In the summer, from age four or five years old until I reached age eleven or twelve, once school was over in June my father would bring me to the train station and I would board the train outbound for Clarenville. I had my name and destination written on a paper note that was pinned to my summer jacket lapel and my dad would speak to the conductor and ask him to look out for me and see that I was met by my uncle Raymond in Clarenville. My uncle Raymond would then motor down Smith's Sound to Thoroughfare where I would be met by my Nana and Baba Brown. Uncle Raymond would then head for his home in Trey Town on Ireland's Eye, an island across the sound from Thoroughfare. I would spend my summers with Nana and Baba with one week in between at my uncle Raymond and aunt Amelia's house until mid August when my Dad, Mom and my siblings would arrive for their annual visit. I remember sitting with my Nana Brown on her balcony and when she heard the "putt, putt" of my uncle Raymond's Acadia engine somewhere up the sound, I would see my Nana's face light up and thirty years of age and worry disappear from her face as she awaited the arrival of uncle Raymond's boat containing mom and dad and my brother and sisters. My Nana would then take me by the hand and we would walk down the path to the wharf where schooners would offload their cargo of supplies for the General Store and pick up the salted cod fish that had been delivered there by the local fishermen. Soon after our arrival on the wharf we could see uncle Raymond's boat, a ways up the shore, and we both eagerly awaited, Nana more so than I, its' arrival as she lived for the moment that she could hug her adopted son Arthur and her other grandchildren. Nana never officially adopted my father but she and Baba raised him from a very young age and both Nana and Baba cared for, loved and cherished him as if he were their own begotten son. My dad in turn thought the same of my Nana and Baba, called them mom and dad and in their latter years brought them both to our house in St. John's for the winter months. He tended to their comfort and well being with the same zealousness and sincere love that he displayed, all of his life, towards my siblings and I. This, despite protestations from my mother who resented my dad's devotion to and love for his mom and dad, my Nana and Baba. The time for my return to St. John's came quicker each year as I aged but I knew, and lived for, the next June when I would again return to spend my summer with my Nana and Baba and do again the things I loved to do. One of the things that I loved to do was go sailing in my Baba's rodney every day. Rain or shine I went sailing in Baba's rodney all around Thoroughfare, adventures I reminisce about to this day. One morning, much the same as I did every morning, when the salt from the Atlantic Ocean lay so heavy in the air that it seemed to stick to my tongue, I was sculling my Baba Brown's rodney from its' mooring place across the cove to Burnt Island. The sun was shining brightly, the wind was blowing gently from the west and my spirit's were higher than, as in my young mind, I imagined Mount Everest was. I had nothing in particular on my mind at this time but, seeing as it was early August, I wanted to check and see if the black berries, that grew rampantly on Burnt Island, were ripe enough to pick so my Nana Brown could make a black berry pudding for me. Black berry pudding was my favorite until blue berries ripened, then blue berry pudding became my favorite. That was my way of thinking when I was a seven year old boy. Not a care nor a worry in the world, thinking I owned the whole world and no one would or could ever do me harm and every body loved me simply because I was me, the first born son of Arthur Edward Brown. Not knowing how to swim and not wearing or even knowing what a life-jacket was, I would sail Baba Brown's rodney out of Trinity Bay into the open Atlantic ocean on the windiest days of the summer. With sea water coming over the gunwale and not a care in the world I would wave at passing fishermen, in their Acadia engine powered motor boats, as they returned with their daily catch of cod fish. When sight of land was dimming I would turn the rodney into the wind for my return sail to Thoroughfare and my Nana Brown's welcoming arms. When I finally returned to Thoroughfare, moored the rodney and walked up to Nana's house, Nana was waiting on the balcony and mildly admonished me for sailing so far out of her sight and then she hugged me tightly and shed tears of joy over my safe return from my seafaring that day. The exact same thing she would do on countless days, long before and long after, this particular day. Nana was the kindest and gentlest person who ever graced this earth with her presence and I am sure that if there is any such place as heaven, she is there. I have never believed in heaven or hell but of late some things have happened to me that have given me pause to reconsider. One of those things happened a month or so ago on a very still and quite night. From some place, that seemed to not be of this world, I heard a sound that I did not recognize as being normal to my surroundings. So I closed my eyes and listened carefully, with every ounce of concentration that I could muster, and I heard again that sound, a sound I have not heard since my early childhood. I pinched myself to ensure that it was not my imagination making me hear the sound that I was hearing. I am as positive about what I heard as I am about there being no escape from someday dying and leaving this earth. I heard the gentlest of foot falls above me that only she could make, the sounds I remember from childhood as she came up the stairs to tuck me in my bed for the night. I remained deadly quite in hopes that this was a dream that would never end so I could go on remembering her in the vivid technicolor of a dream. But such was never to be. I spent a lot of time with Nana when I was a child and one of my most vivid memories of that long ago time was my Nana crying along with the lobsters as she placed them into the cauldron of boiling water in preparation for supper that evening. Such was the ways of my very youthful days, days that I remember with fondness and a sadness for what once was but will never again be.   Submitted By: Randolph Toope