shanmonster | Memory Blurb

When I was nine years old, I moved to Musgrave Harbour--a small coastal village in Newfoundland. We packed up our things and travelled in a caravan of sorts. Mom drove the big truck with the two kids in the cab, and our camper on the back. The camper contained our clothes, bedding, Orangey the cat, and in the bathroom we had three geese and a vicious milk goat.

Dad drove a school bus with our furniture, Blaze the horse, Tarby the pony, and Buoy the dog. Ranger and Tarby liked to stick their heads out the window and whinny hello every now and then. It was such an incongruous image that an enterprising photographer took a picture which made the front page of the local paper. I wish someone had clipped a copy for us, but I only heard about it.

We feared for the geese. The goat was a nasty thing with wicked horns, but our fears were in vain. The goat was forced into a corner by the geese, practically standing on her front hooves, and one of the geese had laid an egg in the other corner.

We settled in to our new home, a small house in scrubland not far from the beach. The schoolbus became a barn, and we soon gained more livestock: additional geese and a flock of chickens. We also put in a garden at some distant, windblown, godforsaken site. I'm not sure why we didn't have a garden in our yard (maybe the ground was no good), but we had to drive quite a distance to get to our plot. I remember it was always very cold and very windy, and I hated going there. There was nothing to do but work in the garden, pulling rocks and weeds. Mostly, we grew potatos. We'd set up a canvas windbreak, and build a campfire in its lee. That's where we'd warm our hands and boil tea in the billy.

My sister and I liked to go for walks into the berry fields with the dog and a little red wagon. There we'd pick whatever kind of berries we could find (blueberries, cranberries, partridge berries, bakeapples), and what we didn't eat, we'd stick in yoghourt containers to mush them up to make juice. The juice never tasted as nice as the berries themselves, and certainly not as good as the tarts our grandmother would bake every week.

I didn't make many friends in Newfoundland. It's a small-town thing. People were suspicious of us, and somehow, rumours went around that we were very rich. It could have been because we owned a horse. Other people in the area had horses, but not like ours. At that time, horses in Newfoundland were very small--essentially ponies. And our horse was a very tall Morgan mix. Although he was very gentle, people were frightened of him, and would yank their children into the house if we passed by in our wagon. We used a horse and buggy instead of our truck because gas cost too much.

I did make one friend. I think her name was Jeanette, but I really don't remember for sure. I remember thinking she was very dumb, but she was nice and she would actually come to my house to play. But one day, Mom told me she wouldn't be allowed to come over anymore. Apparently, she'd crapped all over the bathroom, and Mom had to clean it up.

I used to go and visit an elderly lady after school on a regular basis. I don't remember her name, but she adored me, and would give me cookies while talking about the good old days. I spent time with her while my sister spent time with our step-grandfather. He detested me, and would often give gifts and money to my sister while telling me, "You don't get anything, because I don't like you."

It didn't hurt my feelings. It just made me realize that grownups could be arseholes.