Old friends,,,George Street,,,, Mummering & Ugly Sticks

When we got to St John's I called Jody Shea, who had worked at APD in early 2000.  Jody had come from Newfoundland with her boyfriend and was hired by APD to work in Dispatch.  She was always homesick though and in the end decided to move back to Newfoundland.  I thought she missed her family, but she said what she truly missed was St John's itself.  Jody is from a small town north west of Gander, with a population of about 600 people.  She loves living in the bustling city.  Jody now works for the Newfoundland Supreme Court, and we met her for lunch the day we arrived in St John's.  It was great to see her again!  She gave us some suggestions of what to do and where to go while visiting her favourite city.  She said to be sure and check out George Street and try some of that Screech!.

What shall I say about George Street?  Being mindful that Momma Skip may be reading this and wanting to leave a somewhat good impression for her.  George Street involves a bit of good old Newfoundland Screech!

George Street is a fairly short street that runs between Water Street and Duckworth.  It is filled with bars of all kinds.  Very famous for its night life.  You have your little Irish Pubs and your dancing clubs, that latter of which we did not go into.  Ray and I like the little pubs for their atmosphere and the chance of meeting up with some great people and have some good conversation, along with perhaps a shot of that screech that we have been hearing about.

Yellow Belly's is a pub similar to the Mission Springs, simply because it is also a micro brewery.  It is on Water Street, not on George, but is where we went to on our first night in St John's.  We shared an order of Fish Cakes, which we had while in PEI.  These ones did not hold a candle to the ones that Cathy Corrigan made for us!  We sat on the patio outside and stuck up a conversation with a fellow who we thought was a "local" but found out he was a Texan in the city on one of the conferences that was going on.  We had a great chat with him, and he asked us if we had tried the "screech", which of course we had not.  Well the three of us decided that it was in order to do so, seeing as we were visitors of this city.  So we each got a shot and downed it.  You might ask what all the fuss was about this stuff, as I asked myself the same question.  I sipped it at first, but as Ray and the Texan downed theirs, I followed suit and downed the rest of my shot.  I thought it would leave a burning sensation, but was pleasantly surprised at both the flavour and the warmth that I felt in my chest.  Oh man, was I ever going to have a good sleep tonight, is what I was thinking.    We stuck to that one shot, and finished our fish cakes and all said our good byes.  Ray and I had a nice walk back to our B&B on the hill.  One of the best parts of being down town in the thick of things, we could walk everywhere!

On our last night in St. John's, we did a "pub crawl" on George Street.  We started off at the Duckworth Inn, which is a little Irish Pub with music playing in the background.  People seem to go there after work, have a bite to eat and a couple of brews and then wander off home.  We then went to a pub called Kelly's on George Street and listened to Ray (Blacky) O'Leary singing some easy listening tunes and some very lively Newfoundland tunes.  He was very good and we bought two of his CD's.  We then moved down the street to a bar that I cannot recall the name of.  The reason that I cannot remember (and neither can Ray) is because we met this very nice Newfie couple and over a period of about an hour ended up having two shots of screech with them!  Thank goodness we were walking! 

There were alot of people milling around the streets going from place to place and as Jody had said that people don't really go out until about 11:00 pm, it was not as busy as I am sure it can get!  We were gone long  before 11:00!

Have you ever heard of Mummering?There is a very old custom here that probably started a 100 years ago in one of these small villages.  The people would do house visits or have kitchen parties.  The guests would arrive disguised wearing old clothing.  Men may dress like woman and woman like men.  Covering their faces with scarves, masks or even just pillowcases, they would arrive carrying their own handmade musical instruments to play and sing.  I suspect there was some good old Newfoundland Screech involved in these Kitchen Parties. They have Mummery parades still to this day to celebrate this custom. 

One of the traditional musical instruments that might be brought to a Kitchen party is called an Ugly Stick.  It is typically made out of a mop and will have bottle caps and tin cans attached to the stick.  The player would use a stick (like a drum stick) to beat and bang on the stick and tins cans while shaking the whole thing making "music".  Jody told us that her brother who still lives "back home" in that small village makes these "Ugly Sticks" and they are sold in music stores in St John's.  So we had to search out all two of the music stores to find the right "Shea Ugly Stick" and of course supporting the local economy bought one!

Here is the fine Mr Riggins pretending he is at a Kitchen Party complete with his Mummery and "Shea" Ugly Stick having a good old Newfie time!  And no he has not at this point, had any screech!

 

I survived the 15 & 1/2 hour ferry ride back to beautiful Nova Scotia.  Sad to say goodbye to the most eastern Province of Canada, but happy to be back on the mainland.

 

Until tomorrow, sleep well.

Lori and Ray on our Bogus Adventure!