After a time, they returned and as I walked through the door, my son met my gaze with his and of course you know the sight... a face lit like a Christmas tree and a smile as broad as I ever saw and the pride ... well ... a face beaming tells it all. As I heard them discuss their next outing and other plans, I turned and went inside to be alone with my thoughts and to relish in the moment, in the happiness and pride born on this special day.
Paula Hines
A “home writing” assignment to describe a memorable building resulted in this remembrance.
We found it on a gray, damp Sunday in May. We were exploring an unfamiliar road while on our way to visitors’ afternoon at the May long weekend Scout – Guide Camp and there it was. It sat on a rise overlooking the Great Bras d’Or from which you could see the abandoned docks of the Ross Ferry.
It was a small old house and when we got to know it better, we could see its history in the way it had been added to and added to again. It wasn’t in very good shape – the back door had been open for more than one winter – but the price was right. So, we bought it.
We had been half-heartedly looking for a small cottage or a piece of land on which we could camp for several years, mainly so we could get our children away from Glace Bay’s Commercial Street whenever possible. Our budget was limited and nothing we had looked at before this had been the right place. But this place somehow spoke to us and we took the plunge.
We took possession in early July. The first weekend we spent there was damp and cold and we wondered what we had done, but then the weather broke. It was a wonderful place for the kids – once they stopped complaining about not being in Glace Bay. They wandered and they swam. They read, played board games, fought and helped when we could convince them to. Mainly, they weren’t on Commercial Street. We cleaned, repaired and painted and late in the afternoon, we swam too. We barbecued and then we read and played board games as a family.
When I think of our little house in Big Harbour, many things come to mind. There were the “summer of the mouse” and the “winter of the squirrel”. There was the mysterious awful smell that was finally traced to the five-gallon bucket of sand dollars collected on Englishtown beach.