It was Sunday morning brunch in Mabou. I was SO HUNGRY and the tiny diner we were eating in was packed. I felt that the wait was unusually long and started complaining with such comments as, “What…do they need to wait for the hens to lay the eggs?”

Jo-Anne seemed to know everybody in the diner. “Look,” she said. “Here’s Rodney! Rodney, are you going to finish that toast?”

Rodney looked at us rather strangely and indicated that he was done eating.

Jo-Anne said, “Eat Rodney’s toast!”

I replied, “I don’t even know Rodney….I don’t want to eat his toast.”

Jo-Anne knew how to solve that problem. “Rodney…this is Rose. Rose, Rodney. Now you can eat his toast.”

Luckily, my breakfast arrived and saved me from eating a complete stranger’s leftover toast.

After breakfast we went over to an open market. In the gymnasium (?) was a Zamboni machine. Jo-anne insisted we use this as a photo prop and Gillian, Emily and I took a variety of photos on the Zamboni.

Rose, meet Rodney

At some point Jo-Anne said, “That’s whose toast you wouldn’t eat!”

I said, “Why is his name on the Zamboni?”

Jo-Anne said, “because he’s the premier of Nova Scotia!”

Me, “You mean he’s FAMOUS?”

Jo-Anne: “And you could have eaten his toast!”

My Mom and Dad, Veronica “Eoin” and Charlie “Jack D.” always attended the concerts in the [Port Hawkesbury / Inverness] area. As everyone knows Mom and Dad brought a lunch…more like a supper to feed any and all of the relatives.

Once I moved home from Edmonton, I decided to keep up the tradition but not as much a supper as Mom and Dad did but a lunch.

Biscuits, homemade cheese, “real” turkey (as my Mother used to say), ham, potato salad, homemade strawberry jam, rolls, bread, and sweets, tea, water and pop and especially Pepsi for Frank was the lunch I brought and would feed anyone who was hungry from far and near.

This one Sunday before I left for the Broad Cove concert, my brother, Kevin, came over and asked if I would stop at the Strathlorne grave yard and get the dates from the headstone of Jack D. Of course, I said yes and I would have no problem stopping there and getting that information for him.

I got to the graveyard and proceeded to look for my grandfather’s headstone. I looked and I looked, up and down the rows and no sign of the stone. I knew that was the graveyard but could not imagive why I could not find the headstone. I left and thought I’ll got to Frankie’s and he would help me.

On to Inverness at to Frankie’s, explained my dilemma to him and he said that he would take me to the graveyard but first we had to have a cup of tea. I had the trunk full of food so of course, sweets go great with a cup of tea and we had both.

Frankie and I head to Strathlorne to go the the grave and get the dates. Frankie gets out of the car, goes directly to the headstone.

I had passed this one a couple of times. I looked down and saw John David Macdonald, my grandfather.

I had been looking for a headstone with the name of “Jack D.” on it as that was the name I had always heard him called.

Charlie Macdonald: son of Jack D Macdonald and Annie Belle Rankin
Veronica MacDonald: maiden name of Charlie Macdonald’s wife.
Joanne: daughter of Charlie and Veronica Macdonald.
As Joanne says, “I am a double Macdonald.”

February 27, 2006