Travels and Tribulations: (a collection of very nearly true stories)

By Harris D. Boyd

From the adventures of farm life to hitchhiking across Canada to meeting Members of the Royal Family this collection of short stories is a very interesting read. Often very funny and sometimes even inspirational in meeting life’s challenges this is a book everyone will enjoy and many will identify with. There is never a dull moment in this real life story and you will always be thinking, “I wonder what will happen next.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harris D. Boyd
• Release date: Dec 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781773023533

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Travels

and

Tribulations

Harris D. Boyd

Table of Contents

FORWARD

CHILDHOOD STORIES

CURIOUS EXPRESSIONS

FARM LIFE

ONE ROOM SCHOOL

THE GREAT FIRE

DIRTY WORK

ANNIDALE

TRUCKS AND CALAMITIES

FIRST CAR

TILLSENBURG AND OTHER SPOTS

MORE TOBACCO

FAREWELL TO BELLEISLE REGIONAL

MOUNT ALLISON

BIGELOW HOUSE

PIGS CAN FLY

DAVE JARDINE

CARNIVAL PRINCESS

A SUMMER OF TOBACCO

THE FIELD GANG

WALKING ACROSS CANADA

DOOR TO DOOR

THE LAST HARVEST

THE BIG CRASH

THE GOVERNMENT JOB

ROOMMATES

RATS SUCK ROCKS ARE BEST

A SNOWY NEW YEAR’S EVE

GRADUATION

FREDERICTON

LEARNING FRENCH

NEWFOUNDLAND NOVICE

YOUNG FISHERMEN

CHRISTMAS TREES

FINDING BRANDON

STATE CEREMONIAL

PRINCE ANDREW

THE QUEEN MOTHER

ANDREW AND SARAH

THE QUEEN

YOUR BOOKS ARE LEAKING

FESTIVAL FRIENDS

EXPO 86

I CANNOT SING

ROCKS AND CUCUMBERS

THE QUEEN’S STATUE

HUMBLE LODGINGS

FRINGE BENEFITS

MEETING THE BOYDS

CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGES

THE CABLE GANG

MORE TV

CABLE CONVENTIONS

ISLAND TRAVELS

THE WEDDING

COTTAGE LIFE

GRAND LAKE

PETS

ON MY OWN

THE REUNION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my parents, Charles and Peggy Boyd, who not only gave me the inspiration and encouragement to pursue many of the adventures described here, but who also lived through many of them.

FORWARD

Harris and I have been together over 25 years and have become kindred spirits, each finishing each other’s thoughts! We met through a friend of mine and we have never looked back. Through cottage building, home renovations and real estate adventures, he has been the best MacGyver you could ever meet. I think this was influenced by his father’s background as an electrical, plumbing and heating contractor. Good thing I was working as a nurse and my boss was able to open up the clinic on days off to fix him up! My love of travel has brought us to many different places and, of course, more adventures. While many of the adventures and stories Harris describes predate me, I have heard them recounted often enough to feel I was almost part of them. I hope this series of stories inspires others to try whatever they are drawn to because adventures only make life richer and more rewarding. If you know Harris, you will already know that he is an excellent raconteur of events and stories like you have never heard, due in part because of his varied background and the love of his country, family and friends. He is quick of wit and quick with a match, always building bonfires (some safe) and fires in the hearth warming up our lives. Enjoy the read! I have always said there is only one Harris Boyd!

Marie D. Kane

CHILDHOOD STORIES

My mother was a war-bride who met my father in England where he was stationed for part of the Second World War. They were married in 1944, and my oldest brother was born in England. While my mother worked in a war factory as a welder, an unusual trade for a woman, she had not had a lot of worldly experience. Her father was very strict and her mother always told her that there would be time enough to learn basic skills like cooking and running a household when she was married.

She was raised in a small town in northeastern England, and while they lived frugally, amenities like electricity, heat, and indoor plumbing were the norm. This was not the case in rural New Brunswick at the time. While I will never know what stories my father told her about the family estate in New Brunswick, it was convincing. My father returned to Canada ahead of my mother and brother to ensure everything was shipshape for their arrival. My mother would later learn that shipshape depends a lot on the ship.

The family homestead had been vacant, from shortly after my father joined the army early in the war until he returned in late 1945. His father had moved to Colchester County in Nova Scotia where two of his other three surviving sons resided. (My father’s twin brother had been killed in a farm accident before my father enlisted.)

The family farmhouse had no insulation, no central heat, no running water or indoor plumbing of any kind, and no electricity. I don’t believe my mother was aware of any of this when she set sail for Canada. The adventures that awaited her, she would never have imagined.

I am the fourth in the family of four children born in five years. To say my mother had her hands full would be like saying Niagara Falls has a lot of water. Because I cannot attest to all of these adventures firsthand, I have had to rely on my mother and father and my older siblings to relate to me many of these events. For this reason, there is some possibility of exaggeration that is, of course, not the case for the later stories in this compendium in which I was directly a participant.

How my mother survived that first winter and why she did not retreat to merry old England can only be termed a miracle. Water in basins was solid ice in the mornings. The trek to the outhouse in the snow, not to mention the snow itself, must have seemed insurmountable. To make matters worse, my father was away for weeks at a time. Electricity was coming to rural New Brunswick and as an electrician by trade business was booming. He and his hired man would go ahead of the hydro crews, who were installing poles and lines, and Father would wire up all the farms, so they would be ready to light up their barns most importantly, but also their houses, when the long anticipated hydro arrived at their door.

As I mentioned, my mother had not earlier seen the need to learn to cook. Now she was left on her own with numerous children for weeks at a time and somehow had to nourish everyone. While my father had certain culinary skills because he and his twin brother had cared for their arthritic mother for many years, he did not have much time to impart these skills to his new city wife; teaching was not exactly one of his strengths. In addition to feeding the brood, my mother was expected to prepare lunches for my father and any men he had hired to assist him whenever he would be working in the area. My mother had never prepared a lunch nor was she all that familiar with the home grown vegetables and farm raised beef and chicken available to her as ingredients.

One of her first attempts at making lunches involved slicing up raw beets and inserting them between two pieces of bread to create what was certainly an unusual sandwich. Without doubt, it was also inedible. I understand that she was quickly relieved of the chore of lunch making.

Mother had also never gardened. Father always grew enough vegetables to feed the entire community, or so it seemed. One day, Mother, trying to be helpful, decided to weed the garden; she did not know which plants were weeds and which were vegetables. She proceeded to remove all the plants and leave the weeds. I gather that for many years afterward, Father insisted in doing the gardening himself.

One of the other features of farm living was that it was not possible to merely walk to the corner store as in England, even the neighbours were barely in sight. This led my mother to try her hand at driving, another totally new experience, but made much more so by the primitive nature of the roads and the age and type of vehicles at her disposal.

Our farm was situated in a river valley, known as Belleisle Creek, with our farm at the top of the valley and two others further down. All three women of their respective households exhibited an interest in learning to drive, spurred on by my mother, who was the youngest of the three and the most daring. The last farm had been, at one time, the residence of a wealthy family, so they still had a decent car. While the woman of the house wanted to be independent, neither her father-in-law nor her husband ever learned to drive. Her first attempt brought her up to our farm where she proceeded to drive their car into our kitchen. She never drove a car again and continued to drive horses the rest of her life.

My mother, not to be outdone, started out with our big old farm truck and went to visit the middle farm. Their house had a large veranda all across the front near the driveway. When my mother drove in, she misjudged the distance, hitting the posts supporting the veranda and causing it to fall on the truck. Seeing how her two neighbours had fared on their maiden driving expeditions, the woman at the middle farm, Florence Kierstead, wisely decided driving was too risky for her, so she became a permanent fixture of the passenger seat.

Despite all this, my mother was undaunted and continued without the other two. Unbeknownst to my father, she was practicing on that old truck whenever he would be away. On one occasion, Mother was a bit too anxious and set out for the store shortly after Father departed. As luck would have it, he had also decided to make a stop at the store and was still there when my mother rolled up in the old truck. As it was news to him that she was even capable of driving, it can be said there was surprise all around.

To this day, my mother is not particularly mechanical, but 60 years ago she was less so. The workings of clutches and manual transmissions in cars seemed rather irrelevant. One day she decided to take our old Dodge car, with a three speed manual transmission, up to the top of our very hilly farm to visit the men working there. The distinction between first gear and high is quite subtle on those types of cars. For this reason, she proceeded up the very steep hill in high gear, at least for part of the way. At some point the car started to smoke as the clutch burned out. My mother stopped and ran away thinking the car was on fire and leaving it there for my father to collect later on.

My mother is now in her nineties and continued to drive, until only a few years ago, but then only under ideal conditions (whatever they might be). She is very proud of her 1978 Dodge that is still in the garage, a real antique, and would never consider a newer model. She is an inspiration to us all.

CURIOUS EXPRESSIONS

We had always noted that our mother, being from England, had a different accent from others in the community, but she also had some very strange expressions. She said that she had learned them from her own mother, but having been to England many times and also having English neighbours, I have never found anyone else who employs these curious turns of phrase.

One of my favourites among the many my mother still uses is you are not as green as you are cabbage looking. Now many people might well be offended by being compared to a cabbage, but this expression is actually a compliment. It means you are not as naïve as I thought you were. I assume the green refers to inexperience or being a novice.

The next one is probably the most bizarre. When Mother would be making something or doing something she did not want to explain to you and you would ask what she was doing, she would say, Oh, making wigwams for ducks to swim in. Now in Canada, a wigwam was an Indian tent and it was meant to be dry, so there would certainly be no ducks. I still have no idea what this expression means, but Mother still makes wigwams.

My mother has never been a fan of idle hands, so when we would be sitting around not doing a great deal (not very often I might add), Mother would say, Well, this won’t get the baby a new dress. She would say this whether there were any babies or not, and even if the ones available were boys or if no new dresses were required. It was meant to signal that we won’t get anything accomplished if we sit around.

My most favourite expression when I was very young was the one Mother used when she considered it time to go to bed. She would say, I guess we should be off to the woods to play with the gypsies. This conjured up very vivid images in a young imagination. We quickly learned that instead of having fun with the gypsies. we were being sent to bed.

When Mother doesn’t know what to call something she usually refers to it as a dooey. Sometimes she will even have more than one dooey and I assume that when you put them together you get a whatchamacallitcallit. Mother uses this term so prolifically that my own wife, having been exposed to it often, now also uses the term, to my great dismay.

The other curious thing about our family was that everyone had nicknames, most of which had absolutely nothing to do with their Christian names. My father’s name was Charles Willard, but somehow my mother thought it was Charles William. For this reason, she always called him Bill. On one occasion, shortly after Mother came to Canada, she was invited to visit some of the neighbours. She took baby Richard with her. At one point she remarked that Richard looked a lot like Bill. Without missing a beat, one of the ladies replied, Yes, but he looks a lot like Charles, too.

Richard was nicknamed Joe, and I called him that all the time I was growing up. I have no idea where the name Joe came from. Even more strangely, Father called my oldest sister, Linda, Jim. I never did figure that out unless he was hoping for another son to help on the farm.

The nicknames continued to become more bizarre. My second sister, Christine, was called Diddy Boo (I am not even sure how to spell that). My youngest sister Staicy was Peekadody, and my little brother Andrew was Drooly Dooly. Having looked after him quite a bit, I know where that name came from. I would not recommend calling him that today as he is quite burley.

My own nickname was Butch as I was quite chubby when I was very young. No one ever called me by my real names, Douglas Harris. Douglas was my Mother’s twin brother who still lived in England, and Harris was one of my father’s older brothers who lived in the States. When I started elementary school, the teacher asked me what I wanted to be called, and I said Harris. (I had never liked the name Douglas as there was a dog on television named Douglas.) Uncle Harris’s wife refused to call me Harris as long as my uncle was alive. She referred to me as Douglas and I ignored her. Later, I officially changed my name to Harris Douglas. I like the name Harris as it is not very common. Other than my uncle, I have only met a couple of Harris’ in my entire life.

Oddly, the only member of our family who did not have a nickname was Mother. She did not even have a middle name for some reason. I think she was probably the source of all these strange names and decided she didn’t want one herself.

FARM LIFE

Growing up on a farm is a unique experience. While I am sure that everyone who has done so remembers all the hard work and the lack of access to city amenities, I think at the end of the day we would all agree it was a pretty special way to grow up. Simple activities and pleasures can take on lives of their own and the need to make your own fun can lead to creative solutions.

One of my first recollections as a kid was that we had a team of white horses, one quite a bit bigger than the other and the larger one was blind. My father used to buy and sell horses, so I assume a blind horse was not very expensive. In any case, as long as the two horses were together the blindness didn’t make much difference. One relied entirely on the other for guidance and it was quite remarkable how they could cope with most situations. I am not sure when I learned that one horse could not see. I was too small to handle them myself or that lack of knowledge could have caused some problems.

It was inevitable that the two horses could not always be together. Some jobs only required one horse and they needed to be free from each other in the pasture. One day my brother Richard and I (he is five years older and, at the time, much more worldly, but never a big fan of horses) decided we would ride the blind horse up to the top of the farm where there were a couple of hayfields beyond the trees. Our job was to stack up the hay so that it could easily be picked up and thrown on the wagon. The horse seemed to know the way and could follow the trail with our guidance (royal our as I wasn’t doing anything except hang on). Late in the afternoon a storm came up and there was thunder and lightning. We decided it was time to head back, so we mounted the horse and set off for the barn. As I know how scary being out in the open in such a storm is for anyone I can only imagine what it is like for a blind horse. The horse quickly picked up speed in reaction to the thunder and started running down the hill toward the barn. We had little control and the horse seemed to know where to go. The barn door had been left open. For an old horse she had surprising