It turned out that there was a lot to see and do at our cottage.We were located on the Northumberland Strait, more or less across from Charlottetown,Prince Edward Island.On clear days you could see all the way across.With a pair of binoculars,you could even see some of the farmers fields,with their red mud.There was an Island out into the strait a bit too,that kind of looked like a beaver.It turns out that the island was called Saddle Island,and a few years later,I had occasion to visit there.In the near distance,there yet another island,called Oak Island.This is not,the more famous Oak Island where there is said to be buried Pirates treasure.Or at least it's not the one that people have been digging up for years to find that treasure.This Oak Island is very much intact,with no deep holes dug into it's surface anywhere.What is unique about it though,is that at low tide,it.s really not an island at all.When the water recedes,it is connected to the mainland,and you can walk across to the island.There are tidal pools that you have to walk through,but they're not deep,and the distance is short enough that there is plenty of time to get there and back before the tide comes back in.
We took a few walks over to the island while we stayed at the cottage,and along the way we got to learn a lot about life along the shoreline.There were plenty of creatures there,and a lot of them were good to eat,so we would be out on the sand flats between the island and the mainland digging up clams.Usually we would dig them with an empty half clam shell,but sometimes with a shovel too.There was a kind of clam that you had to be careful digging because it was long and had very sharp edges.This clam was called a razor clam,for reasons that would be totally obvious if you were ever to see one.Lots of times I've cut my hands trying to dig one out of the sand.There were also crabs laying about in the sand.Most were small.not large enough to eat,and nobody I knew at the time ever bothered with eating crabs anyway,because lobster was easily available,not nearly as expensive as it is today,and considered to be much better than crab. The gulls would eat crabs,though.Gulls would eat just about anything,even our garbage,if we didn't take it to the dump every few days.I found out too,that gulls had a unique way of opening clams.If they could not pry a clam open with their beak,they would fly above some rocks with the clam,then drop it onto the stones,smashing the shell to pieces.My mother pointed this out to us the first time we were walking over to the island.
If you stood facing the water,on the opposite side from the island was a long finger of land called Smith's point.Together with the point on the island,they formed a sheltered cove,and our cottage was at the deepest part of the cove.So it was ideal for swimming in.The water in the Northumberland Strait is quite warm in summer,and,by midsummer the jellyfish have completed their migrations,so it's a good place to pass a summer afternoon.The beach right in front of our cottage was fairly rocky,but we could find lots of nice sand without having to walk too far.So we spent lots of time in the water over that two weeks.
Up the road a ways,there was a berry patch.Mostly it was a big bramble patch with a lot of raspberries,but there were some other things growing in there too.All the time we were there we were picking raspberries,and eating them for dinner.But my mother had in mind to pick some wild cherries too,because she wanted to try making some homemade wine.There were not a lot of cherry trees,but the ones that were there were loaded with fruit,and it didn't take long to fill up buckets.The cherries were not really much good to eat,being among the sourest things I've ever tasted,but my mother thought that it wouldn't matter,since the recipe for wine called for a lot of sugar.
Over our time at the cottage ,there are two events in particular that stand out in my mind.The first involved a very big surprise just after breakfast one morning.The second was a misadventure on my part.In fact,it was among the worst things I've ever done in my life,and I should have gotten into deep trouble for it.But I didn't.
One morning,just as we were all finishing up breakfast,we heard a loud,a very loud noise outside.It was the unmistakable sound of a helicopter,but it was very nearby.Much closer and louder than any helicopter I'd ever heard before.When we went out into the yard,we saw that the helicopter,the kind with two big rotors,was in fact flying right along the beach at about tree top level.And it was enough to make all the dishes rattle on the table.Of course,it had attracted a fair bit of interest from all of the cottagers,and everyone wondered where it was going.But it was quite clear that it's intent was to land nearby.My father wondered if it was in trouble.He also recognized it as being a Canadian military helicopter.As it turned out,it landed at the very next cottage to our.The one on the opposite side from where the German lady lived-they were not invading.Once it set down,some men emerged,then brought a stove and a refrigerator out from inside the helicopter,and took it inside our neighbors cottage.He was having the appliances delivered from Halifax.So we all got to see a military helicopter up close.
Sometime before we went to the cottage,my father had bought a new car.It was a very large car,as cars tended to be back in that day,and it had a lot of bells and whistles.For one thing,it had power windows,and,when you are five years old,you can have a lot of fun playing power window wars while sitting in the car.But power windows were not the only thing this car had.It had a huge ashtray,with a built in cigarette lighter,a feature which my father loved.No more fumbling with matches while trying to keep the car on the road.One rather rainy day just before the end of our stay at the cottage,I was sitting in the car with my little sister.I was trying to play power window wars but she didn't seem to get the point of the game,being a year younger than I was.I was also messing around with the lighter,and this my sister was interested in.She wanted to know what it did,and I really could only think of one way to show her.So I pushed the lighter in and waited for it to pop back out.Of course,I knew it was hot,but I'm not certain she did.So I'm sitting there with the lighter,and she is trying to get a closer look.And I really don't know what got into me,but I'm encouraging her to touch the lighter.I wasn't really trying to be mean,but it was a terrible thing to do.Really,I never thought that she would touch the lighter.But she did.She touched it and she burned her finger,and ran off screaming.Right away I felt bad.I knew it was a bad thing that I'd done.I really hadn't intended to hurt anyone,but I had.Surely I was going to get in trouble.Surely I'd end up going to Hell for what I'd done.I was never as afraid of Hell as I was at that moment.A few time afterwards I even had bad dreams about that.When my parents found out I expected to get into a lot of trouble.But that never happened,and I really couldn't understand why.I'd done a terribly wrong thing,and justice demanded that I get into trouble.But they just seemed to write it off as an accident,and we were not allowed to play in the car after that.But it started to dawn on me that my parents were not always capable of delivering perfect justice,or knowing fully what was going on all of the time.In the end,I suppose I got my justice,because it is not easy fearing the possibility of Hell.I carried that around for me for a long time,even into adulthood,but it helped me see too,that people really do have a sin nature,that we do bad things even when we don't really want to,or intend to.The age of five is a young age to come face to face with that reality,but that's what happened.And my parents didn't understand what happened.It would have been better if they had,because I've carried most of that alone,and I've wished that I didn't have to.
We took a few walks over to the island while we stayed at the cottage,and along the way we got to learn a lot about life along the shoreline.There were plenty of creatures there,and a lot of them were good to eat,so we would be out on the sand flats between the island and the mainland digging up clams.Usually we would dig them with an empty half clam shell,but sometimes with a shovel too.There was a kind of clam that you had to be careful digging because it was long and had very sharp edges.This clam was called a razor clam,for reasons that would be totally obvious if you were ever to see one.Lots of times I've cut my hands trying to dig one out of the sand.There were also crabs laying about in the sand.Most were small.not large enough to eat,and nobody I knew at the time ever bothered with eating crabs anyway,because lobster was easily available,not nearly as expensive as it is today,and considered to be much better than crab. The gulls would eat crabs,though.Gulls would eat just about anything,even our garbage,if we didn't take it to the dump every few days.I found out too,that gulls had a unique way of opening clams.If they could not pry a clam open with their beak,they would fly above some rocks with the clam,then drop it onto the stones,smashing the shell to pieces.My mother pointed this out to us the first time we were walking over to the island.
If you stood facing the water,on the opposite side from the island was a long finger of land called Smith's point.Together with the point on the island,they formed a sheltered cove,and our cottage was at the deepest part of the cove.So it was ideal for swimming in.The water in the Northumberland Strait is quite warm in summer,and,by midsummer the jellyfish have completed their migrations,so it's a good place to pass a summer afternoon.The beach right in front of our cottage was fairly rocky,but we could find lots of nice sand without having to walk too far.So we spent lots of time in the water over that two weeks.
Up the road a ways,there was a berry patch.Mostly it was a big bramble patch with a lot of raspberries,but there were some other things growing in there too.All the time we were there we were picking raspberries,and eating them for dinner.But my mother had in mind to pick some wild cherries too,because she wanted to try making some homemade wine.There were not a lot of cherry trees,but the ones that were there were loaded with fruit,and it didn't take long to fill up buckets.The cherries were not really much good to eat,being among the sourest things I've ever tasted,but my mother thought that it wouldn't matter,since the recipe for wine called for a lot of sugar.
Over our time at the cottage ,there are two events in particular that stand out in my mind.The first involved a very big surprise just after breakfast one morning.The second was a misadventure on my part.In fact,it was among the worst things I've ever done in my life,and I should have gotten into deep trouble for it.But I didn't.
One morning,just as we were all finishing up breakfast,we heard a loud,a very loud noise outside.It was the unmistakable sound of a helicopter,but it was very nearby.Much closer and louder than any helicopter I'd ever heard before.When we went out into the yard,we saw that the helicopter,the kind with two big rotors,was in fact flying right along the beach at about tree top level.And it was enough to make all the dishes rattle on the table.Of course,it had attracted a fair bit of interest from all of the cottagers,and everyone wondered where it was going.But it was quite clear that it's intent was to land nearby.My father wondered if it was in trouble.He also recognized it as being a Canadian military helicopter.As it turned out,it landed at the very next cottage to our.The one on the opposite side from where the German lady lived-they were not invading.Once it set down,some men emerged,then brought a stove and a refrigerator out from inside the helicopter,and took it inside our neighbors cottage.He was having the appliances delivered from Halifax.So we all got to see a military helicopter up close.
Sometime before we went to the cottage,my father had bought a new car.It was a very large car,as cars tended to be back in that day,and it had a lot of bells and whistles.For one thing,it had power windows,and,when you are five years old,you can have a lot of fun playing power window wars while sitting in the car.But power windows were not the only thing this car had.It had a huge ashtray,with a built in cigarette lighter,a feature which my father loved.No more fumbling with matches while trying to keep the car on the road.One rather rainy day just before the end of our stay at the cottage,I was sitting in the car with my little sister.I was trying to play power window wars but she didn't seem to get the point of the game,being a year younger than I was.I was also messing around with the lighter,and this my sister was interested in.She wanted to know what it did,and I really could only think of one way to show her.So I pushed the lighter in and waited for it to pop back out.Of course,I knew it was hot,but I'm not certain she did.So I'm sitting there with the lighter,and she is trying to get a closer look.And I really don't know what got into me,but I'm encouraging her to touch the lighter.I wasn't really trying to be mean,but it was a terrible thing to do.Really,I never thought that she would touch the lighter.But she did.She touched it and she burned her finger,and ran off screaming.Right away I felt bad.I knew it was a bad thing that I'd done.I really hadn't intended to hurt anyone,but I had.Surely I was going to get in trouble.Surely I'd end up going to Hell for what I'd done.I was never as afraid of Hell as I was at that moment.A few time afterwards I even had bad dreams about that.When my parents found out I expected to get into a lot of trouble.But that never happened,and I really couldn't understand why.I'd done a terribly wrong thing,and justice demanded that I get into trouble.But they just seemed to write it off as an accident,and we were not allowed to play in the car after that.But it started to dawn on me that my parents were not always capable of delivering perfect justice,or knowing fully what was going on all of the time.In the end,I suppose I got my justice,because it is not easy fearing the possibility of Hell.I carried that around for me for a long time,even into adulthood,but it helped me see too,that people really do have a sin nature,that we do bad things even when we don't really want to,or intend to.The age of five is a young age to come face to face with that reality,but that's what happened.And my parents didn't understand what happened.It would have been better if they had,because I've carried most of that alone,and I've wished that I didn't have to.
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