Brazil Street

by Robert Hunt

  The fellow got louder and louder, and his buddy just laughed. Mr. Downey was taking it all in stride while trying to keep calm and talk to them both. Then the tall guy made a huge mistake. He tried to grab Norm by the shirt. Norm shook himself free, asked the guy to give him a second, and turned and calmly walked toward me and an elderly lady who was also in the store. He politely asked us both if we would mind stepping outside the store for a minute or two. He said that he had to have a discussion with the two gentlemen in the store.

  Growing up in the 1960s, I knew what the word “discussion” meant: someone was about to get a good shit-knocking. The lady and I, escorted by Mr. Downey, headed outside. However, I did look around the corner and through the door to catch a glimpse at what was happening. The tall guy still had that smirk on his face as Norm walked over to him.

  The tall guy asked Norm why he had sent us out, and I heard Mr. Downey say, calmly, “I don’t want to have any witnesses around when the police come . . . after I beat the shit out of you and your buddy.”

  I’ll never forget the look on the short guy’s face. He stepped aside to let his buddy handle the problem. After looking at Norm for a second or two, the short guy said that he was leaving. However, Norm asked him to stay there, as he would soon have his buddy down on his knees, and then both of them would be about the same height. Then the short guy started backing toward the door.

  The taller guy tried to grab Mr. Downey by the shirt again—I guess to save face for his friend—and before he knew it, Norm grabbed his arm and twisted it and had him face down on the floor, his arm bent behind him. His buddy had seen enough: he scurried out through the door, and last I saw he was running west on New Gower Street and then up Barter’s Hill.

  As I looked back, Norm was telling the guy on the floor that he had bad manners and that one day someone, probably him by the way he had him on the floor, would knock his block off if he kept treating people like that. The bully knew he had picked the wrong person to mistreat, and he asked Mr. Downey to please let him up.

  “Only if you do not try to be a tough guy again.”

  Frightened to death, the man promised he would be good.

  Norm helped him to his feet, dusted him off, and let him walk out past us, telling him all along that he should change his ways with his approach to people or he could be in big trouble in the future. I think the guy learned his lesson. All the way out to the door, he kept nodding and saying to Mr. Downey that he would change his ways. He said thanks to him for letting him go and for not calling the police. Norm Downey probably changed his life that day!

  That was the way he was. Tough but kind. Sometimes you had to be tough in those days, or people would walk all over you. For all the years I went to his store, I never saw him without that same calm demeanour. Gentle, but not a man to be taken advantage of. He was no fool. Most men were tough and, like Norm, didn’t phone the police when they had a confrontation with someone. They took care of things themselves. It was frontier justice.

  People had respect for Mr. Downey, as was the case when he woke one morning and looked across the street and saw a guy sitting in the back of his pickup waving to him. When Norm went across the street to ask the man why he was in the back of his truck, he replied, “Well, Mr. Downey, I was on me way home last night about two o’clock and passed by your truck when I noticed there were five cases of Good Luck Margarine in the back of it. I knew that you forgot to take them into the store. It was really late, b’y, so I didn’t want to wake you. It was such a nice night that I decided to stay in the back of the truck and have a nap until your store opened, to make sure that no one stole your butter.”

  Norm thanked the man and gave him twenty for being honest. The butter was worth about $200. He could have taken it home for himself, but Norm was so well-liked, and he had helped so many people in those days, it was the way people treated him in return.

  Once, he and his son Wilson were delivering groceries to a store on George Street. They went inside to see a group of Portuguese fishermen who had left their ship in the harbour to go shopping. When they went in the back with their wares, the lady working there told the fishermen about Norman Downey. Among that group was the champion fighter from Portugal: Norm Downey’s equivalent in the ring. He blocked Norm and his son and threw his hands up in the form of a challenge. Norm did the same. With that, they both laughed and shook hands.

  One night, Norm helped a police officer as he was apprehending an American who was fighting across the street. When he went to the rescue, another American tried to hit the policeman over the head with his own billy knocker, which he had somehow gotten his hands on. Norm snatched the club from him and wrestled the guy to the ground until the Black Mariah, the police van, came.

  His son told me that one night a guy came into the store saying that another fellow had just stolen a beef barrel from the front of Norm’s store. Norm chased him up the street as he rolled the barrel along. He approached the thief and said he was sure the barrel belonged to him. The man, knowing that he was caught red-handed, said to Norm, “My fault, sir. I guess that I was delivering it to the wrong store.”

  While they talked, a policeman happened by and asked Norm if there was a problem. The thief then became very nervous, thinking he was about to be arrested, but Norm brushed it off and told the policeman that it was just an honest mistake. He said the guy meant to deliver it to his store and not the one in front of which they were standing. After the policeman left, the stranger thanked Norm, promised he would never do it again, and headed home.

  The fate of the Earl Haig belt is a mystery, but if it’s found it should be put on display somewhere, maybe at The Rooms in St. John’s. Norm Downey Jr., Norman’s grandson, has been searching for the Earl Haig belt for decades.

  “That is one of my goals, to find that belt. It’s unfortunate that we can’t find it, but we will keep looking. Someone out there has possession of my grandfather’s belt, and we, the family, would love to have it back.” Maybe one day it will be returned to the rightful owners.

  Norman and Lillian had eight children: Bill, Muriel, Wilson, Roy, Maude, Sandy, George, and Hazel.

  Joey Smallwood: A Loved and Hated Newfoundlander

  Joey Smallwood was a touchy subject in our time. My dad was a fair man, as it goes, but he didn’t think much of Mr. Joseph R. Smallwood. As far as Dad and many people in Newfoundland were concerned, Joey simply sold us down the river after Confederation came to Newfoundland in 1949. But aside from the doubters and haters, there were those who loved him, both in St. John’s and in rural Newfoundland.

  Outside of St. John’s, he was hailed as god-like, because he created work for many people in the communities who needed steady employment. Much of it was short-term, but it was still work. He was treated as a saviour and a hero by some, and by others a failure to the inhabitants of Newfoundland. His picture was found hanging next to Jesus, the Pope, or the Blessed Virgin Mary in some homes. Some thought of Smallwood as a naive person when dealing with other people and blamed him for problems that Newfoundlanders, chiefly the poor, had to face.

  Dad was not an educated man, but he wasn’t naive. Though he only completed grade five, one thing he enjoyed was talking politics. Politics was something that men and women alike could sink their teeth into. Once you were a Liberal or a Conservative, you had your political party, and most never switched sides. To do so was like a mortal sin.

  Politics, like religion, ruled the day. Most of these political leaders were educated men. When Dad worked with CN, Mr. Smallwood and his cabinet members travelled together on the trains, back and forth across Newfoundland, to Port aux Basques and in between. When I worked for Canadian National Railways as a young man, I made several trips and met the premier himself once or twice.

  CN trains were the safest means of transportation across Newfoundland at that time. The Trans-Canada Highway was not completed u
ntil 1965–66, and driving the roads of Newfoundland and Labrador in those days meant breakdowns, hazards, and trouble for vehicles. Riding the railway was cost-effective and worry-free. Though it took a full day to go across, the food and the service made the trip an enjoyable one.

  Though Dad never had much respect for Mr. Smallwood as a politician, he always respected him as a person. He told me many times when I started working there that I was to treat Mr. Smallwood and his cabinet members with dignity and respect. They were held in high regard by all the CN employees, including my father.

  Joey came to power in March of 1949, a month after I was born, and he became the very first premier of Newfoundland and Labrador in the year we joined Canada. He ruled the island until he lost to Progressive Conservative Party leader Frank Moores’s cabinet in 1972. At that time, Joey had been premier of the province for a record total of twenty-three years. His reign in Newfoundland politics will never be matched. During those years, no one met the challenge to oust him, and when they did try, they lost.

  Many factors contributed to the failed attempts to overthrow Smallwood, including rumours. It was said during the elections in the 1950s and 1960s that voters were being plied with liquor and money. None of these claims were ever proven, but it was a common belief that all you had to do was vote for Joey if you needed a favour—a few dollars or a “drop of stuff”—and it was taken care of. There was even a car to pick you up and drop you off if you didn’t have a ride to cast your vote—providing you voted Liberal, of course.

  From the time he was elected, Joey, ran Newfoundland with an iron fist. In his day, he tried to establish large-scale projects that he hoped would “put Newfoundland on the industrial map” in Canada. The oil refinery in Come By Chance, the linerboard mill in Stephenville, and a phosphorus manufacturing plant in Long Harbour were some of his initiatives to create much-needed jobs.

  One of the main problems Joey had was that he went unchallenged when it came to what he thought was best for the province. It was inevitable that he would make mistakes when he and his cabinet were deciding our fate. He hoped that by industrializing the province he would find jobs for future generations and produce enough revenue from modernization to help the struggling fishery and economy. He meant well.

  When Joey took power in 1949, he and his cabinet received a shock when they saw most Newfoundlanders’ quality of life and how poorly they lived. Months after his election, his office received thousands of letters from people asking for assistance. Demands came from all over the island. People focused on how to receive old-age pensions and how to apply for a family allowance from Canada. Before Confederation, relief payments were only five dollars a month, hardly enough to make ends meet.

  When he took power, the premier realized that many Newfoundlanders were actually starving. Affordable housing was at an all-time low. People lived in slums and could not afford homes on the salaries they were making. Thousands of people were living in poverty.

  Smallwood had promised that things would change when he took over, and people were starting to hold him to it. Many found that their incomes dropped from one payday to the next, and they could not apply for relief, because that was only for people with no income at all. Joey finally saw that for years his countrymen had been living by any means they could. One couldn’t fault him, though, when it must have been overwhelming for him to try and fix all the problems on the island.

  He wanted to revise the dying fishery, but he soon found out that fishermen were among the hardest hit. If they had just one bad season, they might be next to apply for government help. Joey was caught in a quagmire of concerns that needed immediate attention from him and his elected people. There was no doubt he loved Newfoundland, but he realized his election promises were starting to come back to haunt him.

  There was also no doubt that Joey meant well when it came to the province. He tried to create jobs, but, as my dad always put it, he was “dealing with crooks who were more educated than he was and only interested in putting money in their own pockets, not into the pockets of any Newfoundlanders.” So Joey and his government spent millions of dollars on deals that helped others and let down the people who needed the money most. He was also conned into thinking that the deals he was involved in would set the island of Newfoundland free financially.

  From the time he took power, Smallwood wanted to start an industrial economy. He asked foreign investors like Alfred Valdmanis, a Latvian industrialist, to open factories in Newfoundland. Few of them were successful, and Valdmanis later admitted to taking bribes from would-be investors. When it all came out, this made Joey look small in the eyes of his constituents. Other investors, like John C. Doyle with the linerboard mill in Stephenville and John Shaheen with the Come By Chance refinery, took advantage of Joey. None of it helped Smallwood’s reputation.

  The premier followed up with larger projects he hoped would start industrial development, but his third pulp and paper mill in Stephenville and an oil refinery in Come By Chance cost the government a great deal of money. Then along came the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador, wherein the province made a long-term sales agreement with Hydro-Québec, giving Quebec the lion’s share of the profits. Stemming from that, Quebec made millions over the years, while Newfoundland earned a pittance.

  Joey also channelled a lot of money into infrastructure, in roads, schools, hospitals, and electricity, all of which would help modernize Newfoundland. People’s lives were vastly improved by this, but Joey’s dream of helping all Newfoundlanders was controversial. He then decided to move people from smaller, remote communities to larger centres, where they could be employed and start to contribute to the growth of the province. But many of the people who moved found that most of the jobs they were looking for were not available. In the end, they resented government’s tough approach in uprooting their lives.

  Though Smallwood meant well, his sometimes underhanded methods were beginning to wear on people in the 1950s and 1960s. His government was carrying out orders without the consent of his cabinet. Through all this, he chose which candidates he wanted for his ridings, determined who ran to represent the province in Ottawa, and told people that the Liberal government was the only government that was responsible enough to run the province. He took no prisoners with friend and foe alike. Either you were with him or you were against him, and if you were not with him, you were out of his cabinet. It was a dictatorship.

  All of this was starting to change by the late 1960s. The newspapers, led by renowned author and writer Harold Horwood, wrote unsavoury things about Joey and his cabinet, and newspaper columnist Ray Guy of the Evening Telegram was merciless toward Joey Smallwood in his satirical columns. Joey’s popularity was starting to wane.

  Smallwood tried to counteract their claims by putting new brilliant men into his cabinet such as John Crosbie, Edward Roberts, and Clyde Wells. This move would cost him dearly. Once in cabinet, these educated, intelligent people started to see the folly of what was happening with the government in Newfoundland and Labrador. John Crosbie fought particularly hard against Joey and criticized his Liberals, eventually crossing the floor of the House of Assembly to join the Progressive Conservative Party.

  When the Liberals lost seats in the federal election in 1968, and later a seat in a by-election in Gander, Smallwood announced his retirement in 1969. He didn’t stay retired long, though, because he was afraid that John Crosbie, who had left his party to join the PC cabinet, would become the next premier. Joey resented Crosbie for leaving his Liberals. However, I don’t think John Crosbie wanted to be premier of Newfoundland and Labrador so much as he wanted Smallwood to be out of power. He and candidate Frank Moores of the Progressive Conservative Party wanted Joey ousted, and they joined ranks to make it happen.

  In 1971, a provincial election took place that pitted Joey and his Liberals against Frank Moores and the PC party. The battle was fought hard and long a
nd in the trenches. When it was over, Frank Moores’s cabinet had an edge on Joey Smallwood’s government by a slim margin of twenty-one seats to twenty. Smallwood heavily contested this and would not resign until all the judicial counts were done. He held on to power until a new election in 1972 gave a clear majority to Frank Moores’s cabinet to form a new government. Joey was finally out.

  This was the era we grew up in, the Smallwood era, and it led to much competition among working-class men who worked any hobbles they could get. When I was working, even part-time, it felt good knowing I was helping out with the house bills and taking care of my younger brothers with some pocket money. We were never lazy—we didn’t know what the word meant. I was considered a working man at the age of thirteen, and I owe my work ethic to my dad.

  When I look at old photos of Dad, I’m reminded of Joey Smallwood. He looked just like him. He was the same height, with a receding hairline and black-rimmed glasses. He even wore the same kinds of suits when going out to a function. My brothers and I would never tell him this, of course.

  Mahers: Our Adventure Away from Home

  Mom and Dad didn’t have a lot of possessions, not even a car, but they loved going to the country with us any time they could. Trips to Bowring Park for a day, by bus or in a neighbour’s car or truck, became a getaway they never passed on when an opportunity presented itself. The park was a popular spot known for its beauty, and fun was always free for the taking!