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COME FROM AWAY

BY MARGIE GOLDSMITH

f you don’t come from Newfoundland This crazy-looking home-made instru-
and Labrador, you “come from away,” ment sounds like a bass drum when
which also happens to be the name of banged on the ground, and the jangling
Ithe award-winning Broadway musical bottle caps create perfect percussion. The
in which the residents of Gander took care Ugly Stick dates back hundreds of years
of 7,000 unexpected air passengers on when residents in small isolated outposts,
9/11. During Come from Away, one of the most inaccessible by road and with almost
musicians plays an Ugly Stick, a musical no opportunity for outside entertainment,
instrument made from an upside-down held impromptu gatherings to sing, dance,
mop with a painted face and bottle caps tell stories and drink. They were called
and tin cans which jounce and jingle when kitchen parties because they took place in
hit with a stick. the kitchen, the warmest room in the house,

188 WDT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018