| Sunny Side Up August 21, 2002 �2002, Kathleen Gibson Bridging the distance with bakeapple jam I was working on my next column when the phone rang. �Is that Kathleen Gibson?� I recognized the rounded corners of the consonants. Graham, a friend from Newfoundland. �Yes. Is that you, Graham?� �No, you don�t know me. I�m taking a chance, but are you the lady who wrote the article in Canadian Geographic?� I�ve never written for Canadian Geographic. But since I write for other magazines, I wondered if he was referring to one of those articles. I don�t know how, but people from all over the globe have means of finding the authors of articles that have touched them. I love it when readers find me. So I asked. �Which article?� �It was in the front section, about bakeapple jam.� Months ago the magazine published my letter of response to a back page article about the bakeapple, a Newfoundland berry. In the letter I lamented that I�d recently tasted bakeapple jam for the first time, a gift from friends from the Rock; that I fell in love with the unusual taste, and that I �must, must, must, have more, more, more.� Except, of course, that they weren�t found in my prairie home. I laughed. �Yes! I did write that!� �Good!� he said. �I took a chance, and called information. They told me there was a Rev. Gibson. Is that your husband?� I confirmed that the Preacher does indeed belong to me. �Anyway,� he continued, �I read your letter and thought �I�m going to get that lady some bakeapple jam.� I have some here. It�s a small jar, but I�ll send it if you�ll give me your address.� I was speechless�well, for a second anyway. Words never escape me for long. You�ve likely noticed. I discovered that he lives off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, on Fogo Island. That he travels by boat to a special picking place each summer. That the berries resemble an orange raspberry. That some years are better than others, and that this is a poor one. Also that the Fogo islanders don�t consider St. John�s, where Graham is from, to be part of Newfoundland��That�s the �mainland.�� I told him I wouldn�t tell Graham that. He laughed. �It�s just how it is.� He gave me his work phone number, so I�d know I could trust the jam, so I�d know he wasn�t trying to poison me. �My name is Junior,� he said. �That�s my actual proper name. It�s a lifelong trick my mother played.� I asked him to be sure to include his return address so I could send a thank you. �For shore, for shore,� I think he said. Then we hung up. Newfoundland has always seemed so far away. Today, for a moment, through the spontaneous kindness of a complete stranger, there was no distance at all between Fogo Island, Newfoundland and Yorkton, Saskatchewan. No distance at all. And God will bless that stranger for using his bakeapple jam to erase it. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |