Flash Fiction

Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus

Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus!

Happy St. David’s Day

Spring in Wales.

Spring in Wales

               Spring in Wales comes very quickly.  Sometimes, if you blink twice, it has gone again. But usually, you take a step outside the door one morning and suddenly there are daffodils everywhere. And they all come so early, crowding together like party-goers, tossing their heads in the bright yellow sunshine, and the whole world green and yellow, like the round yellow eye of this first blackbird, whistling on the garage roof or on a branch of the apple tree which is suddenly covered with a warm green fuzz of threatening leaf …

               … all so early, I say, and the countryside yellow with daffodils by March the First, St. David’s Day, our Dewi Sant, and especially in the Castle Grounds and Blackweir gardens, where the daffs grow wild and cluster beneath the trees, like huge, enthusiastic, rugby crowds, clapping and waving at every passing moment, and all the leaves on all the trees are just starting to sprout and there’s a pale, watery sun, but the wind is still fresh with the daffodils all tossing their heads in sprightly dance …

               … and you can walk the dog in Blackweir Gardens without a winter coat and without your wellington boots, though it’s as well to wear thick socks and good, stout shoes, just in case there are still puddles and the autumn leaves that fell last year may still be wet and soggy and slippery after their winter out in the rain and snow and the Feeder Brook which used to feed the Old Castle Moat, drained now, and no longer a stock pond for trout and carp,  is running strongly and quite fast, all the way down from Taffs Well … and the gurgling weir is beside you as you walk, with the crunch of the gravel beneath your feet, the song birds starting to sing, the nesting birds pairing up and starting to nest, and always the daffodils, the Taffodils as they sometimes call them in Cardiff, Caer Dydd, as they write on the busses, with the river Taff flowing there, just above you, as you climb the embankment and the River Taff flows beneath you now, all black and swift and deep and swollen with the end of the winter rains … and the Taff cradles as it flows the finest of fine coal dust and carries it down to the sea … and the fish and eels are born eyeless, so the fishermen say, as they measure out the length of the whoppers that got away, because nothing can be seen in the River Taff when it’s as black as that … and in places you can walk on it, they say, it’s so laden with coal dust from the worked out seams of the nearby Rhondda, and what use are eyes in a river where the coal dust is impenetrable and the water’s like a dense black stew …

               … and spring is Easter and Easter is when the Barbarians Rugby Football Club make their annual Easter Tour of Wales and the southern part of Wales is rugby mad on Good Friday, and we have just been released from the prison camps of our schools for the Easter Holidays, and in our new found freedom we go to Penarth where the Sea-Siders, as we call them, play against the Baa-Baas, as we call them, and we park the car at the top of the hill near the centre of Penarth, and we walk and half run to the playing fields down at the bottom of the hill, squeeze ourselves like toothpaste, in through the gates, squeeze ourselves small in the gathering crowd and there they are, the mighty Barbarians, 14 internationals from England, Ireland, Scotland, and occasionally France or South Africa,  and standing firm against them, the men from Penarth, 15 average tiny Welshmen, perennial losers, doomed to their annual failure, but not today, as Bernie Templeman, “Slogger” to his friends and intimates, kicks a penalty and drops a goal, and the giants are shunted all round the park and almost off the scoreboard … and we shout ourselves hoarse and it’s Penarth 6 and the Barbarians 3 … and all that international strength and might vanishes, Goliath felled by David on a damp Good Friday night … in the spring time, in my childhood, in Wales …

               … and on Easter Saturday, we stay in Cardiff … and we have tickets for the stand where you don’t have to stand at all, but can actually sit in luxury … and my friend’s dad has a friend who has friends who have season tickets … but they have just won the football pools and they have left Wales and are travelling around the world on a cruise ship, and they have left us their tickets, their wonderful tickets in the stands, and we sit on the half way line and watch this magnificent game where they, the Barbarians, have fourteen internationals and a school boy who will one day be an international, but we have fifteen internationals because this is Cardiff … the best club side in the world … and this is the Capital of Wales … and we are playing at Cardiff Arms Park, at the ground where my father played and my grandfather before him, and we are watching history, and family history, and everyone who plays for Cardiff also plays eventually for Wales, and my father came here, like my grandfather, as a visitor, not part of the home team, and Swansea were the champions back then, not Cardiff, and my grandfather played for Swansea, way before the First World War, and my dad …

               …  well, I don’t know much about him and his rugby because he changed from rugby to soccer because my mother’s family, who all had English and Scottish blood, thought rugby was dangerous and they wanted him to play soccer, so he did, and he broke his ankle playing soccer and never played sports that well again, though he was a great sportsman, more than 6 foot tall, yet I take after my mother and I’m tiny like her, and “much better to have had a girl, with him as small as he is” some neighbours said and others said “Don’t worry; he’ll grow!” but I never did and so I became a runner not a rugger, but my father’s side of the family could never understand why I wasn’t out there, like my father and my grandfather and “A good little ‘un is just as good as a good big ‘un” they used to tell me, so I played occasionally, especially in the spring, and there they were, giants at six and seven foot tall, and there I was a dwarf, a pigmy, at five foot tall, and it’s lies they tell you sometimes, myths and lies, because five foot can never match six or seven in spite of everything they say about a good little ’un … but this is Cardiff and Cardiff always wins and win we do … and we all go home happy …

               … but on the morning of Easter Sunday we set  out for Swansea and the bungalow in Bishopston, where we will spend the night, and we have our knapsacks on our backs and in our knapsacks we have our sandwiches and our snack bars and our bathing trunks, and we’re all ready for that first Easter visit to the beach … and we catch the train at Cardiff General and go from Cardiff General to Swansea High Street, and when we’re in Swansea we run to the bus station and catch the next bus, the next brown and yellow Swan bus, and it takes us out along the Mumbles Road, and up the Mayals, and over Bishopston Common, which is still open land and not the least bit enclosed, and there are skylarks rising early in the morning, and cows, and ponies, and sheep, and sometimes they are found wandering on the road that crosses the common, but not today … and we leave the common and rush through the narrow lanes, at breakneck speed, and the trees lash the bus windows with their branches, inches from our faces, and we duck as the leaves smack the glass in front of us, even though we know the windows are there and the leaves can’t touch us … and at Pyle Corner, we leave the bus and it’s down through the lanes, and it’s out to the bungalow which hasn’t been opened yet, and we’re the first there, so it’s light a fire and warm the place up, and dry the mattresses, and get the damp out of the one bed we’ll sleep in, all of us, and then it’s down to the hard stone beach at Pwll Ddu, and we wander on the shore fully dressed and dare each other to swim as we wander across the pebbles and yes, we decide to do it, to strip, and the wind turns us blue and there’s nobody else there, just us, and it’s Easter Sunday, and the sea-gulls are daring us to take off all our clothes and bathe naked in the naked sea beneath a naked, cloudless sky …

               … and it’s not as warm as we remembered it from last year, and the wind whips our naked flesh and turns it blue and we run up and down trying to keep warm and then we plunge into the icy water and the water must be a degree or two warmer than the land, but it’s still cold in the water and even colder when we come out … and I remember now that my grandfather was a member of the Swansea Polar Bear Club and swam, each Christmas, in the docks at Swansea and also on new Year’s Day and he must have been mad, even if he did join a club of equal nut cases, ‘cos we’re freezing, I tell you, and this is Easter Sunday, not New Year’s Day, though the year is new enough for us and the cycle of the seasons is just beginning, and the old year ends with winter and the new year starts with Easter, and this ritual turning blue as though we were all daubed and tattooed with woad, and the annual, ritual dip lasts for about two seconds, two seconds of total immersion, like baptism, with your hair wet or it doesn’t count and “Watch out!” there’s someone coming down the cliff path and we’re no longer the only ones on this beach and we leap into each other’s clothes just to have something on when the others arrive, whoever they are, these neighbours, these nosy neighbours are … and “Skinny dipping. were you?” they say, “We’ll tell your ma, we will.” “You can’t she’s in Cardiff!” “Well we’ll tell your grandma then, she’s still in Swansea, I saw her at the market yesterday, and she’ll tan your backsides — should be ashamed of yourselves, bathing naked on Easter Sunday.”  “Aw, don’t tell gran; remember: you were young once!” “Yes! I was; but I didn’t run naked on the beach on Easter Sunday!” …

               … and it’s back to the bungalow with everything soon forgotten and the bungalow is warmer now, from the fire and the woodstove, and you know automatically where everything is, the oil lamps, and the wood fire stove, but there’s no electricity and we have forgotten to get water and unless we drink rainwater from the barrel it’s down to the end of the field, with its single tap that feeds and waters the whole field, 26 summer houses and only three of them occupied, two by people who live there all year round, and one by us, now, at Easter, and the neighbours drop in to see we are all right … and we talk and they help us to trim the wicks and set the lights and one of the neighbours comes in and helps us to make a pot of stew on the wood stove, a Welsh stew with potatoes, and cabbage, and onions, and carrots, and a bit of meat they lend us so we will not be tempted to use the piece of old dry smoked bacon left over from last summer, and hanging still from the rafters, out of reach of the mice and the rats who have taken back their empire and scuffle and scrimmage each night, like Barbarians, over the roof and through the walls … and we can hear them at midnight, as they travel the pathways they have built around us …


               … and we can also hear the cows, out in the field all night, as they rub their bodies up and down against the bungalow walls, and there are fresh cow pats where they have sought human company and the warmth of the fire because it’s cold at night even though it’s spring and when Monday dawns, first  it’s breakfast and Brandy Cove, where the beach has changed shape after the winter storms … and all the paths are slightly different, down from the cliffs to the sand, and we are not the first, for there are new paths and footprints and one of our neighbours is there in the cove with his canoe which he paddles all winter, every day, at full tide, in Brandy Cove at first, then out round the headlands to Caswell and Langland, Pwll Ddu and Three Cliffs and we don’t know now that one day he’ll go out on that tide, but he’ll never come back, and they’ll hold a funeral for him, but they’ll never bury him, because they’ll never find his body … and this year, again, he’s all sun tanned and brown and doesn’t look at all like one of us, we white skinned boys, with our sunless winter skins not yet exposed to wind and sand save for that one appearance yesterday that blued us as if we were dyed in woad,  as if we were ancient British warriors and the old Celtic Race was reborn in tattoo and blue … and fearsome we are, we warriors, we blue men, marching up Snowdon with our woad on, never minding if we’re rained or snowed on, and slap us on the chest and we are all bowmen they say, and the spring is here and the summer campaigns can be planned, but first, it’s back to the bungalow, finish up the food, clear everything away, make sure the fires are all out, lock all the doors, and off down the lane, we go to catch the bus back into town, the brown and yellow bus that was once driven by my great-grandfather, not in bus form, but he put a plank in the back of his truck and he gave people lifts, and this was the first informal transport system, ages and ages ago, long before the First World War, and everyone knew him and everyone knows me, but me I have left … and I don’t know anyone any more … but they all know all about me …
              
               … and we get off the bus at the Swansea Recreation Ground and we walk to St. Helen’s for the game, because today Swansea play the Barbarians and my uncle is there and he used to play for Swansea and he’s in his usual place … we know just where to find him … and we stand by him and talk to him and everyone is wearing something white today, because Swansea are the Swans when they play soccer and the All Whites when they play rugby and Cardiff play in Cambridge Blue and Black and I cannot remember the colours worn by Penarth, because we only go there once a year to watch them and nobody in the family ever played for them …

               … and Swansea is great because the stand is low and players can kick the ball over the stand and then the little boys, which is what we are in the eyes of the grown ups, though we think are big and tall and Celtic Warriors, quite capable of bathing at Pwll Ddu on Easter Sunday, with nothing on, which the grown ups would never think of doing, well, we little boys are told to run and get the balls which have been kicked over the grandstand out into the street where the Mumbles Railway still runs, right beside the Cline Valley Line, and all the traffic is stopped because the balls are rolling around and the boys are chasing them and whenever the grown men get tired of playing and need a breather, why, one of them kicks the ball over the pavilion roof and I can remember in the cricket season when a ball was hit over the pavilion roof and it landed in a coal truck that was passing on the railway line and it travelled all the way up to North Wales where it was discovered, lying on the coal, and the grown ups all said that we boys had stolen the ball, until it was discovered, a week later lying on the coal … and I can’t remember whether Swansea won or lost, but I think they won, because I don’t think the Barbarians won anything in Wales that year, and that night after the game it was back to High Street Station and back up to Cardiff General on the train, and the next day was Easter Tuesday ….

               …. and the holidays are almost over … but on Easter Tuesday, the Barbarians play Newport in Newport at Rodney Parade … and nobody in the family likes Newport, because the people from Newport are neither English nor Welsh and they change allegiance and go with whoever’s winning, England or Wales, and they move in and out of Wales, playing for England when the Welsh don’t want them and they can’t get a game with our team … and we don’t like that …  so nobody trusts them and you can see people from Newport playing on the English side, in white, with a red rose on their shirts … but Ken Jones wouldn’t do that … and he’s from Newport … and he’s fast, very fast, and he’s got an Olympic bronze medal for sprinting, and the crowd all sing the Skye Boat Song, except the words are different and  they sing “Speed, bonny boat, like Ken Jones on the wing, onward to score a try!”

               … and although we’re meant to support Ken Jones and the Newport team, we secretly support the Barbarians, but not too loudly, because there are some big, and I mean big, Newport supporters close by us, so we don’t make too much noise … and I can’t remember that game either because Rodney Parade isn’t very nice and nobody from my family would ever think of playing for them …

               … and Wales, as I remember it, was still very tribal … and people in Newport, Cas Newydd,  live on the border, and by the border, and we’re never sure which side of the border they’re fighting on, and that’s totally prejudiced and unfair, and politically incorrect … but that’s also tribal warfare, so there! … and it’s perfectly fair to support the Barbarians against Newport because in the folk lore, of that part of Wales, at that time, well, the people of Newport were Barbarians … and they didn’t know whether they were English or Welsh … and they were mixed breeds, mongrels, Heinz 57’s … and they kept the pubs open on Sundays too …

               … ah well, most of those things happened a long time ago and they’re all forgotten now, the rivalries, the family feuds, but some things you never forget … like Easter and the Barbarians Tour of Wales and the daffodils in the Castle Grounds and Roath Park in Spring and Blackweir Gardens … and suddenly, so suddenly, Easter Tuesday was over … and it was back to school … and the holidays were done … and Easter was done … and those are my memories of Spring … in Wales … where the blackbirds still whistle and sing on the garage roof … and all the world is yellow with gorse and sunshine and all those Taffodils …

Angel

Angel

Oh yes, I have been with them, the lost folk, the tramps, the homeless, the bag-women, all the gente perduta. I have stepped on their fingers as they sprawled on the sidewalk. I have trodden on their toes, tripped over their legs, bumped into their stiff, stumbling bodies and stepped in their wasted body fluids. I have stayed out all night, shared a pack of cigarettes, producing another pack or a bottle from the pouch beneath my wings. Such stories they tell, and they tell them in that antiquated language that I first heard hundreds of years ago. They know me now. I won’t say they trust me, but they tolerate my presence, a Jacques Cousteau voyeur, looking into the sea-depths of their despair.
            Garbed in garbage bags, thin trickles of wine and vomit slipping over their lips and cheeks, bloody bandages wound around needle wounds, they have scars at elbow and foot. I hear the warmish blood whistling its snake song through their arteries and veins but death shall have no dominion, not while I am on watch.
            I enfold myself in my wings and weep as these people, my people now, pillow their heads on bloody bandages. Their world is a world of vomit and reek, yet the edges of their shattered lives rip chunks from my hands and fingers, pluck feathers from my wings, tear holes in my heart. Needles I have seen and touched, blunt, shared between three, five, and twenty-five. Round and round, they go, slipping the thin threads of drug-dreams and tainted blood from friend to friend while the blunt points stab at bruised flesh and leathery vein until the freed blood oozes through fingers and hands clenched tight to hold and staunch.
            Night after night I have watched them searching for something just beyond their fingertips. As the late-night diners emerge from their opulent restaurants, I have seen my people fortifying shop doorways with cardboard castles. I have watched them climb inside, shut down the portcullis, and enfold themselves in the plastic that will keep them free from wind and rain. They all crave the bottle’s warmth. They fight and scratch for that which will hold them together, body and soul, that spiritual glue that binds the spirit before setting it on its drunken dreams of freedom. Kings and Queens, tumbled from their earthly thrones, they dream of the paradise they lost, yet think they can find again at the sharp point of a needle or the bottom of a bottle.
            Oh bird-on-a-wire dreams held captive in a skull-bone cage, how you yearn to grow wings, like me, to soar, to fly, to be released from the body, to at last be free …

Commentary:

This book, All About Angels, is available online at Amazon.ca. Click on the link below to purchase the book.

All About Angels
Paperback edition

Raven

Raven

When Raven flies through his trap door in the sky, a light bulb clicks off in my head and I fall into darkness. Is there some safety net before oblivion? Raven’s claws scar crow’s feet on a fingernail moon. His bleak black beak widens the hole in my head and the Easter egg of my skull shows thin blue cracks. Outside my window, the river moves backwards and forwards with the tide. Raven shrugs at cancerous creatures, promising nothing. He soars into clear skies in search of his private exit and extinguishes sun, moon, and stars, plunging our world into blackness. The light on the point picks out a heron, mobbed by a clacking ring of gulls. The sea mist wraps the real world tight in its cloak. Now sea and lighthouse, heron and gulls, are distant things of memory. Raven, shoulders hunched, stands like a stone, an anthracite block hacked out from the coal seam in my mind, hand carved from feathers and my forefathers’ blood.

Commentary:

I had forgotten all about this poem in prose. It comes from Fundy Lines, if I remember correctly. Photo credit (below) to one of my former students, an excellent poet herself, who took the trouble to locate the correct rock and then take a photo of book and rock together.


Moo thought his painting of a dark shape that looks a little bit like a bird of ill-omen would be just what this prose poem needed. Maybe he’s right. I trust him with his choice of paintings. Well, most of the time anyway. He can be a bit ‘off’ from time to time, but mostly we form a good team, especially where Surrealism is concerned.

I guess Raven formed part of my Surreal sequences. I really do enjoy Surrealism. The mixing of metaphors, for example, the unexpected meeting of a sewing machine with a carving knife and an umbrella on an operating table. And look what Raven’s up to. He discovers a trap door in the sky. Well, that would be very useful, if we had wings and could fly. Then he turns off the light bulb in my head. I didn’t even know I had one in there. I guess Raven, like coyote and zopilote is a bit of a Trickster. Next he changes into a woodpecker and widens the hole in my skull. Poor old me – avian trepanning – no wonder I have problems! My head becomes an Easter Egg and has cracks in it giving birth to what? Some mad ideas, I guess, pecking their way out into the wonderful world in which Moo and I live in perfect harmony with my beloved and our cat. And look at all those Welsh mining memories – lignite, house coal, steam coal, anthracite, jet – and remember, when the coal comes from the Rhondda down the Merthyr – Taff Vale line, I’ll be there.

It will be a long way from Canada to Taff’s Well. Maybe Raven will be kind and fly me there, through his Island View trap door that has direct access to the trap door just above Castell Coch, the Fairy Castle of my childhood. That would be faster, and easier, than my old two-wheeler Raleigh bicycle with it’s Sturmey-Archer three gear click on the handlebars. I bet Raven can fly faster than I can pedal. And if I could have pedaled as fast as Raven flies, downhill and uphill, I would have been King of the Mountains and an all time winner of the Tour de France. Now that would have been surrealistically surreal, seeing me as a cereal winner, with my snap, crackle, and pop! Not that my dad would have been happy. He never was happy with anything I did!

My favorite cat

My favorite cat

Pebbles have caught in my throat.
The word-river once flowing smooth
now backs up to spill leaf-freckled foam
over the tiniest barriers of branch and weed.

When I speak, some gypsy I find
has stolen my tongue, and my voice
is that of a changeling whisked away
from the cradle whilst her guardians slept.

Now leaves outside my window grow
rusty with autumn rain. A sharp-shinned hawk
no bigger than the blue jay he stalks
drives like a whirlwind at our feeder.

In dawn’s early light, a Great Barred owl
flaps enormous wings and drops like a stone
on my favorite cat, lifting her up and away.

Commentary:

Not a true story – sorry, my friends. However, I did see a Great Barred Owl swoop down on my neighbor’s cat. A canny old cat that one. He rolled over on his back, hissing and spitting, and showing all his unsheathed claws. Then he let out a most unnerving high-pitched whining sound and the owl backed off. Nature red in tooth and claw and our own backyard a battle ground where wild creatures roam and prey on each other.

Luckily, as a poet, I need neither seek nor deliver the truth, in any sense of the word. What I search for is emotional impact – words that ring true, even if they are not. Moments that reach out and grab us when and where we least expect it. As someone once said – never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Same with jokes.

And speaking of jokes, cross-cultural jokes are some of the most difficult things for a language learner to grasp. Humor exists in many forms. Silent comedy, like slapstick, does not need an interpreter. However, jokes based on cultural understanding are remarkably difficult to follow, unless one is totally immersed in the culture. As for linguistic jokes, even the sharpest individual can be defeated by word play and double meanings. I remember word plays from my beginner’s language classes that still leave me cold. Sorry, I just don’t find them funny even when explained. Clever, maybe, but funny? No way. Molière for example – Trissotin / trois fois fous. Really? ne dis pas que c’est amaranthe, dis plutôt que c’est de ma rente. Or, from the Spanish of Fuenteovejuna, Lope de Vega – Ciudad Real es del Rey. I hope you are splitting your sides over that one – I have never been able to laugh at it and still can’t understand what’s funny about it. C’est la vie, I guess.

Monologue

Monologue

“They broke our walls,” Mono whispered, “stone by stone.
A new church they built on the land they stole from us.
Red was its roof from a thunderstorm of blood.
The white bones of their lightning scattered us like hail.

They ripped out our tongues and commanded us to sing.
Carved mouths were ours, stuffed with grass.
Stone music forced its way through our broken teeth.

Few live who can read the melodies of our silence.
We wait for some wise man to measure our dance steps.

Pisando huevos: we walk on tiptoe across
these stepping stones of time.

Commentary:

Mono means monkey (in Spanish). Hence, monologue means monkey speaking to himself. Cute, eh? Monkey is one of the day signs in the Mixtec Codices. Lots of double meanings and rabbit holes down which the ardent reader can descend. Dig deep, my friend. Pisando huevos – literal meaning – ‘walking on eggs’ – meaning walking very carefully, on tip-toe, step by step.

Who said poetry was simple? You want it simple, there are so many simplifying factors out there. I want you to think. To think for yourself. To understand complicated language with multiple meanings. You want simplicity? Go watch a TV ad – Tide’s in, Dirt’s out. Omo adds bright, bright, brightness. The Esso sign means happy motoring. Don’ forget the Fruit Gums, mum – (said as the little boy throws a brick out of the window and it hits his mother on the head).

I’d say “wake up and smell the coffee.” But if wake means woke, I’m not the sort of bloke that accepts the meaning of wake or woke! Hereward the Wake. Robin Hood the Bloke in the Hood who Awoke- and I don’t mean the flower / flower, nor the Lincoln Green of the Lincoln Continental.

So what do I mean? I don’t know. Coded words are meaningless unless you have the meaning to the code. What code? The miscued code. And the meaningless lack of meaning in meaningless. Just like my friend who’s just been screwed, blued, and tattooed – and totally rude. Or was it scrod?

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place!

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place!

I think it would be much easier to tell you about a time when I felt as if I was in my proper place. There were so few of them. As for the original question – Tell us about a time when you felt out of place – I think that a time should be replaced by the many times. Learning languages has always been more of a pain than a pleasure, for me, anyway. In the Basque Country, Northern Spain, at first with my parents, and then on my own. Sitting at the table or standing in the kitchen, listening to people chattering away in Spanish some days, in Basque, on other occasions. I was reduced to interpreting looks, smiles, scowls, meaningless sounds … how could I have felt that I was in my proper place? Etiquette – I knew nothing about their etiquette. Culture – I knew nothing about their culture and they knew even less about mine. I lived in a world where waves of sound battered at my body and I stood there, a rock on a seemingly deserted linguistic beach, being gradually worn down by the endless waves and the eroding tides. How could I have felt anything but ‘out of place’?

The same thing happened when I became immersed in French culture. I spent some time in the South of France, in an area where Provencal was still spoken. Between the two languages and the differing accents, I was lost, lost, lost.

Something similar happened when I came to Canada. Here, it wasn’t the language that baffled me, but the culture. I remember trying to learn to skate. My cousin played Junior “B” hockey and volunteered to teach me. Well, I learned very slowly (a) to keep my balance and (b) to move forwards very slowly. However, I couldn’t skate back wards and I couldn’t stop. In spite of that, I decided to try and play hockey. The park close to where I lived in Toronto had a frozen area where the little kids played shinny. I asked if I could join in. After three falls and a total inability to stick handle in any known fashion, they stuck me in goal. I used the goalie’s stick to try and stand up. After the third or fourth goal, one five or six year old whisked up to me, stopped in a sideways shower of ice, and said “Sir, please sir, you’re allowed to use the stick to stop the puck, you know.” I retired from ice hockey soon after that, and from skating. I did learn to cross-country ski, though. I also earned the name Wapiti (white-tailed deer) long before I saw one or knew what it meant.

And that is all just scratching the surface. I could say more, so much more. But I’ll control myself.

On what subject(s) are you an authority?

Daily writing prompt
On what subject(s) are you an authority?
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On what subject(s) are you an authority?

First, I would like a definition of an authority. Here’s what I found – 1. the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience – as in “he had absolute authority over his subordinates”. 2. a person or organization having power or control in a particular, typically political or administrative, sphere as in – “the health authorities”. Isolating the words enforcement, power, and control, I am delighted to say that no, I am not an authority on anything, and I have no control over anyone. Also, I am not a monarch, and I have no subjects.

What happens if we change the meaning of the words slightly and ask another question? Here is a suggestion from the online Cambridge Dictionary – searching for an answer to my question “What is an example of authority on the subject? – I found this – The phrase “authority on the subject” is correct and usable in written English. You can use this phrase to describe someone who has extensive knowledge or experience on a particular topic. For example, “Dr. Smith is considered an authority on the subject of modern psychology.”

Now this becomes a very interesting question and it can be answered from a variety of perspectives. In our two person household, I deem myself an authority on some forms of cooking. I regard my beloved wife, my better two-thirds as I call her – an authority on the forms of cooking that I have trouble with – for example, baking, cooking vegetables, boiling eggs. She does a wonderful boiled egg. I am hopeless at boiling eggs – either too hard or too soft, usually the former. But I am the authority on Spanish omelets and scrambled eggs. They are my specialities. She makes wonderful chowders. I specialize in gazpachos, sopa de quince minutos a very quick (15 minute) Spanish sea-food soup, and Cawl Mamgu and other Welsh stews.

Once we step outside our kitchen, the world changes. In a world (New Brunswick) where cricket is virtually unheard of (save in the minds and cultures of fellow immigrants) I am considered an authority on cricket. Not that I am an authority, but at least I know what it is and have a good idea of what is happening in a cricket match. Therefore, we must also consider ‘being an authority’ in the context of the audience that receives our words of wisdom. To my nine year old grand-daughter, I am an authority on several subjects. However, I have absolutely no control over her – how she thinks and what she does. I can suggest or persuade, but I cannot and will not enforce.

In the undergraduate classroom, in which I taught for 43 years, I was considered an authority on Spanish by my students. Outside the classroom (and sometimes inside it) I learned more from my students than they ever learned from me, especially in my formative years as a Canadian when I was learning to skate and to ski. Don’t go there – too many painful memories of falling only to rise again!

But when we moved from the classroom to the wider university, to the full Canadian Scene of the Learned Societies, as they used to be called, I became the learner and the authorities were to be found elsewhere, often on the podium, sometimes in the bar. Same thing when we move onto the international stage. There are very few world authorities, in my field. However, there are many wannabe’s, but for them, after careful analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, I have usually had very little respect.

So, today we have opened another can of worms and look at them, wriggling and crawling before our very eyes. Worms – one of my friends really is an authority on earth worms. She knows all about them. Another of my friends is an authority on worms in puppies and kittens. A world wide authority, known every where and often quoted? I doubt it. But certainly in my garden and the vet hospital where I take my pets, they are both authorities.

Ah, the joys of Discourse Analysis – maybe, one day, I can be an expert on that. But take my words, as always, with a large pinch of salt, and, whatever you do, don’t put salt on slugs, and snails, and puppy dog tails. On that point, we can all be authorities.

Write about your first crush.

Daily writing prompt
Write about your first crush.
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Write about your first crush.

No. No, I can safely say that I have never had that sort of crush, except on a teddy bear or a little poo-pee aka puppy. I guess my first real crush was an orange crush. And no, again, not that orange crush either. I guess I have never been a fan of the Denver Broncos. But, as a child, I loved Orange Crush and Dandelion and Burdock, the former suitable for children and the latter looking remarkably like grown aka groan up beer.

During my time at university, I fell victim to several crushes. One was at the bottom of a collapsed scrum while playing rugby. Never much fun that sort of crush. All those sweaty, smelly bodies. Another came in an attempt to beat the Guinness Book of Records under the achievement – how many people can you get inside an English Telephone Kiosk? This was in the sixties, when England actually had telephone kiosks. If you have never seen a real English telephone kiosk, there’s one down in Kingsbrae Gardens, and I highly recommend a visit to that antiquity – almost as good as the statues in the gardens.

Anyway, one day in rag week, a group of Bristol University students, me among them, started crowding into a telephone kiosk. We entered upright, tried kneeling, others kneeling on our shoulders. We managed about twelve.

Doors open or doors closed? This baby came with no instructions. Poor parents, even more miserable single parents. And they are almost always young women, aren’t they? Come to think of it, maybe we should have invited some female students to join us – much lighter in weight and far less smelly – in the bad sense!

So, we tried a different tactic. If the first measure was a crush, and indeed it was, well, the second measure??? Judge for yourselves. One of us held the door open, the rest of us lay down like logs, feet outside the door, and the newcomers lay down on top of us. Ingenious indeed. But those at the bottom could scarcely breathe. They were the victims of a real crush.

Like the finger in the woodpecker’s hole, we reversed it – feet in, heads out. We got up to twenty-seven students. Then we ran out of student volunteers. Revolting. We asked passers-by to help us. But to no avail. Reversed and removed. Equally revolting. Sent our efforts in, with photos. There was no response. We didn’t make it. I still don’t know what that particular crush record is.

In Cassis-les-Calanques, 1960, I was one of eight people standing in a Citroen Deux Chevaux. That was quite a crush. But, in Santander, Spain, 1970, Clare and I watched 11 people, yes, eleven, get out of a SEAT 600, a 600cc Spanish four-seater car, otherwise known as a bullet / bala, and with about as big an engine as your lawnmower. They exited, one by one, and proceeded to enter the local church for Sunday mass. Can you imagine 11 people riding on your lawnmower?

Maybe that wasn’t a crush at all. Maybe it was just a (Morris) minor miracle.

If you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again, what would it be?

Daily writing prompt
If you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again, what would it be?
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If you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again, what would it be?

Oh dear – such a difficult question. I have seen so many people puzzling over which dress they would choose, which blouse matched the skirt, which tie best highlighted the shirt, what color hanky, suitably folded, best suited the little breast pocket of the suit. Why do we have to have outfits? Couldn’t we have infits.

Now that’s a great idea. The one infit that I wear, every day, regardless, is my birthday suit. I have worn it, day in, day out for 80 years and it still (in)-fits me and, quite honestly, I have never spent a day without out it. Of course, it has worn a bit over the years. And no, I will not show you any photos.

However, I can say that the six pack that I once sported has become a rubber tire. There are bruises and scars where once the skin was white and tight, or bronzed and shining bright. Muscles have shrunk. Back has bent. Arthritis kicks in, now and again, but my birthday suit adapts to everything. It really was a wonderful invention.

And, guess what! Every day is my birthday now and today I am 29,370 days old. Not everyone can say that. And yes, I can also tell you, in all confidence, that I wear my birthday suit every day now in celebration of each passing birthday.

In Spain everybody has two birthdays – the day they were born and their saint’s day. The saint’s day is the day on which the saint after whom they are named is celebrated. Two birthdays is lovely – but to have 365 birthdays a year, to wear my birthday suit for every one of them, is spectacular. And it’s even better to have 366 birthdays in a leap year.

I know you know that a leopard cannot change its spots, but did you know that a leopard had 365 spots on his coat – one for every day of the year? Now that’s a fact that not everybody is aware of. What about a leap year, you ask. Well, on the 29th of February, every four years, to find that extra spot, you just have to lift the leopard’s tail. And don’t ask me how I know, because I am not going to tell you.

How do you waste the most time every day?

Daily writing prompt
How do you waste the most time every day?
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How do you waste the most time every day?

Answering stupid questions like these – now that would be a great response. But there are other ways to waste time – like mousing around on the computer – some call it surfing, which sounds like fun – but acting like a mouse that’s chasing its own tail / tale, well, that is most surely a waste of time. Playing verbal cat and mouse games is a good way to go too.

Most devilish of all, sitting in a car, beside a lollipop person, who has just stepped out and stopped you from joining the car, ten yards ahead of you, that is now the last car in the latest convoy to be held up, while you are now the first car waiting to go next time. You sit, and sit, and wait.

Then – INSPIRATION – I turn my disc player on and lo and behold – Pete Seeger sings The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, from the Spanish Civil War. What’s special about that, you ask? Well, how about the chorus? – “No pasara’n! No pasara’n!” / “They shall not pass! They shall not pass!” sang the Abe Lincoln Brigade as the battle for Madrid thundered on. I open the car window, turn up the volume, bellowing it out loud while waiting to count the cars coming from the opposite direction.

It was a very long wait. And then the first of 109 cars, trucks, and various other vehicles appeared. Bored now with The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, I changed quickly to Viva la Quinta Brigada, kept the volume up high and “No Pasara’n! The pledge that made them fight” rang out as the official truck with its magic sign “Follow me!” crept up in front of me, turned, and started to crawl, snail mail style, down almost two kilometres of highway at 10 KPH.

When we got to the end of the road works, he turned into someone’s driveway, and I, and the next two cars behind me, followed him. I learned a few choice words to add to my vocabulary – “Like WTF do you think you are doing?” “It says follow me! on your truck.” I replied. ” I just did.” And off he went again on a long, four letter rant. Then, on foot, he stood in front of the convoy that had stalled anyway, now having nobody to follow, and guided his three black sheep out onto the road that led to freedom.

Well, that was an adventure and an absolutely total waste of time. As the court case will be, when I appear before the magistrate next week. Believe you me, if you believe all this, you would believe anything. And, congratulations, you have just successfully wasted another five minutes of your precious time and I have wasted ten of mine writing this piece.