Tomorrow is Sunday, we all go to church. The little cove has no church of its own. It never did its own church or cemetery. It is part of the parish of Bay de Verde, as is Grates Cove, Low Point and Caplin Cove.

Church is in Bay de Verde this week. So tonight I will get a bath in the big galvanized tub that usually hangs on the wall outside the back porch, it’s used for laundry too. The water has to be carried by buckets from the brook. So this means maybe a dozen trips or so to the brook and back, two buckets at a time. More than a few blasty boughs are sacrificed to heat the water on the stove. So in you go and don’t forget behind the ears.

Next morning, I am dressed in my best, a white shirt made from one of my father’s Aunt Susie Moores cut down and made to fit me. The collar has been starched, likewise the cuffs. A pair of dress pants that probably belonged to one of my older brothers, I have three. We can hear the truck coming through the trees. Everyone in the cove goes to church, all hands will have a dime to give Din for gas. There’s Felix, Jerry and Paul, Eugene and Bernard, Veronica, Mary and Maureen, Vince and Mary Angela, Tish and Leo, John Thomas and Jose, Larry Poor and John Howard wearing his newer knee rubbers and faded grey suit, ‘crip hat’ rounded at the top.

There are benches in the back for people to sit on. We boys stand on the bench behind the cab. I am just big enough that my head is over the box. The back of the truck is made of wood Din built himself, with help from his cousins. It has sides, but no roof, only a tarp if it rains. The red dust is like a smokescreen, you can’t tell if anyone is driving behind you and your hair stands on end, stiffened by the dust.

The women wear overcoats or raglans to keep the dust off their clothes, bandanas on their heads to keep their hats from blowing off. They’ll remove them when they get out of the truck, women have to wear hats in church, men have to take theirs off.

Ten miles or more of dusty gravel road in the back of an open fish truck. You wonder about the bath and Sunday best, but it’s an adventure, the sort of thing memories are made of.

I think of Din Kelly, the kindest, gentlest man I ever knew, or ever hope to know. I’m sure some lucky people knew his as ‘Dad’ and the real lucky ones probably called him ‘Pop’.  “Come in Din, b’y,” Saint Peter said. “Don’t mind the dust. He ordered it just for you.”


Cyril Griffin
New Perlican, NL