Newfie June - Bare-Naked Buttocks

I was at a friend's tonight and she was cooking a pizza in the oven for the kids' supper. As she pulled down the oven door to check on progress, she let out a shriek and banged the oven door shut again. We all rushed to her side, thinking she must have burned herself. She was howling, but not with pain… with laughter! To explain, she pulled down the oven door for us to take a peek and there was the pizza with two enormous air bubbles rising from the crust. One of them was the size of a head. It looked like a pair of naked buttocks and it reminded me of a story my Dad used to tell of one of the (mis)adventures of his youth.

A few years before my Dad was born, his father and mother had moved to Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, where my Grandpa and his brother were working in the coal mines. The life was hard. Coal mining is still a very a dangerous job now, but back then there were no safety standards at all and it was treacherous. My grandparents had stillborn twins, their firstborns, when they first moved to Glace Bay. Then there was an explosion and cave-in at the mine, while my grandpa was underground. "Gramp"survived the cave-in but his right hip was crushed and he was left with a permanent, pronounced limp. As a result, he was never able to work as hard as he used to and it became a struggle to raise the family. They moved back to the little Newfoundland village where he was born and settled down. My father was the third of four living children and the first boy, so when he was but 11 years of age, he had to start working to help support the family. Like most other Newfie boys, he signed on as crew to fish on the Grand Banks in old sail schooners. Small dories were lashed to the sides and these were what the men rowed out in to tend to the nets. It was hard work for a grown man, never mind a young, growing lad. In later years, my father had stooped, rounded shoulders and he always said it was from hauling the heavy, wet nets on board when he was still but a child.

Anyway, one year, when dad was about 15, he got a berth on a small schooner that was to be manned by the skipper, himself and another "hand" who would also double as cook. Now the boy, who was cook, said he knew how to make bread, when Skipper had asked him. That was very important, as homemade bread was a large part of the diet when at sea. In reality, the boy, Joe, knew nothing about baking bread nor cooking. He just desperately needed work and figured he'd learn.

They set sail from Harbour Grace and sailed around Cape St. Francis. From there they would put into St. John's harbour and tie up for a few days to take on provisions before setting out for "The Banks". Now, while they were sailing around the Cape, the skipper told young Joe to put on some fresh bread to rise. Joe was put on the spot and got in a panic but fortunately my father knew how to mix up some bread and told him what ingredients to throw in, how to knead it down, set it to raise, etc. He told Joe he had to keep the bread warm for the yeast to work or the dough would not rise. Dad went on about his business and the skipper went ashore to find a tavern and to drink the arse out of a bottle of Screech (after all, who knew when they would be back in civilization again).

Dad got on with his chores and by and by young Joe comes on deck, all in a panic. "You got to help me," he says to my father. "The dough got a life of its own and I can't do a thing with it!" They rushed into the little galley and there was the oven door ajar (Joe thought the oven, with a small fire in the grate, would be a nice, warm place to encourage the yeast) and bread dough was spilling out over the floor in great, bilious gobs.

"Good Lord", says my father," "Sure, how much yeast did you use?"

"The whole bar" says Joe. (Yeast came in bars then).

"Good Heavens, man, sure that's enough to make 10 or 12 lots of bread!"

"Well, you didn't tell me that" says Joe, "you just said to put in yeast. I didn't want the bread to be flat so I thought I'd better put in the whole thing."

Now, what were they going to do? They had to get rid of it somewhere and it had to be somewhere where Skipper wouldn't see it; he was tight with his money and he would have a flying fit if he knew that Joe had wasted all that flour, lard and yeast. Dad liked Joe and didn't want to see him lose his job. Plus, if they had to replace him, they would have another delay before they could get out to the fishing grounds. Time is money, as they say.

Well, the two lads decided that they had better throw the offending mound of spoiled dough into St. John's harbour. They figured the seagulls would pick at some of it and the rest would sink. With a great deal of difficulty, they man-handled the still-raising blob of dough out of the small galley and up to the deck, where they unceremoniously dumped it overboard.

Joe then ran to a stop in the waterfront area and bought another cake of yeast, with the paltry bit of money he had. My father helped him make a new batch of bread, watching him carefully as he added ingredients and the batch actually turned out fairly well. About midnight, they hit their bunks and fell into an exhausted sleep.

Sometime in the wee hours, the Skipper came back to the boat. Even though it was a bright, moonlit night, he carefully looked down as he crossed the gangplank in fear that he would pitch overboard. Suddenly an almighty roar splintered the still of the night. "Man overboard!"

Dad and Joe sprang from their bunks and raced up on deck. There was the tipsy Skipper, looking over the side of the boat and pointing down at the water. "My Good Lord, "he cried, "There's a naked man in the water!"

Dad and Joe raced to his side. "Where?" they asked.

"Look", says Skipper, "You can see the two big cheeks of his arse sparkling in the moonlight right there against the wharf. Get the grappling hook, boys, and see if you can gaff him in," he slurred.

Dad and Joe exchanged a knowing and frightened look. Joe went over to the Skipper and, with a coaxing tone in his voice, told him that he had had way too much Screech tonight and was seeing things. Skipper at first protested but Joe was persuasive and finally the bleary-eyed man allowed himself to be lead down to his bunk. It wasn't long before he started snoring.

Meantime, Dad went to work with the gaff hook. He knew that with all the yeast Joe had added to the dough, there had to be an enormous air pocket in the centre of the blob that was keepin' 'her afloat.

As soon as Joe had Skipper stowed away in his bunk and was sure he was asleep, he joined Dad and they poked and prodded until the dough ball deflated and they cleared it out from the side of the wharf where it finally partially submerged and floated away out on the tide.

The next morning the boys didn't wait for Skipper to say anything about the night before. They jumped right in there and told him how pie-eyed he was and that they had to help him off to bed. They never knew if he remembered seeing the "man overboard" or not. He never mentioned it again and that was fine by them. It was a long time before Skipper imbibed again and Dad reported that by the end of their run on The Banks, Joe had turned out to be a "fair decent" cook.

Cheers, © Newfie June




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