| Summary: | The first four volumes in this series together constituted a serialised version of Howard’s life story in four parts. The current volume is more of a traditional daily diary, with day by day observations on current events, the weather, the fishery, births, marriages and deaths, and normal and unusual occurrences. But it also includes some reminiscences of Howard’s earlier life and stories he had told to him by his elders concerning significant historical events and life in Ferryland in the years before his birth. Now in this twelfth volume we see Howard approaching his 70th birthday, a milestone he never believed he would reach. The diary covers a relatively brief period between June 22, 1954 and March 11 1955, a period during which Howard was now more of a village elder and no longer in charge of the Morry fish business in Ferryland. Indeed, during the 1954 fishing season he has not outfitted his own cod trap crew for possibly the first year since he returned from his service in WWI. And before the end of June 1954, he is not managing his own salmon nets anymore. To a reduced extent, he has continued functioning as a small scale farmer and livestock owner and also continues his work harvesting wood from the surrounding woods and groves for a variety of purposes. At the age of 69 there is only so much physical work a man of those years can be expected to do. Howard’s eldest son, Bill, has taken on the lion’s share of responsibility for the Morry fish business, having taken over and improved the fish plant which was begun by his brother Reg just after the war. In addition, he is now taking on the kinds of quasi-governmental perks and duties that Howard himself had previously enjoyed. By far the most important element of this diary comes toward the end, when Howard becomes contemplative and tells stories and anecdotes of his and Ferryland’s past. But there is also information on a devastating storm combined with higher than normal tides in mid January 1955 that destroyed most of the fishermen’s waterside premises ...
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