Posted on October 3, 2015 under Storytelling with no comments yet

 

 

Seriously. When was the last time that you thoroughly examined the contents of your freezer? Do you have a stand-alone chest freezer or just one attached to your fridge? In all likelihood, you haven’t reached into its nether regions unless one of the two things has happened: a three day power outage or a move across the continent. Yes, I know that most of you diligently clean your fridge regularly, but freezers can be safely ignored for years.

I would be one of those people who never paid much attention to food storage. The fridge was the place to go to grab a snack or a cold drink or some mix. The freezer was for ice. But that was then and this is now. When I recently retired and decided that my number one priority was to improve my diet, the kitchen quickly became the centre of my universe.   And, because my menu is changing, our fridge has undergone a rather dramatic metamorphosis. Instead of leftover pizza, fried chicken or a half-eaten lemon meringue pie, it now displays container after container of vegetables, some raw and some cooked, and a dizzying array of fruit.

A few years ago, a financial institution had an ad campaign that included this catchy tag line: “What’s in your wallet?” I don’t know about you, but there’s usually not much in mine. And I seem to be at the grocery store every day. As my diet now focuses heavily on plants, the need to have a side of beef choking the freezer is becoming less important. And oftentimes there are just the two of us at the table. So, I have begun to gradually purge the freezer, trying to use up some things that have been in there for a while. Those mysterious packages that were transferred, unopened, when we moved across town. Going through the freezer and doing an inventory is akin to an archeological dig. In your search for relics you never really know what you’re going to find.

Emptying out the freezer is like a history lesson for most of us. While I didn’t find all of the following in ours, one suspects that somewhere, somebody has come across these, and other items, that stir old memories. There’s a container with small meatballs. The date is December 31^st, 1999 and you quickly remember the party you attended to usher in a new millennium. We all watched the clock as midnight approached to see if Y2K would render the planet inoperable.

There must have been a great sale on pork tenderloin at Sobeys in March of 2007, because you bought three packages of them. The “best before” date was not September of 2015. By the way, they’re only a deal if you eat them!

There are several bags of bread, each containing exactly two slices: the heels. Not sure why we kept this. Maybe they are a form of ballast for the fridge. And if you’re from the east coast there is always a bag of rolls with freezer burn … leftovers from a summer lobster boil.

And there it is, welded to the side of the freezer like a barnacle attached to the underside of a boat. It’s the pièce de resistance, the magnum opus: a thirty year old piece of wedding cake. These days, there is a better than average chance that the wedding cake has outlasted the marriage.

The purge is nearly complete when you notice something that doesn’t seem quite right. There is a baggy lying flat on the floor of the freezer. Why would anyone in their right mind leave a clear plastic bag in there? And then it hits you, like an icicle falling off the roof of your house onto your head; you stashed a handful of high interest credit cards there after a particularly egregious abuse of same one Christmas long ago.

What’s in your freezer?

Posted on September 30, 2015 under Storytelling with 6 comments

John MacGillivray at The West End Market

Photo courtesy of the Antigonish Heritage Mueseum

 

 

It is an unusually foggy day by Antigonish standards. The downtown is shrouded in a low hanging mist. We’re not talking about the kind of fog that envelops the community of St. Shott’s, Newfoundland for most days of the year. They once had the dubious distinction of being named the foggiest town in the world, according to Guinness. I was there once and almost got lost crossing the street.

As I pass the Legion I stumble upon Farrell’s Texaco. Sure enough, John Henry is out manning the pumps; a civilized practice that has been given away to expediency in modern times. He’s chatting with a few guys and they are almost certainly discussing the upcoming hockey season. My guess is that they’re talking about #9, The Golden Jet, and wondering if he’ll have another 50 goal season using that newfangled curved stick.

Even though it is set back from the road, I can hear the strong, clear voices of the Marian Boy choir emanating from the Marian Boy Choir Institute. Rev. Terry Lynch is undoubtedly putting the boys through their paces, demanding excellence.

I’m heading west on Main when Rudy Villeneuve pokes his head out the door to say hello. Rudy has been mending soles at this location for many years. I pop in to say hi to Dot MacPherson, proprietor of Dot’s Convenience. Many of the cavities that we now carry around in our teeth were earned back in the day when everyone got their penny candy at Dot’s before crossing the street for the Saturday matinee at The Capitol Theatre. The fog is thicker and as I turn to leave, Johnny Lord emerges from the mist and offers me a platter of fish and chips. Some say that his was the best you could buy on this side of the Atlantic. Lord only knows.

I am starting to wonder if I’ve accidentally bumped my head, for I haven’t moved one step and I’m in the middle of a throng at D.P. Chisholm Insurance. I am told by unimpeachable sources that politics is occasionally discussed under this roof.

Slightly dazed, I continue down the sidewalk to find one of the few houses on this stretch of Main Street. The large and immensely talented Brassett family calls this home. Many of them are stellar athletes while others can sing like the angels. They can survey the comings and goings on Main Street from their front veranda. The patriarch, George, and his sidekick, Victor Boucher, run the Sears store just up the way beside MacDonald Brothers.

John MacGillivray is putting out some fresh meat and fish at the West End Market. Not all fish stories are true but apparently this one is. A local fellow who supplied the West End with fresh salmon arrived in town on a Saturday morning. He learned to his dismay that one of John’s coolers had broken down and there was no room for his catch. This was particularly distressing as the fisherman had a loan payment due at the Credit Union that very day. He made his way down to the corner of Main and College and, with some degree of trepidation, went in to see the C.U. manager. Because it was Saturday, the Credit Union would be closing at noon. After hearing the story, the manager told the fisherman to come back at 11:50 a.m. After a few carefully placed calls to some people in the business community, all of the salmon was claimed and paid for on the spot. That’s how things were done back then. The loan payment was made, to the immense relief of the fisherman.

I cross Acadia Street and peek into Sullivan’s Barber shop. Henry Sullivan and Tom Lukeman are wielding scissors and extend a wave. Their barber chairs are classic and durable, offering comfort to customers to this very day.

Being in the market for new winter footwear, I enter the friendly confines of Chisholm’s Shoe Store and strike up a conversation with Leo “Boots”. We talk a bit of sports and politics and I poke my head in the back room to say a quick hello to Johnny Boyd, who can repair every manner of heel.

I am too young to enter the next store. You’ve got to be 19 to walk into the Liquor Store. Long before self-serve became the norm, customers stood at a counter and placed their orders. It must have been quite a sight near closing time on Christmas Eve! The liquor store eventually relocated and the premises became a furniture store, first owned by Richard Kadray and then by Mike MacInnis.

The smell of freshly baked bread hits my nostrils as I pass J.A. Adams Bakery. Jimmy once ran a convenience store at this location but now he churns out another kind of dough every day.

I’ve reached the corner of Main and Hawthorne and there sits a venerable institution. No, it’s not St. F. X. but rather, The Corner Store. But everybody calls it Foch’s. Who hasn’t gone into there to grab some candy or a bottle of milk? Or sat at the lunch counter for a glass of water on the way home from school? On any given day, you’ll find Foch Fraser behind the counter or some of his trusty staff, including Freda Pushie and Mamie “Hedges”.

My ultimate destination is Pete Poirier’s Bottle Exchange. I am toting a sack of empty Pepsi, Coke and Nesbitt Orange beverage containers, along with some beer bottles. Pete is shrewd. The money barely creases my palms before I am passing it back to buy some penny candy. Honeymoons are only 2 cents so I can load up when I have a quarter burning a hole in my pocket.

Suddenly, the fog lifts and I’m stopping in to visit Meghan and Zack at the Tall and Small Café, to see how their young family is doing. The place is packed … another institution in the making.

You never know what you’ll experience when travelling the Main … especially on a foggy day!

 

Posted on September 23, 2015 under Storytelling with no comments yet

Instant teller? I think not

 

 

After a long, productive work career, Donna retired. But not for long. When you have energy to burn and you’re still young, the thought of sitting at home watching soaps and sipping on Chardonnay held no appeal. She decided that in between stints of babysitting for her grandchildren, a shift or two at the local hospital might be just the tonic.

Donna was known as someone who got things done. Hard working, efficient, personable and punctual; she always seemed to be in good cheer even when things weren’t going according to plan. Her laugh was infectious. This happy demeanor was about to be tested.

It was a particularly humid day for mid-September as Donna headed to work to catch the afternoon shift. She decided to make one brief stop along the way at her bank; to pay a credit card bill that was due that very day. Yes, the card proclaimed that “membership has its privileges”, but pity help the customer who paid a nanosecond late. That is when the exorbitant interest rate kicks into gear.

It was 2:35 when Donna entered her financial institution ahead of her 3 PM shift. With the hospital only a few minutes away, there was plenty of time to take care of the task at hand. Or so she thought. It was blessedly cool in the bank as she slipped into a short lineup, if you can reasonably call one person a lineup. Having grown up in the area, it was not surprising that the person in front of her was someone she knew. Kelly was a well-known real estate agent and the two women engaged in casual banter about the plethora of houses currently on the market.

Despite the fact that it was mid-afternoon, it was somewhat surprising that there were only two tellers on duty. One was manning the senior’s wicket. Both employees were engaged with customers. Donna chatted and started watching the clock as the line was just not moving. A queue was now growing in number behind her. A real crowd.

A small bead of perspiration formed on Donna’s brow, despite the air conditioning. Kelly was not under the same time constraints, so that when one of the tellers became free she offered her position to Donna; a true act of charity. Donna hastily approached the counter, slapped the credit card bill on the counter and waited for confirmation of payment. This was precisely when the teller’s screen froze. It was now 3 PM and Donna wasn’t sure which was worse: the thought of showing up late for work or the image of trying to explain her late fee charges to some overzealous call centre worker in Omaha.

Despite her cheerful demeanor, which was being tested to the limit, she was anxious to get the matter resolved before going to work. The teller sensed this and rushed over to her colleague’s computer. By now, Kelly was occupying the space at this wicket. Sensing the urgency of the moment, she told her teller that she could wait if she wanted to process the credit card payment for her friend.

Barely breaking stride, Donna’s teller virtually ripped the monitor from the hands of her work mate, did a log out and log in, and at 3:05, the payment was processed.

Donna bolted for her car and sped the short distance to the hospital. She arrived to some good natured ribbing from her co-workers.

When supper hour came, she decided to forego her bagged lunch and slipped down to the hospital café to buy a meal. She approached the cashier and the order was rung in. “Will that be cash, debit or credit?” queried the attendant.

Donna paused momentarily and a wry grin appeared on her face. She smiled and slipped the clerk a crisp $10.00 bill.