five pence for a trip down the road to everlasting life

when i was a child, my mums two youngest brothers lived with us in
our basement in bowness. kerry, who was immediately younger than my
mum and brent, the baby of the nine kids. i loved both of them
indefinitely as they would play with my brother and i building forts
in the basement and hockey in the street out front of our house by the
school. i vividly recall one photo from an early album with the three of us in a turtle shaped kiddie pool in the back yard: their legs stretched out and over in a criss cross in the pool and me snuggled in between them laughing wildly as they
grinned at the camera. we were only wearing swimming trunks,
my pale pink abdomen soaking up as much sun light as their lightly
blonde tufted chests. i wanted to be like them, and they loved being
my mentors.


kerry met a girl, joanna, who had come travelling from england. and
as such enamourments go, they were soon engaged and set to be married.
kerry wanted me to be his flower girl at the wedding, so my mum and i
went to england for six weeks when i was the same age for my first
international journey to the united kingdom. i remember the flurry of
arriving at gatwick and then being ushered into one of the famous
black cabs and soon we were off at a break neck pace down country
roads to the south of england where jo's family lived, my tiny head
barely coming to the bottom of the window and only being able to see
tall grasses whip past as the rain drizzled grey and soft on the
windows of the cab.

when we arrived in corfe mullen, the world was entirely different from
what i recognized back home: a quaint little town with houses above
shoppes on cramped streets and verdant fields of wild horses grazing
in the near by elm forests. we stayed with a family called the
footes. they lived beside a bake shoppe had 5 children. every
morning my mum would get me up and take me to get a sugar dusted jam
filled donut, and this was my breakfast with tea and milk. the footes
were lovely people, and all of their children were also lovely.
richard, their father, was a tall rakish man who always had a smirk
and a witticism to convey. one evening whilst watching some japanese
cartoon in the living room, he sat in his arm chair joking with my mum
and his wife as rory and michaela and i sat about enrapt by the
television. at some point, he motioned to me and made a joke, which i
must have taken exception to because for some reason i rolled over to
where he sat and promptly proceeded to chomp down on his big toe. i
remember the taste of his foot on his sock and he howled in pain as
my mother launched across the living room and promptly whisked me
upstairs, sans dinner, as a punishment.


the next morning, i awoke to a flash and then a feeling of a very thick
head. as i opened my eyes, i noticed the cot i was sleeping on had
tipped itself downward as i was too far up on it, and i had been
effectively sleeping upside down like a bat. there was my mother
immediately above me, laughing hysterically with a camera in her hand.
clearly, the foote foot incident has been forgotten and we went to
the bake shoppe for my daily doughnut.


just because we were on a vacation of sorts didn't mean we got out of
going to church, so that night we all trundled off to the local
kingdom hall and the services commenced. the first portion of the
service is dedicated to teaching other parishioners how to be good
bible teachers, and there are several small assignments regarding
biblical topics given to members of the congregation and the next
week you are required to get up on stage and give a short presentation
of the material.

one young fellow, he mustn't have been more than 15, was given an
assignment and when he got up on stage he commenced:

' i know the material was sposed to be on the apostle paul but i
thought i'd give a talk on something i thought more prudent: jack
rabbits.'


and then he gave an entire 5 minute presentation on jack rabbits. no
one interjected. they just let him go. after he finished, the
speaker for the evening came back on stage and said ' that was lovely,
john. but unfortunately the assignment was on the apostle paul, so
you'll have to do it again next week.

i wasn't present the next week, as we'd already returned to canada but
i cant help but wonder still if he gave his assigned material a go or
if he came up with another woodland creature more interesting to him
than the new testament.