RELIGION FOR ATHEISTS

　
I read an interesting book lately, called Religion for Atheists, by Alain de Botton. It poses the question: What if religions are neither all true nor all nonsense? The author states: "... rather than mocking religion, agnostics and atheists should instead steal from it, because the world’s religions are packed with good ideas on how we might live and arrange our societies." This made me reflect on my own experience with organized religion, the Roman Catholic faith, and on how I’ve managed to piece together my own philosophy of life from science, experience and observation.

According to the dictionary, an agnostic is "a person who believes that nothing is known, or can be known, of the existence or nature of God, or of anything beyond material phenomena." An apostate is "a person who renounces a former belief", meaning a person who has abandoned the Catholic faith in favour of another, or who has abandoned organized religion altogether. An atheist is "a person who does not believe in the existence of God or gods."

De Botton’s book begins with the following paragraphs:

"The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true — in terms of being handed down from heaven to the sound of trumpets and supernaturally governed by prophets and celestial beings.

To save time, and at the risk of losing readers painfully early on in this project, let us bluntly state that of course no religions are true in any God-given sense. This is a book for people who are unable to believe in miracles, spirits or tales of burning shrubbery, and have no deep interests in the exploits of unusual men and women like the thirteenth-century saint Agnes of Montepulciano, who was said to be able to levitate two feet off the ground while praying and to bring children back from the dead - and who, at the end of her life (supposedly), ascended to heaven from southern Tuscany on the back of an angel."

So, where does that leave me? Well, I’m not an apostate, since I still attend Mass from time to time but, I admit, not always for the right reasons. I attend more out of a sense of community and tradition than a spiritual need. I find churches to be peaceful, beautiful and enriching places, I enjoy the ritualism of the ceremony itself, and I enjoy a good sermon.

As for the Catholic Church, I still have the same problems I had as a child over its rules and teachings. For example, I don’t agree with the Church’s ban on contraception, its position on homosexuality, not allowing women to be ordained to the priesthood, and not allowing priests to marry. Just as importantly, I don’t, and never have, accepted the Church’s position on sin. I refuse to accept that I must feel guilty most of the time, and that the only way to relieve myself of guilt is through confession to a priest. I’m far from perfect, but I choose to deal with my failings in my own way, and to strive to better myself through my own efforts. I don’t believe a priest can absolve me of wrongdoing.

The Church’s recent trials and tribulations do not surprise me in the least. They’re just another reminder that we’re all human, and that none of us has the right to feel superior to another, regardless of how pious and upright we may appear to be.

That I’m not a fully practicing Catholic cannot be blamed on my upbringing. My mother certainly tried to set me on the right path, but I resisted her attempts from an early age, as I did the attempts of all others who followed. For example, in elementary school, the teacher taught us catechism, a summary of the principles of the Catholic religion in the form of questions and answers. Fortunately, I was smart enough to remember the right answers to the questions but, from the very start, I questioned them. Being asked to demonstrate my new-found knowledge by a priest who didn’t understand French didn’t help to strengthen my faith in the whole system.

When I arrived at École régionale Évangéline at the tender age of 11, I was placed under the guidance of the nuns. They had their own idea of how a young, apparently bright child like me should behave. Again I resisted, and things did not go well for me. I subjected myself reluctantly to their control over everything we did, just to get through high school and relieve my mother of that burden.

One time, in Grade 11, we were asked to pick a topic for a class presentation. For some reason, I ended up with the last pick, and the only topic left was La théorie des singes, essentially, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Secretly, I hoped that no one else would choose the topic, because it was the one I knew the most about. When my turn came, I stood up and explained how science shows that species, including our own, have changed over time, and that this does not necessarily contradict the Bible story of creation. After all, who among us could know what God considers to be a day? Six days to God may be fourteen billion years! My classmates looked at me like I had three heads!

In my first year of university, I was finally exposed to professors who were able to relieve me of the burden of my earlier, almost fraudulent, teachings, and I’ve been a more complete person since then.

I’m neither an agnostic nor an atheist. There is something in me that wants to believe that some higher being was present at the time of the big bang, some fourteen billion years ago when the universe began. In other words, I’d like to believe that something beyond material phenomena is present in the universe.

In order to better understand this, I’ve read extensively on cosmology, including Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Cosmology is the academic discipline that seeks to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the universe, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order. Modern cosmology is dominated by the big bang theory, which brings together the disciplines of observational astronomy and particle physics.

As for the afterlife, I’m reminded that we’re the only species on Earth that believes there’s some purpose to our existence other than the imperative of passing on copies of our genes to as many descendants as possible. In other words, we’re the only species that dares to believe in life after death, perhaps because we have the capacity to do so.

The Catholic Church is especially big on the afterlife, as the following example will demonstrate. In former times, the Church encouraged the faithful to buy ‘indulgences’. One indulgence purchased from the Church was equal to one day less in purgatory. ‘Purgatory’, according to the Church, is the place between heaven and hell where one’s spirit resides temporarily, while awaiting forgiveness for venial sins. When I was a kid, people still believed this stuff. What a crock! Is it any wonder I have a problem reconciling scientific knowledge and religious teaching?

Do I believe my spirit will survive my body? Nobody knows the answer to that question. But, if it does, I’m not sure I’d want it to end up in heaven. Many of the people I know who think they’re going to heaven are dull and uptight. Theirs is a black-and-white world, dominated by rules, obligations, judgement of others, and unfathomable beliefs. I’ve always lived in the grey world, preferring to figure things out for myself. So, since purgatory is not an option, perhaps hell would be better. The souls residing there would, I’m sure, be far more interesting to spend time with!

THE BAMBOO DRUM

THE STORY OF SIBA AND ALOÏ

Context

On March 28, 2009 my wife, Elva, and I were walking along a jungle trail on the island of Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe.  We were nearing the end of a two-week stay there, renting a cottage from Reggie Arsenault, formerly of Abram-Village.  I was well ahead of Elva, so I stopped to wait for her.  While standing next to a bamboo tree, I began tapping the trunk with my knuckles.  To my great surprise, the hollow stem made a very clear sound.  Not only that, since the stem sections were of varying lengths and diameters, I could generate different sounds, depending on where I struck.

Eventually, Elva came along, and I made her listen to my discovery.  She didn’t seem impressed in the least!  So I asked her: "Aren’t you ever curious about things like this?" She answered: "It never would have crossed my mind to tap the trunk of a bamboo tree to see what sound it would make."  And thus was born the story of the brothers, Siba and Aloï.  To quote a well-worn disclaimer: "The names have been changed to protect the innocent."

The bamboo drum

Siba and Aloï, two brothers of the Arawak Tribe, lived on the island of Karukera.  Their father, Komaka, was a great hunter and fisherman, and their mother, Orehu, was the most beautiful woman in the village.  They lived near the ocean and got everything they needed from the waters and the forests around them.  They lived peaceful lives.  It was in the time before the white people came.

Siba was two years older than Aloï, and he never let his little brother forget it!  Although he listened to his father, Siba liked to show the boys his age that he was the strongest and the fastest runner.  Aloï liked to play close to the grass hut where the family lived, and to stay near his mother and grandmother, and listen to their stories.

Komaka had begun teaching Siba how to hunt and fish, and had made him a small bow and a fishing rod.  He would take Siba with him when he went into the forest to hunt for small birds and animals, and Komaka would show Siba how to hold the bow and to aim the arrow.  After they came back from the forest, Siba would practice shooting the arrows at trees for hours on end, until his mother told him to come home for the meal.

When Siba turned twelve, Komaka gave him permission to go into the forest alone to hunt with his bow and arrow.  It wasn’t long before Siba returned with his first kill, and his father and mother greeted him with great pride, saying: "You will be a great hunter, and will be able to feed a large family one day."

Aloï looked on and listened, but couldn’t quite understand what all the fuss was about.  His grandmother explained that, one day soon, his father would teach him to hunt and fish.  But Aloï looked at her and sighed: "I just want to stay here in the village, listen to the stories and learn how to play the drums".  Komaka complained to Orehu that she and the grandmother were spoiling the child and making him soft.  But, Orehu answered that it was his nature, and that Aloï would find his calling in his own time, and in his own way.

As was the custom, when Aloï turned twelve, his father tried to teach him how to hunt and fish.  But Aloï had no patience for fishing.  His line was always tangled and, when he caught a fish, he was too scared to take it off the hook!  In the forest, Komaka spent as much time looking for Aloï as he did teaching him how to hunt.  Aloï made too much noise, and he couldn’t shoot the arrow straight when he tried to kill an animal.  Komaka began to think Aloï didn’t want to hurt the fish and the animals.  This made him worry all the more about what Aloï would do when he grew to be a man.  "Surely, no young woman will want our Aloï", Komaka complained to Orehu late one evening after the boys were asleep.

Siba and Aloï fought over everything.  They were like night and day.  Siba played all the games the way he was taught by the other children, but Aloï wouldn’t.  He always wanted to make his own rules and, when the others didn’t agree, Aloï would run home crying to his mother.  Try as they might, Komaka and Orehu couldn’t find one single thing the brothers liked to do together.  To stop them from fighting, they even had to build separate rooms for Siba and Aloï to sleep in.

One day, Komaka told Siba to take Aloï into the forest with him to see if the older brother could teach the younger to hunt.  Siba didn’t like this idea at all: "But, Father, Aloï will scare away all the animals, and I won’t be able to bring any food home for supper".  His father said he understood, but he asked Siba to try.

Soon after they entered the forest, Siba had already lost track of Aloï.  He turned back on the trail and found Aloï tapping the trunk of a bamboo tree with a small stick. "What are you doing, Aloï?" said Siba.  "I’m listening to the sounds of the bamboo", answered Aloï: "Didn’t you ever try?  You walk past many bamboo trees every time you come into the forest.  Didn’t you ever want to hear the sound they make?"  But Siba just shook his head: "Why would I ever want to hear the sound of the bamboo when I’m here to catch something for our supper?"

Siba didn’t bring home any animals for his mother’s campfire that day, and he complained all that evening to his father about Aloï’s antics, and how he never wanted to take him hunting ever again.

Aloï spent all the next day telling Orehu and his grandmother about the wonderful sounds that came from the bamboo tree.  The women had never heard a story like this.  There were drums in their village, but they had always been made of animal skins.  No one had ever heard of making music with a stick and a bamboo tree.

So, Aloï asked his father if he could come to the forest and listen to the sound of the bamboo tree.  He wanted to make the sound again for the others in the village.  Komaka answered: "Aloï, you must stop this foolishness and learn how to hunt and fish like the other young men.  Do you want to spend the rest of your life alone around your campfire?"  But, Aloï wouldn’t give up.  He begged and he begged and, finally, his father took him to the place where the bamboo grew.

Komaka took his best stone axe, and cut down the tree Aloï had found beside the trail.  Then, he cut off a couple of sections of the stem, and Aloï showed him the sounds he could make by striking the stem with a stick.  Komaka heard with his own ears that the boy had been right.  Music did come from the bamboo, and it was different than the sound of the drum from the village.  Not only that, the boy showed him that different sounds came from different sections of the bamboo stem.

"How did you know this, Aloï?" asked his father.  "I’ve been sneaking into the forest to learn the sound of the bamboo when you thought I was practicing my hunting", said the boy.  "I know I’ve disobeyed you, Father, but I just had to learn."  "Very well", said Komaka.  "If you don’t want to become a hunter or a fisherman, then you must learn this new skill, and perhaps others will provide for you."

So, every morning, Aloï took out his bamboo pieces and his stick, and he went off into the forest to practice, far away where no one would hear.  He’d spend whole days away from the village, returning only at nightfall.  He asked his father to cut other pieces of bamboo for him, some smaller and some larger than the first ones, and he learned how to make many different sounds.  He learned how to tie the bamboo stems together so that he could strike different ones at different places.  Then, he tried to make them sound like the songs the men and women sang at special occasions.

While Siba got better at fishing and hunting, Aloï got better at making music.  It didn’t take long for the young women to notice Siba’s hunting skills, or his striking good looks.  They gathered around him when he returned to the village with fish and animals from the hunt, and each one kept an eye on him, hoping he would notice her when the time came.  But none of them noticed Aloï, although he was now fourteen.  Why would they?  He knew nothing of hunting and fishing.  A woman would go hungry around his campfire, and never be able to feed her children.

Once every year, the village held a great feast to celebrate the equinox.  It was the time of the year when the days were longest, and the cooling breezes from the waters around the island made it seem even more like paradise.  People from other villages were invited to share in the great feast, and it was a time for old and young to renew acquaintances.  Young men like Siba looked forward to the feast because it meant meeting young women from other villages.  Komaka and Orehu watched their oldest son carefully, because they knew it was time for him to choose a bride.

As for Aloï, finding a bride seemed hopeless.  But, Aloï had a surprise for all of them!

The old village shaman arranged the entertainment for the feast.  Aloï had begged him to listen to the new music he was making on the bamboo stems.  Finally, the shaman agreed.  At first, the shaman didn’t believe what he was hearing.  Surely, this wonderful sound couldn’t be coming from a tree.  Although bamboo trees were everywhere on the island, no one had ever thought of using one that way.  Aloï played a tune on the instrument he’d made, and the shaman heard that it sounded a lot like the songs the people would sing at the great feast.  So he told Aloï: "After the drummers have finished playing, I will ask you to play the sounds of the new bamboo instrument."

When the time came, Aloï went to his parent’s hut and returned with his strange-looking instrument.  The people laughed when they saw it, but when Aloï started to play, they suddenly fell very silent.  No one had ever heard such beautiful sounds, and they couldn’t believe they were coming from bamboo.  Aloï played all the familiar songs, and he played them with such great skill that the people began to dance.  And they asked him to play the songs over and over again, long into the night, until Aloï could play no more.

From that day on, Aloï was hardly ever alone.  People would come from all over the island just to hear him practice.  Whenever there was a celebration, the village people would send for Aloï.  He taught others how to make and play the bamboo instrument, and he learned how to play with the drummers.

And, just as Komaka had predicted, Aloï was provided for.  He never went hungry, and neither did his family.  A young woman from a nearby village fell in love with Aloï’s music the first time he played, and soon she fell in love with him too.  Her name was Esa.  They married and had many children.  Some became hunters and some became musicians.

As for Siba, he too married and had many children. 

Although they were so different, Siba and Aloï became very close.  The two brothers put aside their differences, and they looked after their parents until Komaka and Orehu passed on to the next life.  Soon, they became the new leaders of their village on the island of Karukera.

GONE FISHIN’

Kids growing up in Wellington learned to use fishing tackle during the smelt season; no bait was needed and you didn't have to cast very far.  In fact, all one needed was a bamboo pole or an alder branch, and a piece of string (or net twine), and a hook to jig the smelts.

My maternal uncle, Dr. Raymond Reid, bought me my first rod and reel when I was about eight years old.  The rod was blue, in two sections, and the reel was black-and-gold-coloured. It was quite a surprise since I knew that Mom couldn't afford to buy me one.  Dr. Reid taught me to cast in his front yard and made me practice before letting me loose on the real thing.  I was young and all thumbs, but eventually got the hang of it.  Several years later, Uncle Raymond bought a small boat (a punt) and asked me to look after it in Barlow's Pond, in return for the privilege of using it whenever I wanted.

Trout fishing runs in my family.  My maternal grand-father, Emmanuel Gaudet, liked to tease the trout.  This photo of him, although of poor quality, shows him standing in the river close to his home in Wellington.

Opening day was always quite an event at Barlow's dam.  The best spot was usually at the base of the flume, although there were a few good ‘holes’ below the road bridge and one beside Joe Gaudet's.  Fishing in the millpond was poorer because the ice stayed there longer and, besides, pond trout couldn't hold a candle to the superior sea trout.  Experienced fishermen reckoned that one sea trout was worth more than ten pond trout. In other words, if they weren't pink, they weren't worth keeping!

The painting shown below was given to me by Elva as a Christmas present.  It's by Maurice Bernard and shows three young trout fishermen standing where I stood many times, casting out across the water between the dam and the bridge, and looking across at my house.

My first vivid memory of opening day goes back to 1964.  It was the year of the centennial project, and individuals were wont to do strange things.  In this case, it was Edward (à José à Jos Antoine) Arsenault, Elva's late uncle, who'd decided to sleep on the ice on the night of April 14 to get an early start.  This was seen as quite a feat in the days before Gore-Tex and the down-filled sleeping bag.  But the joke was on Edward since, according to legend, the morning's first fisherman, Sylvère Perry, had to wake him up at 6:00 am!

On most opening days, the only thing I caught was a cold.  Sometime in the late 1960's however, the provincial government began stocking the Ellis River with tagged trout, releasing them in the fall.  Most of these trout were in the ten-inch range and tended to stick together in one spot.  Although big by our standards, they tasted of liver, probably due to their diet as fingerlings; or perhaps it was our imagination.  In any case, liver was the best bait.

Truth be known, the trout were only of passing interest.  What we really wanted was the tag attached to trout’s jaw, each of which brought us the princely sum of 25 cents at the store.  This was a far better scheme for raising money than collecting bottles, which, at the time, sold for 1 cent apiece.  If one was fortunate enough to catch one's limit of 20 trout in one day, the accumulated tags were worth $5.  Five dollars in those days would buy you three good hockey sticks, or fifty chocolate bars, or fifty bottles of pop, or two fishing rods, or one reel, or a good baseball glove, or...

While a welcome source of much-needed income to us kids, these trout were considered somewhat stupid by aficionados and therefore inferior, since they were so easy to catch. Although the older men took advantage of the 25-cent return, they remained steadfast in their preference for sea trout and treated the stocked variety with the disdain afforded mere pond trout.

I snapped the photo shown below from the railway embankment, near where the bridge crosses the Ellis River; it's one of my favorites of Wellington.

Of all the young fishermen who hung around the river in those days, Gary (à Fidèle) Gallant was the luckiest at catching trout.  His style was aggressive, impatient and unorthodox, but he always caught more trout than I did!  Even Sylvère Perry, the dean of Wellington trout fishermen, showed him a bit of respect, albeit grudgingly.

On the first few days of trout season, no matter how careful you were to keep your hands dry and warm, they always ended up wet and cold, and at some point in the day, they got so numb that you couldn't bait your hook or turn the crank on your reel!  Woe to the young fisherman whose line got snagged or tangled: frozen fingers lacked the dexterity to tie a new hook and, thus stricken, you were better off to call it a day.

Fishing in the pond started in early May, usually on those first few days when the wind was calm or blew from the south, for as Abel (à Alyre à Calixte) Arsenault used to say: "No use fishin’ -  nort'east win'", and he was usually right.  Gerald, Abel's son, was the best among us (Gary being the luckiest) and he had the instinct to know when the trout would start to bite at 'white hill'.  Not only isn't the hill white, it's not even a hill; so don't try to find it!  In fact, it was not more than a patch of bare ground on the north bank, at a point where the millpond narrowed into the upper reaches of the Ellis River.  The pond trout started biting first at white hill, and this was where we spent our afternoons (after school, of course), evenings and weekends during the first part of May.

The photo below is of Barlow's Pond, showing the two log cabins built under a "Winter Works" program in the 1960s.

As the water got warmer, we and the trout migrated upstream into the deeper water, and the next good hole was at 'black hill'.  Black hill, you guessed it, was neither black nor hill, but another patch of bare ground on the north bank where the stream's channel takes a 90-degree left turn.  Beyond black hill, the channel narrowed again as one proceeded upstream toward 'pink hill', which faced east at the point where two small brooks joined from the south (toward Clark's bridge) and from the northwest (from Urbainville). 

Between black hill and pink hill, there were several good holes, the best found near the Queen's turnaround.  (For those of you who may not know, Queen Elizabeth II visited Mont-Carmel in 1967, Canada's Centennial.  A 'turnaround' was built just off the road leading to Wellington where a trailer was parked, just in case Her Highness needed to pee.  At least, that was the rumour!  She never did use it, but it was a great place to park, and was well used for other purposes!  Nothing ever went to waste in Wellington.)

As I reached my teens, I taught myself to fly-fish when I bought a three-section, brown-lacquered bamboo rod with money I had made on my paper route.  During the first year, I spent more time climbing trees to retrieve snagged fly hooks than I did catching trout, but I eventually became fairly proficient.  The memory of frozen feet and fingers and the messiness of worms behind me, I began to savour the delights of fly-fishing, where one is free to move up and downstream, and experience that magic feeling when fish and fly converge at the instant of the strike. 

The day my daughter Sylvie was born, I stayed home from work and went fishing after returning from the hospital.  It was kind of a symbolic gesture, signalling as it did the end of boyhood freedom and the beginning of new family responsibilities.  On my way upstream I met Brian Conrad, who introduced me to his fishing partner, Bun Harkness, by saying: "Bun, this guy can catch trout in a puddle of water".  Actually, the gods granted me a great catch that day and I filled my creel with a dozen or so good-sized fish.  Pride from being both a new father and a lucky fisherman was too much; my feet hardly touched the ground all the way home!

I hadn't fly-fished for almost thirty years, until last Wednesday.  Yes, Elva bought me a rod and reel for Christmas.  So, if you're looking for me and I'm not around, just assume I'm gone fishin'!

GROWING UP WITH JACKY

Chapter 4

I drove downtown one Saturday afternoon in May and looked around for Jacky at his old hangouts.  I found him eventually outside the food kitchen talking to a bunch of his buddies.  “Hey Jacky!  Want to hop in and take a ride to the Harbour?” I said.  “Sure”, he said, and we drove out to the north shore. 

When we got to the Harbour, I drove him around, and we told a few stories about the places we saw and remarked on how much things had changed.  “You wouldn’t believe it, but I haven’t been here in over ten years”, Jacky said.  We drove by the old school, the wharf and the lobster factory.  We saw where the canteen used to be, and the hall where we went to dances on Saturday nights.  Both of them had been torn down by winter works projects.  Then we drove up the road to Joe and Eveline’s.  The house was still there but it had been moved back from the road a ways and was being used as a barn.  “That’s what I’d be usin’ the friggin’ place for if it was mine”, said Jacky.  “Too many bad memories; not fit for humans, just for the pigs, if you ask me!”

Then, we turned into the Legion parking lot and Jacky’s eyes lit up.  “God”, he said, “Does this ever bring me back!  I wonder if Big Gertie’s still around!  Don’t forget to take your hat off or you’ll have to buy everybody a round!”  He couldn’t have been more excited.  We walked in the door and I almost passed out from the smoke.  I looked around to let my eyes adjust to the dim surroundings.  Then we strode up to the bar, ordered a couple of beers, and sat down to get our bearings.

“Holy Jesus”, said Jacky, all excited.  “Isn’t that Squirrel over there?”  I said I thought it looked like him.  “Christ, he’s so skinny that light above the pool table is shinin’ right through ‘im”.  We wandered over to where Squirrel and a couple of other guys we knew were sitting and, before long, the table was full and the stories were flowing as fast as the beer.  We talked about lots of things, funny people and crazy stories, the old timers, and the things we got into trouble for when we were kids.

“Remember the Halloween when we tipped over Popeye Pineau’s shithouse”, said Squirrel.  “The year before, we’d tore up the little bridge he put in across the ditch and he was fit to be tied.  Boy oh boy, Popeye figured he was goin’ to fix us!  So we watched him from behind the bushes over in Dick’s yard, and we saw him go inta the shithouse.  He wasn’t comin’ out, so we figured he must be waitin’ for us.  So we sneaked up behind him and tipped the shithouse over, right onta the door, and then we ran like hell.  Popeye was ragin’ at the Post Office the next day, sayin’ how he had to crawl out through the hole!  He banged his fist on the counter, and said the Harbour needed a cop.  And how if he ever caught the ‘young buggers’, he’d tan our hides.  We sure as hell stayed away from him after that, I tell ya’”.

“Yeah”, said Jacky.  “That was a good trick.  Do you remember how we used to hang around the lobster factory when the guys workin’ there got thirsty?  They’d send us over to the Co-op to buy them vanilla extract and shavin’ lotion.  We’d send a different guy every time, so the clerk never caught on.”  “I remember one time”, he said, “the men sent Junior to the Co-op.  He marched up to the counter with the money and a bottle of Williams Lectric Shave, and the clerk looked at him kinda funny.  ‘Who’s the Lectric Shave for, Junior?  Your mother find a new boyfriend?’  Junior had forgot he had no father!  So he hoofed her back down the aisle and picked up a bottle of vanilla extract instead.  By the time he got back to the counter, the jig was up, and they threw him out of the Co-op.  That’s the last time Junior got to run an errand for the boys at the factory!” roared Jacky.  The rest of us nearly pissed ourselves laughing.

Then Sam piped up.  “Remember when we used to pick potatoes for George Allen?”  George was a hard-working mixed farmer who owned land out in the back settlement, about three miles inland from the Harbour.  He grew about ten acres of potatoes every year, and hired a bunch of us to help dig them.  Back in those days, potato picking was very labour intensive, and George took the labour part to the extreme.  He had the oldest tractor I’ve ever seen, an old broken-down digger, and a rickety trailer.  Sam, having been raised on a farm, was George’s right-hand man at potato picking time.  We’d drive to the field early in the morning, bouncing around on the back of the trailer, with George standing up behind the wheel of the old Ferguson, with the throttle wide open.  Then, we’d stand around with our baskets and jute sacks, each to our section, while George and Sam got the machinery going. 

George must have made money on the potatoes, because he sure didn’t spend much on equipment.  Invariably, the digger broke down before it had run the first hour.  Sam said: “And then, George’d start to curse.  ‘Goddamn the Goddamn!  Sam, get me another link so I can get this Goddamn belt runnin’ agin.’  One time I made the mistake of askin’ him where the old link was”, Sam said.  “And George roars back: ‘Oh, I fired it away about five minutes ago, and for all I know, it’s probbly still goin’”.

Then Denny entered the fray: “Do you remember the time we got into a war with Johnny’s gang?”  “Yah”, said Jacky.  “Wasn’t it you, Denny, who said ‘Boo Johnny’ one day when he was at bat?”  “That’s how it got started alright”, replied Denny, “but I sure as hell didn’t think it’d last three months.  Everywhere I went, I had to make sure I had my gang with me ‘cause Johnny was never without his.  I’ve hated the son of a bitch ever since.  I’m glad he’s not around the Harbour these days, ‘cause I wouldn’t back down from him now, any more than I did then.”  “Yah”, said Jacky, “there was no such thing as bullyin’ back then.  And you wouldn’t ever make the mistake of tellin’ on anybody who gave ya’ a hard time.  It was every guy for hisself.”

Next, it was Squirrel’s turn again, and by this time he was feeling no pain.  “Yeah, I remember when we started to chase the girls.  One time I went to a step dancin’ contest, and big Elaine was up on the stage.  I asked my mother how they knew who the best dancer was, and she told me to watch the feet.  So I did for a while, but then I looked up a little higher.  I went to step dancin’ contests every chance I got after that”, said Squirrel.  “But I never looked at Elaine’s feet agin’!”

The conversation went downhill from there, and before the band came on stage, Jacky and I said our goodbyes and headed back to town.  Jacky never did tell me where he lived and I still don’t know to this day.  He asked me to drop him off where we’d met the last time, and he thanked me for taking him out to the Harbour.  “We’ll have to do that again sometime”, I said.  “Sure”, said Jacky.  Before he closed the car door, he said to me: “Ya’ know, I don’t want ya’ to take pity on me.  I’ve had a good life, and I don’t owe nothin’ to nobody.  I know what I’m gonna to do tomorrow when I get up, where I can go to get somethin’ to eat, and where I’m gonna to sleep tomorrow night.  If I wanna spend time with a woman, I know where to get one.  I’ve got a plan.  I’m better off than some of the guys, and we take care of one another.  It’s not as bad as people think.  If I had it to do over again, I don’t think I’d change too much.  I’m happy the way I am.”

With those words, we left one another.  I see Jacky from time to time.  He looks older than his years, and he’s a bit too stooped for a man his age.  We still make small talk, but it’s clear to the both of us that we live in different worlds.  I realize now that I sought him out for the wrong reasons, a mixture of curiosity and pity, and I feel bad about that.  Like many others in my situation, I’m at a loss as to what to do for Jacky.  Should I invite him over for a good meal, should I buy him a coffee, or should I just leave him alone?

Epilogue

As I drove north on University Avenue, I could see the familiar stride and purposeful gait as he walked toward the City centre with a bag slung over his shoulder, his clothing a bit tattered.  But, unlike the other loiterers and street people I encounter, I know he’s got a plan.  When I look at him today, I can’t help but think of those years we spent hanging around together, ‘runnin’ the roads’ in Palmer’s Harbour.  I had cause then to envy him because, to the rest of us youngsters, the foster children who passed through the village seemed to live more exciting lives than we did.  After all, they got to move from family to family, and from village to village; we never went anywhere.  Little did we know what went on behind closed doors, and the lasting impact this transient life had on all of them!

Not long ago, I re-read the history of Palmer’s Harbour.  Half of the book is dedicated to genealogies of the families who lived there through the years.  The introduction to the genealogy chapter notes that the history committee did their best to include the names of everybody who ever lived in the village and the surrounding area.  But when I read through the names of the families who kept welfare children, their names were nowhere to be found; it’s like those kids never existed!

Jacky had the natural ability to go as far, or farther, than I did.  By rights, we should have ended up in the same place.  Why our lives have followed such different paths is clear to me now.  Someone cared about me during my formative years, while he was thrust into the real world at far too young an age.  I had someone who loved me, and he didn’t.  I learned to trust people, and he didn’t.  I tamed most of my demons, and he didn’t.  And now he lives from day to day, surviving on the edge of society, driven by the most basic of human needs.

GROWING UP WITH JACKY

Chapter 3

I was walking up Sydney Street one Friday evening on my way to meet up with my friends at Peake’s Quay when I heard someone ask me for a smoke.  It was dark behind Saint Dunstan’s Basilica and I couldn’t see who it was, but I knew the voice was Jacky’s.  He was sitting with his back against the church foundation in the shadow of the street light with a beer bottle in his hand.  “Nice warm evenin’, eh!” said Jacky.  “I thought I’d sit here for awhile and watch the traffic go by, and maybe bum a cigarette or two.  You may as well sit down and we can pick up where we left off the last time.  I was thinkin’ about girls the other day, and how I got laid the first time in the Harbour,” he chuckled.  “But before I tell you that one, do you remember the time my older sister, Annette, came from Summerside with her boyfriend in that fancy convertible?  You were there that day at the old swimmin’ hole, weren’t ya’?”

Although real swimming for us meant the cold salt water of the Gulf, in June, before it warmed up, we swam in the creek at a place we called the swimming hole.  It wasn’t far from Joe and Eveline’s, up off the dirt road, and we always had a contest to see who’d be the first one in.  I usually won.  Although I was a clumsy athlete, I was a fish in the water and I wasn’t scared of the cold.  If I’m ever reincarnated, I’ll come back as an air-tight stove!  Annette had run away from the orphanage so many times the nuns finally gave up on her.  She was sixteen by then and staying with her boyfriend.  The two of them decided to drive to the Harbour one hot summer day, and they picked up Jacky before driving down the lane to the swimming hole.  Annette had her bathing suit in the car but she didn’t have it on.

I told my version of the story to Jacky. “The three of you walked up to the bank while we were splashing around and Annette went behind a bush to put on her bathing suit.  Well, that was all the provocation I needed, and curiosity got the better of me.  I knew how to get to where I could see her without being noticed, so I crawled through the bushes and saw her put on the two-piece suit.  I got an eyeful alright.  My God, I figured I was a man then; I’d seen the Promised Land!”

“Yeah”, said Jacky.  “Annette never was too shy.  That guy she was with was no good, but she liked his car.  They didn’t stay together after that summer, and she left for Toronto not long after.  I saw her there after I ran away from the Harbour, but I’ll tell you that story some other time”.

Jacky was a handsome guy, and most of the girls in the Harbour had a crush on him.  He had his new false front teeth, lots of muscles, he was good at sports, and he was a charmer.  As my cousin used to say: “He had IT!”

“As soon as I figured out school wasn’t for me I had to learn how to make some money”, said Jacky.  “You and your buddies picked bottles and sold smelts and rabbits but that wasn’t for me.  Eveline hated smelts and rabbits, and walkin’ through the ditches lookin’ for bottles was too much work.  Although I know the welfare paid Eveline good money to keep me, she never gave me a friggin’ cent.  I started hangin’ around the canteen to see if I could pick up a few quarters washin’ dishes and cleanin’ up after they closed on the weekend.  Then, one day, I was hangin’ around the Legion parking lot and up drives Big Gertie in her old half-ton truck.  She had a couple of part-time jobs, and one of them was janitor at the Legion.  She’d go there on Sunday mornins’ after the dance, and clean the tables and scrub the floor.  She saw me there and asked me if I wanted to help her.  I said I would if she paid me”, continued Jacky.  “The first few times I spent a couple of hours there pickin’ things up for her, and she paid me 50 cents.  That wasn’t bad.  A hell of a lot easier than pickin’ 50 bottles, eh!”

“Anyways, the third time I went she gave me a drink a beer”, said Jacky.  “I’d seen Gertie sneak a beer or two from the Legion fridge, so I said ‘Sure!’  Gertie seemed to think this was pretty cute, a fourteen-year-old orphan drinkin’ beer.  She told me not to tell anybody about it or she’d kick my arse.  I was scared of her, so I kept my mouth shut, I tell ya’”.

Big Gertie was something of a legend in the Harbour.  She’d grown up on a farm as an only child, with no brothers, and came by her name honestly.  She was big alright, big all over, and strong as an ox!  The French guys had given her a few choice nicknames, and although they teased her, none of them was brave enough to give her a try.  Gertie had somehow fallen in love with a man from down east who was ten years older than her.  They’d met at a church picnic.  He’d been in the Korean War, and her family had put the pressure on her to ‘land him’ because they were afraid she’d end up an old maid.  But her new husband, George, turned out to be a major disappointment.  Like Joe Plank, he had a drinking problem but, worst of all, he lost all interest in her after their daughter was born.  Deciding she couldn’t do without, Big Gertie turned her attention to the young guys in the Harbour, and because Jacky was good looking and available, she decided he’d be the next one!

“It was the fourth Sunday, I think, and Gertie had told me to clean out the closet.  She came in with a beer and locked the door behind her”, Jacky said with that grin.  “I thought, ‘Jesus, what did I do wrong now?’  Next friggin’ thing, she’s pressin’ up against me and has her hand on my crutch”, says Jacky.  “I was scared shitless when I saw the look in her eyes.  I thought she was gonna cut if off!  But then she steers me into a corner where there was an old chair, and sits me down and starts to take her pants off.  And then she takes her shirt off.  Holy Jesus, I’d never seen anythin’ like it!  She didn’t smell too good but she knew how to get me goin’, if ya’ know what I mean”, he said.  “We went at it pretty hard.  When she was done, she got up, got dressed and never said another word to me all mornin’.  She must have liked it because we did it every Sunday after that for a long time.”

“Speakin’ of Big Gertie”, he drawled.  “Do you remember the time she tackled the teacher at the English school on the steps of the Co-op.”

The poor unfortunate had come to the Harbour from Nova Scotia, fresh out of Teacher’s College, and it was his first time in a classroom.  Boy was he in for a surprise!  The English school had fallen on hard times, mostly because of a lack of students, and it would close soon after.  Without understanding the consequences of his action, young Mr. Scott had disciplined Gertie’s daughter for some minor infraction and had sent her home with a note. 

Jacky picked up the story.  “Gertie was wild!  There was no friggin’ way her daughter was in the wrong!  She knew Scott always called in at the Co-op for a few groceries on his way home, and she was layin’ for him.  You were there too with a bunch of us.  I’d heard about the note from Johnny, who always knew where there was goin’ to be trouble.  Anyways, the poor little bugger came out of the store with his books in one hand and his groceries in the other, and Gertie tackled him right there on the steps.  She went up one side of him and down the other, and he didn’t know what to say.  She finally stopped yellin’ at him, and then she decked him.  Right there on the steps of the Co-op!  With half the Harbour watchin’!”

I’d remembered the ruckus.  Nobody had moved an inch to protect the teacher, or to try to stop Big Gertie.  They knew better!  Poor Mr. Scott had picked himself up, gotten a few stitches over at Dr. Delaney’s, and staggered back to his rooming house.  And that’s the last we ever saw of him.  He left the Harbour the next morning.  “Yeah”, said Jacky, “She was somethin’ else that Gertie.  She taught me a few things all right!”

After I’d stopped laughing, I got up and asked Jacky if he’d like a bite to eat.  “I’d rather have a beer, if it’s all the same to you”, he answered.  So I walked over to Queen Street, ducked into a snack bar and ordered a sandwich, and then went over to the liquor store and picked up a six-pack.  I figured Jacky deserved the six-pack for entertaining me, and I knew by the look of him that he needed to get some solid food into his stomach.  One thing for sure, his stories were a hell of a lot more entertaining than anything I’d hear from a bunch of overfed civil servants in a bar down on the waterfront!

As I sat down, Jacky munched on the sandwich and took us down memory lane yet again.  “That summer after the first time I took Grade 7 was a good one, boy’, he said.  “I grew up a lot, but I guess that’s when I started headin’ down the wrong path too.  I didn’t just learn about women, I learned about drinkin’ too, and I had my first taste of dope.  There was always a bad crowd hangin’ around the Harbour during the summer.  Guys comin’ home from Toronto, guys who had quit school, the tourists, that sort of thing.  Eveline and Joe tried to keep me under control but, by that time, they had enough to worry about with their own kids.  Besides, they’d brought in a couple more foster children to replace Joey and Betty.  Eveline knew I had no place to go and that the welfare had to pay her until I was eighteen, as long as I stayed there.  So we made a deal.  She left me alone, and I didn’t bother her”.

“I went back to school in the fall but I really didn’t give a shit anymore.  The teacher kicked me out of class so many times that I gave up before Christmas.  Eveline said I’d have to find somethin’ to keep me out of the house so I started doin’ odd jobs for the farmers and the fishermen”, Jacky continued.  “I was fifteen.  Some days when I had money, I thought I had the world by the tail.  When I had no money, I was down in the dumps.  I figured I needed a plan.  So, I found out from one of the guys who was home for Christmas how I could get to Toronto.  I told Eveline I was going to see Annie, but that I’d be back.  She figured, I guess, that she might as well let me go because I’d go anyways.  So I hitched a ride to Toronto with this guy and got my first taste of the big city.  It didn’t take me long to find work there and it didn’t take me long to get inta trouble either”, he said.

“Annie was livin’ in this run-down place with this useless guy, and I ended up helpin’ with the rent and the groceries most of the time.  I soon figured I was no better off there than I was in the Harbour, so I headed back east in the spring to find work on a lobster boat.  It was the best job I ever had, and it sobered me up.  The captain was good to me, and he taught me how to work.  Once the lobster season was over, I got in with the bad summer crowd agin', and then I really hit bottom”, he said.  “All of you guys I used to hang around with were in high school and I didn’t even have Grade 7, for Christ’s sake!”

I remember Jacky’s last year in school.  By that time, I was in high school and he’d started to hang out with a bad crowd.  On a good day, he’d hang around with us, and on a bad day, when he was with the other guys, he’d side with them and treat us like ‘little shits’.  It was their name for us.  We still saw the good in Jacky but something had changed in him, so we just left him alone.  If he wanted to grow up quicker, there wasn’t much we could do about it.  That was his business.  If that’s what he wanted, then we didn’t feel sorry for him in the least.

“I hung around the Harbour ‘til I was eighteen and, just as I figured, Joe and Eveline kicked me out as soon as the welfare money stopped comin’.  I don’t hold a grudge against them because they never made on I was one of theirs.  We welfare kids knew our place, and that we were always second best.  It was the same with the others I knew from the orphanage.  At least I had a roof over my head and a couple of meals a day”, Jacky said with a sigh.  “Then I wandered into Charlottetown, and I been here ever since.  I had a few odd jobs along the way and I even worked for the federal government one time.  I bet you didn’t know that!”

“Yes sir, I was on the pogey one time, and the lady from UI said I’d qualified for job retrainin’.  Because I was bilingual, she told me I’d get to the front of the line in this new program.  Imagine, me, Jacky Barriault at the head of the line!” he said proudly.  “My job was to go to these job fairs and talk about my experience, and try to sell the job retrainin’ program to other people on UI.  I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!  But, it didn’t last.  The program ended, nobody hired me, and I was back on the street”, he said.  “And that’s where I been most of the past twenty five years, since you and I used to run the roads in the Harbour”.

I still had my Friday night date with my drinking buddies so I drained my beer and turned to Jacky: “How’d you like to come out to the Harbour with me sometime, take a drive around and see if we can hook up with some of the old gang?”  “I’d like that”, he said, “Take her easy, eh!”