We’ll admit: it slipped by us at the time. But here’s Mount Pearl North MHA Jim Lester on June 20, speaking about the provincial budget and explaining why things have to change.
“We’ll go back some 35 years ago. I was not even in my teens and, as I often did, I went to the barn with my grandfather, and today was the black book day, this particular day. Black book day was when my grandfather went up and down the aisles of cows in the barn and looked at his paper and saw how much milk the cow gave and decided whether, yeah, OK, she’s paying her way; we’ll keep her around.
“If you didn’t make the grade, then you went to a higher purpose if you were that cow. Finally, we were moving along the barn and we came to this one cow and everybody knew which cow this was. This was Pabst Duchess; that was her name. This particular cow was a descendant of the first cow my great-great-great grandfather had bought. So, her lineage had been in our family for almost six generations at that point.
"Black book day was when my grandfather went up and down the aisles of cows in the barn and looked at his paper and saw how much milk the cow gave and decided whether, yeah, OK, she’s paying her way; we’ll keep her around."
“You could tell that she was pretty much of an archaic beast because she was shorter and she was chunky; didn’t have quite the same characteristics as all the rest of the modern-day cows. My grandfather shook his head when he looked at the paper and he said Jamsey — that’s what he used to call me at times — this poor old girl doesn’t even give enough milk to colour your tea. “It was a big decision to decide well, listen, you have to go — poor ole Pabst, she hadn’t had a calf in four or five years and she was just idling along. …
“I went home that evening and I was really disturbed that we were going to have to sell Pabst Duchess. I got up the next morning, as I often did, and went out in the barn with my grandfather and I said I was going to bring it up to my grandfather. Now, my grandfather was probably four inches taller than I am now and a good bit heavier, so even though he was a big, burly man he had great set of ears, always listened.
“I said to him: ‘Pop, you can’t sell Pabst Duchess. She’s part of our family; she’s part of our history.’ He said: ‘Jim, there comes a time when you have to make a decision and it’s a decision for the future.’ Yes, history and past is good to remember, but once history and past starts to affect what could be done in the future, well that’s when it’s time to cut loose. So, poor ole Pabst Duchess went aboard the truck that day and that was the last we seen of her.”
Words worth pondering, especially in a province where the finances are as bad as ours are.
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