Free Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More by Brian Peckford

government project near the community. And the money was pretty good. When I
     arrived at the wharf there were several men already waiting to see me. Jack
     Budgell, the owner and operator of the boat I had hired, was a little
     nervous.
    As we were tying up he said to me, “You know, these fellows seem a little
     nervous.”
    “Nervous about what?” I questioned.
    “I don’t know, me son, but they are acting strange to me.” Jack was not new to
     the area and so when he gave an opinion about the area you’d better
     listen.
    Anyway, I asked Jack to tell the men that I would see them individually in my
     little room in the stern of the boat. This is where I slept—it had a couple of
     bunks, a small wooden table a foot or so off the floor, and a tiny wood stove.
     There was really only room for two persons. And so the procession commenced as
     the men, one by one, came down, sought assistance, were refused, and, mumbling
     their dissatisfaction, left the boat and wharf.
    “Do you mean to tell me you turned them all down?” Jack exclaimed.
    “Yes,” I said. “They were the fellows who were working on the government
     project for the last few months and do not qualify for assistance. I’d say that
     was why they seemed to act strange to you. They really knew that this was wrong,
     what they were going to do.”
    Of course, the word got around the harbour that this new, young relieving
     officer had turned down all the men. It wasn’t long before there appeared on the
     wharf one very angry woman. Dashing up to the edge of the wharf she shouted out,
     “Jack, Jack, where are you?”
    Jack appeared from the wheelhouse. “Yes, my dear, this is Jack!”
    “Jack, where is that young relieving officer? I got to see him right
     away.”
    Jack moved swiftly to the stern of the boat, opened the doors to the stern
     section, and began whispering. “We’ve got a pretty mad woman who wants to see
     you right now. Man is she mad.”
    I climbed up the few stairs to Jack. “What—an angry woman?”
    And before Jack could speak, there she was. “Are you the relieving officer?”
     she growled, looking at me.
    “Yes, ma’am. I am.”
    As she pointed her finger and came toward me, she shouted, “I have to talk to
     you right now!”
    “All right, come on down and we can have a private conversation.”
    She stumbled down the few stairs, fuming under her breath, andfinally settled across from me on one of the bunks. In retrospect, I became a
     little too official, taking out my daily worksheet on which I recorded time and
     date and name of all who came to see me.
    “Your name, please?”
    “My name, my name!” she shouted. “Listen, I’m the wife of George who came to
     see you a couple of hours ago. You turned him down! You wouldn’t give him a food
     order.”
    I lowered my head to write the date on the worksheet, my eye no longer on my
     client. In an instant she swooped, grabbed a large piece of firewood from the
     bucket by the stove, and leaning across the small expanse between us, clobbered
     me over the head!
    I fell back on the other bunk, surprised and more than a little dazed. Seconds
     later, when I came to my senses, she was up over the stairs on the deck of the
     boat, cursing as she made her way to the wharf.
    Jack thought he heard a commotion and came out of the wheelhouse in time to see
     the woman scampering up to the wharf deck and then on to shore.
    I was climbing the stairs when Jack met me. “What happened?”
    “I was knocked out by a very angry woman. She picked up a junk of wood in the
     bucket and let me have it.”
    Jack had a wicked sense of humour—a slight smile crossed his face, then a wider
     grin, and then a full laugh. He bent over laughing. “How will you write this one
     in your daily worksheet?”

    IN 1966, I WAS teaching in Springdale.
     In 1972, I won the Progressive Conservative Party nomination for the district of
     Green Bay. I was campaigning in a community on the