Uncle Jim Buckle and his new woman Dot
Liked to pick berries, they liked it a lot.
The same could be said for Ross and Bill Barbour
Two brothers who also lived in our harbour.

In fact rivals are what you could say that they were
And you wouldn't say friendly ones either, no sir.
All summer they'd be out on the barren and bog
Trying to outpick each other in rain, sun or fog.

The hundred years war is what we call it 'round here
And how it got started, nobody‘s clear
Execpt for yours truly, I remember it yet
Uncle Jim was at the berries, with his first woman Bette.

They were out on the barrens with two tumblers to fill
When out of the burnt woods strode Rossy and Bill
Bill looked at their haul and said, kind of low
"Not going flat out are they brud? No I know!"

"Like to see you do better!" Uncle Jim said, incensed.
And so the challenge was issued and hostilities commenced.
The brothers got busy and as the daylight grew dim
Had a small salt beef bucket full right to the brim.

The skirmish continued for the rest of the fall
'Til the snow came and covered up berries and all.
Then a temporary ceasefire was put into place
But both parties schemed to continue the race.

All winter Uncle Jim and his Missus made plans
And went door to door scrounging old pots and pans.
By springtime, the brothers, who'd stayed out of the clubs
Had a thousand Imperial Margarine tubs.

Soon enough the battle was joined once again
With half starving bears drove back into the den
The barrens were ripped with the maulings and tearings
And the bakeapples picked while still hard as ball bearings.

Who threw the first rock, well we don't really know
Both sides blamed the other as well you might know.
Next thing we knew they had rifles and camo
It was all we could do to keep stealing their ammo.

The brothers rented time on a spy satellite
And rigged up a canon on an old Honda quad trike.
Jim bought some land mines from a guy on the net
Yup, that's what became of his first woman Bette.

Soon enough though he was married again
To a woman best described as Attila the Hen.
But now a new problem loomed on the horizon
A shortage of space to store berries, jams and pies in.

The brothers had ten freezers full right to the top
And a cold storage unit scrounged from the Co-op.
Uncle Jim bought our fish plant closed many a year
And stored all of his and Dot's berries in there.

'Round about this time I started to think
That what they all needed was a really good shrink.
So I put down my copy of the Telegram Funnies
And ordered a book called "Psychiatry for Dummies".

"Seems pretty simple" I said, half way through.
“Guess I'll go straighten out Jim and maybe Dot too.”
So I strolled to their house in psychiatrist style
And said "listen you two, you've been in denial."

"And that's what we haven‘t!" Jim said "by the damn!"
He was stirring a ten gallon boiler of jam.
"Perhaps we might go although I predict
That the 'Gyptians got everything over there picked!"

Having lost a little psychiatrist pride
I concluded the Buckles would stump Sigmund Freud
"Perhaps I'll do better" I thought "cross the harbour,
With my other two patients, Ross and Bill Barbour."

They were out in their shed with a welding machine
At work on the hull of an old submarine
With refrigerant tanks and two diesel compressors
Oh yes Rossy and Bill were quite the professors!

"Now boys" I said "here's my diagnosis
Obsessive behaviour and acute pickanosis
I think I can help you if you'll only take heed
A good 12-step program is what you guys need."

Bill slowly emerged from a torpedo tube
Covered in what must have been torpedo lube
"We've been on one for years now" I then heard him say
"Berries always look better just 12 steps away."

And so ended my budding career as a shrink
Much longer and I think they'd have drove me to drink.
By this time they'd run out of storage again
Having filled up our church then our new Lion's Den.

Uncle Jim had purchased an old supertanker
And filled her to bursting as she lay to her anchor.
The brothers had small vessels of various kinds
And had filled up Bell Island's old iron ore mines.

Then one day the old tanker's chain gave away
And she ended up drifting 'round Conception Bay
Meanwhile below in the tunnels of rock
Ross and Bill's berries had gone all to rot.

The pressure was building from the gasses released
The old ship was drifting from the west to the east.
Then as she passed over the undersea shafts
The pressure released in one almighty blast.

Her hull overstressed by the undersea fart
The old ship went down and she broke all apart.
When things finally settled from that almighty wham
The whole of the bay wasn't nothing only jam.

The four of our nitwits were summoned next day
To magistrates court where the judge had his say.
“Community service down at Purity Foods
Making salt water Jam-Jams and other baked goods.”

Well it seemed that the war would go on unabated
'Til one day they discovered that they were related
Now they’re all the best kind and don’t even get snappy
The barrens are quite and the bears are all happy.

So now I know that the lion can lie down with the lamb
Guess blood is thicker than water, and even thicker than jam.
This poem is available in book form at Running the Goat Press   Submitted By: Dave Paddon