Back in ’75, Trepassey was wide open. The Fish Plant was running full tilt, the Lions Club was booming, and every second night there was a dance, a card game, or a Bingo to raise a few dollars for the community.

Mr. John — getting up in years, Production Manager at the Plant and a proud Lion — was asked by Lion Wish if he’d like to call the next Bingo. Being the gentleman he was, he felt obliged to help out.

Now, the hall in those days wasn’t exactly the Arts & Culture Centre. Dim lights. Small bingo balls. No screen. No mic worth talking about. And Mr. John, God love him, had never laid eyes on a Bingo card in his life.

I only went that one night with my Mother— the night of his grand debut.

Young Tom was walking the floor checking Bingos. He said he’d worked fifteen years with the public and never had a hitch. Young Leo — who was closer to eighty than seventy‑two — was in the canteen selling dabbers and keeping an eye on the foolishness.

Things went sideways right from the first shake of the cage.

Mr. John started calling the numbers… except he kept mixing up the O’s with the B’s. Didn’t know the sequence. Couldn’t see the balls. And that slow Irish brogue of his stretched every number into a full paragraph.

“B… no… O… wait now… ah sure… it’s after bein’ a… seven… or maybe a nine…”

You could feel the tension rise like steam off a kettle.

People were squinting. Tom was pacing. Leo was selling dabbers like it was the last Taxi out of Shoal Point.

By the third game, half the hall was ready to riot and the other half was praying for intermission.

And to be rest assured — at the next Women’s Institute meeting, the motion was passed quick and clean:

“Mr. John will NOT be calling Bingo again.”

And that was the end of his Bingo career — but the beginning of one of Trepassey’s favourite stories.