Today would have been my father's umteenth birthday had " the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune " and the wear and tear of life in general not dealt him another hand. ........ the inevitable one we're all dealt sooner or later !! He was a great guy ..... well-liked by his friends and highly respected by his peers and enemies !!.....and loved by his family. To highlight the occasion I have chosen three moments in his life from memory to illustrate what true grit ... his own personal trademark....... is all about.
The first incident that comes to mind took place during the Second World War ..... maybe 1943 or 1944 .... when I was about 7 or 8 years old. My Mom met me after school and we walked 45 minutes over the Reversing Falls Bridge to the West Side where my Dad was working overtime in the hold of a ship........toting and stacking pitprops destined for the coal mines of Great Britain and , ultimately , the war effort. My father had been down in the belly of that freighter for over 48 hours already and was hellbent on doing 72 before coming home..... and that is why Mom had baked a big loaf of homemade bread and cooked a chicken which we brought to him that day. I can still remember gazing down into the hold and seeing the familiar sweaty faces of tired longshoremen or stevedores........all Dad's workmates whom I knew so well ... Uncle Frank O'Neill , Teddy McGrath , Tom Logan and Hum Cronin. He came up the ladder and we handed him the lunch . In turn he withdrew from his pocket a neatly -folded envelope and passed it to Mom...... inviting her to open it to see what it contained. Her eyes lit up like spotlights as she pulled out a brand spanking new $100 bill !! She had never seen one before and , of course , for little me .. it was my first !! Dad had already been paid for the first 48 hours.... something crazy such as double double time...... and he was jubilantly proud of that pay. !! ..... and we were so proud of him !!
The second memory flash recalls the Summer of 1958.My superiors in the seminary had decided to send me to Italy to finish my theology so they allowed me two weeks holidays in Saint John before my departure.Back in those days my Dad was working at the sugar refinery unloading raw sugar ...... also two other important byproducts of the sugarcane , i.e. rum and molasses.One afternoon I biked down to the docks to check things out .... and when my father's buddies saw me there taking in the sights they proposed that I "spell off the old man" .... letting him go for a smoke.So ...wanting to save face.... I ambled over to the hob ( heavy set table on dock ) upon which a boom had just dropped a slingload of raw sugar in jute bags..... each one weighing some 260 lbs. I crouched over a bit while two dockers standing on the hob stood up a bag , twisted the upper corners into rabbit ears for better gripping..... and slowly tipped it over gently onto my back. I grabbed hold of the ears over my shoulders and , head lowered , bowlegged a path up the ramp in to the shed and willingly dumped my load unto a conveyor belt . My Dad came back from his break and I went about my life of leisure and studies....... but I'll never forget the lesson that day taught me. I was a young fart of 22 ....stocky and cocky.... and I had found the 15 minutes of longshore life excruciatingly painful.... while my Dad .....then 55 years of age.....had been doing this kind of work since his late teens....... keeping our family afloat financially and physically. Quite a guy !!
My third reminiscince takes me back to the Summer of 1967. My Mom was having both breasts removed so I drove down from Quebec to spend a few days with her to encourage and support her in such a trying moment. By this time in his life my father had moved up the ladder jobwise..... He was now walking boss and had his own gang of 17 men.....so one morning I went down to Pugsley Wharf to see what Dad and his men were up to.As I drew nigh I could see two huge harbour cranes mounted on scows slowly sidling up to the starboard side of an oceangoing freighter with an old-fashioned steam-engine locomotive sitting there on the wharf.One of my father's crew , Pat Mahoney , pulled me aside .... informing me that it was not the right moment to bother the "old man" as he was in deep thought figuring out how to load this huge locomotive into the holds and securing it so that it not shift ... nor stray... from its moorings .... thus causing the ship to list dangerously etc.... on the long trip across the Atlantic , around the southern tip of Africa into the Indian Ocean to its final destination , Calcutta , India. I looked across towards the gangplank where I could see my Dad ,,,,, short , sawed off yellow lead pencil in his right hand .... a piece of brown wrapping paper from his lunch bag in his left hand ... calculating answers to this complicated headbreaker as though he were drawing up his order for dahlias to the Dominion Seed House. I was totally awed and impressed ... never dreamt his work entailed such challenges !! Love you , Dad ... and happy birthday ! Tá a fhios agat anois !!
P.S. My son , Dennis , has a favourite movie entitled "True Grit " with John Wayne...so I thought of that when choosing the heading for my post today.
