Friendship needn’t be of long duration to be deeply rooted
and blithe. In just a few years Amherst Shore, just inside the New Brunswick
border on Nova Scotia’s balmy Northumberland Shore, has become a favourite
destination. It is at Amherst Shore we are accorded a gold-standard welcome by
Garth and Carole. Just as if we are people cherished and well regarded.
The first morning is an inclement one but that is not a
problem: everyone is compelled to offer at least one proposal for a rainy day
activity. Mine I consider worthy: an historical ramble among the headstones at
Amherst’s old cemetery, perhaps with umbrellas in hand. The suggestion gets no
support whatsoever. Another idea, Jan’s, carries the day unanimously: let’s go bowling. Garth actually does
bowl, regularly, but for the rest of us an errant gutter ball is but a distant
memory. The sympathetic custodian of the Amherst alley suggests we might
appreciate the lane to the far right – the one meant principally for children,
with bumper-deflectors in the gutters, kind-hearted devices ensuring that no
ball is wasted, no tender ego trashed before its time.
The ensuing action offered further evidence – as if
additional proof were necessary – that a 70-year-old body is no facsimile of its
teenaged antecedent. We played two strings. Even with the deflectors I managed
only a 62 in the first string but improved all the way to 71 in the second. The
best score was Jan’s 95. Always uxorious, pride in my mate’s prowess swelled
all the more. Garth and I established an exclusive new secret society, the Club
of One. In the same frame, despite the gutter deflectors, we felled just a
single pin. How is that possible? Three balls, no gutters, one pin. My
submission: if we tried to repeat the
feat it couldn’t be done.
Bowling evidently uses muscles untested by other activities.
The following day and for two more thereafter I couldn’t walk painlessly. Thigh
muscles grumbled loudly especially on downward steps. Who knew that two strings
of bowling could be as taxing as an assault on Everest.
We celebrated Canada Day at Pugwash, where salt is still
mined and the street signs are bilingual – English and Gaelic – a place Cyrus
Eaton made world-famous in the 1950s and 60s. We patronized the community
market then joined the madding crowd of patriots sporting maple leaf tattoos
and waving paper flags.
Cyrus Eaton was a native Pugwashian – is that a valid word?
– who made his fortune as an industrialist in Cleveland, Ohio, a place now best
known as the playground of the incomparable LeBron James. Cyrus earned the
undying enmity of the American right wing by dedicating himself to disarmament
and reducing the threat of nuclear obliteration. He organized regular
conferences of scientists and thinkers from both sides of the Iron Curtain,
seeking to replace trust and cooperation for suspicion and animosity. He was
reviled as a commie dupe for his efforts. We went to Eaton’s Thinkers’ Lodge, studied
the interpretive panels, quietly paid homage to the great peace-seeker.
Chez Christie is a magnet for crowds of friends and
relatives. Our pals have three children each having three of their own: nine grandchildren if you’ve been paying
attention. The steady flow of young ‘uns persuades even a lazy observer that G
& C must be pretty good grandparents.
Friends drop by too. I was particularly enchanted by two,
brothers. One is a big fan of Donald Trump, the other quite the opposite. Gentle
reader, you will be able to deduce which I preferred.
Jan has a hard-and-fast rule: like fish, visits have a natural
three-day limit. Our hosts tried mightily to persuade us that no such rule
applies in our case but we departed anyway, consoling ourselves that the next
time we moot an appearance at Amherst Shore the welcome mat might still be out.
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