April, 1970

Bay Roche was a settlement created over 200 years ago when the British tried to purge the area of all French settlers. The French, fearing reprisals, hid themselves away in tiny coves and inlets: not too far from good fishing grounds, but hopefully out of reach of the British. The whole coastline was dotted with small villages bearing French names. It was much more the fish that dictated where these settlers lived rather than geography. How else to explain why people would choose such an untenable hillside to turn into a town. Decades later the French were patriated when France signed over all authority in the area to the British. And in doing so the settlers lost there nationality, language and religion. They did, however, keep the fish and this sustained them up until the present day when a modern fish processing facility would be built that would bring our family here. We are all a part of history.

After two months here the family is still a bit frazzled from the move. My Sister Sharon, despite kicking up the most fuss about moving, is having a better time of it at she counts down the days until she goes to university in the Fall. She has decided to go to a university in city a thousand miles away so her stay in Bay Roche would be relatively brief. In the meantime she is enjoying her star status in her senior high school class. It does bear mentioning, however, that there are only three other students in the Bay Roche senior high school class.

My mother and father are not having as good a time as my father bears the weight of my mother’s displeasure of being in Bay Roche. My father has his job to keep himself busy and while he does not report to like or dislike his work, it does afford him a daily distraction. My mother, on the other hand, has a house that still needs settling which only stands to remind her of the move itself. One of the biggest irks my mother endures is that the local store carries none of the brands of food she likes (or at least used to) and she is told constantly that there is a Grandy Mart in Val Bois, a town about 6 miles by water. The ferry runs back and forth a few days of the week between Bay Roche and Val Bois. Oddly, it was this minor inconvenience that prompted my mother to demand that the family boat be brought to Bay Roche from our home town and that she be instructed on how to pilot. For a woman whose lifetime fear of drowning was family legend, this comes as not a little shock. In the coming months my mother learned how to pilot the small longliner and this would serve as her substitute for the family car. My mother was a very skilled captain.

Hit from April, 1970
Your Song, by Elton John