“It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is one that sings.”
– Wendell Berry
The Grands
It’s truly grand to have the grands. Two of our families came on different dates in November, and the condo was rocking.
The families traveled through Toronto, where they overnighted before arriving on the island. When they boarded their shuttle to take them to the airport, five-year-old Miss Lucy, delighted to experience her first bus ride, announced to a packed bus; “When I grow up, I’m going to be a shuttle bus driver!” After a short pause, she added, “And I’m not going to stop for anyone. They’ll just have to jump off as I go by”
Career Choices
This reminded me of what the children deemed would be their future careers when they grew up. There were a lot of interesting choices.
When we lived on an acreage in Calgary, we raised both laying hens and meat birds. Our youngest son was fast and small enough to fit in the chicken run, so on execution day, he was employed to catch the birds. We fashioned a long wire with a loop on the end from a clothes hanger, and away he went, catching them on the run, in corners, and in flight. Not one escaped the lad who, upon completion, chugged up to us and declared; “when I grow up, I’m going to be a chicken catcher!” He could have made millions here on our island.
Our eldest daughter, a confirmed fashionista, came home one day from high school with a withering look on her face and announced that the school counselor had the class take a test to give them an idea of what career they might be headed for.
“And…” I asked, curious what a fashion conscious teen might become. Arms crossed, she shot back, “Plumber, framer, taxidermist.” She caught me trying to keep a straight face and yelled, “That is not the faintest bit funny!”
Just Go-pher It!
Considering how many small creatures expired or passed through our acreage when we lived in Canada, a taxidermist might have come in handy to have in the family. We could have decorated the family room with a fine display of stuffed chickens, hamsters, weasels, and gophers.
As a matter of fact, there is a gopher museum in the middle of the Alberta prairie in an out-of-the-way place called Torrington (population 300). For a small donation, you too can tour the museum and see stuffed gophers in a variety of unusual dress and poses. www.gophermuseum.org. One of my favorite vignettes is a gopher in a jean jacket and tie at the kitchen table with his wife, who appears to be cleaning up tiny dishes. The caption reads, “Oh boy, am I ever stuffed”. If you need a laugh, look it up.
Think Big
I recall that when I was a youth, I wanted to grow up to be an astronaut and fly to the moon. Considering that this was years before the first rocket was even launched, one might say I was a bit ahead of my time. To modify a popular saying; you can either think big and make it, think big and fail, or think small and make it. I like to think big. Except, of course, when it comes to gophers.