The Day I was Born

By Heman Harris

         It was just another cold December night, snow blowing, and a fierce wind coming in off the ocean. The old battery operated radio would be clear one moment, telling of another ship torpedoed off the coast. Then the winds would crackle through the lines and nothing but static came from the speakers, but no one would dare try to fix the old box for fear it would go off altogether.

      Sitting around the room, lit by lamps flickering their yellow light, was an old man whose face was weathered from the elements and lines that seemed to show hidden strength from within, but now held another thought as he looked around the room. First his brother Tom, a dozen years younger, but still had the toughness of sea living. There was John his oldest son now nineteen. Ray, the next son holding his sister’s hand. Fred, an old sea captain whose wife Maude, was upstairs with mother, who was about to give birth.
      The year was 1941 in Port-aux-Basque Newfoundland, where winters were hard and constant. Breaking through the wind howling its rage upon the land, came a shrill cry of a new soul brought into the cold world, responding to the sound smack of the mid-wife. The arrival was heard in the room below, and all eyes turned upwards towards the door leading above. Slowly the door opened and a tired, round but smiling face appeared and quietly spoke. “It’s a by Rube, and Alice is fine.”
     She waddled over to the stove and sat in the ancient rocking chair, and asked what the latest news was.
      “Fer as we kin tell all ands are lost to sea,” came back the reply, more like a sigh than words. The mood was one of silence and expectancy. No one spoke, and the only sound was the mid-wife rocking herself slowly to sleep.
      Fred was the first to break the silence when he asked, “Wat ya gonna call em Rube?”
     After a moment the older man turned slowly, his eyes appearing not to see, “wat am I gonna call wat?”  He half spoke to himself, wiping away a dark stain of chewing tobacco from his mouth.
      “Your son Rube. He was just borned. Ya got a name fer em?” Fred was trying to sound gay, but under the dark mood, it came out too sharp, causing the others now to look at Rube, waiting to see if the boy would be named.
      “Ell of a time fer a babe to be born. People sinking out there in the damn ice water. Damn Germans, killing people, and what fer. Ain’t none of us gone to war with the damn Germans. That’s the third ship this month, and they ain’t carrying only passengers. People just trying to get home fer the new year is all. Damn Germans anyway,” his voice trailed off, but you could see the tired old eyes welling up with tears. A face that had many hardships in it’s time, and had come to face them down. But now it was something else. Something that tore from within, a pain so deep it might tear the body apart, if that body was not accustomed to torment.
       “Come on Rube and ‘ave some tea,” came the course, but somehow soft, plea of Fred’s wife as she rose from the rocker. “Ain’t no good to think about it, less we know fer shore.”
      Rube walked to the old wood stove, lifted the damper, and for a moment the room was filled with a leaping flash of light from within. Spitting the chaw of tobacco into the opening, he slid back the damper and spoke, more to himself than anyone in the room,  “Gonna see Alice,” and his usually tall straight form, slouched to the hall door and disappeared upstairs.                                  
     The room was silent for a short while with only the wood cracking in the stove and the wind howling like something from the bowels of hell trying to find a way in. Sleet was hitting the windows making a sound like someone scraping.
      “You shore they said it was the Cabot that went down?” asked the mid-wife.
      “Fer as we ken tell from that damn old radio. They seys they picked up er calling fer
 elp nie fifty miles off the Banks. She’s lost shore as ’ell,” Fred drawled, and all the while staring at the old square box that was spitting and crackling on the shelf, as though it was the blame for the whole damn war.      
         “People ’ears to much these days, ain’t good to ’ear too much. God knows when we was out there on the Banks, nobody knew if we was live or dead till we come back in. That’s the way it should be too.”
            The three children, John, Ray and Melita had fallen asleep on the day bed, and Maude covered each one with a quilt made by hand by their mother.
      “Tis a damn shame to loss three uncles and two half cousins in the same night,” said Maude. “Even if they did get a new brother. But that’s the way the  Lord works sometimes.”
      The next morning Rube was up at his usual time of 5 o’clock. He put wood on the almost dead coals, then pouring a cap full of kerosene on top he threw in a lit wooden match. Soon the fire was blazing and the morning chill would be gone. He went to the pantry where a water bucket, filled with ice water sat. Taking the dipper that hung on the side, Rube filled the teapot almost to the top and sat it on the back of the stove. Getting a hand full of loose tea, he lifted the lid and poured the tea into the two gallon teapot for the days brew. He went about the morning chore of getting breakfast for the family, and Capt Fred and his wife, who he found asleep in the downstairs room. The room was used quite often since the damn war had started. Someone was always dropping in.
      The old man was as much at home making the family meal as he was rowing the twelve foot dorey out for a days fishing. He was a tall man, six foot in his sock feet and as straight as an oak beam. His age of forty-eight led you to believe a man much older by his stock of pure white hair. He claimed his hair turned from dark brown to white when he was nineteen years old.  His whole existence belonged to the sea. He left home at the age of nine to work on the boats. Old sail riggers in them days, he used to say, and chewed tobacco from age ten. He said, one time they had to sail around the horn and he had gotten so damn seasick he almost fell overboard several times. An old sea hand gave him a plug of tobacco to chew on to keep from getting seasick. “ Damn terbaccy made me so sick, I forgot about being seasick, and I chewed it ever since. Ain’t as good as the old days tho.” he said.
      He met and married Alice in Rose Blanche in 1919, and settled down in his father’s house in Port-aux-Basque. Alice was slight of frame and only five foot two, but had the warm gentleness and inner strength that women had to have, to service in a world craved out by hand, and relying on the open sea for a living.
      The town of Port-aux-Basque was no more than a fishing village in a sheltered cove on the coast of Newfoundland. It’s deep channel would allow ships of great tonnage into her harbor. The masts of fishing scooners were always on display. Port--aux-Basque was the closest port from the mainland of Nova Scotia. The hundred miles of the north Atlantic waters were a constant threat from the German U-boats and subs, taking their toll of ships coming and going from the island.
      As Rube sat by the stove warming himself, he remembered it was only three days ago he had bid good-bye to his three brothers and the husbands of his two cousins. They had hurried up the gangplank of the Cabot I, on their way to Boston, to spend New Years on the mainland. They would be back, God willing, in early spring.
      “Well if the radio was right, I guess God didn’t mean for ’em to come back to us,” he sighed to himself, and felt the emptiness only a man losing part of his family can feel.
      The sea looked after those who came to her. Giving from her depths the food needed by man for his family. A vast array of fish, shell fish and kelp that was used in mending the sick. Even wood was carried from place to place for man to pick up and use as fuel. The sea could be a witch that had to be watched at all times. Even as she gave of herself, she was always waiting, for someone to abuse her or make a mistake. When they did , she would take as many souls as she could. Now men were carrying war upon her back, and she took from both sides, caring little, as she knew neither right or wrong side. Young and old alike perished in her freezing waters. But the men who when down to the sea knew this, and agreed when they were born, to live by her rules. These rules were passed down from his father and his father before him.  There was nothing to do but to thank God for his new son, and pray those that had been taken found a place in heaven above.
      The old man was brought from his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder, and a voice say “morning pop, what is our brothers name to be ?”
      When everyone was settled around the large kitchen table, and the morning grace had been said, Rube spoke, directing his words to the three children. “Your brother’s name is AMON, same as in the bible.” After Rube finished speaking, and each one had repeated the name, there was silence as no one spoke while eating.
       It was a full week after the boy was born when the preacher came to the house. He came to console the family, knowing the news from the radio, and to offer help if he could. While he was there he would make out a birth certificate for the child, and register him.
      The minister was a man educated in Canada, the mainland, and as a lot of the villagers would say, “Ya kin’t understand half of wot he sez.” While this was true for them, it was also true he couldn’t understand half of what they said either.
       “Name please?” asked the minister.
      “Amon Arri,” replied Rube.
     The minister knew Arris was spelled with an H, to make Harris so, Amon must also start with an H, and Heman was written down. With all the confusion on the night of the birth, no one could remember the time or exactly what day it was.  Oh, the things a man of God had to put up with, no wonder they needed another pastor. With everything going on, he would probably be here a good spell. If he could only understand the people. Even his housekeeper mumbled to herself half the time, and he didn’t have the foggiest idea what she was saying. The people would say ’ed for head, ’and for hand, ’ill for hill. He figured there weren’t any H’s in the language till his housekeeper, by-oiled two heegs fer breakfast. Oh well, they were God-fearing people and the community was all for one and one for all in time of need. Surely God would help him learn the language….