A Tale of Two Sisters

We are currently studying Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol at school.  It is one of my favourite pieces of literature and is from one of my favourite periods in history.  Dickens was a masterful writer and wrote many other classics besides A Christmas Carol.  After recently reading about Dickens and some snippets of his popular works, I was reminded of a little Dickensian episode that occurred many years ago.  I was in university where I was trying to become an intellectual (fun fact: still trying).  I had just discovered the Industrial Revolution and this amazing period of British history, when one day at home, the world of Dickens became real to me.

 “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  It was a tumultuous time in the Slingerland household.  For some reason that is not known (well I’m sure there is a reason but I didn’t try to find out) it came to be that my two younger sisters, Ally and Becky, were to have their wisdom teeth pulled on the same day.  Perhaps mother found a two-for-one coupon for wisdom teeth pulling.  There was no doubt however, that this was going to be a traumatic event for the girls and for everyone in the home.  Extensive preparations were made.  A gigantic bed was made in the basement in front of the TV.  Anne of Green Gables and Maria Von Trapp were on standby.  Kleenex and pain killers were ready at the bedside.  Jello and pudding were setting in the fridge.  

The day of the appointment arrived and the girls headed out to the mini-van.  Mom gave me some instructions before she shuttled the girls over to the doctor’s office.  “When I get back, you’ll have to help me bring the girls into the house and down to the basement.”  I told her that I would clear my schedule and do my brotherly duty.  In truth, I was looking forward to some excitement and drama.

Later that day...

The mini-van pulled into the driveway and came to a halt by the front sidewalk.  The garage door was opened remotely and Mom got out and went to the passenger side and opened the front door of the van.  She put her hand around Ally’s shoulders and guided her to the house.  Ally’s face was as white as snow, or as Dickens would say, ‘as white as the ghost of Christmas past’.  Mom expertly steered Alison through the garage and into the house.  I helped Mom from there and together we laid Ally down on the couch.  Things looked pretty grim.  I briefly thought about getting a pen and paper for a last will and testament.  Her eyelids fluttered and her mouth was completely swollen.  A solitary tear rolled down her face and then veered off to the side when it hit her chipmunk cheek.  

Our thoughts turned to Becky.  While I checked Ally’s pulse, Mom went back out to the van to get Becky.  Mom slid the side door open and guided Becky out.  I expected to see an ashen and morose Becky emerge from the van, but to my surprise, she just about rolled out of the van.  Even more astonishing was that Becky was laughing hysterically.  Mom propelled goofy Becky into the house and onto the other couch.  

The girls eventually made their way down to their basement bed where they began to watch inordinate amounts of Anne of Green Gables.  When that series was finished, The Sound of Music was slid into the overworked DVD player.  The entire house was then treated to the yodelling of a lonely goat-herd.  

The girls were not quite themselves throughout this healing process.  Becky giggled, laughed, sniggered, cackled, chortled, chuckled, guffawed, and hooted her way to getting better over the next couple of days.  Even when she was in pain, she was laughing.  Ally sniveled, whimpered, bawled, sobbed, and wept her way to getting better.  They made quite the pair – like yin and yang, black and white, or Bert and Ernie.

Besides the DVD’s, we did play a lot of Monopoly.  Because I wasn’t on heavy pain killers, I had a bit of a mental edge on the girls.  

“Hey Becky, look how pretty the purple stripe on Baltic Ave is!  Why don’t you give me Marvin Gardens and I’ll give you Baltic.” 

“Thanks Greg!”  Becky giggled.

 Alison mustered enough strength to give the dice a good toss.  She was rewarded with the ‘free parking’ spot and the jackpot.  As she collected her money, the ‘waterworks’ were turned on.  “I don’t know why I’m crying!” she said.  

Becky rolled the dice and moved the dog along the board.  The dog stopped on my ‘Parkplace’, which also had a nice little hotel on it.  I was pretty impressed with how Becky laughed it off.  I was laughing too. 

Both girls successfully recovered from the trauma of wisdom teeth extraction and were soon back to their normal selves.  To the relief of everyone, Anne of Green Gables and Maria Von Trapp were put back into their cases and left to collect dust.  It truly was the best and worst of times.  The worst in that the girls experienced a lot of pain, Matthew from Anne of Green Gables died (by my count at least 7 times), the Nazi’s annexed Austria, and then there were the crushing Monopoly defeats.  And the best of times, in that the girls did get to spend a lot of time with each other, watched as Anne was accepted by Marilla (by my count at least 7 times), the Von Trapp Singer’s victory at the Salzburg Music Festival, and the privilege of playing Monopoly with their older brother. 

An Incredible Yarn

As some of you know, I have taken up a new teaching assignment at Heritage Christian School for September where I’ll be teaching the seventh grade.  I was there a few weeks ago for a meeting and got a chance to tour the building.  Since graduating from HCS, I hadn’t really been in the school besides the gym and front foyer.  I was surprised at how huge the place had become.  The hallways especially seem impossibly long.

Me in Grade 6 at HCS

A lot has changed at Heritage since I was just a young padawan.  We were an adventurous lot back then.  We dreamed big and lived life wide open.  We fearlessly wore our bright red HCS cardigans with their shiny red oversized pearly buttons as if we were one great red army (in hindsight red probably was not the best choice as the Cold War was just ending).  Because the proletariat, I mean the students, came from a collection of other schools at the beginning, we were initially a fractured bunch.  We needed school spirit!  We needed some great effort – a great march if you will – to unify us!  One of the teachers came up with an amazing idea of breaking a world record as a school body.  What record could we break as a student body?  We all put our minds to work and thought over some possibilities.

Someone suggested trying to break the record for the number of students that could be squeezed into a school bus.  Since our buses were already filled way past capacity anyway, it didn’t seem like this record would be that hard to break.  The plan was scuttled however due to the fact that the fire department did not have a ‘jaws of life’, or some other lame reason.

“What about hotdogs?” someone asked.  Hot dog records are usually pretty popular.  We could put ourselves in the record books, get great publicity, and have the opportunity to eat some delicious hotdogs.  We already ate hotdogs for hot lunch, so in a way, we had already trained for this record.  After consulting the record books however, we learned that the record holder ate 69 hotdogs in ten minutes.  It took me ten minutes just to eat one, and then I was full!  The death knell to this idea (and coincidentally the end of hotdog hot lunch) came when someone researched what hotdogs were actually made of.  

My favourite idea for setting a record was to see how many days PD days we could have before the government shut us down.  The teachers and parents were not very receptive of this idea however – they came up with some nonsensical excuse about it negatively impacting our education.

After many more ideas, one of the teachers came up with the ultimate record setting idea, which was soon announced at a special assembly.  We all sat with bated breath as the idea was explained.  It was completely original and had never before been attempted, but it would require hard work and dedication from everyone.  The student body was on board though and determined to set a record.  Finally the big announcement came.  The students leaned forward in their seats as the teacher proclaimed “We are going to set to set the record for corking!”

Stunned silence.  The teacher waited expectantly for a standing ovation or other adulations, but none came.  Instead confused whispering began.

“What is corking!?”

“My parents don’t let me have wine!”

“Maybe corking means punching!”

“Did she say ‘corking’ or ‘courting’?  Girls are yucky!”

The teacher cleared her throat and said “Maybe I had better explain what corking is.  Corking is sort of like, um.... it’s sort of like knitting.” The teacher looked nervously over the astounded group of students and continued.  “I know what you’re thinking – ‘corking does not sound very exciting’.  I know it seems like that is true, but I think you’ll be surprised.”

As so, all of the students were given corking spools and picks, and were taught how to cork.  The corking soon caught on but not because of the prospect of the world record, but rather it caught on when classes began vying for the longest corked strand.  A few students began to compete with each other and toiled over their corking spools long into the night.  If there were any spare moments in class, we would reach into our desks and begin to cork madly.  We quickly became corking experts in respect to our technique and swiftness.

After a couple of weeks, there was no longer any doubt that we set some kind of record for corking.  We also knew that there would never be any effort like this again.  We kept on corking though – urged on by class competition and because the person with the longest strand would be rewarded with a corking trophy (a giant corking spool made out of cardboard and spray-painted gold) and with the satisfaction of knowing that you were a big deal.  

The problem with corking was that the end product of corking was completely useless.  I had corked a couple of feet, but had no idea what it could be used for.  At the end of the competition we had a couple hundred feet of knitted cork.  It was like a great pile of knitted intestines.  I was glad when the competition ended.  My fingers were starting to feel arthritic and carpal tunnel was setting in.  Some of the students had a tougher time letting go.  They continued to cork long after the competition – idly corking on the bus, at recess, or at home.  Sadly, some of the corking spools had to be pried out of their hands and destroyed. 

It turned out that the record keepers were not interested in corking records, and so we never officially made it into the record books.  It did turn out to be exciting in a very odd way, and Heritage became tightly knit together by this corking odyssey.