Large Fierce Mammal

At left – Actress Kim McGuire in the role of “Hatchet Face” in the 1990 John Waters movie Cry-Baby. The movie postdates the events described here. My utterance had nothing whatsoever to do with Ms. McGuire’s characterization.

I know it will be hard for most of my readers to believe, but I sometimes succumb to a capricious urge to fuck with people. This goes back to childhood when I used to experiment on my sister, but that’s a story for another article.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. I was walking along the Halifax waterfront one sunny day in 1976 when I observed a confused looking man on the sidewalk ahead of me, alternately staring at a map and squinting across the harbour in the direction of Dartmouth. As I drew near he fixed his attention on me and approached holding the map in one hand while pointing toward Dartmouth with the other. When within earshot, and in heavily accented English, he called out, “DART – MOUTH!” He said it just like I spelled it, not “Dartmuth” the way us locals do.

Immediately assuming a manner of mild umbrage, I quickened my pace and rapidly closed the distance. As I came within a few feet of the man, I leaned in to make close eye contact and spat, “HATCHET FACE!” through clenched teeth.

On another day many years later, when my security business was based in Lunenburg, I had spent a long, hot twelve hours on a project site in the Annapolis Valley and was nearing the much anticipated end of my drive home. Approaching an intersection just outside Lunenburg, I was forced to brake suddenly as a large dark blue car with Quebec plates blew the stop sign and hurtled toward town. Driving was a sunglassed doofus with an ugly white hat pulled down low on his brow and a cigarette dangling from his lip who seemed completely oblivious to my presence but I, as they say, marked the cut of his jib. About an hour later, returning home from a grocery store run, the same car driven by the same doofus blew the stop sign in front of the Knot Pub forcing me to take evasive action yet again.

Now starting to lose my sense of humour about all this, I drove home, dropped off my groceries, and decided to walk to the Knot Pub for supper and refreshment. Arriving I found only a handful of regulars clustered around the bar so I joined them and related the events I had just experienced. As I finished my story I observed a large blue car parking across the street. The Gods can be exceptionally kind to the deserving.

My Quebec friend exited his vehicle and stepped squinting into the pub where he stood just inside the door and yelled in a voice as annoying as his driving style, “Where can I find some fun around here?”

Before anyone could speak I replied, “Oh, you need to go to Halifax for that. There’s no fun here.”

To their credit, my comrades were silent, each one suddenly  finding something of enormous interest in the depths of his beer glass.

“How do I get to Halifax?” said the man.

And so, I gave him detailed directions on how to get to the community of Blue Rocks where, I assured him, he could find the most efficient route to Halifax via the ferry that ran every hour. The picture above right shows a beautiful view of the historic Blue Rocks Ferry Terminal in all its glory.

Likewise to their credit, everybody in the pub kept their composure until Mr. Quebec had driven away. When the hysterical laughter finally subsided, somebody expressed concern for my safety after the guy’s inevitable discovery that he’d been played, but when I left the pub two hours later with still no sign of him, I had to assume that either the ferry was late or he actually found one and got on it. Either way, I haven’t seen him since.

Anyone familiar with Lunenburg knows that Lunenburg Academy is visible from pretty much every outdoor vantage point. They also find no surprise in the fact that the Academy grounds is bordered on two sides by the Hillcrest Cemetery. Looking like anything but a school, it confuses the hell out of visitors, and I personally have been asked to identify its purpose countless times. One day as I was walking the back harbour trail with my dog Cinders, I was approached by a couple who were obviously Americans. The man was a little standoffish but, as I am a fount of manly goodness that effectively blinds prey to my evil nature, his wife drew near. She asked what the big building on the hill was all about. When I informed her that it was the elementary school I heard her husband snort in disbelief as a look of doubt came over his wife’s face. Finally driven to speak, the man said, “If it’s a school, why does it have a cemetery around it?”

Turning my gaze to him I replied, “It’s a tough school.” They may both be still standing there as far as I know. More likely they got out of town in a hurry, but probably not as fast as the people I’ve convinced that the Academy was the actual setting for many of the works of the Marquis de Sade.

Anyone who enjoys Celtic styles of music has heard of the band called The Irish Descendants, and has most likely tapped a foot or two to their arrangement of that campfire classic, Rattlin’ Bog. Now I can do a pretty creditable job of singing that ditty myself and I can assure you that it’s a perishable skill that needs to be practiced regularly to avoid personal injury in mid-song. In truth, it’s as much an exercise in muscle memory as in musical vocalization.

Anyway, once while visiting in Florida, this skill of mine became quite celebrated. Particularly so when I managed to convince my audience that everybody in Nova Scotia could sing Rattlin’ Bog because it was taught to them in elementary school alongside Oh Canada and God Save the Queen. I will admit that I risked stretching the bounds of credibility when I added that police in the Maritimes often use the singing of Rattlin’ Bog as a sobriety test, and that if you are stopped in suspicion of impaired driving but could sing the song all the way through without making a mistake, they would let you go with a warning, but I was on a roll. It’s been said that Americans are good naturedly ignorant about Canada while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States. While I can boast no quantitative research that proves this, it matches my own observations, and I hope soon to hear a favourable response on my application for a research grant.

Lastly, here’s one you can have fun with this summer, especially if you live anywhere near Sudbury, Ontario. It’s a well known fact that nickel mining is an important component of the Canadian economy. Less well known is that the one in Sudbury is the biggest we’ve ever found.