihood, went home to lunch most days, so was new to them too, though hot lunches may not have been.

Hot lunches in the school system didn’t last too many years, a victim of budget cuts I assume, and the cafeteria at school now likely just takes up space except for special events, but back then Nina March and Gladys Marsh cooked up food for the kids at a nominal price every day.  We had chicken and chips, fish sticks and chips, amongst other things, and it was all yummy and filling; well except the dreaded goulash…

Now to be fair, the dreaded goulash is just my opinion, lots bought it every week or second week or whenever it came up, but to me it was (and is) disgusting!  Back then we called it Hungarian Goulash, and it was something at the time I had never heard of.  So I was kind of excited in my 10 year old way to try some.  Well lets just say its not an experience I want to repeat, I’ve never been fond of any ground beef dish that’s not been “formed”, e.g.: meatloaf and burgers, so once I saw what it was and tasted, I think that may have been a lunch-less day. To this day I am still not fond of hamburger helper, sloppy joes, or any other dish of that ilk.

But while that memory stands out, there were a great many days when there was chicken and fish and other things I did enjoy, and I remember the line-ups being really long any day we had chips (fries).  I especially loved the fish sticks, it doesn’t seem the ones you get nowadays taste the same.

Its too bad kids of today can’t get those hot lunches, but I’m glad we did, and look fondly back on them.  Thanks Nine and Glad!

October 18, 2013 by Uncategorized 2

Fish n Brewis

Purity Hard and Sweet Bread

I guess every culture/region has some of its own “weird” foods, and Newfoundland is no exception.  I guess being reliant so much on fish as a locale (and by fish I mean cod, to Newfoundlanders any other fish has a name), we came up with or borrowed many unique methods of preparation.  One of these is Fish n Brewis. The link provided is wrong in my opinion though.  It says that fish n brewis uses salt cod and fisherman’s brewis uses fresh.  I’ve always known it to be the opposite; we always use fresh, and I personally don’t care for the salt fish variety.

Even in the fresh there are different methods of serving, but first… what is it?  Well its basically hard tack (hard bread) soaked in water to soften, and boiled fish.  Sound appetizing right?  Well it is delicious! Even better when served with rendered pork fat and scruncheons drizzled over it!  Some people prefer to keep the bread and fish separate, I’ve actually never tried it that way, I prefer it mashed together, drizzled with pork, and blackened with pepper, mmmmm.

Some people serve it with drawn or drawing butter, another thing I’ve never been fond of, though all it is is butter, onion and flour thickened as a sauce.

I’m not really sure the origin of fish and brewis, but I like to think its probably from the offshore fishery or navy, where non-perishable foods like hard tack were prominent, and cooks needed to improvise meals as best they can.

In any event, today’s supper was a memory of home.  Hope you get to enjoy some soon!

October 14, 2013 by Uncategorized 5

Happy Thanksgiving!

At least here in Canada. Maybe its because winter comes earlier to us than to the majority of our southern neighbours, but we celebrate thanksgiving the 2nd Monday in October.  Like them its a shopping holi…. no wait, wait sorry, it isn’t!

While we don’t have any history of pilgrims and sharing with the native Indians, and our thanksgiving history is all over the map (celebrated in April at one point! See the link above) it, at least now, is a celebration of the harvest, thankfulness for what we have, and of course family and friends.

Newfoundland Blue - courtesy Melissa Wiseman

Newfoundland Blue – courtesy Melissa Wiseman

It is also known in our lighter way as Turkey Day, and turkey is the traditional meal cooked for some on the Sunday or other the actual Monday holiday.  In my family, and I think for most Newfoundlanders, we ate thanksgiving dinner at Newfoundland dinner time (lunch) on Sunday, and it consisted of Jiggs dinner with all the fixings, dressing, peas pudding, etc.  One thing I want to mention though is something I really haven’t seen since I moved away. We, in Newfoundland, had what I thought was a common blue potato, but I don’t see them up here.  All blue potatoes I see here have flesh that is completely blue, not like the blue we had back home, and pictured.  These have bluish/purplish skin and white flesh with blue veins.

Also with dinner there were likely to be puddings!

Now the problem with pudding is… what kind?  My dad used to make a flour and baking powder pudding that is similar in taste to a tea biscuit, and its served with the dinner.  My buddy Bernard calls it a gravy biscuit.  There’s also pudding, or duff, that is, well I honestly don’t know what its made from, but its boiled in the boiler with the dinner usually, and served for dessert traditionally with molasses cody.

Apsey Brook United Thanksgiving

Apsey Brook United Thanksgiving

Besides the traditional gathering of family and friends, and belly bursting food, Thanksgiving was also traditionally a time to share the bounty.  We would always have a special thanksgiving church service, and people would bring vegetables, meats, fish, preserves and other purchased staples to the church, which would be gathered and shared with the more needy after the fact.  I’m sure there was also a little “showing off” involved, as it was always nice to have pride in how good a crop of potatoes or carrots or whatever you had.  It also often led to trading.  Often times people back home traded what they had for what they didn’t, and this worked in reverse in other years.  For example, if you were lucky enough to kill a moose, or own a cow, you might trade a quarter of beef or moose for potatoes or vegetables, etc.

I hope you and yours have a great thanksgiving from me and mine.  Loosen your belt, laugh with family, eat some duff, splurge on the gravy, and remember to hold everyone dear close.  Happy Thanksgiving!

October 8, 2013 by Uncategorized 2

Cold Packing Time

When I was a boy, I heard of people canning fish and meat for winter, and I always wondered how they did it.  Always wondered how a person at home sealed a tin can.   For some reason I never associated our cold packing in bottles with canning.  I always thought that canning involved, well cans.

While I’m sure there is some method of doing just that, I since realized that canning is generally referred to bottling or putting up or preserves.  This being the hunting and harvesting season, is when we’d generally start to see cold packing happening.  Moose, rabbit, apples, damsons, and who knows what else would be prepared for canning.

Electricity came to Random Island the year I was born, or at least to my part of it, 1965.  Before that to keep food for winter, vegetables were kept in a root cellar, and fish was generally salted.  Fruit, berries, and meats though were usually cold packed, and that continues today, more so because we like them that way than because we need to.  Besides that we’d also make some pickles.  Not pickled cucumber, but more like what we see in stores now as chow chow.  There were many kinds, rhubarb (ew), and my favorite green tomato and apple.

But cold packing was a big thing.  Everyone had a huge boiler that they’d scald the bottles in to sterilize them.  Meats would be cut into small pieces, and added to the bottles with some fat back pork.  Berries and fruits were generally put in the bottles whole, tho sometimes cut smaller to aid cooking times.  The bottles would then be placed back in the boiler to cook the food, with a rubber sealed lid placed on lightly.  Once cooked, the bottles would be placed on a rack to cool, and the contraction/cooling process would create a vacuum with the lid, sealing the bottle.  A screw top ring would be added to keep it tight.

These bottles would then be used as meals throughout the winter, though in my time, they became more of a dessert or in the case of meats, something to augment the traditional Sunday evening cold plate.

Now I’m hungry, anyone got a bottle of moose to send me for supper?

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October 6, 2013 by Uncategorized 2

Traipsin over the Goowhitty

This is my favorite time of year.  I love the crisp October mornings, even if we’ve not really had one yet.  To walk in behind Apsey Brook, in on the level, boots breaking the ice skim on the puddles, crisp air in your nostrils, its as close to perfect as I can imagine.

The only downside is the smell of the goowhitty leaves and flowers both alive and dead giving off their distinctive smell.  What is goowhitty you ask? Go Whetty? Gole Weddy? Many pronunciations, but as for what it is, well its….. goowhitty! Everyone knows that!

Well actually its a combination of plants, or one with many names, or… I’m confused.  In any event its Labrador Tea, Lambskill, and Sheep’s Laurel.  Though one or more of those may be the same thing! One of the plants at least is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmia_angustifolia.

Whatever it is, I think every rural Newfoundlander knows the smell.  Its not really a bad one, but something we’re all familiar with as we traipse through the woods, to the pond, to the berry barrens, to our heritage.

If you get a chance, take a walk in the quiet woods soon, smell the goowhitty, play with the ice skim on the puddles, be a kid and pull it up and look through it like glass.  Smell the frost, the salt air, and be at peace.  There’s no feeling like it.

October 2, 2013 by Uncategorized 2

Fill in!

Comes the cry from Vince’s or Ivan’s, fill in! No we didn’t need to fill in any holes, except those around the table.  Fill in is the cry to fill your seat around the poker table.

Fall Friday nights were often spent at Ivan’s or Vince’s, playing poker, not the texas hold-em of today, but dealers choice, usually 5 Card Draw.  Get a jackpot? Well then someone needed jacks or better to open the next hand.  We also occasionally played some blackjack or blind indian, high or low chicago, and I forget what else.

The biggest difference in our games was though the gizmo.  The gizmo was an innocuous film canister.  Well, its what held it anyway.  The gizmo takes some explaining; the first hand of the night was the gizmo hand.  All players put a loonie in the pot and we played as normal, with the winner winning the gizmo, and its value being the contributed loonies.  Here’s where it gets interesting, when it was the winners turn to ante, he anted the gizmo, basically a free ante.  but if anyone else wanted to play that hand, they had to ante its value.  So we could automatically have a large pot on the board before we really started.  Tradition then said the winner added another loonie to its value so as the night went on, it got more and more valuable.

Of course with increased value, often no one played the hand at all, but sometimes…. well holy cow!

Of course there were other memories of poker night too, like the night Ivan’s brdige collapsed, or Dale Butt calling for Tracey and Eric saying “Terra Nova fisheries, Connor speaking”.  To be followed by two more “Duffet’s Building Supplies, Carpenter Speaking”, and finally “House of the Lord, Jesus speaking” before he caught on he wasn’t getting wrong numbers.

Memories of me and Howard raising each other over and over, him with a pair of 3s and me with a pair of deuces.  And Chris Haynes laughing his head off cause he had thrown away three nines. Memories of being “notched”, of Vince feeding the rabbit, of Vince opening a jackpot and then throwing away his openers and taking 5 and still beating Jim Bailey and memories of watching the OJ Simpson chase on Ivan’s small black and white tv.

 

September 27, 2013 by Uncategorized 3

The Fair

The fair back home means only one thing, Thomas Amusements.  When I was younger I’m pretty sure there was a second one too; maybe Kavanaugh, Kincaid?  I forget for sure.  In any event, for many, less so me, it was a highlight, or two depending on how often they came to town, of summer.

These travelling amusement parks always reminded me of the stories of Gypsies.  They’d seemingly appear overnight in a parking lot, and set up rides, games, cotton candy, candy apples, and who knows what else.  One year though there were bumper cars, I did love those!

I was never a fan of the rides, they always were spinning things that just made me nauseated, not happy!  But the treats were good, fries in the old gray carton, eaten with a toothpick and black malt vinegar, cotton candy, etc.

Also some of the games were fun, if nearly impossible to win.  Spin the wheel, knock over the milk cans, ring toss, etc.  I remember once winning a little blue lantern on something, and several stuffed toys.

As I got older, the luster seemed to wear off for me anyway, and I can’t say I find it enjoyable anymore, but they were definitely a huge memory of boyhood 🙂

September 21, 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

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