Some fine young writers
from 1987
by Robert LaFrance
Once in a while I like to leave the serious world where denizens like
my friend Flug reside and think about more cheerful things. As you know, Flug
is always yammering about all the alimony he has to pay to his eleven former
wives, and about the world political situation, not to mention the temperature
of the lemonade at the club (too cold).
Therefore, last week I found
myself jogging along Kintore Road (if you believe that, you’ll believe I am a
major shareholder in the CN Tower) and thinking to myself, which is my
favourite way, that I should lighten up a bit. When I got back home and had the
Gremlin parked in the garage, I continued pondering, to the point where I think
I hurt my head. However, Bell Aliant stepped onto the stage to provide me with
just exactly the ammunition I needed to make this a sparkling, informative, and
entertaining column. (About time, you're thinking.)
The phone call was from my grade
2 teacher Mrs.Emily DeMerchant, 84, who had been moving some things around her
apartment and had found a file folder containing comments by her grade 3F
students in the days and weeks following the April 2, 1987 flood in
Perth-Andover. A few days later she lent me the materials. What a treasure
trove!
First, a little background: Emily
(I finally dare to call her by her first name) tried to teach me at Block X
School in Tilley; I’m not sure how successful she was, but I am sure of one
thing I learned at that one-room school I attended to the end of grade five –
Earlon Kinney taught me how to swear and do it right.
The first flood description in
the folder was from a girl we will call Leah, age 8. Here’s part of it,
describing what a certain farmer did when the flood hit. We’ll call him
Jackson. “He was in the Farmer Store when we had the flood. He through his
sandwich out the window when the train bridge collapsed…He was there with his
tractor and couldn’t get home with the tractor.”
This one is by Tony: “We had
a flood….Some people losted everything they had and the train bridge fall.
Their was some boxcars weighted it down.”
Brandy had this to say: “Aprpl 2
and 3 Perth Andover had a flood. There was 17 boxcars on the CPR railway to
hold it down but it was no use the train bridge train bridge let go. Mr.
Armstrong lost 20 cattle because they would not leve there cafes (calves). We
hope this appsely dose not happen agen.”
I am going to pause right now to
explain that I am not making fun of these children. They were only in grade
three, most of them about eight years of age, and they wrote some wonderful
descriptions of what had happened when the ice jam reached Perth-Andover. I
left in the spelling errors just to remind myself that they were kids; the
point is, they got their message across. Why else would Emily DeMerchant, who
taught school for many decades, save these and other students’ work? And
another thing: the penmanship was amazing. I’ll save my rant on that for another
column, but not many youngsters today are able to write so well.
Moving on, this short essay is
from Jason: “The water went very high, it went into peoples houses and ruined
most of their stuff. It also tore down the train bridge.”
Jessie had a localized take on
the disaster. “Perth Elementary School had a flood. There were fish in the
basement of the other school. Trudy Ranger the principal was talking on the
raido.”
Dale had a descriptive view of
the event: “Some of my friends in Perth-Andover have been swept out of their
homes by the flood the Saint John River. They will have new homes by the
flood.” He also has a nice drawing of the river, the Farmers’ Store, and an
apartment building with people in the upper floor and looking out.
Sasha explained that people
flooded out of their homes had to find somewhere else to go, such as the Galaxy
Motel, which I think by that time was officially called the Perth-Andover Motor
Inn. “Some houses were ruined and had to use the Galaxy. The water was so high
because of the ice melting. The peoples homes that were ruined had to go to
motels. I hope Perth-Andover never has a flood again.”
Rebecca talked about the flood in
Fort Fairfield, Maine, which since then has built a berm, a big wall next to
the Aroostook River, to hold back the flood waters. “There was a big clump of
ice in Fort Fairfield in back of Smith Sub Shop. Also there was a huge clump of
ice on the railroad track. The IGA was not wet but most of the stores over
there were wet.”
That is
just a sample of the essays or descriptions of the 1987 flood. They were all
great. No wonder Emily kept them, but I hope no one has to write such a description
this year.
-end-
No comments:
Post a Comment