Memories
It Always Snowed On Christmas Eve: Memories of a Christmas Past
As a kid growing up in the eighties, in the time of wood-paneled walls and party lines, Christmas held a special place in my heart. The holiday season, with its sparkling lights and the excitement of Santa’s arrival, was pure magic. The anticipation of Christmas, for me, always began with the arrival of the Sears…
Read MoreThe House That Built Me: Memories of My Grandmother’s Home in Keenans
As the famous song once said, “A House is not A Home,” but this one certainly was. It was a place where memories were made, stories were shared, and love was felt. It was a place where family gathered for Sunday dinners and Christmas Eve gift openings. It was a place where neighbors became friends,…
Read MoreMemories of the Old Store
This story was originally printed in Bread n Molasses magazine and gives the history of an old general store in Barnettville (the former Darlene’s Tea House). Memories of the Old Store By Franklin & Lorraine Lebans, Barnettville In the early years when Mr. & Mrs. (British Nathaniel) Underhill were running the store, they would order…
Read MoreMemories of Mama: A Tribute to My Grandmother
“Where should we start?” she asks while rocking in her rocking chair, sipping her tea, with both her dogs curled around her feet. “At the beginning, I suppose”, I reply. And so it begins. It was the spring of 1922; May 27th to be exact. At a little house near “The Forks”, where the Cains…
Read MoreThe Memories Endure
The story began sixty-four years ago with three-year-old Pat Fournier sharing his earliest memories of the quaint little village he called home. For the past thirty seven weeks, we followed Pat’s story as he progressed from a five-year-old boy wearing a cartoon mask from the back of a corn flakes box, to an eighteen-year-old graduate…
Read MoreWhat’s My Size?!
While preparing for his upcoming senior prom, eighteen-year-old Pat Fournier has an uncomfortable run-in with the town pharmacist, Cecil Dunne, in this story set in June of 1965. “What’s My Size?!” is the thirty-fifth installment of Pat’s memoir, “Memories of a Boy Growing Up in Blackville”. The following story may contain mature subject matter. Reader…
Read MoreAnother Boy in a Casket
On a late November night in 1964, the Fournier family is awakened with news of a tragic accident: their cousin Pat McLaughlin had been killed in a fatal car crash less than a mile from home. Another Boy in a Casket is the thirty-fourth installment of Pat Fournier’s memoir, “Memories of a Boy Growing Up…
Read MoreCar Thief
It’s the Spring of 1964 and seventeen-year-old Pat Fournier is anxious to get his driver’s license. In the thirty-second installment of his memoir, Memories of a Boy Growing Up in Blackville, Pat ‘borrows’ the family car with unexpected consequences. CAR THIEF Written by Pat Fournier May, 1964 – seventeen years old The second-hand blue Vauxhall…
Read MoreThe French Lesson
Sixteen-year-old Pat Fournier is growing up. In the thirtieth installment of his memoir, Memories of a Boy Growing Up in Blackville, Pat recalls an uncomfortable situation that occurs in Avila Colford’s grade ten French Class. The following story contains subject matter and language that some readers may find offensive. Reader discretion is advised. THE FRENCH…
Read MoreThe Paint Job
It’s a Saturday night in the summer of 1963 at Frenette’s restaurant where a local prankster is entertaining the crowd outside. But first, the twenty-ninth installment of Pat Fournier’s memoir kicks off in March 1958 as the same prankster is the star of the show at the annual St. Patrick’s Day concert. So who is…
Read MoreGrandpa and the Buttons
It’s the summer of 1963 and Pat Fournier’s Sturgeon grandparents are down from Dalhousie for a visit. In the next installment of his memoir, the sixteen year old boy recalls his Dad’s retelling of a story about Barry MacKenzie to his visiting family in “Grandpa and the Buttons”. GRANDPA AND THE BUTTONS Written by Pat…
Read MoreMemories of War: Byron & Ella Curtis
In late January, I was approached by the Blackville Women’s Institute and asked to participate in their Heritage Day celebrations. Heritage Week is celebrated in communities throughout New Brunswick each year. This years theme was New Brunswick Remembers: 1914-2014, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War and the…
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