Tales from St Anthony Part XVII –George the Bard, Family Ties and $25 lobster dinners

Hello Mr Lobster, would you like a new home in my belly?

"Do you come from a big family George," I asked Cow Head’s friendliest local bard as I tried to prevent my rickety plastic lawn chair from toppling over.

George had rushed up the road to the Dr Henry N Payne Community Museum where he had been boiling lobsters at the Anglican Church all morning.

As strange as that sounds, it was all part of the 29th annual Cow Head Lobster Festival on the weekend and George was multitasking.

"Oh yes, a big family, seven brothers and a sister," he said as the summer sun slapped me upside the head while the ice box chilled wind kicked me in the shin.

"My daughter asked my father there once, she said, why do they have such big families around these parts and my father said, 'well you know, we’ve got to keep warm in the winter somehow'," George grinned and chuckled to himself.

For about an hour George did what he does best, he spun some yarns regaling us tales of his family and that of the region, stories that would have been told years ago around the camp oven, or in the kitchen to traveling strangers.

This time around it was just four of us huddled together on the lawn of the historical society.

He told us about his fishing days, local folk lore, maritime disasters and the death of modern society.

"When you buy a piece of lumber 2¼ inches and what you actually get is a piece 1¾ and you pay seven times its worth, well things aren’t looking good," he said, "we are in a bad way, a bad way," he concluded of modernity.

The talk of families was poignant as I had only that week bid farewell to my own who had journeyed from Australia to the northernmost point of Newfoundland.

I hadn’t seen them in about 18 months so there was plenty to talk about and for almost two weeks we showed them all that the Northern Peninsular had to offer and by the end, my father had developed a guttural Newfoundland laugh, my sister and mother had been made honorary Newfies after being ‘Screeched in’ and the entire lot had grown scales and gills because of all the cod and seafood they had digested.

A family portrait, not my family portrait but one nonetheless.

On the last night though, my parents in typical dramatic form, brought the whole trip crashing to a low.

At this point I must point out that my parents can be kind of dramatic. If mum has some bad news she usually starts the conversation with, “now don’t panic” or “before you get upset” my dad normally just comes out and speaks his mind.

“It’s been good to see you,” my mum said as she wiped at her face in a bid to make it look like she was scratching an itch that scuttled about her face like a snow crab. She was crying, but she didn’t want me to know. But I did and put an arm around her.

“Don’t make it sound like it’s the last time we’ll see each other,” I said.

“But it might be,” she said, “we might never see you again.”

“Sure you will it’s not as though we are that far away from you. We are only in Newfoundland.”

“You don’t know that,” she muttered, repeating it under her breath, “you don’t know that.”

Moments earlier over a tasty chunk of halibut my dad averted his eyes from my gaze when we had concluded the very same conversation.

“This might be it mate,” he said, “we might not ever see you kids again.”

“Don’t be silly,” I retorted.

“I’m not,” he grunted, jack blunt as always.

And therein lays the difference of generations. While we think it’s nothing to jump on a plane and fly around the globe as if we are packing the campervan and heading to the local beach for a holiday, for my parents it is a big deal, this trip to Newfoundland was a big trip, a once in a lifetime trip if I am to believe them.

I know the locals around St Anthony feel the same. With job opportunities limited, most of the extended family has been forced to move away to Alberta or further afield to make ends meet but each summer they try to make it home and celebrate as a family unit.

As each year rolls on and families expand and contract with numbers, a new baby here is offset by the loss of a grandparent there, many of us wonder if this will be the last time they will see a family member again.

My grief at not seeing my parents again for a while is tempered by the knowledge that I am lucky.

My family is still alive and currently driving around Ireland.

Sláinte.