Brazil Street Read online

  BRAZIL STREET

  A Memoir

  ROBERT HUNT

  Flanker Press Limited

  St. John’s

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Hunt, Robert J., 1949-, author

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77117-601-9 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-77117-602-6 (epub).--

  ISBN 978-1-77117-603-3 (kindle).--ISBN 978-1-77117-604-0 (pdf)

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from Library and Archives Canada.

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  © 2017 by Robert Hunt

  All Rights Reserved. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.

  Printed in Canada

  Cover Design by Graham Blair

  Cover photo courtesy of City of St. John’s Archives: Photo no. 01-68-001

  Flanker Press Ltd.

  PO Box 2522, Station C

  St. John’s, NL

  Canada

  Telephone: (709) 739-4477 Fax: (709) 739-4420 Toll-free: 1-866-739-4420

  www.flankerpress.com

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  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 157 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

  Dedication

  When I was a young man, my mother told me that the key to life was to be happy. When I went to school they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy.” They told me that I did not understand the assignment. I told them that they did not understand life.

  — Author unknown

  The above quote could be attributed to my brother Angus. He was always happy. Honestly, I’ve never really seen him sad. So, to my close friend and youngest brother, who passed away on November 27, 2015, you were one of the quietest, gentlest, and nicest people that I have ever met. You were all that anyone could ever want in a brother. You were always there when we needed you, and Eddy, Calvin, and I will miss you as we miss your older brother Hubert, when he left us two years ago. You both will forever have a place in our hearts, and one day I am sure we will all meet again in a better place. Your best friend and buddy, Hubert, and you are finally together again and, I am sure, laughing at us all. God bless you, Ank. You were a good man.

  * * * * *

  When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

  — Lao Tzu

  This book is also dedicated to my friend Stephen Phillips, who left this world on August 28, 2015. He was a uniquely good man who put his family first and everything else second. A gentleman of true character in all he did. A truly wonderful person and a great friend.

  The above quote is so true of Steve. He knew who he was and lived his life accordingly. If life is meant to be lived to the fullest, then he had a jump on everyone. If heaven is truly the place where we will all one day rest, then I have no doubt that he has arrived there before me. Rest in peace, Steve. You will be forever missed.

  Contents

  Preface

  Life in St. John’s in the 1950s and 1960s

  Brazil Street and Brazil Square

  My Family Living on Brazil Street

  Charlie O’Day: Master Checkers Player

  Catholic and Protestant: Ruled by Religion

  N. J. Downey: Store Owner and Champion Prize Fighter

  Joey Smallwood: A Loved and Hated Newfoundlander

  Mahers—Our Adventure Away from Home

  The Halloween Caper

  Copper, Sheet Metal, and Car Batteries

  Nasty Nancy

  Shorty and Conk

  Photos

  Gulliver’s Cabs, Dickie, and Me

  The Regatta

  Return to Summer Camp in Bay Bulls

  The Guy Fawkes Adventure

  Fort Pepperrell: Another Assignment

  My Buddies and Me and NHL Hockey

  My Kodak Camera

  Come Home Year, 1966

  Tommy Ricketts and Healy’s Drugstore

  A Man Named Hey

  My Last Trips with Canadian National Railways

  The Final Chapter

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

  Everyone has a book inside him. Now that I have my memoirs on paper, I realize that this is true. A friend once told me that life goes by so quickly that it is but a blink of an eye. How right he was: my life seemed to go quickly, from a little boy of six years old living on Brazil Street to sixty-eight years of age. When I was twenty-one and full of life, I thought that sixty-eight described old people, and now I am one of those same old people. As it turned out, my life has been pretty good. I have no complaints.

  One time a lady, after reading my books, emailed me asking how I recalled all the things that I had written in my memoirs. I hadn’t thought about it much, but when I did I realized you can remember precise things from the past if you allow yourself the time to sit and think about them. Some of those things from the past were good and some were bad, but they are still wonderful memories.

  When I started writing my first memoir, Corner Boys, I had some trouble remembering things from that era until I decided to do an outline. As my second memoir, Townies, evolved, and now, as this third materialized, I realize that reliving all of those events from years gone by was a fantastic experience. The exercise made me look back at what I did in those years, who I was, and what kind of person I turned out to be.

  Here again are stories about my friends and me as we grew up in St. John’s in the 1950s and 1960s. I have enjoyed so much these past few years putting them all on paper, to tell everyone what life was like during the early days of my youth. Starting out, all I wanted to do was show my children and future generations how we lived.

  For the cover of Townies, I used a picture of children that was taken by an unknown photographer while they were looking down Casey Street toward New Gower Street, onto Water Street, to the waterfront, and then toward the harbour. To the right in that picture is Brazil Square, which was always the centre of all activity by those people who came into the city for business or pleasure. As kids, that corner, where we lived, and Water Street were the centre of our universe. To the left is the tail end of Brazil Street, the area where my friends and I grew up. The two streets, Brazil Street and Brazil Square, were often confused as one and the same. Whoever named them must have had quite a chuckle about it.

  All the houses and buildings in this picture, except for George Street United Church on the corner of Gower Street and Buchanan Street, which is located on the lower right, are long gone. The Delta Hotel now stands on this site. The small house on the left-hand side of Brazil Street was Fra
nk “Fossie” Furlong’s store, which is the black house to the left in the picture. Farther left of that house was where the Hann family lived for years, and then there were the two houses where Dickie White and I lived. That “corner” was our domain, where we congregated and had our meetings about life and the things that interested us. It used to be Kevin King’s store, years before Fossie took it over. It proudly stood there as our gathering place for years before it was torn down, I believe, around 1974.

  For years on that corner we talked about everything that we had learned in our young lives. Good and bad. Here we talked of parents, authority, friends and bullies, girls and neighbours, Irish Christian Brothers and priests, those people who had died, and those who were still among the living. Nothing was sacred on our corner. We didn’t learn everything from our local News Cavalcade on CJON, but we usually got an education talking to one another on our corner.

  White’s Snack Bar and barbershop to the right of the picture stood prominently at the top of Brazil Square. Next to it there always seemed to be a van, which the Harris barbershop family owned. Toward the right again and near end of Brazil Square was another empty lot in between two homes that one time heralded Eddy’s Boarding House. Next to that was Bob Glasco’s Meat Market, where I worked part-time while going to school. To the immediate left was Jack Kidney’s shoe-repair shop.

  One evening, over a year ago, I went back to the old neighbourhood looking for inspiration for this third St. John’s memoir. I parked my car on the intersection of Monroe and Brazil Street, shut the engine off, sipped on my Tim Hortons coffee, rolled down the window, and listened to the sounds of the city and our old neighbourhood. I sat there for an hour. After a few moments, the sights and sounds of those years came back as if I had never left.

  I got out of my car, took my notebook, and slowly walked up the same street that I had walked thousands of times before in my childhood. On the corner of Monroe and Brazil, where Vera Buck’s store once stood, I turned and looked down to survey the street once more. It never held as much beauty to me as it did then. I saw once again a teeming Brazil Street and Brazil Square filled with people, that lower street adorned with its many boarding houses.

  As I proceeded down Brazil Street, I imagined men with their lunch boxes headed to their jobs on Water Street, or off to the CN Dockyard and CN Railway, or heading to the waterfront to go out through the Narrows in search of their daily catch of fish. I looked at adults heading into Bob Glasco’s Meat Market to buy the supper meal, men coming out of Jack Kidney’s shoe repair holding a pair of John White’s shoes that had probably been set with new soles for the fourth time by the proud owner. As always, in those days everything was passed on down to the youngest sibling. One’s clothes and shoes were usually worn many times by the youngest before finally being discarded, as nothing was wasted or thrown away until full use was made of it.

  I saw men and women stopping to chat about the latest gossip, which had probably not yet hit the newspapers or television on the CJON airwaves, as gossip usually travelled faster than the news or the telephone. It also changed when it went from one part of the city to the other; more and more was added as it wove its way through the gossip news wire of St. John’s.

  As I started to walk down the hilly street toward Brazil Square, I envisioned little girls running about the adjoining areas of Casey and John streets playing tag or hopscotch, some with their skipping ropes or pet dogs tagging along with them, and others with their small dolls in tow or in carriages, or tossing their hula hoops back and forth while playing with their friends. Young boys, holding their baseball bats, headed to the nearest softball or baseball fields, such as Victoria Park or St. Pat’s, to get their last game in before the sun settled onto the evening. Store vendors talked to customers about their sale prices and wares or about the newest gadgets and offers of the day.

  Halfway down the street, I looked again at Brazil Street and saw Dickie White’s mother, Mary, going next door to visit my mom. They were embroiled in a conversation of what was to be cooked for supper, probably exchanging a recipe or two, or chatting about the news of the day. More than likely, supper was fish. It was served at least three or four times a week, fried or stewed, with homemade bread and tea. I looked again toward John Street and saw Paddy and Maggie Flynn washing the large window in front of their store and shooing away a few undesirable boys and girls. Paddy and his wife were careful about who they allowed in their premises. A few of these same boys and girls, who didn’t have a lot of money to spend, usually left the store with things they had not paid for.

  I was born on February 23, 1949, and I lived at 40 Brazil Street, close to the end, where it flowed into Brazil Square. From there it was only a stone’s throw away to the downtown district of St. John’s. I lived on Brazil Street until 1976, when I left to marry. My four brothers—Edward, Calvin, Hubert, and the youngest, Angus—also lived with Mom and Dad.

  The old street that I grew up on has in places become empty parking lots because of homes missing here and there through fire or having been torn down due to dilapidation. All of Brazil Square, as shown in that picture, is long gone, as are all of the people who have lived on that street. Many of those I have spoken about in my books are in their sixties and have moved elsewhere in the city, or somewhere else in Newfoundland or the mainland, or have long since passed away.

  Walking back up the hill, I got into my car and drove ahead for a closer look at numbers 38 and 40 Brazil. Both houses are still standing. Over time they have tipped to the side, as both have sunk into the ground, but somehow they are still proud-looking. I looked at Dickie’s concrete steps, and all I saw were two mischievous little boys planning out their day and talking about what to do on their Saturdays and Sundays.

  Our parents knew where we were all the time. If we went somewhere, both of them knew who we were with. One was not allowed to stay inside the house looking at television all day long. We were only kept inside when there was really bad weather, like snow or rain, or we had homework to do or there were chores to be done. School nights were for school work and study, and weekends were for being outside and enjoying ourselves. On weekends we left early in the morning and most times didn’t come home until later that evening.

  Though we didn’t have much, I would love to be able to live that life again. I know I would do so for the music of the early 1960s alone. We had some great times. Better, to me, than children today could ever wish for. Most of today’s kids have too much given to them. Though we lived in poverty, it was an era that will never be surpassed.

  Life in St. John’s in the 1950s and 1960s

  I have a few old things in my possession that I have collected over time. One is a rotary dial phone from the early 1960s. There are also two dry cells from an older phone used in the mid-1930s or 1940s which are marked ADR2—No. 6 Telephone and Telegraph Dry Cell. I also have a dairy bottle from Sunshine Dairies that was used when milk was delivered door to door in the 1950s and 1960s. There is an old stove iron from the early 1950s for ironing clothes. Another favourite memento, a Hawkeye Camera, which I found at an outdoor flea market several years ago, came from the late 1950s. I also have old photos from the 1940s to the 1960s that I treasure immensely.

  Also in my possession is a 1954 Gold Star stamp book, from which you would use the coupons to purchase merchandise at various stores in St. John’s when you had collected enough stamps. I believe the London, New York and Paris and Bowring Brothers used stamp books like this in early years. A catalogue of merchandise within the booklet showed the latest styles that could be purchased. People went crazy for these coupons in our time, as money was scarce, and women tried to get what they could to provide clothes for themselves and their families.

  I also have a View-Master, probably from the same era, a stereoscope which allowed the viewer to look at fourteen circular pictures on a rotating disc of old westerns, cartoons, and scenic wonders of the world, a
mong other things. Each slide showed a different picture when rotated as the turn handle was pulled down on the right-hand side and the viewer looked through two binocular sights. It was like sitting and looking at a movie screen, but it was right in front of you and looked so real that you could almost reach out and touch the scenes within.

  Growing up in St. John’s, in order to receive things, one had to work nearly as hard as their parents. My brothers and I were not born with silver spoons in our mouths. Dad was a hard-working man with CNR, or Canadian National Railways. Mom, due to a heart ailment, was a stay-at-home mother who took care of five boys while Dad was out trying to provide for us all.

  With the running of the house and looking after five young boys and trying to pay the bills, Dad and Mom didn’t have much spare change. Nearly every cent went toward the upkeep and the running of our home and the expense of raising and feeding the seven of us. So, we had to roam the city streets looking for things to do and to earn pocket change. And boy, did we ever roam the city, particularly Water Street, which became our second home. We did so many chores and messages down there that we knew every avenue, laneway, cove, and side road.

  I remember so many times as a young boy going to Holy Cross School on Patrick Street, which was destroyed by fire on December 11, 1969. In my early years, from grade one to grade five, I didn’t have any money in my pocket to spend on lunch or a treat. That’s right. Sometimes we went to school with no lunch. I can’t imagine kids today having to do that. If I did manage to earn a few pennies about town, it was barely enough to buy a snack or a treat at Power’s Candy Store on New Gower Street—usually fudge or candy to take with me for recess. More often than not, it was eaten beforehand, as the temptation was too great.

  We didn’t have the School Lunch Program. Either your parents had money for lunch or you worked to get that money. There weren’t many options in those days. It was basic math: no money, no lunch or treats. On the rare occasion that we did have lunch, most times it was homemade bread with molasses or peanut butter and, if you were lucky, supper leftovers or a treat of homemade cookies. That was it. If we did have extra money, we could share a can of potted meat or Mom’s fresh homemade bread, along with distilled orange or apple juice (half water and half juice in a mixture) or powdered milk.