Not only has a way of life been destroyed by the cod fishery ending in our bays and coves and inlets, but the art of storytelling is long being pushed by the wayside.

Our Air Force crew were staying at the Newfoundland Hotel once and we all gathered in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. There was a big man sitting at the next table who seemed to have trouble fitting his stern completely on the chair. Being a tad on the tubby side myself I could relate to that and I just completed a 7-hour flight yesterday crammed in like sardines. For your safety and comfort, they say in the safety briefing. (To be sure.) Not much of a story to relate here as I only got the tail end to it when our next table neighbour raised his voice to send home his point. I am sure I have sounded like that myself many times to passers-by or other customers. Will try and remember to hold it down in public.
Talk about excessive exaggeration!

He went down Water Street like a shot out of a gun, he said, doing 700 miles an hour. Yes, seven hundred miles an hour. About four others were with him in suits and all looked like business people. Probably a weekly Zoom meeting before computers.
I thought to myself, you don’t hear people talk like this in the rest of the country.
For better or worse, we are unique with our embellished stories. Must be in the DNA handed down from our Irish ancestors. Fog, drizzle and rain. Jelly Bean Row and romancing the Stone.
I did get a grin out of 700 miles an hour. I wonder what the intellectuals and nerds think when they hear stories like that? See, had the man quietly said 50 kms an hour, thirty years later I would not be digging it up while I can’t sleep!