Way, way back, when Moses was a pup, Momma was bred, born and brought up in a Franglish settlement. Say what? You know French and English….best place in the world to start cutting your teeth on politics, different faiths for One God, oh and hockey, their reason to be, French or English. It helped to have a self-deprecating sense of humor to survive the slings and arrows that may be heaped upon you if you dared cross that invisible line.
That is what made Momma what she is today…one foot on this side of the line while her other foot, just her toe really, creeps across the other side, always looking to make sure no one notices her boldness as she strains to see and understand the other side.
Small town life was good. The French and English had learned to live side by side in peace, intermarrying, sharing common family values although there were a few citizens who seemed to be still entrenched in the Battle of The Plains of Abraham. Some hard-headed Franglish refused to acknowledge the existence of the war or the changes that ensued, especially around land deeds. This, of course was a great source of amusement to the First Nation Mi’kmaks to whom the concept of owning Mother Earth was preposterous.
However, in Momma’s day, all that had been resolved. They only dark clouds on the horizon was a group who wanted to form their own country but truth be told, they never were much interested in country hicks. No, they went to the inner city to stir up excessive devotion to their culture and language. Farmers, fishermen, lumberjacks, mill workers, small business men….the likes that lived in our town, well, once they put in a day of hard labour, had no time, patience or even stomach for worrying about stirring up a kettle of trouble. Besides, they liked their neighbours, their friends, their community just the way it was, imperfect though it may be to an outsider looking in.
Yup, it was Shangri La…but not without slings and arrows. Sometimes the mindset of her own kin had Momma scratching her head. Momma’s sister, The Queen was about to marry the love of her life…who just happened to be so dear, so beloved and so French (aka as B-I-L: brother-in-law). One day B-I-L-To-Be was at a local bar and Momma’s uncle, WWII Sergeant came in and sat beside him.
B-I-L recognized Uncle WWII Sergeant and started a casual conversation. All of a sudden, looking for some stranger sympathy, Uncle WWII Sergeant said, ‘You know what. Can you believe it? My lovely niece is marrying a Blankety Blank (well, something like that). B-I-L-To-Be said, ‘Yeah, I know. She is marrying me.’ Never one to back down (Uncle WWII Sergeant had helped win the war, no less) said, ‘Huh, guess you are not so bad…for a Frenchman.’ Then, he chugged his beer and left, head high.
No doubt about it, Uncle WWII Sergeant was a curmudgeon. When The Queen worked at a Government Agency, Uncle WWII Sergeant would pass through three towns to come her office to apply for Unemployment Insurance every winter because no one else knew ‘nawthing about nawthing.’ When the other office workers (French or English) saw him coming, they would all go in hiding, calling out to The Queen, ‘Hurry. Quick. Your uncle is here.’ No one surfaced until he left because he could bawl them out in French, English and a bit of German and Italian mixed in, just to confuse them. After a while Uncle WWII Sergeant asked Momma’s sister if everyone else had been fired (justifiably so, he thought) because his niece, The Queen was the only one who could get those idiots at the Ministry to part with the money he had been robbed of, when he was working.
Trust me. Life is a lottery, says Momma. It is not like she stuck a pin in the globe and said, ‘I want to live there.’ No, sometimes, just like me and all our cats, you just get lucky.
Hasta La Vista, Baby….you never can tell….maybe you will get lucky too.
