Echoing Footsteps

Great Granddad was a pioneer who broke the stubborn sod With no one to advise or help — except his wife and God. He did not realize the need of scientific lore

To grow a pig or plant a field to swell his modest store.

His university degrees came not from ivied halls

But from the lasting lessons learned within life’s rugged walls. The winding road he hacked across the hills is dim to sight But it led straight to happiness and kept his feet aright; Successors to his lone domain were heirs to an estate

That still inspires a troubled land and men commemorate.

Great Granddad’s cosy cabin home is still the meeting place

For all the folk who seek to know a pure and simple grace.

Men journey back to find his trail, the symbol of his day,

For on its gentle sweeps and turns no foot can go astray;

With reverent hands they reach to touch the handles of his plow,

And in the simple gesture right the crown upon his brow;

Men walk with quiet footsteps o’er that long forgotten ground,

Their spirits probing for the peace his calloused hands had found. Great Granddad’s tools were rough and crude but with an inborn skill,

He hewed a niche his counterparts find difficult to fill.

S. Barlow Bird

Eustace Reeves, Sr., Third from right (kneeling), presented the RE]. Amateur Tug-Of—War Championship Trophy to the Freetown Tuggers Wednesday evening, after the Tuggers successfully defended their champion- ship at Community Gardens in Kensington. Accepting the trophy on behalf of the team was Harold Drummond (coach), kneeling, second from right.

Other members, front row, from the left: Garland Stetson, Grant Stetson, Bobby Jardine, and Robin

Drummond. Standing, from theleft: Dale Drummond, Mitchell Drummond, Brian Stavert, Eustace Reeves, Jr., Blaine

Drummond, Wade Drummond, and Marvin Stavert, It marked the fifth consecutive year that Freetown has won the Island title. Wednesday’s tug-of—war

championship was held in conjunction with the annual Community Harvest festival.

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