The Potency of Prayer

"The potency of prayer hath subdued the strength of fire; it hath bridled the rage of lions, hushed anarchy to rest, extinguished wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death, expanded the gates of heaven, assuaged diseases, repelled frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stayed the sun in its course, and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt. Prayer is an all-efficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine which is never exhausted, a sky unobscured by clouds, a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings."

- John Chrysostom

The Mouldy Book

I return once again to my early days at Brock University and to my quest at becoming a cultured intellectual.

The greatest extortion in this land happens every September across university campuses when students are forced to buy textbooks at exorbitant prices. A book that should cost no more than ten bucks can easily go for a couple hundred dollars at the bookstore. When my cousin Jen told me that she had some university textbooks that I could borrow I jumped at the idea. Perfect! I can save big bucks!

She dropped off a box of books the week before school started. “A couple of them might have a little water damage. Okay, bye!” she said. Her car screeched out of the driveway.

Most of the books were in pretty good shape and were the right editions. The book at the very bottom however was a different story.

After I scratched some of the mould off the cover, I discovered that the book was a History of the 20th Century. It smelled bad – real bad. I’m not sure what the book was supposed to look like, but it was now green and furry. I didn’t know they had chia pet textbooks. The pages were sticky and had to be peeled and pried apart.

I tried flipping it open. It didn’t flip open. After working at it a little, I did manage to crack it open. This sent a new wave of rank odour into my face. Everything went black...

When I came to, I was laying on the living room floor. Mom’s flowers had mysteriously wilted and died. The fish in the aquarium were floating.

Later that afternoon, I went online and checked the price of the book and saw that it was around two hundred dollars, and that it was three editions newer. I looked at the book on the screen and then back to the borrowed textbook. Two hundred dollars is a lot, I thought to myself. Maybe I’ll just use this text for a while and see how it goes.

It was my first seminar. I was very nervous too – for one hour, me, ten other students and the professor would sit around a table and discuss what we had read in our textbooks. The professor would mark us based on how intelligent and insightful our comments were.

The professor had given us the reading ahead of time. We were to read the first chapter. As I was to realize much too late, my chapter one was different than the new book’s chapter one.

When we got to the seminar room, everybody pulled out their nice glossy textbooks. My mouth watered at the ‘new book’ smell of their books (you have to be cultured to understand this). Rich snobs, I thought.

I reached into my book bag and pulled out my ‘book’. The students and professor began sniffing and looking around for the source of the smell. “It smells like there is a dead rat in the wall or something!” one girl said. At least my book was a good ice-breaker.

I coughed to cover the sound of me cracking my book open (and due to the fact that I was choking because of the horrid smell).

The student sitting beside me on my right looked at my book and me distastefully. She pulled on her hood and pulled the drawstrings until only her eyes were visible.

The student on my left side was an interesting character. He obviously wasn’t trying to go for the cultured intellectual look judging by all of the metal embedded in his face. He had python tattoos running down his arms to his fingers. He caught a whiff of the book and looked my way. He was a tough looking kind of guy and I didn’t want to get on his bad side. He probably had a python in his backpack. “Cool book dude” he said with an approving nod.

It turned out that the chapter 1 I read was quite different than the chapter 1 the rest of the class read. They all read about the death of Queen Victoria and the dawning of a new age (I was starting to suspect that Queen Victoria was still alive at the time my book had been printed). I had read about the Boer War. It was then that I started to panic – I had nothing to contribute! I had no gem or nugget of knowledge to share with the group! How was I supposed to become a cultural intellectual if I couldn’t even comment on Queen Victoria! I started breathing rapidly, but quickly stopped due to the noxious fumes coming from you know what.

The seminar was nearing an end and I was racking my brain for something to say. My thoughts were broken by the professor. “Greg, you’ve been quiet all seminar. What do you think about the Belle Epoque?”

I froze for a moment like a deer caught in the high beams of a semi. I had two options: I could run out of the room and never come back, or say something about what I had read in my mould encrusted textbook.

“Well,” I said (a very intellectual way to start any profound comment) “I think the real story here is the Boer War.”

Silence.

The girl to my right peeked through her hoodie and gave me a confused look.

“Very interesting” the professor said after a long pause. “I’ve never thought about how the Boer War nullified the optimism and naivety of the Belle Epoque. Very insightful.”

“I concur” I said, even though I had no idea what he just said or what concur meant.

After class, the Goth to my left looked over with admiration. “Cool comment dude – was that in your retro book? Where can I get a copy?” Well, I thought, put that shiny book of yours in a box and store it in a very damp basement for a couple of years. “It’s one of those rare books” I replied. “One of a kind in fact.”

As Easy as Pie

Fundraisers are part of every school community. We’ve all pulled an Oliver Twist as we peddled our overpriced chocolate bars around the neighbourhood. Last year at ORCS, we tackled a completely different fundraiser. Pie making! I had no idea that pie making would be such an adventure...

Let’s go over the ingredients:

A pile of apples
A pile of sugar
A pile of flour
20 grade 7/8 students

Mix all of these together and voila! Chaos!

The room was set up with all different stations. Students were divided into groups and sent to the stations. As time progressed the groups rotated so that everybody had a chance to experience every part of the pie-making process.

Station 1: Peel and Core

The apple peelers were clamped down to the tables. The student would take a luscious apple, and jam it on the sharp spokes of the peeler. A blade would be resting against the peel. When the arm was turned by the student, the peel would come off in a long strip. Once the peel was off, the apple could be slid off this contraption. The sharp spokes cored the apple as well. If done properly with a watchful eye, an apple could be cored and peeled in no time flat. If however, the peeler arm was spun too fast (i.e. warp speed), or the student was not paying attention (i.e. often) the peel and the apple would disappear under the arm of the peeler.

Station 2: Mix the apples into a large bowl of sugary, syrupy gloop

I suppose one of the fatal flaws of this fundraiser was that we made the pies right before lunch. Stomachs cried out as the delicious apple slices were dropped into a large bowl of some kind of cinnamon sugar potion. This station can also be called ‘the temptation station’. Many of the students began deftly munching on a few of the sugary apple slices. By the time it was time to rotate, these students were having a full out feast. Because it is not cool to wear aprons at this age (who can blame them?) many students got this syrupy slop all over their nice white uniform shirts. After a while, the fronts of their shirts dried as hard as a rock. While the futures of their uniform tops were in doubt, it did keep the students from devouring their sugary shirts.

Station 3: Make the pie dough

From the temptation station, where large amounts of sugar were consumed, students moved onto the pie dough stage. While the student’s eyes were already wide-eyed and wild after station 2, they only grew larger with wonderment and excitement when they saw the large pile of flour. They quickly turned into Robin Hood’s Merry Men. For every handful of flour that went into the pie dough, another handful went onto someone’s face/hair/clothes. Picture one of the students if you will. Hands and shirt were completely sticky – now add a shower of flour. Some of the students were beginning to look like mimes.

Station 4: Put the apples into the pie shell

This station was a déjà vu to the ‘temptation station’. The mode of operation was as follows: put an apple slice in the pie shell, and then put a slice in your mouth. Repeat.

Station 5: Crumble top

Never will I forget this station. My nice quiet, retrospective, civilized students were transformed at this station into rabid animals. I’m not sure what crumble top is all made of, but I do know that it is full of sugar, and that it is delicious. It certainly did not help that it was nearing lunchtime. At first students were sneakily eating little clumps while they worked, but that quickly ended. Finally we finished all of the pies, but there was still a large pile of crumble top left. The students descended upon this station like moths to a light. Snarling and growling could be heard as students jostled for position around the table of crumble top.

We finally finished, and the clean-up was minimal (I think the crumble top table was licked clean). As a thank-you for helping, the PTA (who were bravely helping us) baked two of the pies for us to enjoy at lunch.

Lunch

Lunch is normally a lively affair in the classroom, but they all seem terribly dull compared to this lunch. The leftover boerenkoel and stamppott their mothers had so lovingly packed in the student’s lunches were quickly cast aside for the pies. By this point, the students were beyond hyper. They were at the climax of their sugar rushes and the pie served as fuel for the fire. Some of the students were so filled with energy that they were unable to sit down while they ate. I think one student was even levitating. After they inhaled the pies, they went outside and ripped around for half an hour.

As a wise man once said, ‘what goes up must come down.’ When the bell rang for the students to come back inside, I noticed that the sugar rush had worn off. Big time. They were all experiencing a severe sugar crash. I had an exciting History lesson planned for the afternoon. We would be learning about Etienne Brule, the first coureurs de bois, who met his unsavoury demise by being eaten by Natives. As I launched into this exciting story I noticed that some of the student’s eyelids were getting heavy. Other students were losing a battle with gravity and were sliding lower and lower down into their desks. Needless to say, it was a quiet afternoon.

The final bell went and the students silently shuffled out of the room. Instead of saying ‘goodbye’ a couple of them unconsciously said ‘goodnight’.

It was a roller coaster kind of day, but one of those days you are thankful for having the privilege of teaching.

Father Kolbe

He was prisoner #16670. That was all that was important to the guards at Auschwitz. Back at his home church in Poland, he was known as Father Maximilian Kolbe, a simple monk, who loved to serve the church. A year earlier to Father Kolbe’s arrest, Hitler sent out a secret memorandum to Hans Frank, the new Governor General of occupied Poland. “As for Poland’s hundreds of thousands of priests – they will preach what we want them to preach. If any priest acts differently, we shall make short work of him. The task of the priest is to keep the Poles quiet, stupid and dull-witted.” Father Kolbe quickly became one of those priests who did not fit the Nazi mould and was arrested and convicted for publishing illegal material. Father Kolbe arrived at the infamous concentration camp Auschwitz in May of 1941, where he was promptly told that the life expectancy of a priest was one month. After being overworked in the timber detail, Kolbe collapsed. Guards gathered around Kolbe. He was mercilessly kicked, given fifty lashes, then shoved in a ditch, and left to die. The guards snickered as they walked away, not bothered that they had just left a man to die. A couple of brave prisoners found Kolbe and brought him to the camp hospital, where miraculously Kolbe revived.

In July of 1941, a man from Kolbe’s barracks escaped. The next morning, the men from barracks 14 were brought out to stand before the camp commandant on the parade ground. Because the man had made a clean get away, the incensed camp commandant decreed that ten men would be put to death in the starvation chambers. The men from barracks 14 shuddered at hearing the punishment. The hunger chamber was the worst way to die at Auschwitz. Ten men were quickly pulled out of the block of men, and their numbers were recorded. One of the chosen men fell to his knees and cried out in anguish about the family he was leaving behind – ‘My wife! My poor children! – what will they do?’ It was then that prisoner #16670 stepped out of the ranks and approached a guard. The parade ground erupted in cries of astonishment as Father Kolbe asked to take the place of the distraught man in the line of ten condemned men. Instant execution was the usual norm for those who approached a guard without permission, but the guard was curious to hear what Kolbe would say. “May I take his place?” Father Kolbe asked. “Why would you want to take his place?” yelled the guard. Kolbe replied that “I am just an old man with no family, and good for nothing.” The guard looked at him with disgust but allowed the substitution. Father Kolbe followed the other nine men into the terrible starvation cells.

The cries of the men in the starvation cells could usually be heard in the rest of the camp, but when Father Kolbe was sent there, faint singing could be heard. For the prisoners with Kolbe, they had in Kolbe a shepherd to lead them through the shadow of the valley of death. For this reason perhaps, Father Kolbe was the last to die.

Franciszek Gajowniczek was the man who Father Kolbe replaced. He survived Auschwitz and returned to his family and died at the age of 95. Gajowniczek never wasted any opportunities in telling of the powerful act of witness and love shown by Father Kolbe.

Still today, Kolbe’s testimony shines. Kolbe did not witness, he was a witness. Francis of Assisi’s said “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” Father Kolbe exhibited this in Auschwitz. He lived the tenants of Christ’s teachings and exemplified Christian living through his witness.

“He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire. "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!" The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah”
(Psalms 46:9-11)

Goodnight boys...

I love a good practical joke – just ask my students. After playing a little joke on my students a couple of weeks ago, one of the students protested that “No fair – it’s not even April Fool’s Day yet!”

We were brought up with practical jokes at home, which is probably why I am always on the lookout for an opportunity to pull a fast one in the classroom. It was my Dad that introduced us kids to practical jokes many years ago.

23 years ago (pretend you hear the strumming of a harp)

“Goodnight boys!” he called, “and no talking!” Dad shut off the light and closed the door to our bedroom. I was about five years old (and very adorable) and I shared a bedroom with my two older brothers, Derek and Scott. I snuggled into my pillow as I heard Derek and Scott start to fight from across the room. Suddenly their quarrel ended.

“Hey – something wet just touched my foot!” Derek hissed.

“Yeah right Derek, you probably just – hey! Something just touched my foot too!” Scott stammered.

“I told you Scott! It’s probably a flippin’ raccoon licking our feet.” said Derek.

“What? You think so?” said Scott nervously. I could hear him gulp.

This was why I tucked my blankets in very tightly. I started drifting off again – secure in the knowledge that a raccoon couldn’t get past my tucked in blankets. Just as my adorable eyelids began to droop, I suddenly felt my bed move! Now I was wide awake.

“Hey guys!” I urgently called, “Something just moved my bed!”

“Yeah right Greg!” called Derek. “Like something would move your bed – raccoon’s can’t move a bed!”

He was probably right. I snuggled into my pillow again. The silence was broken by giggling that sounded suspiciously human. I was pretty sure raccoons did not giggle.

Dad crawled out from under the bed and turned on the light. He was laughing hysterically by this point. Even though we did not like being the butt end of a joke, we were relieved that there were no raccoons in the room. Rabies is no laughing matter. After he had stopped laughing he told us what he had done. As he was walking out of the room, he had turned off the light then shut the door. However, he had never left the room. The “licking raccoon” was the water from the humidifier.

As Dad left the room, I heard Mom say “Real smart Ralph, those kids will never get to sleep now.”

Being too hyper to sleep, Derek and Scott engaged in hitting each other with their stuffed Curious George monkeys, while I fell into a fitful sleep with my teddy and glow-worm dreaming that someday, I too, would be able to pull off a good practical joke.

My Younger Sisters.

This post is dedicated to my sisters Becky and Ally.

Screaming and yelling could be heard coming from the girl’s bedroom. While this was not unusual (this is often how they communicated), they seemed a little more excited than usual. I walked into the room and discovered that they were having one of their ‘staple’ fights. The bunk beds. Though Alison was younger than Becky, she was the alpha girl, the king of the hill, or the keeper of the top bunk.

Bunk beds are in themselves a very clever invention. Instead of having the kids take up valuable space in the bedroom you could simply stack them up at the side! Like thousands of other North American kids, Becky and Alison went to war over who slept on the top and who slept on the bottom. Ally claimed the top early on and enjoyed the feeling of looking down upon her older sister.

Becky wanted her turn on the top bunk, but she lacked the necessary ferocity to ‘debunk’ Ally. Whenever Becky would make her claim to the top, Ally would attack with devastating rejoinders such as “Fine. I won’t be your friend.” or “Fine. I won’t play with you.” or in very serious situations, “Fine. You’re a p**p head.” Becky would be sent reeling with these zingers and would retreat to the bottom bunk like a wounded animal. Ally would lay back on her top bunk and sleep blissfully.

Back to the beginning though. As I walked in the bedroom, I noticed that Becky was not going to give in. Becky yelled at Ally to give up the top bunk. Ally began quoting Churchill – “We will never surrender. We will fight on the duvet, we will fight on the pillows, we will fight on the ladder. We will never surrender!” “GET DOWN” Becky replied. Ally leaned over the edge and said “Fine. I won’t be your friend.” This barb bounced off Becky like a Lilliputian cannon ball. “I said – get down!” I reflected that Becky needed some clever rejoinders of her own. There was an edge to Becky’s voice that I hadn’t heard in a while. Alison sensed this too, and realized that her other threats would be useless. Becky’s eyes were blazing like Gandalf the Grey. She reached up and grabbed the top bar. She pulled herself up and was now at eye level with Ally. “Get down!” snarled Becky. Ally was like an alley cat (get it?) backed into a corner. She was desperate with nowhere to go. Her eyes began rolling around wildly. In desperation she sunk her nails into Becky’s hands which were gripping the top rail. Becky let out a crazed scream as Ally’s claws sunk deeper into Becky’s paws. It was like watching a scene from the Lion King where Mufasa and Scar are fighting. Just as Scar sinks his claws into the paws of Mufasa and hurls him into the wildebeest stampede below, so to did Ally scratch Becky’s hands and throw her off the bunk bed. I ran to the bed in slow motion (for effect) and yelled nooooo! (also in slow motion). Becky plummeted to the floor. The fall was at least one foot. Instead of a swirling stamped of wildebeests, Becky landed on a pile of Barbies. Heads and accessories went everywhere.

Alison remained at the top.

The girl’s room was quite different than me and my brother Scott’s room. We had two beds and that was it (I may have had a few books as well). The girls’ room was jammed from top to bottom with barbies, dolls, clothes, lipsmackers, and hair accessories. They had power bars upon power bars filled with every sort of curling iron ever created. When the girls were doing their hair in the morning, a strange ‘cha-ching!’ sound could be heard from the whirling hydro metre. The floor was booby-trapped with ‘polly pocket’ figurines to ward off any unwanted intruders. The ceiling was filled with glow in the dark stars. Not only did they have the Big Dipper on the ceiling, but they also had constellations that spelled their names. I still catch myself looking for those in the night sky.

Dad was never impressed with all the clutter in their room, but then one day, Dad discovered the TV show “Clean Sweep”. It changed his life. “Clean Sweep” was a show about people who had way too much stuff. The hosts of the show would come into a house and drag all of the stuff out into the front yard into a giant pile. The homeowners would then have to sort out what they were going to keep and what they were going to toss. Dad loved the concept, but made his own version. When cleaning the basement, he would drag everything out into the backyard, make a gigantic pile and then instead of sorting through it, he would light it on fire. This was quicker and there was less drama.

On one of his days off, Dad was watching Clean Sweep. After the show was over, he walked by the girl’s room and saw a challenge. In no time at all, a huge pile developed in the back yard. Dad lit the pile on fire and gave a contented sigh. Life was good. When the girls came home from school that day, Dad was excitedly waiting for them by the door. “There’s a surprise for you in your bedroom!” he said proudly. The girls dropped their backpacks and ran down the hall. Dad rubbed his hands together gleefully. Dad and I heard the bedroom door open, and then two screams (which sounded like they came from Mordor) pierced the air. Dad’s confident grin weakened as I looked around for invading orcs.

“My diffuser is gone! What happened to my straightner! My hair amplifier is missing! What did you do with my follicle fertilizer!” Becky and Ally had dark looks on their faces as they stormed into the living room. “Surprise!” said Dad with little conviction. “I clean sweeped your room!” The girls looked out to the backyard to see a smouldering pile. The smell of melting plastic only confirmed what they were thinking.

It’s hard to imagine what life would be like without sisters. The house would have been much quieter, and we probably could have gone on exotic vacations with the money we would of have saved from the hydro bills. Life would have been very dull without Becky and Ally and all of the drama and excitement that accompanied them. I think growing up with my sisters has helped me deal with the drama and excitement that happens in the classroom on a daily basis.

My first day at Brock... (cue suspenseful music)

The year was 2001. High School was a thing of the past, and I was now a mature, intellectual, sophisticated university student (or so I hoped). School hadn’t officially started yet, but I had an orientation seminar to attend. It was to be a busy day. I had a dentist appointment in the morning to fill some cavities caused by gorging myself on vast amount of candies over the summer holidays. As I recall, I had told the dentist to fill them all. There were four cavities in all – one in each corner of my mouth. Because my pain tolerance is not much higher than that of a Monarch Butterfly, I emphasized to my dentist to freeze my mouth well. He did. The novocaine needles were going everywhere – top, bottom, sides, tongues, throats, nose etc. The dentist could of have set off a Roman candle in my mouth and I would of have been blissfully unaware. After the dentist had re-surfaced my molars and told me some nonsense about going easy on the fruitellas’, I headed off to Brock.

I rolled onto the campus with my burgundy 1989 International Edition Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. I found a parking spot, and made the trek over to the Mckenzie Chown blocks for my seminar. Even though my nose was still frozen from all of the novocaine, I could still smell pizza as I headed towards the seminar room. I had skipped breakfast which caused my stomach to groan like a love sick moose during mating season. My mouth started watering too – I quickly put my hand to my mouth to stop any unsightly drooling. First impressions are important after all.

I entered the room, put on my nametag and sat down. One of the leaders said “Hi! Would you like a slice of pizza and some coke?” My stomach was growling so loud that the students in the room began to wonder if a pack of feral dogs were roaming the halls. I felt my face – totally frozen. “I wuff slofff slom” I replied (for those of you who don’t speak Novocainian it could be roughly translated as I would love some). She looked confused. “I’ll slet it myslelf” I said (I’ll get it myself). She looked confused and concerned.

I picked out a nice big slice of cheesy pizza, and grabbed a cold coke out of a cooler. A little voice inside me was whispering “ARE YOU CRAZY?!” I stopped and walked back to the table with the pizza. Should I put it back? My stomach, which was now sounding like Chewbacca, was desperate for the pizza. Instead of putting the pizza back (which would of have ended this sad little story right here) I grabbed a stack of napkins.

I sat down and began to nonchalantly eat my slice of pizza. I brought the pizza to my mouth and took a healthy bite. I tried to pull the pizza away, but my incisors hadn’t taken a bite cleanly off yet. I bit down harder and began to slide my teeth around. I politely put the slice down while I chewed away. I took a napkin and delicately dabbed my mouth. The napkin came back full of pizza sauce. I quickly brought the napkin back up and wiped again. The napkin was still full of pizza sauce. I took a fresh napkin and tried again, only to realize that there must be pizza sauce all over my face. It was at that point that I started to get funny looks from my fellow students. I desperately started wiping my face with more napkins, but could never get my face clean. It then dawned on me – it wasn’t pizza sauce – it was blood and lots of it. I wasn’t sure if I had bitten my lip or tongue – they were still completely frozen. I cracked open the can of pop somehow hoping that the pop would wash away the blood. That too proved to be a mistake. I’m not sure if any coke actually made it in my mouth, but about half the can flowed down my chin and onto my shirt like the Zambezi River. My pile of napkins was dwindling quickly as I was trying to clean up two spills. I was more helpless than BP execs during the Gulf oil spill.

Finally the seminar was over. My stomach, though by no means satisfied by one bite of pizza (and half a lower lip as I was to soon learn), was settling down and now sounded like a lonesome loon on a mist filled lake on an early morn. I collected my mountain of bloody napkins and my half chewed pizza and headed for the garbage. I fled the room and ran for my car. When I got in my car, I pointed the rear-view mirror towards my face and let out a startled cry. My shirt, neck, and lower half of my face was covered with a mixture of dried blood, pizza sauce and coke. My lower lip had been severely punctured and had inflated drastically. I could of have written ‘Goodyear’ on it. It was visibly throbbing.

It was then that I realized that I had a long journey ahead of me if ever I was to become that suave, sophisticated, and serious student I had aspired to become.

The Custom Cruiser (they don't make 'em like they used to)

I have come to the stage of my life where I can now tell my students what life was like when I was their age. I particularly enjoy telling them about our station wagon. In this day and age of futuristic space aged minivans with all the fixings, the 1980’s station wagon seems like something out of the Smithsonian. It was a very unique vehicle. The first thing that struck you about the station wagon was its length. It was at least thirty feet long. The classic wagon’s were two-toned. The bottom was wood panelled and the top was a solid colour. The wood panelling gave off a sense of class (or maybe that it was very flammable). The spoked rims were encircled by classic white-walled tires.

I can still remember when Dad brought ‘her’ home for the first time. It glided into the driveway the same way a F-16 lands on the deck of a aircraft carrier. I was waiting on the sidewalk – eager to see the new family ride. Dad was very excited about the new car and had told us that the car was ‘fully loaded’. He had said that the interior looked like the cockpit of an airplane. He was right too – the inside was bedazzled with knobs and switches (some of which had zero uses as we came to realize later). We loved the station wagon at first, but the honeymoon quickly ended.

The first major drawback was the backseat of the wagon. Two people could sit in the back and would face backwards. It was always awkward when you were stopped at an intersection and you were face to face with the driver behind you. You couldn’t open the back door from the inside either – you either had to crawl out of the window, or wait until someone opened it from the outside. Initially sitting in the back felt like you were in a limousine with someone opening the door for you, but this changed quickly when someone ‘forgot’ to open the back door and you were stuck in the hold of that cavernous beast.

Dad took a lot of pride in the station wagon – or woody wagon – as we started to call it. Dad and I cleaned her every Saturday. I would handle the white walls and rims, and Dad would take care of the gigantic hood and the panelling. Little did we know then that this Saturday ritual would be dropped due to the decline of this venerable vehicle.

The decline started with the start of school. The bus stop was about five kilometres down the road and Mom had to drive us to the bus stop every morning. We would all pile in the woody wagon bright and early and get dropped off at the bus stop. My older brother Derek had just come to the point in his life where he started doing his hair. This meant that Mom and the rest of us had to wait in the car until Derek had slicked his hair back with half a litre of gel. By the time Fonzie, I mean Derek, came out of the house we would be late for the bus. Once Derek would get into the car and we got used to the cloud of aftershave and cologne Derek had anointed himself with, Mom would throw the car into reverse and lurch out of the driveway. Once on the road, Mom would jam the ignition into drive and stomp on the gas pedal in a way that would of have won great acclaim at the Indy 500. The great engine roared to life as the gas flowed into it like the mighty Mississippi. A belch of exhaust signalled our launch as I looked out of the back window to see if I could see a hole yawn open in the ozone. The road we lived on was very bumpy and pot-holed. It was the type of road that would bog an army tank down. This did not intimidate Mom – she would weave around the craters with great skill. Sadly this daily ritual took a toll on the station wagon – it seemed to lose some of its pep after a while.

A crushing blow to the aesthetic beauty of the wagon came when Derek got his licence. One fall day, Derek had built up some good steam with the wagon and was careening around a sharp curve. A cube van was approaching from the opposite direction and was encroaching into Derek’s lane. Being the woodsman that he is, Derek veered away from the truck and scraped a large stump that was parked on the shoulder. It was wood on (faux) wood. The stump came out of the ordeal unscathed. Sadly the wagon’s wheel well was pushed in and mangled. Whenever we hit large bumps in the road (i.e. everyday on the way to the bus-stop), the damaged wheel well would scrape along the tire.

There really is so much more to say about this great car. The trip out East in the wagon could fill a book by itself. In the end the wagon just came to a gurgling halt. There was no great explosion or heroic finish. She was like the ol’ family pet who has to be put down – just as ‘Fluffy’ is put to sleep, so to was the wagon put to sleep (aka – crushed) at the wreckers (that thing had enough metal to build at least 50 Hyundai Accents). No more spokes, no more white walls, no more wood panelling, no more ear splitting scraping noises from the crushed wheel well, no more awkward stares from the back seat, and no more useless knobs and buttons. No more.

The Shot Heard Around The World

Did you know that at least 15,000 Canadians fought in the Civil War? There may have been more that fought but we have no records of the men that fought for the South. Because of the cotton coming from the South, Britain sided with and supported the Confederates. Canada too, in some instances, aided the South by giving refuge to Confederate soldiers. In some ways then, the civil war seeped into Canada. Most of Canada’s population is located along the US border, and many Americans had moved north to start new farms. When the call to arms came, many of these farmers rushed down to help fight the South.

Two weeks ago, I went with my 7/8 class to the Otterville Civil War Re-enactment. The little town of Otterville (what – you haven’t heard of it?!) actually has a little Civil War cemetery. It was a rainy, cold afternoon, which always seems to add to the solemnity of these events. We filed off the bus and were greeted by a Union soldier who led us to the town blacksmith. He was very interesting, but it was also very nice to stand around the nice warm forge.

Next was the field doctor. His demonstrations and speech was definitely the highlight of the afternoon. His tools and instruments were all lined up in front of him as he proceeded to tell us how to amputate a limb. It was at that point that I was thankful I skipped lunch. I noticed that some of the students were becoming a little white faced as he enthusiastically explained the proper method of cutting the skin off of an amputated arm into proper flaps. One student started to edge to the back of the crowd as the ‘doctor’ instructed us how to saw through the bone. When he picked up a pair of pliers, I led a couple of the shell shocked students away from the tent to have a little breather. I made sure they were out of earshot. I came back just in time to hear him talking about how the doctor would sometimes have to dig into the wound and dig out the artery with a clamp. I was feeling very woozy by the time he was finished. When he ended, he asked for questions. I jumped in like an acrobat – “Sorry – no time for questions – got to keep moving!” The doctor looked a little disappointed. We moved along as the good doctor waved goodbye (with a saw in his hand) and told us to come back when we had more time.

It was now time to learn how to shoot a musket. We gathered around a couple of Union soldiers who gave us a couple of demonstrations. After the smoke cleared away, and the ringing in our ears subsided, one of the soldiers asked if the teacher would like to shoot the musket. “Look at the time!” I said. “I think everyone wants to go back and listen to the doctor explain how he treats gangrene.” It was to no avail. The kids were chanting “Shoot! Shoot!” I stepped forward took the musket and loaded her up. A Civil War soldier was expected to shoot three rounds per minute. It only took me four minutes. I shot the musket with perfect precision. Half the students fell to the ground for effect.
As I led the students back to bus, I listened in on the excited chatter about amputated limbs, 19th century clothing, muskets, bullet wounds and battles. I love how history can come alive like it did that afternoon for a grade 7/8 class and for their teacher.

A Short Story...

Swimming lessons. The very thought sent shivers down my spine. I couldn’t wait for school to end, but I dreaded the advent of having to spend an entire morning for three weeks at Jordan pool. Rumours swirled around the pool deck that someone had seen an actual chunk of ice floating in the pool that morning. Charlie McBain swore that he saw the life guards dump bags of ice in the pool – then again, Charlie had also claimed that the life guards were really former convicts. I had passed through ‘red’ last year, and was now in ‘maroon’ – whatever that meant. I wasn’t thinking of the colour as much as the state of being ‘marooned’ on this wretched pool deck on a Monday morning with the prospects of having to spend a couple hours submerged in a hypothermia inducing pool. As I huddled with my fellow ‘maroonies’ (morons?) I looked around the pool deck. A heavy fifteen foot chain link fence surrounded the pool deck. The tall lifeguard chairs served as the watchtowers to this compound. There would be no escape. I looked beyond the chain link fence to my mother sitting with a group of ladies in their nice comfy lawn chairs – they seemed to enjoy this unfolding horror, just as the Romans enjoyed watching spectacle unfold in their coliseums.

I followed my group over to the edge of the pool, while Nick our instructor gleefully informed us how many laps we would be doing. Visions of a pool skimmer and the back of Nick’s head danced through my head. My thoughts were interrupted by screams coming from the other end of the pool. One of the ‘pollywogs’ had latched himself onto the chain link fence. His eyes were wild with fear, and a ghastly scream spilled out from his mouth. Resistance was futile. Two life guards tag teamed the little ‘pollywog’ and started to pull him away from the fence. His mother assisted from the other side of the fence and started to pry his little fingers away from the chain links. The thrashing boy was dismembered from the fence and carried towards the most feared object of the pool for ‘pollywogs’ – the diving board. The poor kid didn’t stand a chance. The “life” guards dropped the boy into the swirling waters. The fall was at least two feet high. The life guard reached over to the side of the deck and reached for the large hook. This was a ten foot pole with a giant hook at the end used to scoop drowning victims out of the pool. I had often thought what an excellent lighting rod that pole would make. I looked up into the sky wistfully. With a flick of the wrist the life guard scooped the boy out of the abyss.

Finally it was our time to go into the pool. Nick the merciless taskmaster, would be monitoring from the side. His job was to pace the side of the pool deck and to stomp on any little hand that would dare hang on the side. The initial shock of the cold water was stunning. The brain goes into survival mode and all extraneous information is forgotten, akin to a crashing computer. For the first few moments, I wasn’t even sure what my name was. My seventy pound body wasn’t able to take frigid waters as well as someone equipped with gelatinous epidermis. In all my years of swimming lessons, never did I once see the life guards join us in the pool.

After what seemed like hours of swimming laps and treading water we were allowed out of the pool. This part of the ‘lesson’ was my least favourite, but fortunately the life guards had mercy on me. For some unknown reason, the pool builders thought it would be a good idea to build a ‘high dive’. I would of have cautioned them with the story of the ‘Tower of Babel’. Over the years I have seen many injuries result from the high dive – the belly flops always being the worst. Seventy pound bodies were not meant to go off the edge of such a tall structure, but down they plummet – like a sheet of paper caught in a wind storm. Arms and legs would flail helplessly as the inevitable slapping sound would still the pool deck and hush the ladies behind the safety of the fence. The hook would then swing over the pool like a boom on a crane. Just as the battered body would float to the surface, the hook would scoop up the casualties and deposit them on the deck. “Who’s next?” the life guard would call in an all too smug voice. I edged my way to the chain link fence and hung on with a death grip...

The bright side of marking...

As you can imagine, marking loses it's charm pretty quickly. Everyone once in a while though, a comment will appear in a test or paper that will make your day and make you almost happy that you have so much marking to do.

The students were asked to evaluate the novel "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry". The evaluations were generally positive, though one student in particular made it quite clear that he did not enjoy the book. "I didn't like the book. It is the type of book that my mom would read."

Then there is the student who has nothing more to say, but wants to fill the paper. On a Church History test, students were asked to write about the character of Queen Elizabeth I and the impact she had on the victory over the Spanish Armada. One student wrote: "Elizabeth was a great queen. She had the body of a women, but the heart of a king. Also, she would be the type of person that would make a great soccer coach." Yes, I can just imagine Elizabeth I on the sideline of a soccer field urging her young 'timbits' on. "Vanquish the enemy! Put them to the sword! Though you have bodies of weak children, you have the heart of David Beckham!"

Grade 7/8 - 2011

It has been an incredible year. I'm not sure who learnt more - myself or my students. It seemed like just yesterday that the students walked into the room for the first time. Thanksgiving and Christmas flew by. The March break was a flash. Our greatly anticipated class trip was a complete blur. Graduation is done, and the class party was tonight. I don't think there has ever been a time in my life where time has flown by so quickly. I have often thought of Isaac Watt's line from one of his hymns: "Time, like an ever rolling stream..."

God has been good. His mercies have truly been new every morning. I'll miss the students, and will always have a special memory for my 'first class'.