Truro beckoned first. There we reconnected with
She-But-for-Whom-I-Wouldn’t-Be-Here. Cruising smoothly toward her 91st
birthday, Doris remains a continuing joy. Having watched every CBC broadcast of
the World Cup, she supplied me with well-considered views about the best and
worst moments of the big event and informed commentary on my view that the
great Lionel Messi deserved the Golden Boot he was awarded for being judged the
World Cup’s best performer.
We went to Halifax to exploit the hospitality of Sheila
and Stephen, my cultivated and long-serving Haligonian friends. I sought and
received the benefit of Stephen’s expertise in monumental white bronze. A
euphemism of choice among folks who thought there was a new way to make a buck
from grief and loss, ‘white bronze’ is actually humble zinc. Back in the 1880s
an American firm began manufacturing grave-markers from zinc, claiming they
would outlast any other headstone medium, whether sandstone, marble or granite.
The claim was not empty: close on a century and a half after they were first
installed, white bronzes are as vivid, crisp and clear as the day they were
installed—impervious to just about anything save and except vandalism. Walk
into an 1880s-era cemetery having a white bronze or three and you will find
they leap off the page.
At hoary Camp Hill Cemetery in Halifax Stephen led me to
some of the best and most elaborate white bronzes I have laid eyes on. Granted,
yes, white bronze is a niche interest not likely to grab everyone’s eyeballs
but I felt as gratified as a four-year-old on Christmas morning.
We moved on to Amherst Shore where, as usual, we were
accorded a greeting as exultant as any we ever receive. There Garth and Carole
preside much as Joe and Rose Kennedy once did over a compound rich with
children and grandchildren. We hung out with most of their dozen descendants
and a sprawling cast of siblings, nieces, nephews and who-knows-whom. I
delighted in a pedagogical role: helping Garth convey the rudiments of the card
game Hearts to grandsons Ty and
Malcolm, aged 12 and 11. The lads were gratified beyond all reckoning with the
tutelage: you might have imagined we’d handed them the keys to the Ottawa Mint.
Garth indulged my wish to take a look at the Amherst
Cemetery on the off chance it might feature a white bronze or two. Holy cow!
There were fully eight to study, photograph
and ponder.
We crossed the New Brunswick line to take in the peep
show at Dorchester Cape. No, not that
sort of peep show. Birders know peeps as
a genus of small sandpipers, including semi-palmated sandpiper. Every year in
July masses of these sparrow-sized shorebirds gather to feed along the margins
of the Bay of Fundy. The draw is the abundant refueling opportunities Fundy
affords as the birds migrate to their faraway winter grounds. At Dorchester
Cape the Nature Conservancy provides a viewing platform enabling birdoes to
ogle the spectacle. We watched clouds of peeps, some I estimated at
seven-thousand-strong wheeling to and fro along the shore of Shepody Bay. Such
hordes attract birds with different feeding interests: peregrine falcon,
American kestrel, northern harrier.
At Great Village a sad event generated an otherwise
gratifying outcome. A crowd of relatives and friends gathered at the United
Church to bid farewell to my sister Nancy’s mother-in-law, Donalda. I am among
the legions who not only liked Donalda MacLachlan Nelson but also held her in
high regard. Sadness was mitigated by other emotions. In her 99th
year Donalda was ‘ready to go’ and did not depart this mortal coil kicking and
screaming. After the upstairs formalities we gathered in the church basement
among many familiar faces, sharing fond memories of the dearly departed.
We headed back to Cape Breton but not before making a
detour. A hundred years ago this week the guns of August began barking along
what would be called the Western Front of the Great War. The timing seemed
right to take a short side trip to Westville, to see what I still consider the
finest community war memorial in all of Canada: Emanuel Hahn’s grieving
soldier, in bronze, beside the town post office. Do yourself a favour: the next
time you’re headed to Cape Breton on Highway 104 take Exit 23 to Westville and
behold Hahn’s masterwork. I promise you’ll be glad you did.
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