Scribblings of a Corner Boy -
Gifts of time and love
Are surely the basic
Ingredients of a truly
Blessed Christmas
- Peg Bracken
I get nostalgic and reminiscent every year at this time and have many stories I could tell.
They take me back to my childhood and each of them conjures up in me treasured memories about a young lad growing up in old St. John's.
As we approach Christmas, I want to share one of those special stories with you. It is my way of saying Merry Christmas. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I looked forward to writing it.
This journey takes me back to Christmas week 1953. It was a time when being a Roman Catholic we found our priests were treated almost like Gods.
One day I was working my paper route as usual in the early morning before going off to school at St. Teresa's on Mundy Pond road.
I was distributing the Christmas issue of the St. John's Daily News to patients and staff at St. Clare's Mercy Hospital. It was my regular and only paper route since I was 10 years of age.
My three older brothers had blazed the same trail years before me. It became a family tradition even though I reluctantly took on the task. But, the pocket money was good and tips at Christmas time were very good. The extra money also helped with expenses related to school.
One of my regular customers was an elderly priest who, for years, was the hospital live-in chaplain. At the time he was in his mid-80s and a permanent patient. His room I still remember- 4th floor (407). It was a large private room with a panoramic view of the central part of the city.
I knocked on his door, as usual, and found he was sitting in his high-back chair looking rather dejected. Thinking he was having a bad bout of the blues or something more serious, I placed his newspaper on his trolley-tray and scurried off to the Mother Superior's office and reported what I had witnessed. The Sisters of Mercy operated the hospital in those days. Most of them were registered nurses or nursing assistants.
The nonchalant mother didn't seem too concerned. "Oh, Father is having a bad day Billy," she said. "He lost the stem of his gold watch yesterday. He was attempting to set the date. It is a very special watch. It was given to him by his sister when he entered the seminary over 65 years ago," she explained.
"Maybe I can help him find it," I said to her. "I am good at locating lost items. Once I found a gold bracelet my mother lost. I found it in the drill of a small potato patch on my grandfather's farm. Dad always said it was like "finding a needle in a haystack." Mom and dad had helped grandfather Westcott (a farmer) weed his potatoes earlier in the week.
"Oh certainly you can try," she said. "I'll go to his room with you."
The old priest was in a worse mood. The jovial mother superior reassured him "everything would be okay and that his watch-stem would eventually be found. I'll pray to St. Anthony," she told him.
"Billy wants to help," she explained.
"He won't find it," the tormented priest growled. "But, go ahead anyway. The maids couldn't find it yesterday and they even stripped my bed completely with no luck," he added.
A thought popped into my head. Perhaps it's on the floor underneath the bed.
"No point in crawling in there," father insisted; "the maids thoroughly wet-mopped under there last night and they never had any luck."
I got down on my knees anyway - lay on my stomach then crawled slowly under the bed.
The floor was still quite damp. What I remember most in fact were the curly dust balls rolled up against the baseboard. I started to make swimming motions with my two hands hoping if it were there I would drive it out towards his chair.
Suddenly it happened. Something stuck into my finger. It was like driving a splinter under a fingernail.
"Ouch!" I yelled.
I discovered my finger was pricked. A small bead of blood was evident and too my delight and surprise the stem of his watch was sticking out from underneath my fingernail.
"I got it, I got it-the stem of your watch Father," I yelled all excited and proud.
"You are not kidding are you Billy? Oh praise to Saint Anthony - thank you thank you my son," he continued.
The beaming Mother Superior took the tiny stem from my hand and swabbed my pricked finger with a disinfectant wad.
"It must have been swept in there," mother said.
Back pats and good words of praise followed and soon the news spread throughout the floor. Nurses, maids and other staff and some patients knew about the tiny stem. In about ten minutes they filed in and out of his room. News spreads fast in hospitals I realized and not just about births and deaths.
Later I learned that the watch was a quite expensive "top of the line" 24-karet gold Rolex. The infamous Rolex name on any gold watch back then placed it amongst the Cadillac of watches.
I felt quite overjoyed I found it for him. The same feeling I had way back when I found my mother's tiny gold bracelet that summer afternoon. I can still see the sun glistening on it through the spreading leafs of the potato stalks, helped by the warm breezes of Windsor Heights, near Windsor Lake (the City of St. John's water supply) on the farm area where my dad was born.
Generous tips
Christmas back then was a time when newspaper carriers received generous tips from their regular customers.
On Boxing Day, when I delivered Father's paper, he invited me to come inside. Usually I'd knock first, open the door, and lay the newspaper on his bureau or trolley (tray) and go on my way. I got paid once a week, on Saturdays.
"Billy!" Father said, "In all the excitement over your finding my watch stem the other day, I forgot to give you something. Here is a "special gift" for you. I'm sorry I'm late giving it to you," he added with an appreciative smile on his wrinkled face.
His gift was tucked inside a Christmas Card. I still remember it was what we called a holy card with a design of baby Jesus lying in a squalid manger, circled by Mary and Joseph, the wise men and two oxen looking on. The card was embossed on the front. They were called sacred back then.
On my way down the stairs I opened it. Inside was $25 in cash. That was a lot of money for a young lad to have in those times. Normally a gift indicating it was a tip would range anywhere between $2 up to $5.
On my next visit I thanked him for his most generous gift and wished him a Happy New Year!
"You are welcome Billy," he said. "You will never know how important the tiny watch stem you found is to me. They don't make that type of old-style Rolex watches anymore, and I doubt if I would ever find a stem that is so tiny again. You helped make my Christmas this year," he said with a thankful smile on his face.
"It was given to me by my late sister many years ago," he added.
The morning he gave his generous Christmas gift to me I remember I felt so good that I ran home as fast as I could to tell my mother.
"That is really good," she said. "Now, put it in your piggy bank and save it up for the two-wheel bike you wanted. Next summer you will be glad you did."
Save for a rainy day was an old saying in those days.
I followed her advice (orders) and with some additional dollars from dad and mom and from my older brother Ray, in June when I got out of school I bought my first bike at Bowring Brothers on Water Street. It was what was called a coaster brake. It was red and black in colour and it had wide tires I recall. I wished it was a popular Raleigh brand like my best friend, Bob Benson had, but I made it do anyway.
I never did understand what "saving for a rainy day," meant back then. And I often wonder what happened to that bike of mine?
The old priest lived to the wonderful age 95. On Christmas Eve, I will remember him. And, I still wonder what eventually happened to his valuable and cherished Rolex watch.
Have a Merry Christmas everyone!
-Bill Westcott writes from Florida where a pussycat on the beach is the only "Sandy Claws" around.
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