Posted on September 6, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet

Getting my just desserts

 

 

“They call me mellow yellow …”

Mellow Yellow – Donovan

 

I met Otto Bernstein in the spring of 1977.  My dear friend, the late Pat Campbell, introduced me to this most amazing man.  Pat was a piano player and on many occasions she would travel out to Bluesky to accompany Otto, who was a better than average cello player.  I always had the impression that he was a Renaissance man.

As much as I enjoyed the music they made together that day, I was there on a very different mission.  Otto spent a good deal of the year in a southern climate and I was interested in renting his log house.

From what I could determine, he was way ahead of his time.  He had fashioned all kinds of gadgets on the property, including an indoor cistern and a dumb waiter.  He had wired the property so that the yard would light up at nightfall.  He even had a garage that would open by remote control.  Remember, this was 1977.  His house was a veritable antique shop and he had dozens, possibly hundreds of knick-knacks and paintings in the living room.  I was a bit leery about being responsible for all this.

I had every right to feel a bit nervous.

I had come from the East coast to teach school, and I was joined by five other guys who graduated with their teaching degrees from the same institution.  We were all in our twenties, single, with a bit of polishing required around the rough edges.  The boys enjoyed a good party and every so often things went a bit off the rails.

After one particularly raucous affair, we had left the apartment belonging to one of the guys a tad upside down.  Literally.  I remember with great clarity when he declared that someday he would exact his revenge, singling me out as the instigator.

Many months later I left town to attend a professional development conference in Banff.  Banff is a long drive from Bluesky, around 10 hours.  After two full days of endless meetings I hit the road for home on Sunday afternoon.  Somewhere between Edmonton and Grande Prairie, it hit me like a thunderbolt. Something bad awaited me upon my return to Otto’s log house.  I just knew that the boys had taken advantage of my extended absence.

I arrived home after dark and pulled into the yard.  The outdoor lights went on.  I pressed the remote control to open the garage door.  I wasn’t able to drive in because my bedroom was neatly arranged where the car would normally be parked.

I cautiously approached the cabin, and just as I was about to open the door, something told me to look up.  Perched precariously over the entryway was a bucket of water which promptly fell when I gently turned the knob.

The kitchen is the first room past the front porch.  I flicked on the lights and the ambiance didn’t look quite right.  And, little wonder.  The floor of the kitchen was completely encased in two inches of yellow Jell-O.  And so was every glass, every bowl, every pot and pan.  I removed my socks and made my way through the slimy mess and entered the living room.

It was empty.  Nothing.  Every piece of furniture, every piece of art and ornamentation had been removed.

Scattered on the floor of the kitchen were the discarded wrappers of photos from a Polaroid camera.  I realized that the intruders had the good sense and decency (!) to take pictures before and after the crime.

It was 2:00 a.m. when I had finally scrapped away the Jell-o from the kitchen floor and re-assembled the bedroom indoors.  Finding all of the knick-knacks would come later.

I arrived in the staff room bright and early on Monday morning. The co-conspirators were sipping their coffee waiting to see my reaction.  I pretended that nothing had happened.  I didn’t utter a word about the chaos that they had wreaked on my living quarters.

Slowly but surely I recovered most of the antiques, ornaments and paintings.  Some of them I found in the tall pine trees surrounding the house.  But I couldn’t be 100% certain that everything had been recovered.  I needed to see the pictures that they had taken.  Finally, on Friday afternoon, at the end of the school day, I confronted them.  I swore at them; they laughed and they gave me the pictures.  On the weekend I put everything back in its rightful place.

Every so often, I will see a dish of Jell-O sitting in a display cooler in a restaurant.  One of these days, I think I will try a bowl for old time’s sake.

Any colour but yellow.

 

 

 

 

Posted on September 3, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet

The Colindale Road, Cape Breton

 

 

“Happy trails to you, keep smilin’ until then.”

Happy Trails – Dale Evans Rogers

When was the last time that you had a day to call your own?

I decided to take a trip around the Cabot Trail.  Alone.  My wife had to work; otherwise she would have jumped at the opportunity.  No kids, grandkids, brothers, sisters, cousins, distant relatives, ghosts of relatives.  You get the picture.

I reckon I have been around the Cabot Trail well over fifty times in my life, but never alone.  I travelled to Ingonish every weekend of the summer back in the late 60’s with the family band, The Escorts.  I have made the trek with my own family, and like many Nova Scotians, have played tour guide to friends visiting from out of province

Only once have I ever regretted being on the Trail, and that was a trip I took in winter.  A snow storm descended on Cape Smokey.   Luckily, the vehicle in front of me was a snow plow; otherwise the outcome of that expedition could have been very different.

My ultimate destination on this voyage was Ingonish, to attend the wake of an old university friend.  The wake was scheduled for 6:00 p.m. at the church in Ingonish Beach.  I left Antigonish  early in the morning, crossed the Causeway, made the sharp left turn onto Route 19 and headed up the west side of Cape Breton Island.

And for once in my life, I wasn’t in a big hurry.

The early part of the journey was drenched in sunshine as I made my way through the small communities that dot the coastline.  I drove through downtown Port Hood and took the back road to Mabou, via the Colindale Road.  Like so many places in Cape Breton, the scenery along this stretch of road is awe-inspiring.  As I passed through West Mabou I felt the urge to get out of the car and start dancing.  I feared that the sheep in an adjacent pasture might call the authorities and report me, so I cancelled my performance and carried on.

I stopped in Mabou for a few minutes.  The Red Shoe was closed.  A little too early in the day for a pint anyway.   I decided to go to the graveyard and visit my dear friend Raylene, who rests peacefully in a quiet, sun dappled corner of the cemetery with the mountains keeping watch in the distance.  There was mist in the hills and a bit in my eyes as well.

I rolled into Inverness mid-morning.  Four years ago I could have navigated Main Street without meeting too many people.  On this morning, it was like Times Square in New York … minus the glitz.  The place was buzzing, with every parking spot occupied and the sidewalks alive with people.  The adjacent golf course, Cabot Links, is the magnet for all of this activity.

I spent two hours at the golf course.  They employ close to 200 people and once the new course, Cabot Cliffs, opens next year, that number is sure to rise.  I’m not usually one to hang around gift shops but the one at Cabot Links is unique as it is housed in a yurt.  I spent just about an hour chatting with Ann, one of the managers.  We hit it off immediately; kindred spirits for sure.   This was surprising when I found out later in the conversation that she is a Campbell.  We MacDonalds haven’t forgotten Glencoe yet.

When I’m away from home I like to keep in touch with family and work, so my cellphone is always nearby.  Inexplicably, my phone stopped working during my visit to the gift shop.  Initially I found this disconcerting because, like most people, I have become dependent upon technology.  When I realized, after a visit to a cell phone store in Cheticamp, that the problem couldn’t be fixed quickly, I tossed the phone on the seat and decided to enjoy the luxury of being “out of the loop.”

The drive through the Highlands did not disappoint.  I pulled over several times and simply enjoyed the majesty of it all.  I didn’t see a whole lot of wild life.  I saw a couple of Cape Breton screaming eagles … these ones weren’t wearing skates.

I hadn’t been to Meat Cove in 35 years and had this on my list of places to go.  I reached the intersection at Cape North and turned left.  My recollection was that Meat Cove was just a hop and a skip from there.   I drove and drove and drove.  I reached Bay St. Lawrence.  Desperate for coffee, I went into the Co-op and treated myself to a decent cup for the princely sum of $1.00.  I even bought a few “pull tickets”.  Lo and behold I won a buck, so I headed off with a cup of free coffee.  How good is that!

And then I drove some more.  After passing through Capstick, the pavement ended and I drove some more on a dirt road for 8 kilometers.  It was extremely windy as a storm was passing through.   A few of the corners, with very steep drops down to the ocean on my right, reminded me of navigating the narrow roadways of Ireland a few years back.   I was tempted to move to the opposite side of the road for old time’s sake.

When I reached my destination I disembarked and chatted with Rhonda MacLellan, an eighth generation of MacLellans who run the campground.  I discovered that Meat Cove got its name from a time when sailors would come into the cove to pick up meat and other supplies.  Besides their world class chowder, the other must do things in Meat Cove are whale watching and hiking.  Rhonda said that there are days when the whales come right into the cove and you can hear them from the campground.  Best of all, there is no cell phone service to spoil nature at its finest.

I stopped in at Country Crafts to buy my wife a beautiful pottery coffee mug.  I met two lovely ladies running the shop and confessed that my wife may be suspicious when I show up at home with a gift.   This is definitely out of character for me.

I had a few quiet moments in St. Peter’s church as I paid my respects to my old friend, Bobby.  It felt good to be there with his family.  I saw some old pictures on the memorial wall and spotted some long haired freaks from the bad old days at St. F.X.  I was amongst them with the world’s largest afro.  Bobby’s sister had a difficult time believing that this was the same person as the nearly bald man in front of her.

I had a bowl of fish chowder at The Clucking Hen, one of my favorite spots to eat on the Trail.  “No Fowl Moods” is their motto.  After consuming a piece of freshly baked butterscotch cream pie, I told one of the women that , should I die on the way home, she is to tell my family that I had a piece of heaven in my belly and a smile on my face.

It was the perfect ending to a beautiful day.  Thanks, Bobby.

“Happy trails to you, until we meet again.”

 

 

 

Posted on August 30, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet

Fare or Fowl?

 

 

It was a simple enough question.

During a recent purge and cleaning of the fridge, my wife asked me about some chicken nestled on the back shelf.  As far as we could determine, it was well over seven days old, and, while not harmful to one’s health, its “curb appeal” was wanting.  We try our hardest not to waste a morsel of food, but every now and then, something past its prime gets lobbed into the composter.  I’ve ended up in there once or twice myself.

Is it just me, or are we turning into a nation of poultry purists?  Once upon a time you had a chicken dinner for a real treat, but nowadays the proliferation of poulet, in all its forms, is something akin to the Tim Horton’s phenomenon.  There seems to be chicken everywhere.

Chicken nuggets, chicken a la king, deep fried chicken, chicken stew, roast chicken potato chips, chicken wraps, stir-fried chicken, chicken balls …

I will never forget my first trip to the Chicken Burger Restaurant on the Bedford Highway.  Everything about the place was just perfect, from the 1950’s décor to the juke boxes.  But the big attraction was the chicken burgers themselves, washed down with their matchless chocolate milkshakes.  These days you can have a meal there before flying the friendly skies, as they have an outlet at the Halifax airport.  Same food and friendly staff but no fresh-air order counters … yet.

Chicken gumbo, rotisserie chicken, chicken Kiev, chicken cordon bleu…

The Colonel brought his famous brand of chicken with “eleven different herbs and spices” into our neck of the woods in the 1960`s.  We woke up one day not long ago in our home town to find that the local KFC outlet was reduced to rubble (they closed it and sent the employees home first).  It was if the Colonel had just kicked the bucket and left town.  It caused quite a flap.

Chicken Cacciatorre, Tuscan chicken, chicken fingers and taters…

If you have your head down for even a nanosecond, you might miss the A& K Lick a Chick in Little Bras d’Or.  It is reputed to have the world’s finest deep fried chicken.  You might not want to stop there the night before bloodwork for your cholesterol readings.  Right across the street there is a Tim Horton’s which, in and of itself, is not surprising.  However, this is a very famous Timmie’s, for years ago it became famous for a time when the face of the Blessed Virgin appeared on an exterior wall of the building.

Chicken has become so highly regarded as a food staple that it has developed its own brand in Quebec.  St. Hubert’s Chicken is as much a staple in the Quebecois diet as poutine.  In case you’re wondering, St. Hubert is the patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians and metal workers.  It almost seems like one of the Popes ran out of ideas for patron saints and gave St. Hubert all the leftovers.

My wife is forever espousing the merits of a balanced diet.  I am suspicious that my diet might not be quite there yet.  I have noticed that small feathers are appearing on my arms and that I am prone to making audible clucking sounds when asked to do chores.  Unfortunately, I am not allowed to “chicken out”.