'MY PARENTS HOUSE BOAT'

When my father retired from the RCMP we relocated to Mount Pearl, he went to work with the courts and had chosen Mount Pearl because there were still two offspring to go to University. Consequently it was convenient for all. Father never makes a decision without weighing all the pros and cons.

It was a great place! It was our first house after being raised in rental properties, and living in RCMP detachments all of our lives. But Mother always expressed discontent about the style of

the house, once living in it began. It obviously was not something she had considered when they bought the new abode. The house is known as a side split or split level therefore it has three flights of stairs inside, with about seven steps on each flight. Also when you go out the backdoor you have to go up steps to get to the backyard to access the clothesline. She used that clothesline almost daily.

Then when you enter from the front you had to have to step up to the walkway from the driveway and then step up a couple of steps to the front door, the entrance that is always used. It is not a big house but several stairways have to be encountered whenever you go, making getting around the house and caring for it a daily aerobics class in itself.

Mother was very busy in her home. I myself experienced two falls and twisted my ankle each time, and Mother had her share of 'trip-ups' and 'trip-downs!'

We didn't complain because it was our house and we did what we could to help Mom and Dad make it a home. It was their first house and we were so delighted for them. Finally they had a home of their own.

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Even the children who were grown, married and left still had a home to visit, which they did on a regular basis. Our lives of living a nomadic lifestyle meant that wherever our parents were was 'Home' anyway.

Mom comes from a Labrador fishing family. Then she married Dad, who hailed from Fortune Bay, was not a fisherman, but came from a similar family. The Schooners were the main type of boat in his part of the world. None of us paid too much attention to the happenings in the fishery

as it had little impact on our lives as a policemans' family.

Except Mom that is! When she left her Labrador home, the fishing was a very simple inshore affair, that is to say 'one man one boat'. There may be a 'share man' for the main season but mostly that was the situation.

However, Fortune Bay, Newfoundland Dad lived in a place where his world was filled with schooners. When he was a boy, he used to play a guessing game with his friends. They would sit on a hill and guess whose schooner was on the horizon. They would engage in this game by judging the way the sails were rigged etc. These were hearty sailors who ventured all over the world in their schooners doing commerce for the Dominion of Newfoundland which it was at that time, in the 1920's and 1930s'.Schooners were fairly roomy, and had a lot less stairs than the long liners.

So along came the Canadian Confederation and many new things were brought to our province, all the things that are constantly being rubbed in our faces like the cash, roads, modern house styles and so on, Mother had an opinion on it all. In retrospect she made sense.

She must have had an eye on the new things taking place in the fishery as well because one day she

blurted out"I don't why we bought this house, it's like living aboard a long liner!! ."

Now after raising a bunch of rascals, being a Homemaker, Journey Woman Housekeeper, Pet Doctor, Mender of broken hearts, Mother of the Bride four times, Mother of the Groom once, countless graduations, and the list goes on, this statement was puzzling to me. How did she know

what a long liner was, what it looked like or how it functioned? It was beyond

my know-it-all teenage mind. I wanted to know the answer.

I spoke in my smug tone of the time, the tone that resembles the tone a father of a teenager once said"You

should go and get a job now while you know it all!".

I asked "What do you mean "Like a long liner?"

Without breaking a step on her way to the basement via the stairs she replies "Yes just like a long liner! For every foot you go across you have to go up one or down one."

Now for anybody who even was on one of those early long liner fishing boats, you had to know

that Mom was right on the mark as usual. Although she was in the home her mind was a real part of the world and all it's happenings, just like the rest of the women of her time. She ignored

pettiness, worries and woes and just carried on.

She was the Commander of her own ship, no mistake about that!!

Do they make them like that anymore I wonder?

David Jarvis (885 words)