Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More (2 page)

By the time this was arranged and executed, Christmas was upon us—well, just
about—and we took the coastal boat,
Bar Haven
, at Argentia in a hell of a
snowstorm on Christmas Eve morning and, like everyone else on board, the whole
family was sick as dogs. I almost get sick today thinking of that experience,
more than fifty years later. I don’t know if we thought we would ever make it or
not. We did not know enough to be afraid—that was left to Mother as she tried to
care for five vomiting youngsters in a cramped cabin in the bowels of a rolling
ship. It was six or seven o’clock in the evening when we were told that the
rolling would subside a bit since we were coming into Marystown Harbour. Once
the
Bar Haven
tied to the wharf, this distraught family clambered to the
deck, and with snow and wind still bellowing all around, we stumbled off the
gangplank, seeing through the blur, at long last, our Father! We were to walk
with him up over a hill and pasture in two or three feet of snow to our new
house. We were all carrying something and struggling as we trekked, making a
path as we went. Finally, we arrived and burst into the house. What a treat! It
was all ablaze with a Christmas tree and decorations that Father had
prepared!

We were one of the few Protestant families in Marystown and the
only non-Catholic children attending the convent school operated by the
Sisters of Mercy. I remember one incident at lunchtime when I was engaged in a
snowball fight with one of my classmates. After a bull’s-eye throw by me I heard
the recipient cry out, “You black Protestant!” One of the kids told the Sisters
and there was heavy punishment dispensed to the foul-mouthed student. In five
years this was the only incident of this kind that I remember.

There were many prayers and such at school and our parents said that we should
just participate—the Sisters had made arrangements for us to leave the classroom
during such religious events. However, obeying our parents, we stayed and it
wasn’t long before we had memorized all the prayers and did the “Stations of the
Cross” at the church nearby. We enjoyed it all, and hence what potentially could
have been difficult years for my brothers, sister, and I turned out to be a very
positive experience. And I attribute a lot of my personal good habits to the
Sisters of Mercy, who were relentless but fair in dispensing “education” to us
all. It was not all book work: the music and concerts displayed the Sisters’
love of culture and brought to these activities a discipline and joy that has
never left me. There were no school buses or central heating or cafeterias—each
student took turns bringing “splits” to start the fire in the pot-bellied
stove—yet there was something special; everyone had to help out to make it all
work. This produced a unity and spirit that was as “hard as a rock.” These were
formative years, and I learned a lot about punctuality, discipline, and getting
by with whatever one had at the time. There was no whining or excuses, at home
or in school.

Many years later, one of my ministers would have occasion during an election to
solicit support from a convent in St. John’s that hitherto was somewhat
unfriendly to the Conservatives. He was to discover that there were a number of
Sisters who had been part of the Marystown convent during our family’s years in
Marystown, and who were eager to lend their support. I remember a final rally in
St. John’s, during my first election as premier in 1979, and in referencing the
Sisters’ role in my education I was quickly informed that there were some in the
audience.

My father’s work took him to visit many communities in Placentia
Bay, many of them islands. I was interested in going with my father on these
jaunts, and I well remember a particular trip by a small boat owned by a
gentleman in Baine Harbour.

Leaving Baine Harbour one morning, we were quickly surrounded by fog, and with
only a compass to go by, it was for me a harrowing experience, and judging by
the expressions on the faces of my father and our operator, it was not fun for
them either. But our skipper knew the bay well. Our destination was Oderin
Island. So the skipper simply said, “Okay, we have to steam so many minutes in a
certain direction using the compass, then so many minutes in a slightly
different direction using the compass.” And so this was done. After some anxious
moments—presto, we see through the dispersing fog land on both sides of us—we
were smack dab in the centre of Oderin Island harbour! There are some on the
water who say they can smell the land in the fog. I was to remember this
incident many years later when I travelled Green Bay, White Bay, and the
Labrador Coast in small boat. Anyway, here we were in Oderin harbour.

Father had to visit some clients—widows and disabled people who qualified for
government assistance. After a quick lunch that day, Father had to travel to the
other side of the island, walking along a small pathway. Noticing my boredom, he
invited me along. Along the way, Father informed me that there were but a few
families on the other side and that he had only one visit to make. However, in
mentioning this, he went on to describe to me a mysterious tale that was told on
the island. He said that we would soon arrive at a small gully or pond near the
beach on the back side of the island, not far from the ocean. It was said that
the famous pirate Peter Easton had frequented these parts, and being chased by
his enemies he had actually buried a treasure at the bottom of the pond. The
tale relates that the pirate drained the pond, being of higher elevation than
the beach, placed the treasure in the bottom of the waterless pit, cut a number
of trees, and after removing branches placed the “longers” across the bottom of
the pond, and then the natural spring of the pond filled it up. A real place of
safekeeping!

Father said that we should check this tale out by taking off our
boots and socks and walking out in the water of the pond to see if we could feel
something like a floor. This we did. It was eerie—we could feel that there was
something like a floor! A mystery to this day!

Socks and boots back on, we proceeded to a large two-storey house on the far
side of the beach to Father’s lone client here. On approaching the house, I
noticed that a curtain in an upstairs window parted slightly. Upon entering, we
were warmly greeted by a middle-aged woman, and Father proceeded to complete
some necessary forms. In the course of the conversation the woman mentioned that
her young daughter had become frightened, since visitors were few, and we being
total strangers, she ran to an upstairs room to hide.

In the 1980s I was relating my early experiences on a local CBC radio show, and
one of the stories I described was this one about Oderin Island, the treasure,
the walk in the pond, and the visit to the house of the lady and her daughter.
In just minutes, a lady called the radio station to inform us that she was that
little girl who had run upstairs and nervously parted the curtain to glimpse the
approaching strangers.

So my time in Marystown from age nine to age fourteen was a pleasant one,
filled with childhood memories: of homework by Aladdin lamp, snow sledding in
the winter, bike riding, and swimming in local ponds in the summer, and our
share of beachcombing, digging for “cocks and hens,” and smoking cigarettes
made from stolen tea, and cigarette papers purchased from older friends. A few
crabapple trees were also the victims of wayward childhood ways and saw on one
occasion some serious reprimand by my parents.

I think I travelled to St. John’s once during that time. I was told that I had
large tonsils and that they were to be removed. Really, it was a sinus problem,
I was to discover years later. But the medical fad then was that if a child
suffered from a cold and cough, it had to be those darn tonsils and adenoids. So
at a convenient time when a friend of the family was travelling by car to St.
John’s, I travelled with my mother to the big city. Well that was some ride. I
never thought that we would get there. What I remember most about that visit is
not the city, large
and different as it was, or the time at the
hospital, frightening and unusual as it was, but rather seeing TV for the first
time. I think I was twelve. I sat in my grandmother’s room too dumbfounded to
speak— there was a game show and then some ads about buying some type of food. I
would not see TV again for another two years.

It was in Marystown where I gained an appreciation for baseball. Yes, baseball.
There was no baseball in Marystown, of course, but across Placentia Bay from
Marystown was the American Naval Base at Argentia. It was easy to pick up the
Armed Forces radio on our battery-operated radio (a much-used instrument in our
family), and in the evenings of spring, summer, and fall there were many
baseball games broadcast. It was from the radio I learned the names and the
rules of baseball, and my favourite player was Willie Mays. A young boy’s
imagination fuelled by the noise of the game and the descriptive play-by play-of
the announcers brought me into the wonderful world of baseball.

In 1954 my father had to take a trip to visit his counterpart in Grand Bank,
and of course I tagged along for the ride. After entering the house I was
immediately struck by the sight of a small magazine on baseball (it was
The
Baseball Digest
, still publishing today) lying on a chair in the
kitchen. My focus was so fixed on this magazine that my father’s friend took
notice and suggested that I pick it up and read it while my father and he
conducted their business in an adjoining room. Excited beyond words, I was eager
to see the two adults depart to the other room so that I could hold this
magazine. On the cover was my baseball hero, Willie Mays. I had never seen his
picture before, and now here he was featured on the front page of this important
magazine. I devoured the article and was still busily engrossed when the adults
returned. Feeling a little embarrassed, I put the magazine down and got up to
leave. And then my father’s friend uttered the words, “You really seem to like
that magazine. You can have it!” Months after, I was still rereading the
articles and studying the statistics. And now the radio broadcasts were even
better.

There was one really magical part of our family lives. Each birthday we would
receive a card and money from our Aunt Bessie in faraway Boston. There was a
time before Confederation in 1949 when
Newfoundlanders gravitated
to the “Boston States” for employment. My aunt was one of them. She travelled to
Boston in her early twenties, enrolled in nursing courses, and graduated with an
RN from Leonard Morse Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1926. She never
forgot anyone in the family. She was affectionately known as Auntie Bett to all
the people connected to my father’s side of the family. And at Christmas you
could be as sure that snow would fall that a large parcel would arrive before
Christmas (never late) from this great lady. And what a parcel it would be—from
clothes for all of us, to books and other practical and needed things; we were,
each season, aghast at the quantity and quality of what she would send. My
brothers and I would have modern clothes to wear to school each new year right
from America’s fashion houses. So we grew up with our own fairy godmother. In
Whitbourne, on my seventh birthday, this shiny blue Buick pulled up to our door
that afternoon, and on top of the car was an unusual thing. Once the car
stopped, out stepped Auntie Bett; she fiddled with the thing on top with my
father’s help, removed it from the car, and placed it on the ground: a birthday
present—my first bike! Our house was full of magazines, compliments of
you-know-who.

As I grew up I became fascinated with Auntie Bett: her stories of nursing
terminally ill wealthy people in the Boston area, receiving postcards from her
from other continents as she travelled with her employers around the world, to
coming home each year to see her mother, this lady led an interesting and
productive life. Her generosity was exceptional, and her commitment to family
unlimited. When she was much younger, she had told her mother that if the day
ever came when she, her mother, could not look after herself, she would come
home and care for her. And she did. The last two years of my grandmother’s life
saw Auntie Bett leaving Boston to care for her mother in St. John’s until her
passing.

My aunt was always interested in seeing her nephews and nieces succeed. And if
they showed they were willing to work and commit, she was always there to help.
On entering university I was to receive from Auntie Bett annual complimentary
tickets to all the happenings at the local Arts and Culture Centre. When I
travelled to remote rural
parts in the summertime as a temporary
social worker, I was sure to receive a parcel of recent magazines and newspapers
from Boston or St. John’s.

No one knew her politics. But one evening, after inviting me to her favourite
St. John’s Chinese restaurant, she did confide to me that she was a financial
contributor to the Republican Party and was therefore invited to many of their
political dinners and events. I got up enough courage to ask her why she was a
Republican.

Her answer was simple: “I believe in hard work,” she said. “Everyone must earn
their keep, if they are able.”

My aunt was eighty-five when she died in St. John’s; and in death as in life,
she ensured that all the immediate family received a generous part of her
estate.

My father was transferred to Lewisporte in 1956, a far more “advanced” town in
northeast Newfoundland. It was quite a change. Here were hotels and the shunting
of trains and a bustle and activity not present in the more isolated Marystown.
And now, instead of being in a largely Catholic town, we were in a predominantly
Protestant town, with a large United Church of Canada congregation as well as a
viable Salvation Army church, a small Anglican church, and a quickly growing
Pentecostal group. There were shops and restaurants, more than one doctor (which
had been the case in Marystown), and even a dentist. Lewisporte owed some of
this activity to the fact that it was the terminus for a number of CN coastal
boats. It was strategically located to serve the transportation and passenger
needs of northeastern and northern Newfoundland and Labrador. A railway spur
line of nine miles joined the town to the railway’s main line at Notre Dame
Junction. So there was a large workforce at the dock, loading and unloading
freight from railcars, and the processing of passengers. The people of the town
were entrepreneurial and independent. I completed my high school education
there. This was a much larger school, and it did not have the rigour and
discipline that we experienced in Marystown. This was a shock at first. Of
course, like most kids of my age, it did not take long to get used to it.