Salmon Fishing

Every year this time, our thoughts turn to fishing, not for trout or codfish, but salmon. Before long, the season will open and anglers will head to their favourite salmon rivers in pursuit of the illusive Atlantic salmon here in eastern Canada. However, salmon fishing does not conjure up pleasant memories for my husband, Rick or his mother, Sylvia.

When Rick was young, family vacations were spent in various locations along salmon rivers on the west coast of Newfoundland. The lure of the Atlantic salmon was a passion of my father-in-law, Melvin, much to the chagrin of his wife and son. Every year, Sylvia and Rick spent the hottest days of the summer in a small travel trailer, while Melvin spent blissful hours pursuing salmon.

 

Big Falls on the west coast of Newfoundland was his favourite fishing hole. It is a beautiful spot with fast flowing, pristine water, in the wilderness of Sir Richard Squires Park. This place was the Smith's home during their summer vacation each year. Melvin stood for hours, casting that rod in the early morning and evening, when the salmon were feeding in their resting pools on the river.

 

Melvin often said, "I'm going for a few flicks now," as he gathered his gear to head to the river where he'd succumb to the enchantment yet again.

His wife and son never really understood the attraction. They were confined to the trailer because the flies were so bad; sand flies got through screens which were covered with cheese cloth. The heat was oppressive too. Sylvia and Rick felt captive in the tiny trailer.

Melvin didn't notice the heat and somehow the flies didn't bother him either. It was as if the salmon had him mesmerized, making him immune to the aggravation of the flies and heat. He also enjoyed the company of the other anglers, fellow victims of the enchantment.

There was a time when Melvin tried to interest Rick in fishing. However, Rick was immune to the mystic charm of the noble fish. He completely hated it. Many times in our married life, Rick spoke of his feelings about fishing. I knew which words or phrases would set him off and what he'd say when he got started.

Eventually we did a fishing intervention. Rick's parents brought a fresh whole salmon to Big Falls and we poached it with potato and onion, our favourite way to cook the tasty treat. While the salmon cooked, we burned a paper salmon shape in effigy. Then Rick and Sylvia expressed all their salmon fishing frustrations as Melvin listened. We laughed a lot that day and in the years since then the salmon fishing stories aren't as frequent or negative.

 

Now the only time the memories re-surface is at this time of year, when people gear-up for the salmon fishing season. We have never been tempted to join them!

If

If you had the opportunity to speak with a loved one who has died, what would you say? Considering this question, I realized some truths that I had not considered.

 

Questions come to mind immediately. I would ask my mother about those last moments of her life. Was she aware her granddaughter and I held her during that time?

Was Dad aware his family did not arrive at the hospital in time before he died;  a family friend held his hand in the end.

My grandfather O'Brien I would question about his Irish immigrant father and Nan about her desire to teach. Pop Pretty would speak of his parents, Dad's mother about her family. The list goes on...

Then I realized, all I wanted was to be in their presence. Words would be unnecessary though they would come, words of love.

Nothing was left unsaid before, nothing would need to be said then. No regrets...but longing...for physical presence which is the real loss. Now each person is carried in my heart and mind, everywhere, every day, walking through life with me, a part of who I have become.

This relationship with them is hard sometimes but an important one, giving me part of my sense of purpose and identity; the desire to write comes from it too.

Five little words would be necessary after all, "Thank you for my life."

Robbin' Robins

We have drama in our back yard under the patio. A pair of robins is stealing pieces of the ivy vine which is wrapped around parts of our patio. They are seeking bits and pieces for their nest and we can see them through our basement windows as they take off with parts of the long plant. 

 

Their efforts are even more intriguing because when the blinds are up, the birds hit the windows, trying to fly through them. We keep the blinds closed all of the time now so our feathered friends can see the windows.

 

 

Over the last week, the robins have hit the windows numerous times. It took us some time to realize what the noise was. They sounded like huge June bugs which, attracted to light in a window at night, bounce off the window. However, any time I try to get a picture of the birds through the glass, they disappear into the grass. 

 

I will wait to clean the windows until the robins are finished nest construction. Meanwhile, they are such resourceful creatures, harvesting the ivy as they do, although we fear they are causing brain damage every time they bounce off the windows. I wonder if anyone has studied the effects of repeated concussions on birds? It gives a whole new meaning to the term 'bird brain.'

 

Happy Mother's Day

With Mother's Day in North America today, some of the traditions around the celebration of our Moms come to mind. In Corner Brook, Newfoundland years ago, the day was commemorated on a community level. The children made flowers by twisting crepe paper into the shape of roses, often leaving their hands full of dye. The color of the rose was significant, red for a living mother, 

 

white for the deceased. 

 

Men wore the appropriate rose in their lapels and they dressed in suits and ties, attending Church on Sunday afternoon. 

Many families attended the Salvation Army Church in the afternoon where the Sunday school children did a pageant for the mothers. At the end of the pageant children pinned the flowers on their mothers. People came together at that church to celebrate the occasion regardless of religious affiliation.

In our family, for the last number of years, we celebrate with a meal of lobsters, the first of the season. This tradition started in Newfoundland, before we moved to Prince Edward Island. This year the lobster season started on time compared to the delay last year because of ice conditions around our island home. Even the girls, three and five, each eat a regular size lobster now.

 

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers! Whether the roses are red or white, you are always in our minds and hearts. 

The Mug Up

My grandfather, Samuel Pretty was an unusual man of his generation though he was orphaned and widowed at an early age which was not unusual.

 

Pop, as we called him, worked as an engineer on the railway and was away from home for days at a time. While he had a housekeeper after he was widowed, he became the chief cook at home in his later years. Pop was a good cook due to his life on the railway and made tasty, rustic meals while many men of his generation could not boil water.

 

My grandfather loved his mug up, a refreshment between meals or before bedtime. To Pop, this mug up was an important part of his daily life which never included coffee or a mug but rather tea, cup and saucer. He often had biscuits, toast, cookies or cake with his tea as well.

Pop was never one to waste anything, which was a testament to the difficult times he experienced as a child. He always had the tea bags which provided two cups and saved the bag from his previous cup of tea for the next mug up. This tea bag he placed in the middle of the saucer and inverted the cup over the bag so as to protect or hide it. Sometimes several bags were revealed when he lifted the cup though guests always received a clean cup and saucer and a new tea bag. 

Today, many people have taken up the fancy coffee or tea trends for their mug ups. Even Canadian favourite, Tim Horton's, has taken to the fancy coffee blends in addition to the basic double double, two cream/two sugar. Coffee shops, offering the fanciest brews imaginable, with costs between $4.00 and $7.00 each, abound.

 

However, I can't look at one of those fancy drinks without thinking of Pop and that overturned cup, the multiple tea bags, and the pleasure he derived from a mug up, for pennies a cup. 

The Soap

He worked hard his whole life on his farm in Maddox Cove and as a fisherman out of Petty Harbour, Newfoundland. My grandfather O'Brien worked long days, from 4 a.m. during the fishing season. When he retired from fishing, Granda continued his work around the farm, growing vegetables, tending chickens, horses and cows, plowing, mowing, He always had a nap in the afternoon but his main luxury was the soap opera Another World. In the late 1960s, Granda and Nan watched it every week day. They were fascinated with the daily life of Mac, Rachel and the clan in Bay City.

 

Granda watched with some skepticism as the cast of characters went about their daily lives but he was not really sure what to think about them. He always asked, "That's not real, is it?" Everyone reassured him that it was not, but Granda kept asking. If you entered the room while he was watching the program, during the commercial breaks, he gave you a synopsis of the latest happenings. Granda really went to another world.

Nan was different. She said with conviction, "That's not real," as if to remind herself not to believe what she saw.

My grandmother often commented, "That's shockin'," shaking her head at the events in Bay City. However, she continued to watch, as did Granda.

Today the fictional situations which fascinated Nan and Granda are played out on reality television and more recently, in the news, in more graphic detail and with coarser language. One can imagine the comments and questions from those two if they could watch television today. My grandparents would be shocked, but glued to the television.

Language Lesson

While Canada is a bilingual country with English and French, many of us cannot speak the second language, including my husband and me. However, we are bilingual; we speak Newfinese and English.

There is a Dictionary of Newfoundland English by Kirwin, Story and Widdowson, which details many of the words and phrases used in our home province. While Newfoundland has been a province of Canada since 1949, its isolation meant the language and accent of the original settlers were preserved over the centuries. Many of the small villages stretched around the Newfoundland coast have unique words and sayings which came from the ancestral countries and counties. For us, it is difficult to eliminate the language and accent from our speech or memory, even if we try.

Phrases like, "Yes, Maid," are common in Newfoundland. I say it to our granddaughters, wanting to expose them to Newfinese. Our granddaughter, Sylvie, only knows a maid as a servant who cleans in a hotel room. When I first used the term with her, she said, "Nanny, I am not a maid."

 

Maid in Newfoundland means girl, which I explained to Sylvie. During their last visit, Sylvie said to her sister, Caitlin, "You can't do that, maid."

I smiled!