Robert Hunt - Brazil Street: A memoir

BRAZIL STREET

A Memoir

ROBERT HUNT

Flanker Press Limited

St. Johns

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Hunt, Robert J., 1949-, author

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77117-601-9 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-77117-602-6 (epub).--

ISBN 978-1-77117-603-3 (kindle).--ISBN 978-1-77117-604-0 (pdf)

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from Library and Archives Canada.

2017 by Robert Hunt

All Rights Reserved. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any meansgraphic, electronic or mechanicalwithout the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.

Printed in Canada

Cover Design by Graham Blair

Cover photo courtesy of City of St. Johns Archives: Photo no. 01-68-001

Flanker Press Ltd.

PO Box 2522, Station C

St. Johns, NL

Canada

Telephone: (709) 739-4477 Fax: (709) 739-4420 Toll-free: 1-866-739-4420

www.flankerpress.com

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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF ) and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. Lan dernier, le Conseil a investi 157 millions de dollars pour mettre de lart dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Dedication

When I was a young man, my mother told me that the key to life was to be happy. When I went to school they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down happy. They told me that I did not understand the assignment. I told them that they did not understand life.

Author unknown

The above quote could be attributed to my brother Angus. He was always happy. Honestly, Ive never really seen him sad. So, to my close friend and youngest brother, who passed away on November 27, 2015, you were one of the quietest, gentlest, and nicest people that I have ever met. You were all that anyone could ever want in a brother. You were always there when we needed you, and Eddy, Calvin, and I will miss you as we miss your older brother Hubert, when he left us two years ago. You both will forever have a place in our hearts, and one day I am sure we will all meet again in a better place. Your best friend and buddy, Hubert, and you are finally together again and, I am sure, laughing at us all. God bless you, Ank. You were a good man.

* * * * *

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

Lao Tzu

This book is also dedicated to my friend Stephen Phillips, who left this world on August 28, 2015. He was a uniquely good man who put his family first and everything else second. A gentleman of true character in all he did. A truly wonderful person and a great friend.

The above quote is so true of Steve. He knew who he was and lived his life accordingly. If life is meant to be lived to the fullest, then he had a jump on everyone. If heaven is truly the place where we will all one day rest, then I have no doubt that he has arrived there before me. Rest in peace, Steve. You will be forever missed.

Contents

Preface

Everyone has a book inside him. Now that I have my memoirs on paper, I realize that this is true. A friend once told me that life goes by so quickly that it is but a blink of an eye. How right he was: my life seemed to go quickly, from a little boy of six years old living on Brazil Street to sixty-eight years of age. When I was twenty-one and full of life, I thought that sixty-eight described old people, and now I am one of those same old people. As it turned out, my life has been pretty good. I have no complaints.

One time a lady, after reading my books, emailed me asking how I recalled all the things that I had written in my memoirs. I hadnt thought about it much, but when I did I realized you can remember precise things from the past if you allow yourself the time to sit and think about them. Some of those things from the past were good and some were bad, but they are still wonderful memories.

When I started writing my first memoir, Corner Boys , I had some trouble remembering things from that era until I decided to do an outline. As my second memoir, Townies , evolved, and now, as this third materialized, I realize that reliving all of those events from years gone by was a fantastic experience. The exercise made me look back at what I did in those years, who I was, and what kind of person I turned out to be.

Here again are stories about my friends and me as we grew up in St. Johns in the 1950s and 1960s. I have enjoyed so much these past few years putting them all on paper, to tell everyone what life was like during the early days of my youth. Starting out, all I wanted to do was show my children and future generations how we lived.

For the cover of Townies , I used a picture of children that was taken by an unknown photographer while they were looking down Casey Street toward New Gower Street, onto Water Street, to the waterfront, and then toward the harbour. To the right in that picture is Brazil Square, which was always the centre of all activity by those people who came into the city for business or pleasure. As kids, that corner, where we lived, and Water Street were the centre of our universe. To the left is the tail end of Brazil Street, the area where my friends and I grew up. The two streets, Brazil Street and Brazil Square, were often confused as one and the same. Whoever named them must have had quite a chuckle about it.

All the houses and buildings in this picture, except for George Street United Church on the corner of Gower Street and Buchanan Street, which is located on the lower right, are long gone. The Delta Hotel now stands on this site. The small house on the left-hand side of Brazil Street was Frank Fossie Furlongs store, which is the black house to the left in the picture. Farther left of that house was where the Hann family lived for years, and then there were the two houses where Dickie White and I lived. That corner was our domain, where we congregated and had our meetings about life and the things that interested us. It used to be Kevin Kings store, years before Fossie took it over. It proudly stood there as our gathering place for years before it was torn down, I believe, around 1974.

For years on that corner we talked about everything that we had learned in our young lives. Good and bad. Here we talked of parents, authority, friends and bullies, girls and neighbours, Irish Christian Brothers and priests, those people who had died, and those who were still among the living. Nothing was sacred on our corner. We didnt learn everything from our local News Cavalcade on CJON, but we usually got an education talking to one another on our corner.

Whites Snack Bar and barbershop to the right of the picture stood prominently at the top of Brazil Square. Next to it there always seemed to be a van, which the Harris barbershop family owned. Toward the right again and near end of Brazil Square was another empty lot in between two homes that one time heralded Eddys Boarding House. Next to that was Bob Glascos Meat Market, where I worked part-time while going to school. To the immediate left was Jack Kidneys shoe-repair shop.