I want to relate to you this particular incident. It happened at the church, but the point I want to get across don't have much to do with the church just the same. I just used the church as an example to get my point across. This happened a long time ago back when I was very young. I suppose I was 16 or 17 years old and I got appointed to what they called it at that time "sexton" for the church. The sexton's job was to light the fire in the wood stove when the minister would be coming to the community for church. They used to pay you so much each service or so much every time you lit the fire. So anyhow, this time, first when I took it, I was very shy, and I guess the only reason I had it was because I was too shy to say I wouldn't take it. There was this one time when the minister came here in the middle of the winter, when it was really frosty, February month I guess, or maybe January. I went up in the morning when he was to have an 'early service' (Holy Communion) around 8:30 a.m. I went up and lit the fire in the old wood stove about an hour before church was to start to get it warmed up for 8:30. Then there was church again at 11:00 and by then the old stove was getting pretty hot. When the crowd came in to the service at 11:00 these two old people came in. I say they were the two oldest gentlemen in the harbour at the time. One fellow went in and sat down over by the wall and the other fellow came in and sat down in the nearest chair to the stove. Now over by the wall you could have the fire in as much as you liked, it was not going to be very warm over there anyhow because the building was not insulated or anything. After the service was over they went outside. It was on their way out through the porch, I heard one fellow say, "Boy, I almost froze to death in there tis' mornin', that fellow never had neither bit of fire in." And then out came the other fellow who was sitting down by the stove and he said, "I don't know what that young fellow had all that fire in for tis' mornin', I just about sweat to death!" So I thought to myself, "My God, what's going on?" Then all of a sudden it hit me that the fellow in by the wall was too cold and the fellow over by the stove was too hot. Those who were sitting in the middle, it must have been a fairly good temperature for them, and I always remember that right up to today. I've told a few people this story when they used to get angry because they were getting criticised and every time I got criticised myself after that, that story used to come to mind. This story goes to show that you can't please everyone. You probably can please people most of the time, but they are the ones you don't here from!

This incident occurred here in the community of Lodge Bay. It was in the school house that doubled as a church for services on Sunday or whenever the minister came. We did not have a church at that time. The school house was much bigger and that much harder to warm up over by the wall. At that time, the minister used to come up from Battle Harbour. You probably only used to see him about once a month. That was the only part of the winter when the ice was hard enough to travel on from there. When the run was froze over, you could get off Caribou Island. It always stuck in my mind about that. I never bothered anybody who criticised me after that. I don't think it makes a lot of difference when you really think about it.