The McCulloch chainsaw 325 was introduced in 1949 by McCullough Motors and revolutionized the North American chainsaw industry with this light one-man wood cutting tool. The McCulloch brand became known for powerful and world-renowned chainsaws. Continuing with their successes they developed the Power Mac 6, the world’s lightest chainsaw in 1968. The name was synonymous with durability and toughness.
The story I am about to tell you has nothing to do with McCulloch chainsaws. It happened in the town of Marystown on the Burin Peninsula in the wonderful province of Newfoundland in the late 1980’s. Marystown detachment was one of the busier detachments in the province, and it was a common occurrence to be writing up reports long after your shift ended. The unfortunate part of that was not all those hours were paid and were volunteered just to keep abreast of your workload.
The detachment area covered a large territory from Frenchmen’s Cove to English Harbour East and all communities within that area. It was a large area covered by a staff of approximately fifteen police officers and support staff. Crime in the area consisted mostly of break and entries, thefts, assaults, serious assaults, sexual assaults, impaired driving, drug offences, illegal liquor, frauds, and other offences. There was also an occasional armed robbery and a murder in the mix.
A lot of the assaults resulted from family disputes. Police officers have been killed or seriously injured when attending family disputes and this was in the forefront of your mind when attending those calls. This was the case one fall night when I received a call from telecoms. A neighbor had reported a young girl had come to her house telling her that her Mom and Dad were fighting. Constable Henry Poswatta happened to be at the detachment office, and he contacted me via the police radio advising he would attend the call with me. I picked him up and we proceeded to the scene.
We had a little difficulty finding the access road to the house and decided to park on the road. We went through a neighboring property to get to the small house at the edge of a large open field with a view of the inlet to Mortier Bay. We knocked on the rear door and getting no answer we opened the wooden door to the small porch. The porch opened to a kitchen not much bigger than the porch. The table was overturned, the two chairs were strewn on top of the table, and the floor was covered with what appeared to be a mix of sugar and flour. The fridge door was open and some of the contents were scattered over the floor. A carton of milk had landed upright in front of the opened refrigerator.
There was a panel door that separated the rest of the house from the kitchen. It was closed and there were several large slits in the door. I glanced a WTF look at Henry as I opened the door. There was a short hallway leading to the front entrance door which was opened. There were a couple other doors which were closed, one with a chainsaw blade sticking in it and several slits like those on the kitchen door. A small thin man in his late thirties was sitting down in the front entrance, his foot hanging out the entrance. There was no step outside the door frame, and an eight-foot drop to the ground. This type of entrance was common in this province and known as ‘mother-in-law-doors.’
The shirtless man pushed his scraggly shoulder length hair back over his ear and spoke at the door.
“Come on, let’s start over.” He was oblivious to our presence until I announced our presence. “Police. We received a call of a disturbance here. Is everybody all right?”
A woman’s voice came from behind the door with the chainsaw blade in it.
“Is Danny (not his real name) still there?”
The only other person in the hallway besides us was this scrawny, little man so I assumed he was Danny.
“Yes, he is but we are here to help you.” I said as she opened the door which revealed it was a tiny bathroom. She was a large woman about the same height as Danny but twice as wide. She was wearing a night dress with a flowered pattern. Her hair sparkled with grains of sugar as she exited. She had a reddish mark on her right cheek.
“He’s crazy. He upset the kitchen table and hit me. Then he tried to stab me with this blade.” She said pointing to the blade sticking out of the door.
I pulled the blade from the door and looked at Danny who was still swinging his leg out the door, as if he were enjoying a lazy summer day waiting for a glass of lemonade. “Is this true?” I said as I handed the blade to Henry.
“Yeah, but she started it.” He muttered.
Okay, that settles it then, I thought. She should not have spoken in your divine presence. I told Danny he was under arrest for assaulting his wife. I reached down to grab his left arm to pull him to his feet. As soon as I touched his arm, he pulled away, resulting in him falling out the front door. He hit the ground and pounced to his feet running into a large deflowered, rose bush. We both jumped to the ground in pursuit, but he pushed himself in amongst the thorny bush and wrapped his arms around the branches. We went after him, Henry on one side and me on the other.
Several minutes later we pulled him from this prickly refuge. He continued to struggle with the ferocity of a wolverine. We managed to put the handcuffs on him, but he laid still on the ground, his dead eyes giving no sign of the life within. His chest rising and falling was our only sign he was still with us. Either he was exhausted, or he had just given up, your guess is as good as mine. We carried him to the police car, lifting him over the neighbor’s fence. We put him in the back seat, and he mumbled something like ‘fuck.’ It would be difficult for the public masses to see, how such a small fellow could put up so much resistance for two big police officers. I venture to think that in today’s world, we could easily be ostracized on social media with cell phone videos distributed to a shocked audience. Thankfully, there were no cell phones then. Despite that I often feel for officers in today’s world with their every move being taped. Should someone want to resist you, there is just no way to make an arrest look pretty.
We booked this guy and wrote up the reports after we pulled the thorns from our hands and arms. Our injuries were minor and so were Danny’s but the next morning I went into the cells to check on him, and he looked like a wild cat had attacked him. There were surface scratches all over his chest and back. They were not deep and had mostly scabbed over. He apologized for his actions saying he had a few drinks and just went a little crazy. He asked me about court, and I told him he would be released on an undertaking later that day to appear in court in a couple of weeks.
I have a habit of nicknaming people based on my experiences with them and that brings me to the 1968 McCulloch Power Mac 6. It was lightweight and tough just like this fellow, so I nicknamed him Danny McCulloch. The nickname was not because of any admiration for him, he certainly did not deserve that, it just helped me remember the craziness of the moment. A lucky moment for him, because if the chainsaw blade had struck his intended target, his life would be forever changed, and this would be a much darker tale.
