By Steve Barrett It was in the fall of the year when I sent Mr. and Mrs. Warren a meal of fresh codfish, potatoes and corn. Mr. Warren is an elderly gentleman who dabbles in Newfoundland music, writing his own songs and then making homemade CDs. He’s the kind of musician you see from time to time set up at your local mall with a table and a chair, music blaring from an inadequate music system as he tries to sell his wares with a sincere smile on his face. When I arrived home from work one day, I noticed a square shaped package in my mailbox. It was in a plastic grocery bag and when I looked inside, it appeared to be a loaf of some kind. I thought it kind of odd that my mother would leave a loaf in my mailbox, but she was probably in a hurry, knowing that I would be home soon. I called to thank her but she said she hadn’t baked in weeks and therefore it wasn’t her loaf. Without a whole lot more thought, I quickly realized the loaf was from Mrs. Warren as a gesture of thanks for the fish meal I had sent over the previous day. The loaf was covered in a special decorative wrap complete with ribbon and bow and was perfectly formed, almost a work of art, obviously carefully prepared by an expert. We unwrapped the loaf to reveal a beautiful banana bread, my favourite! We cut it into even slices and agreed that it was as moist and tender as any banana bread we had ever eaten. Over the course of the next couple of days, we ate the entire thing, not leaving even a crumb on the plate. The kids thought it particularly delicious and suggested we get Mrs. Warren to bake us another one. “This is better than Nan’s,” said one of the girls. It was about three days later when I was mowing the lawn that, in the distance, I heard someone calling my name - “Mr. Barrett, Mr. Barrett!” I looked up and across the street. Mrs. Drover, who I had seen many times but had never personally met, was calling out to me! I made my way over to her house and as I walked up her pathway and approached her, she asked me if I got the banana bread she left in my mailbox. “Yes I did,” was my immediate response, and I went on thank her, to tell her how much I appreciated her kindness and most importantly, that the banana bread she baked for me was absolutely delicious and was probably the most delicious banana bread I had ever eaten. Mrs. Drover’s jaw dropped! As I said earlier, I had never met this lady before so when her jaw dropped, I wasn’t quite sure what that meant to me. But what she said next made it quite clear what her thoughts were. She said, “Mr. Barrett, that banana bread wasn’t for you, it was for the church bake sale. You ‘are’ one of the Barretts from French’s Road aren’t you?” Now you have to understand that in the fall of each year, the women of our church hold an annual craft and bake sale, a tradition of certainly more than 50 years and one of the banner events for fundraising. It is the premiere opportunity for these ladies to display their great talent for baking and craft making. My grandmother, long since retired and removed as an organizer of this event, once lived on French’s Road, and Mrs. Drover, somehow knowing that I was her grandson, made the reference to me as being one of the Barretts from this street. In her mind, my connection to my grandmother, my grandmother’s connection to French’s Road and to the craft and bake sale, meant that I should have known that the banana bread, placed in my mailbox, belonged to the women’s church group. She must have believed that I would know her train of thought and therefore would remove it from the mailbox, get into my car and deliver it to the church, tell them it was from Mrs. Drover as her annual contribution, and I suppose, if you continue to follow this logic, would drop by her house to tell her the transaction was complete. The truth is, I had absolutely no idea the craft and bake sale was happening, and even if I had, I could not have possibly made that complex connection. Now to add insult to injury, her jaw dropped for another reason also. During our surreptitious meeting in her front yard, she told me that she had called the church that same evening and that one of the ladies confirmed they did in fact receive her banana bread. It instantly occurred to me that some well-meaning volunteer at the church, with boxes and boxes of breads, loafs, cookies, fudge, crafts and cakes decided that there was really no way to know for sure that her little loaf made it to the sale and made a general decision that it was there and thanked her for her contribution. With this information, I wasn’t sure what hurt her feelings the most - the fact that I ate her banana bread and ended her decades long contribution to the craft and bake sale, or that someone at the church lied to her. I could see the pain and confusion on her face and at that point thanked her anyways for the banana bread and waved as I made my way back home. Well it’s late January as I write this story, having just come into the house after using my snow blower to clear away a load of snow. It was a rather heavy snowfall, so I also cleared out Mr. and Mrs. Warren’s driveway and the pathway leading to Mrs. Drover’s front door. As I was putting my snow blower away, I heard my name being called out just like it was back in the fall - “Mr. Barrett, Mr. Barrett!” When I turned around I realized that Ms. Drover was calling me over to her doorway. As I approached her I was quite unsure what to expect and was still somewhat embarrassed from our previous encounter. She was holding out a plastic bag for me to take. Of course when I saw this I knew immediately what was in the bag. She looked at me and thanked me for clearing her walkway and then she motioned for me to take the bag. “Here you go Mr. Barrett,” she said, and as I took the plastic bag in my hand, with a wink and a nod she pronounced, in a deliberate, old-fashioned Newfoundland drawl, “'cause I knows ya likes it!”   Submitted By: NULL