Most Things Are Like That When You Look Close

—SHOW NOTES—

◘ Wayne reflects on the second anniversary of his move to St. John’s ◘

—Sources—

◘ Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador. “Maps of Newfoundland and Labrador.” 1999. https://www.heritage.nf.ca/resources/place-maps.php. ◘ 

◘ Wayne Jones. WayneJones.ca. “My Standup Comedy.” Updated November 27, 2025. https://www.waynejones.ca/my-standup-comedy/. ◘ 

Transcript

Hi, I’m Wayne Jones. Welcome to Newfoundland Boy, a podcast about the Canadian province of Newfoundland. This is episode 56: Most Things Are Like That When You Look Close.

This Wednesday, November 3, is the second anniversary of my moving back to Newfoundland after having lived elsewhere (specifically, various cities in Ontario, as well as Somerville, Massachusetts, just north of Boston) since the fall of 1981. That’s nearly 42 years.

The good news is that I like St. John’s, even love it. It’s one of those cities that you can’t get confused with any other city, partly because of the things in the city itself, but also partly because of the people. If you were to wake up in a drunken stupor here—which, for the record, I have not—and struggle to your feet and look around, you’d know where you were. The two other cities that strike me as similar in that way are New York and New Orleans. Unique. You don’t get those faces mixed up with anyone else.

When I refer to the people of St. John’s, I mean those I bump into in general but also friendships I have formed. It’s been a long time since I’ve made new, close friends. Part of that is my personality. I generally don’t derive much value from “light friendships” or acquaintanceships where the focus is small talk and going out on the town. I like close, open, intimate friends pretty much right from the start. They are rare, but I’m lucky enough to be blessed with more than just one of them. It’s a bad comparison, something that in rhetoric they call bathos (not pathos, by the way), but people in general can be like my car. From a distance and even up close, it looks pretty good, but when you examine it closely you see scratches and rust spots, a big difference in paint shade after the repair due to my encounter with a guardrail on the trip from Ottawa to get here to St. John’s, and many other relatively minor faults.

I tend to pay attention so I see lots of these when I look closely at most people (and, no, I am not saying I am better than most people: they might see even more if they examined me closely). But there is the rare person from whom I come away thinking, My god, how did you get to be such a great person of character? As another comparison I would cite any art form. Most of them range from horrible to pretty good, but there is only that, what, let’s say five percent that can bear close examination and still leave you breathless.

One of the things I’ve really like during the past two years is getting to know the city and the Avalon Peninsula better. If you know what the shape of the island portion of Newfoundland looks like, then the Avalon Peninsula is that sort of H-shaped peninsula on the southeast, and St. John’s is located about halfway up the upper-right bar of the H. It sounds complicated but it’s not: check the show notes for a link to a simple map. The peninsula is not only full of hundreds of fascinating communities, but also often very different dialects or versions of English, something I’ve been interested in for decades. I’ve visited or explored only a tiny portion of them and some of the ones that stand out so far, for different reasons, are Ferryland, Cape St. Francis, Dildo, and St. Jones Within. One of the kinds of sights I just love and marvel at overall is being on land and having a close and direct view of the Atlantic Ocean. I find that exhilarating, either seeing the power of it crash in waves onto a rocky coast, or seeing the vast expanse of it going out to what looks like the end of the planet, but which I am told ends around Europe.

I’ve taken up some new hobbies, if that’s the right word for them. That word kind of reminds me of stamp-collecting, which I used to do when I was around ten or so, but lately it’s been podcasting and most recently standup comedy. Wednesday also marks the anniversary of my comedy, only three months in this case. It’s something I promised myself I would do after retirement, and I did my first set at a pub just down the road from me: the Peter Easton on Cookstown Road on September 3, where the weekly Last Minute Comedy show is held. I’ve recorded and saved most of my sets since then: if you’re interested, please see the link to my website in the show notes. So far, I have made zeroes of thousands of dollars, but one of the aspects I’ve thoroughly enjoyed and been heartened by is the camaraderie of the other standup comedians I’ve met. I’m old enough to be the grandfather, father, or creepy uncle of most of them, but they’ve accepted me like one of their own.

I still love podcasting. This one you’re listening to right now is the only one I host these days. I’m starting to vary the content of it by including more interviews, though I’m generally determined to keep things on the shorter side. If it’s only me talking, the episodes are usually less than ten minutes long; if I have a guest or guests, they get up around twenty-five minutes.

I’ve found a cozy condo to live in (and hope to help improve its management), my car is holding out, and I am a member of that elite set of Newfoundland residents who loves the weather here (well, we won’t talk about the winter). I’ve put on some weight: thank you to everyone who hasn’t noticed or has kindly not mentioned it, and for those who constantly remind me of it, as they say in Pouch Cove, For the love of Jeezus, take me as I am and mind your own goddamn business.

One downside has been that though I’ve gained friends, I’ve moved further away from the great and very close friends I have in British Columbia and in Ontario. For perspective, Canada is about 5,000 kilometres (around 3,000 miles) wide. Newfoundland is at the far easterly end, British Columbia is at the far westerly end, and Ontario is kind of in the middle. I keep in touch with them all though.

No matter what you do, or choose not to do, in life, there are always consequences and repercussions. There are always things in those decisions or lack of decisions that you can be sure are going to happen, and there are always pleasant surprises and, yes, surprises that are disheartening, hurtful, and disappointing. I’m not the kind of person who stays put in the same place. In spite of the negative things about my move from Ottawa, I don’t regret it and in fact really like this city, as I hope I’ve made clear here in this episode. I may still have a few moves left in me. We shall see.

May I make a special, please and pretty please request, that if you enjoy my podcast, give me a like or a rating on Apple or Spotify. It will help me get even more listeners. And that’s all for this episode. Thanks for listening, and join me again next Saturday.