Valley Memories

I worked the provincial election yesterday, crossing out voters from the voters' list like a good little democrat. The result was unprecedented, an NDP majority. Most people are already proclaiming the destruction of Nova Scotia and I too am concerned about the result. Having experienced this election, I must say that Nova Scotia may have three major parties and the Green Party but the major parties are all clones of one another. Each party occupies the middle ground and don't have any major policy differences, only different "leaders". So maybe people just found Darrell Dexter more palatable than Dalton McGuinty clone Stephen MacNeil and our very own Rodney MacDonald. So don't expect anything revolutionary from these NDP. They just watered down Liberal red a bit.

But more important than the election was the nice lady that I worked with at the poll. We had so few voters that we had lots of time to get to know one another. Her story was amazing, as are the stories of many older people in Cape Breton, people who were born during the Depression and lived dramatically different childhoods than you and I.

She grew up down the road from our current house. She described a childhood with food produced completely at home, from a healthy vegetable garden and animals. One might purchase certain items from a shop (flour, sugar, tea) but this would be rare. Carrots, beets, turnips and potatoes were common.

She went to the local school which was a one room schoolhouse. She played with her brothers and sisters because while meeting other kids was possible, it wasn't common with the distances involved. She had a large family, which meant lots of little hands to help with chores, essential without an invisible pack of energy slaves.

The horse and buggy might take to the dirt roads on occasion but this would only be to church, dances and to visit with neighbours. That's it. And visits were so important, sharing food and tea together, cementing bonds. She almost never went to Mabou and other towns and the only way to go was catching a ride with the mail car.

Anyway the point of all this is that in my colleague's experience I see my future and the future of our children. A geographically constrained life but a life of intimate connections with the land, one's family and one's closest neighbours. It's coming and thankfully we can still learn from those who carry the not so distant past in their minds.

Have you met anyone who remembers these bygone/coming days?