I attended the 2012 New Brunswick
Highland Games in Fredericton and they say I invented a new dance. A piper was playing a tune called ‘Break out the whisky!' and I naturally broke into a Highland
fling. Those who were there to witness the event say it resembled an aardvark
trying to play bongos while baking a cherry pie, but the bottom line is that I
fell and broke both arms just below the knees (I know, it doesn't sound possible) and so for
evermore that dance will be called The Highland Sling.
One might wonder why a chap with no
Scottish blood flowing through his veins would be even at Highland Games, let
alone dancing at them, but let us just say that every year I follow
instructions. Indeed, with my French, Irish, German, and other mongrel
ancestry, I should probably be dancing the gavotte, drinking whisky, and sitting
in a hofbrauhaus, but I am just too dignified for that.
There is a lot of history in New
Brunswick, Scottish and otherwise, and I have been thinking for some time that
when I retire – if I manage to make it that far – I would like to write a book
called A Readable History of Perth-Andover and Area. The Tobique has already
had many books written about it, and I now live in southern Victoria County, so
I think I will concentrate on these acres.
This 2-year project is going to cost
somewhere between $60,000 and $100,000 so if you have that sum in a cookie jar,
think of me.
When I use the word ‘readable’ I
mean it will not be like many history books which, while interesting, can be as
dry as the Sahara. I will be writing stories about Sahara – I mean Sara –
Williams, the legendary English teacher who put fear into the hearts of her
students, and probably her colleagues. To me, THIS is history, just as much as
the date the treaty ending the Aroostook War
so we wouldn’t get what is now Aroostook County, Maine.
The golf course that used to be in
Perth, Ann’s Tea Room, reminiscences of area folks like Joe Farquhar, the South
Tilley Fair, railroading stories from Aroostook, stories from the Perth and
Andover Fire Departments in the old days when their personal firefighting
clothing consisted of their own coats and hats – this is history too.
A couple of weeks ago Trudi Ranger
of Perth-Andover, lent me some newspapers from 1934, 1936, and
1944. They were the Telegraph-Journal, the Victoria County News, and the
Victorian respectively and, as always, it was very interesting to read news
about what were then ordinary everyday events and what is now history.
From that August 1934 T-J, which
concentrated on world events rather than those in New Brunswick, we learn that
there was a riot in Ireland, a Nazi uprising in Austria, and a huge piece broke
off the rock at the top of Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. Of course that
was years before Marilyn Monroe went there to film the movie ‘Niagara’. No
doubt when she got there the rock rose up and went back to where it belonged.
There was one front-page story from
New Brunswick though, the Conservative Party, led by Premier Leonard Percy
Dewolfe Tilley (not to be confused with Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley, the Father
of Confederation). There was no mention of a flood in Perth-Andover. But wait!
Perth-Andover hadn’t been created yet, nor had Beechwood Dam, if you get my
drift.
The Victoria County News of August
1935 reported that Mrs. R.S. Wright of the Armstrong Golf Club in Perth had led
the field with a 98 in a tournament held at her home club. The clubs
represented were Perth of course, Aroostook Valley, Woodstock, and Campbellton.
Only a week or so before I read this, I wrote a newspaper article about Herrick
Hansen winning a seniors’ tournament at Aroostook Valley, HIS home club, so
things tend to keep on going, don’t they? NOTE: When I played golf, my best score was 98 too - for nine holes.
In that same issue of the newspaper
was an information story about the upcoming South Tilley Fair which I just
vaguely remember – not because of strong drink, but because it closed when I
was about in grade one. People were also reminded in that edition that a full
pound of Castile Soap cost 10 cents at O. C. Johnson’s Drug Store in Perth.
In the June 29, 1944 Victorian, we
were informed that high school graduation exercises would be held ‘At various
centres’ during the coming week. ‘Various centres’ included Aroostook, Plaster
Rock, Perth, and Andover. Students received prizes and one of the most
interesting ones, I thought, went to Anna Johnson in Plaster Rock because she
‘had the most constructive influence on the school during the year’.
Now THAT’S the kind of thing I call
history. Even though it may not find its way into the history books written by
others, it would in my history book. An historian has to write about affairs of
state, but he shouldn’t forget it’s the people who make up the state, meaning
county in this case.
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