by Nanny Lowe
Many years ago, on a large rocky island in the sea, there existed an enchanting little outport community that was an intriguing place to live as a child. It was a most delightful place to grow and learn. This small community was a land of constant exploring, fishing with bamboo rods, playing endless pool games, boiling mussels on the beach, usually with the mussels in a large can over an open fire, picking all sorts of berries, and beach combing for star fish and other delights the ocean would offer us.
Just as the season for many activities ended, a new season, with a new set of adventures, would begin. Winter would bring the ice, and the seals would come into the harbor. We would observe them for hours under the bright blue Newfoundland winter sky. But then we would have an activity that was exciting but dangerous which was called ‘jumping pans’. As the ice broke into large pieces we would practice jumping from one piece to another, and the wrath of our parents would be fast and furious once we were discovered. And on and on the activities went, the cycle of carefree childhood days.
Port Saunders was the little community that so captivated us as children. It was our home for four years while my father was posted there as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We lived in a Cape Cod Style ‘detachment’, as it was called. The family residence was on one side and the office for the Mountie, the prisoners’ cells, and tiny rooms for strange and various things that Mounties collected was on the other side.
Through a common front door, there was a little entryway with the office door to the right, and the residence door to the left-a fact crucial to this story.
Four of us children, our friends, a dog, a busy father who worked day and night in all kinds of weather, and a mother overseeing us all, would make one think that we would be less inclined to mischief than children with less to do. But mischief was frequently astir, and the Mounties’ children started it all. This childhood creativity could cause quite an uproar at times. However sometimes it got overlooked and everyone heaved a big sigh of relief. On the occasion I am about to relate I’ve never been really sure what the aftermaths was, but I can guess.
Fathers favorite time of day was after supper. He would, when time permitted, lie down on the sofa and turn the radio on. There was no television then and the radio was our link to the outside world. Inevitably in a short time Father would be asleep. I swear he never removed his uniform in those days, and he was on call day and night for any and all strange happenings. The Mountie carried a heavy load in those small isolated communities around the Newfoundland and Labrador Coasts.
As soon as he drifted off to sleep, and shall we say, unresponsive, my sister and I would change the radio station to one with singers such as Bobby Darren, Paul Anka, or Elvis Presley crooning, and Father never ever noticed. As in most crimes, the more you get away with, the braver you get. One foggy, rainy evening we were stuck inside. Father was having his nap, and Mother was upstairs with the new baby. Life seemed rather dull.
Enter the elastic bands, confiscated from the office of course; a crime was in the making already! We tuned in the rock and roll music, and with our little brother watching in astonishment we went to work to give Father a new ‘hairdo’. He never moved as his thick, dark, shiny hair slowly became about one hundred little spikes, each held tightly by a stolen rubber band. It was sort of like the ‘punk rock’ look that was popular forty years later.
Because he was so compliant, we placed elastic bands on his ears, rolling them down to look like lips. Poor Dad, nobody deserved this, least of all him-but it was such fun we could not stop. Thankfully Mother had not appeared to witness this transformation.
Then horror struck with the ringing of the doorbell! Father was programmed to that doorbell and he made a leap off the sofa, and sprinted to open the door into the entryway. And of course he swung the outside door wide open to face two men who must have been quite shocked!
We were dumbfounded as we heard the dreaded "Good Evening Sir!"
This greeting was followed by mumbling of mens’ voices, then my father took the two gentlemen into the office. They left shortly after and Dad walked back to the sofa and assumed his horizontal position, oblivious to how he looked.
We held our breath. Mother still had not appeared. Maybe we had time to fix it!
"Dad, can we play with your hair?", my sister asked him quietly.
"Sure," he said. It was one of my sisters’ favorite activities to comb Dads’ hair, and he never minded it at all.
So we set to work and one by one we removed those elastic bands and combed his wonderful shiny hair back into place. Boy, that was a close!
Now, so many, many years later I can imagine how many stories that event must have generated. I can see the two men going back to their friends and saying "Yes, now, b’y, the Mounties after crackin’ up! He looks like he’s gettin’ a perm or somethin’-too bad, he was a nice fella too b’y!"
Then my imagination reaches to the next generation. I picture a group of men sitting around in their cabin enjoying a hot toddy, when one speaks up and says, "Remember the story father used to tell about that nice Mountie we had here who cracked up? What was it, somethin’ to do with the hair wasn’t it? Wonder whatever happened to him. It’s a hard life see b’y!"
Yes, Father unknowingly was a ‘punk rock Mountie’, and never ever knew until years later. By then he just laughed, true to his quiet nature. He is eighty-two now, and still sleeps through the news at times. But we have decided to ban the elastics. That was far too close a call!
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