"Mother's Day"

 
I was taught very early I think to never underestimate the power of women. Think about it. While men are of warring, working abroad, out fishing (I know women fish too), who is looking after everything else? As more and more women show up in the board rooms of corporate Americas there may be new ways to do business. But years ago when salting cod was the commerce of the day there were few women in any position of power. I am always captivated when I see this sculpture outside the convention center in St. John's , NL. It depicts the tenacity and strength of women who had to do whatever they could by whatever means they had to etch out a living in a coastal environment and commerce controlled by foreign powers such as Britain and France who kept the peoples in subsistence for their livelihoods. If you've read Random Passage, you will know what I mean. These two ladies are lifting a carrying pallet that has salted pieces of cod that were no doubt dried on fish flakes, (at home my Dad sometimes hung them on the clothes line to dry and in the summer and on our way to the beach walking across our lawn we would rip off a sliver and suck on it all the way down to our swimming hole)and are being carted to a storage shed perhaps or packing bales where they would be shipped off to foreign lands for consumption. Happy Mother's day to my sisters and their daughters who now have children and Happy Mothers Day to my mother who passed on some years back. I am lucky to say that my childhood years were and still I believe, are the best years of my life......thanks to my Mom.