catch of salmon. Now Sandy and Ben deserved the ‘uncle’ status, that’s fer sure, but for some reason they were never referred to as Uncle Sandy or Uncle Ben, even though their wives were most always called Aunt Ethel and Aunt Maggie. Come to think of it, there may be a logical explanation. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that when we referenced Sandy and Ben we weren’t actually referring to the men, but to their business. They both were businessmen of the highest order. Each of them had a general store that helped supply the harbour with the necessities of life; flour, sugar, yeast, salt, hardtack, fat pork , knitting needles, buttons, rubber boots, cape-anns, cod jiggers, pipe tobacco etc. And a drop of acto for the old make-and-break. A bit of kerosene fer da lamp, a battery fer da old Marconi radio, and a variety of canned fruit fer dessert on Sunday. Sine qua non of the community. You remember the ‘BIG 6’ out in Sin John’s, and the slogan they used in their ads on CJON. “Once a number, now an institution.” So it was with Sandy and Ben. “Once a name, now an institution.” At least that’s the way I’ve interpreted it.
Sandy was, as I explained in an earlier poem, the inventor of pay tv. He had one of a very few television sets in the harbour,
and the pay per view system was invoked.
On the other hand, besides being in the retail business, Ben made his mark in the community by being an agent for salmon buyers and by buying herring and cobbing them in barrels that he manufactured down in his ‘fish factory.’
I should explain , before some of you start to complain, that there were more merchants in the harbour than those two. It’s just that the others were either too young to be included in the ‘Aunt and Uncle’ category, or they were on a much smaller scale and so retained the salutation reserved for the elite members of our society. For example, Willie George and Lillie did a booming retail business but they were entrepreneurs of a younger generation. Another story in the making. On the other hand, Uncle Willis and Aunt Minnie also had a retail outlet up on Martin’s Hill. It was on a much smaller scale and so was not to be construed as being a really important institution. I think there were two militating reasons for Uncle Willis becoming a proprietor. One was that he was very savvy with his money, and ‘a penny saved is better than a penny earned’ was the way in which he operated, so he was paying wholesale prices for all he consumed. By the way, this tactic was used by quite a few people in Hickman’s Harbour during my preteen years. If you count them up, there was probably a retail grocery store in every third or fourth household.
The other reason that occurred to me was that Uncle Willis was using the store as a cover for the real reason he resided on Martin’s Hill. Apparently, through the oral history of Trinity Bay, it has been suggested that the pirates who plied their trade in this part of the world used Martin’s Hill as a depository for their ill gotten bounty, and Uncle Willis had the inside scoop on where it was buried. So he bought the land in question from an old widow who had not yet learned about the possibility that she was sitting on a treasure trove of pirates ill gotten gains. Whether he found it or not is a question that may never be answered. Uncle Willis was not one to blab about his monetary prowess. I can say, though, that he was very protective of his gardens. He denied access to any younguns and shooed them away every time they went there hoping to dig up a few worms before hustling in to the pond to cast fer a meal of trout. “Get on widdie. Go dig up yer fadder’s preddie bed.”
Way up on ‘Topsail,’ in about the last house in on the right hand side of the road, lived Uncle Dave and Aunt May. Uncle Dave was tall of stature and had an air of authority about him. In fact, he was known as the great recruiter in The Salvation Army. It was a very long walk from their home to the Citadel, but Uncle Dave made that trek thrice every Sunday, all decked out in his Salvation Army Uniform, during my younger days.
Morning prayer, Sunday School, and evening revival meetings just could not function properly unless Uncle Dave was the overseer. Aunt May would sometimes accompany Uncle Dave, but her health kept her at home most of the time.
I can hear Uncle Dave now as he started his testimony with the phrase “Another day has come and gone, and roooooolled into eternity.” Yes, Uncle Dave was a believer, that’s fer sure, and he didn’t mind letting others know that they were ‘doomed’ if they did not repent of their sins and become a soldier in ‘The Army of God’.
I viewed Uncle Dave with some trepidation as he sat up on the platform, while I sat in the back row and tried not to make eye contact with this crusader for ‘young soldiers.’ But it was inevitable that sooner or later I would look up and he would be waiting and watching for my reaction. I was not always a ‘good’ boy, and he could tell by the way I squirmed in my seat that I had not lived up to his high standards of how a ‘saved’ person should behave, and so, during the latter part of the service, he would make his way down the aisle to where I was sitting. Uncle Dave had a soubriquet for people who once obeyed The Ten Commandments but then strayed from the straight and narrow. Backslider. He called me a backslider. The devil had gotten his way with me, and “if you don’t accompany me back to the mercy seat you will burn in hell.” As he led me up the aisle I could hear the ‘hallelujahs and amens’ from the other soldiers of the cross. Again I have been redeemed.
My backsliding ways got me in trouble a few times, that’s fer sure. Blamed for many of the shenanigans that happened in the harbour; like the illegal bonfires, horses in the preddie gardens, raids on the apple trees and gooseberry bushes, and missing cigarettes from the pack of ‘Players’ that Heber or George left on the night table. I must confess that I am guilty of at least one of these infractions, without ever admitting which one the plaintiff should seek retribution for.
But it in no way diluted my respect for those of whom I speak, and I like to think that the role they all played in my early years lends some succor to me as I approach my second ‘age of innocence’. The question still on my mind is this: Were they so enthralled with me as I was with them, or were they just being a bit apprehensive about the consequences of sending me on my way empty handed? I guess I’ll get my answer in due course.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
