Pre School and Extra Curricular Activities
by Ernie Walsh
NURSERY SCHOOL IN MERASHEEN
I was first subjected to pre-school activities at about the age of five. My sister Rosemary and my neighbour, Eileen Barry, would gather as many children as possible into the store loft to try to teach us numbers and letters.
Sometimes, they would send us to collect chainies (colourful pieces of broken glass worn smooth by being tossed around in the beach gravel). We placed them on the window sills for the sunlight to shine through them. The Little Merasheen crowd had great collections of chainies that they got from the back beach. At least I thought they did until one Sunday I saw the biggest collection that Gerard (Carter) Pomroy acquired out in the Back Cove. That was when he wore his hair long and curly.
Late one summer's day, Freddy Best and I walked down to Little Merasheen to look for Edward Hennessey. Mrs. Mary told us that Edward was over with Paul Wilson so we went looking for Paul. Mrs. Jane said Paul was out in the Sheep House so off we went to look for him. Well, we didn't have time to look before Paul's sister, Agnes, roared out to us, ‘Get in here and get in your seats!’ Agnes was having school with a big black board, chalk, duster, pointer and all. She was teaching about 15 other children their letters and spelling, etc. We didn't say anything but went quietly to our seats. We were too scared to get up and leave! Agnes kept us there for over two hours. We never found Paul or Edward nor did we go near that side of Little Merasheen again that summer.
In June of 1949, I was up by the School House on Soldier's Point. It was a fine warm day and the school door being open, I could hear what was going on inside. I listened intently by the door because I would be starting Grade One myself this coming September. Miss Marion Canning, the school teacher, saw me and beckoned me to come in. Miss Canning was trying to show motion pictures on the wall using an old projector that had a small kerosene or gas lamp as a light source. The projector was hot and smelly and I waited in anticipation for the image to appear on the wall but alas it wouldn't work properly. On this occasion the children were let go early. I saw the projector a few times after this but it never did work.
MR. FIX-IT AND HIS ASSISTANT
When I went to the Middle School for Grade IV to VII, my best friend for getting me out of the classroom was Wishie Ennis. Wish was three or four years older than I and whenever there was some carpentry work to be done in the classroom like fixing a broken desk or making new wooden coat hooks for the porch, Wish would keep after the teacher until she would let him play Mr. Fix-it. Of course, Wish would always say he needed helper and ask that I be allowed to assist him. I don't particularly know why Wish asked for me but I figured why question a good thing.
THE SAND BOX PROJECT
In Grade VI our teacher was Miss Marie Counsel from Red Island. Her first class project was to get everyone involved in making a farm yard. Wish and I made a wooden box measuring about 3 by 4 feet and about 6 inches high. The box was placed on a table in the corner of the room and was filled with sand. This became the barnyard grounds. Everyone was assigned with making one building or animal that could stand up in the sand. Miss Counsel needed someone to provide clean fine grain sand and I guess Freddy Best and I must have volunteered, or perhaps were assigned the task.
Well, we figured this was good for a half day out of school, so the first available fine day we borrowed Mr. Pats Hynes dory and rowed up to the Muddy Hole. We took four three gallon buckets and walked over the bog to the Back Cove beach and down over the steep banks. We soon realized the easy part of our task was over. It took us about an hour to “spell" our buckets of sand out of the beach and with spilling and re-filling, we spent another hour getting the heavy buckets back to the Muddy Hole.
Lo and behold the dory was aground and we had to wait for some time for the tide to rise. We had to go to the "Spout' for water as we were, by this time; parched. We didn't get back to the Mooring Cove until 5:30 PM about an hour and a half after school had ended for the day.
Miss Counsel and some of our class mates had been watching us land and promptly helped us carry the sand up to the school. The farm yard project was a terrific success and we were the envy of the rest of the school. I am pretty sure it was kept on display in the corner of the room all year long.
IN THE GLOW OF JACK-0-LANTERNS
On the 31st of October 1959, Hallowe'en night, we dressed in our costumes and took our little Jack-0-Lanterns up to the school. In the glow of these lights and aided by some kerosene lamps, Miss Counsel had a party for us. She had a galvanized wash tub set up about ten feet from the pot-bellied-stove and all the desks were moved to the walls of the classroom. The tub was filled with water in which about four dozen apples were floating. It was the first time I bobbed for apples although I had heard of the game before. It was a real bit of fun! Many were assisted with enthusiasm and a few heads were “accidentally" pushed under the water. The apples were surprisingly hard to capture but we all managed to get one eventually, ‘sposin’ they were handed to us by Miss Counsel.
SEARCHING FOR PALM ON MERASHEEN
Friday before Palm Sunday 1958, Edgar Wilson volunteered to go in over the hills and cut enough Palm boughs to be blessed on Palm Sunday Again, I don't know why we were so lucky, but Freddy Best and I were appointed to carry pick and shovel as we accompanied Edgar. Edgar took his axe and off we went early Friday morning.
There was still quite a bit of snow in the woods and we had to slog our way through digging where Edgar felt he knew palm boughs were growing. A great many holes were dug in the snow, some five feet deep but we never found even the tops of any kind of trees. We went all the way to Seven Island Pond but had no luck. We arrived home just before dark empty handed. There was a number of people gathered outside the Co-op store when we came out over the Big Hills. Edgar was smart and had taken a short-cut home leaving us to face the questions. ‘What!’ they said, ‘Gone all day long and no Palm?’
Paddy Jim Hann didn't have to wait too long to learn that we had come back with nothing. Saturday afternoon Paddy took an hour or so and went up on the back of the Big Hills and cut enough Palm boughs for Merasheen and Red Island. Boy were our faces evergreen!
DELIVERING OIL
Another task we half ways liked was when Father Anthony Fyme visited the high school and allowed those who wanted to take time off school to help roll twenty or thirty 45 gallon drums of stove oil, diesel, and kerosene from Uncle Jack Hann's wharf over to the Parish Hall in Little Merasheen. We knew it was hard work but just about all the boys volunteered.
Getting the drums up off the wharf was the tricky part as the rocks were ice covered and it was all up-hiIl. To get around Uncle Jack's house, we would have to roll the drums end over end as the way was narrow. Going up the hill in front of the Church at the crossroads was hard but coming down Connor's Height we had to hold back the full weight of the full drums and control them enough to keep them on the path.
The sound of the drums being rolled along the road made a terrible noise. As you can imagine, a few drums got away from their charges and bounded down the slopes crashing through into Mr. Joe Connors’ cabbage garden fence. Some drums rolled right through the garden, out across the Iandwash, and into the harbour.
I don't recall anyone being seriously hurt but I know that there were more than a few toes and even legs left battered and bruised. Those who could still walk OK had a much easier time rolling the empty drums on the trip back.
FORGIVE ME, FATHER
On Saturday morning after a strong storm had blown down the fence at the Parish Hall near Aunt Ettie and Uncle Ameilius Best's store, Father Charles Greene asked Freddy Best and me to repair it.
As luck would have it, I was having trouble driving a nail as Father Greene passed by. Seeing my difficulty, he stopped and asked if he could help by holding the nail. As he held onto the nail, I hauled back and gave the thing a good clout. I hit the nail and Father Greene's thumb a good smack! He pulled back quickly and stuck his thumb in his mouth. Neither he nor I could say anything for about two minutes. When he finally took his thumb out of his mouth he said ‘Ernie, I think you hit the wrong nail!’ Seeing as his thumb had already turned black I had to agree. For the next two weeks or so when I watched Father Greene say Mass as he raised the Chalice, I was given a sore reminder of how patient Father Greene could be.
THE DAYS OF ARCHES
Saturday, the week before Christmas, we would go cut evergreen boughs on the Boggy Marsh or on the Big Hill for decorating the inside of the Church. This type of decoration was done on other special occasions as well such as when the Bishop visited for Confirmations. The men and boys of the community would cut boughs and sticks and build archways with them.
I remember them being constructed in the Parish Hall at the south end of the Church on the road between Jack Barry's and Mr. Ned Hennessey's. There were also some built on Soldier's Point near
Wareham‘s Store.
RUNNING VALENTINES
Once the first of February came, our art classes in school were spent drawing and making our personalized Valentines. We would use plain white paper, brown paper, and coloured paper, even lined scribbler paper if that's all we had. We would decorate the front with artwork and make up verses for the inside. We usually made a Valentine for each classmate and a few others that we liked in the school room as well as our teachers, of course. On Valentines Day I would try to get to school early.
Our way of giving the Valentines involved hanging them on the person's chair back. As we made the Valentines with a loop of line on the corner, we could go around the classroom and hang the Valentines on the back of the person's chair. There might have been 10 or 15 hanging on each person's chair.
Of course, you tried to disguise your Valentine so that the person wouldn't know who gave it. We signed them, ‘Guess Who?", and because there were so many, you quickly lost track of who placed what Valentine among yours.
The most fun of the day came after supper, when we would go from door to door secretly hanging Valentines on other people's door knobs. We would knock loudly on the door or the corner of the house and run away as fast as we could. If possible, we hid behind a wood pile or shed to watch as the person come out of the house. We called this activity, ‘Running Valentines.’