Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2011-45

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IN THIS ISSUE

• Dalton Deedrick nears the end of his month in Africa
• Lyle Meeres continues his reminiscences of a visit to southern Spain
• Jean Sterling writes of a visit to the Canadian Pavilion at Disneyworld´s Epcot
• Carol Dilworth forwards a quote about the difference between the US and Canada
• Irene Harvalias forwards examples of what endears children to us
• Tom Telfer tells of the hazards of misplacing one´s glasses
• Jack Peaker sent this story of a good bargain
• Zvonko Springer forwards a tale of an odd funeral
• Sites are recommended by Carol Hansen, Catherine Nesbitt, Gerrit deLeeuw, and Tom Williamson

Dalton Deedrick is almost finished his volunteer work in

A MONTH IN AFRICA

March 26 - Sunday. A "day of rest", so did up the laundry, and read the Sunday "Nation". It makes one shudder when one hears that Kenya is one of the best and most orderly nations on the continent.

All of the volunteers are required to write a report on their experience and impressions of their time here, so that was my afternoon project. It would not be fair to make comparisons with our home country, as these developing nations have problems to deal with that are beyond our comprehension.

Hiked over to the house shared by the three resident priests, all of them from Ireland. We shared a pot of tea, and they invited me to come to lunch with them tomorrow. Begorra! They all sound just like Barry Fitzgerald!

There´s an acquaintance in Nairobi who is a professional actor in their major company. Got a note from him suggesting I come and see their current play if possible. I´ll run it by sister M.C.

March 27 - Monday. Had lunch with the three priests. One is retired after 40 years of service in Kenya. I enquired if he was going back to Ireland. "No," he replied. "I couldn´t stand the climate or the living expense back there."

Had a final-stage AIDS patient turn up today. He had oral complications, but the most prominent features in his case were walnut-sized tumors all over his head. There was nothing I could provide, nor could the medical side, so he was doomed. There will be another family of orphans very likely, an enormous problem throughout this whole continent.

The phone started working. Phoned Canada and all is serene there. Phoned my actor acquaintance in Nairobi and he says he will have two good seats reserved for next Saturday´s matinee. They are doing George Bernard Shaw´s "Candida". Pretty sophisticated stuff for sister M.C. and me! I haven´t sounded her out on making the trek down there to see it.

March 28 - Tuesday. Karieta day ... always a beautiful drive through a garden area of tea, coffee, and pineapple plantations. The mood was darkened when we went by the spot where the giraffe and her calf were seen a week or so ago. I wondered aloud to Michael how the little one was doing. "Oh," he said, "Some of the people killed it and ate it!" From our "outsider" perspective, this was a shocking act, but maybe we don´t see it from the same viewpoint as the villager scrabbling to put a little protein into his children´s diet. I wonder if any of us feel guilty when we order calves´ liver and onions in a restaurant!

A truck convoy was being assembled near Thika to take food and supplies up to Lake Turkana on the northern border of Kenya. Several armed guards were going along as there had been multiple road robberies on that route.

Fifty-six patients, but we had the luxury of an electric light, and a cold-water tap and hand basin. The basin was a good 30 feet from the chair, so that meant 112 hikes to and fro. A lot better hygiene, though, than having one basin and the same water for a day.

March 29 - Riata today, an hour´s drive away. The usual line-up of 59 or so waiting. The clerk, Sister M.C. or Mathew, issues them numbers up to 50 in their turn, and latecomers usually drift away and hope to make the line next month. Very bad teeth in this area, and the usual soother is a stalk of sugar cane to suck on! Several howling young ones, and if one is noisy, you can bet the next two or three will pick up the chorus before they even get to the chair.

Had a sad little teen-age girl in today who presented with the lower half of her face hidden in a scarf. When she unwrapped it, it revealed half of her lower jaw gone, but healed, so the incident must have happened years ago. Michael was able to understand something of what she said, and reported laconically, "A bullet." It is frustrating not to be able to talk to people in a common language.

Met a large convoy of shiny black cars on the way home. In the largest and shiniest, replete with flags flying, was of course His Excellency, President David Moi. He had just given an address in Thika. He is not very popular in this area and always travels with lots of security.

March 30 - To Kimothai today, over unspeakable, but happily dry roads. More trouble with the air valve, but hopefully a replacement will arrive with my successor this weekend.

Had a couple of oddities today. One poor fellow had a great lump of tissue as big as a strawberry attached to the ridge of his upper jaw. He couldn´t come within a half inch of closing his mouth. I sorted through my armamentarium for something suitable, and removed the lump. This revealed three root stumps of some long-lost incisors, so out they came. I think we have affected a cure in this case.

Then along came a poor chap with a club foot, and the one he used to carry him was enormous - probably a size 20. He had crutches at least, and not a vaulting pole. He was barefoot, of course. One sees thing out here that are unheard of in North America.

To be concluded.

Lyle Meeres continues his story of rights and wrongs in

SOUTHERN SPAIN

We saw some of the old box-like Fiat (or Siat for Spain) Pandas. There are no curves on these cars that were commonplace when Spain had few vehicles. Now, car dealerships are found all over. The EU brought new good roads to Spain.

There are little ticket-selling booths at many street corners and Spanish people stand around holding tickets for sale. The booths say "Once," which in this case means "lottery tickets." Tickets are expensive, so a whole village might go together and try to buy tickets that had a lucky number. If the people were lucky, they might end up with millions for the village. There are some interesting stories about "the big win."

During the evening, Pat Davies got the news that her mother, who had a pacemaker and colon cancer, was very seriously ill, which made Pat think of rushing back to England.

We went to Bocairent on February 19. Bocairent has houses clinging to the side of a cliff and caves that were used for safety hundreds of years ago in times of attack. The caves were complex and on several levels. However, it was snowy and slippery, so we could only look from a distance.

El Castell at Xativa (click to enlarge)

Then we drove to Bair, where there was a castle that looked like people´s ideas of "castles" atop a hilly town. The castle was closed, but Gordon told us that most Spanish castles had little inside, partly because many were looted in Franco´s time.

Our meal back in Bocairent was large. For example, Pat Meeres had a good paella as first course and swordfish as a second course. This was after munching half a dozen different kinds of olives (Pat needed to learn the word "aceituna" meaning "olive," she was so taken with this treat). I had a selection of thinly-sliced meats, a second course of lamb chops, and a cream cake dessert with a light touch of whiskey on top. For four of us, the bill was 32 Euros, and that included three half bottles of red wine, peanuts, and bread with a mayo and garlic spread.

The other way out of Beniaya ("Ben" means "son of") took us over a narrow, twisty road past numerous plastic greenhouses for trees that produce nisporos, an uncommon fruit like a cross between a peach and a nectarine. Eventually we arrived at Altea, a seaside resort with a small beach, lots of cafes and bars, small shops, cats and condos.

Then we drove to Calpe with its "little Gibraltar," the rock of Ifach, which juts out into the Mediterranean Sea. Restaurants there had big outdoor displays and salesmen who nearly dragged us in, having first poured us a little glass of wine. The menu at the place we chose was printed in Spanish, English and German. The appetizers were mussels and baby squid in a thin batter. The main course included prawns, lagostina (small expensive lobsters), cuttlefish, mussels, salmon, and swordfish, plus greasy potato chips.

I was displeased by the meal but I wasn´t cranky compared to a lady at the next table. The couple had trouble ordering and when the food arrived, she thumped the table and walked the waiter out to the food display. After she returned, large lagostina arrived swiftly. She may have been English. I think she was embarrassed to have a problem communicating and displaced the problem onto the poor waiter, whose number one job requirement was great tolerance.

After the meal we took a pleasant stroll out at the base of the rock of Ifach, watching two climbers high above. Along the path grew Margarite daisies that would make ours ashamed for being dwarves.

Next we drove to Guadalest, which used to be Spain´s second most visited site. An old Moorish fort high on a mountain rock with a natural entrance below dominates an attractive landscape. Tour buses still stop here in large numbers. We explored some shops and found a Lladro display that was overwhelming. We thought perhaps the figurines were on consignment because the stock would have cost a couple of fortunes. We considered buying but it was early in our trip and Lladro is made near Valencia, where we end our visit. We drove a different route back to Benaiya.

Throughout the drives we saw many, many terraces and a sad number of abandoned buildings. Some would have made beautiful, large homes suitable for a large family, but it is a difficult country in which to make a living. The olive trees are basic and a villager might own 3000 olive trees. What is happening is that most of the younger people move to the cities. Today, tourism is vital for employment, leading to the construction that we so frequently saw.

We drove further afield on February 21 to see Xativa (which Jakki pronounced "Hat-ee-vah"). It was market day so Gordon had to drive back half a mile to find parking. This market had more clothing and less fruit and vegetables than we´re used to seeing, but the food looked good.

We caught a little tourist train that passed several historical sites and went up long switchbacks to "El Castell," the old Iberian and Roman castle which includes some Moorish sections as well. The walls sprawled over quite an area, as does the castle which holds the high ground.

We went down to a 2:30 big meal. Gordon had thin beef after having a stew. Meat is often cut to fast-fry thickness, the opposite of our barbecue meats. I like the taste, though, especially in the lamb chops.

When two men left the next table, they went to a man nearby and kissed him on the cheek. I presume the man was their father, but I noticed because it was so unlike Canadian relationships.

To be continued.

(click to enlarge)

CORRESPONDENCE

Jean Sterling writes: We went over to Disney´s Epcot today and visited the Canadian Pavilion, as we always do. I thought you might like to see the picture I took of the Victorian Gardens they have there. I´m including a link to a song they sing in the movie about Canada: http://arunaurl.com/4fm9

Carol Dilworth forwards this quote from Michael Ruse, director of the program in History and Philosophy of Science at Florida State University, in the "National Post":

THE DIFFERENCE

"The difference between the US and Canada reflects the fact that America is far more individualistic, whereas Canada is more communitarian. The former stresses the rights of the individual, whereas the latter stresses the needs of the group. In part this is history, but it is also geography. You cannot have just 30 million people in the world´s second-largest country, under snow from September to June, and not care about each other."

ED. NOTE: The good professor underestimated our population and stretched out our winter, but apart from that he showed a firm grasp of our differing philosophies. Vive la difference!

Irene Harvalias sends these examples of

WHY WE LOVE OUR KIDS

I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved.

She was stark naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my five- year-old shout from the back seat, "Mom! That lady isn´t wearing a seat belt!"

My son Zachary, four, came screaming out of the bathroom to tell me he´d dropped his toothbrush in the toilet. So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage. Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush. He held it up and said with a charming little smile, "We better throw this one out too then, ´cause it fell in the toilet a few days ago."

On the first day of school, a first grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, "The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents."

A woman was trying hard to get the catsup to come out of the jar. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her four-year old daughter to answer the phone. "It´s the minister, Mommy," the child said to her mother. Then she added, "Mommy can´t come to the phone to talk to you right now. She´s hitting the bottle."

A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women´s locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The little boy watched in amazement and then asked, "What´s the matter? Haven´t you ever seen a little boy before?"

While taking a routine vandalism report at an elementary school, I was interrupted by a little girl about six years old. Looking up and down at my uniform, she asked, "Are you a cop?" "Yes," I answered, and continued writing the report. "My mother said if I ever needed help I should ask the police. Is that right?" "Yes, that´s right," I told her. "Well, then," she said as she extended her foot toward me, "would you please tie my shoe?"

It was the end of the day when I parked my police van in front of the station. As I gathered my equipment, my K-9 partner, Jake, was barking, and I saw a little boy staring in at me. "Is that a dog you got back there?" he asked. "It sure is," I replied. Puzzled, the boy looked at me and then towards the back of the van. Finally he said, "What´d he do?"

While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my four-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. She was unfailingly intrigued by the various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, "The tooth fairy will never believe this!"

A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, "Daddy, you shouldn´t wear that suit." "And why not, darling?" "You know that it always gives you a headache next morning."

While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his five-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister´s son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his father always said: "Glory be unto the Faaaather, and unto the Sonnn ... and into the hole he gooooes."

A little girl had just finished her first week of school. "I´m just wasting my time," she said to her mother. "I can´t read, I can´t write, and they won´t let me talk!"

A little boy opened the big family bible. He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly, something fell out of the book. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed in between the pages. "Mama, look what I found," the boy called out. "What have you got there, dear?" With astonishment in the young boy´s voice, he answered, "I think it´s Adam´s underwear!"

Tom Telfer forwards this precautionary tale:

FORGOT MY GLASSES

Yesterday my daughter asked why I didn´t do something useful with my time.

She suggested I go down to the senior center and hang out with the guys.

I did this and when I got home last night, I told her that I had joined a parachute club.

She said, "Are you nuts? You´re 73 years old and you´re going to start jumping out of airplanes?"

I proudly showed her that I even got a membership card.

She said to me, "You idiot, where are your glasses! This is a membership to a prostitute club, not a parachute club!"

I´m in trouble again and don´t know what to do! I signed up for five jumps a week!

Life as a senior citizen is not getting any easier.

Jack Peaker sent this story of

A BOX OF CHOCOLATES

For all of us who are married, were married, wish you were married, or wish you weren´t married, this is something to smile about the next time you open a box of chocolates:

Sally was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road. As the trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman if she would like a ride. With a silent nod of thanks, the woman got into the car.

Resuming the journey, Sally tried in vain to make a bit of small talk with the Navajo woman. The old woman just sat silently, looking intently at everything she saw, studying every little detail, until she noticed a white bag on the seat next to Sally.

"What in bag?" asked the old woman.

Sally looked down at the white bag and said, "It´s a box of chocolates. I got it for my husband."

The Navajo woman was silent for another moment or two. Then speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder, she said: "Good trade."

Zvonko Springer sends this account of

A VERY STRANGE FUNERAL

A man was leaving a convenience store with his morning coffee when he noticed a most unusual funeralprocession approaching the nearby cemetery. A black hearse was followed by a second black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one. Behind the second hearse was a solitary man walking a dog on a leash. Behind him, a short distance back, were a few dozen men walking single file. The man couldn´t stand the curiosity.

He respectfully approached the man walking the dog and said:

"I am so sorry for your loss, and this may be a bad time to disturb you, but ... I´ve never seen a funeral like this. Whose funeral is it?"

"My wife´s."

"What happened to her?"

"She yelled at me and my dog attacked and killed her."

He inquired further, "But who is in the second hearse?"

Paddy answered, "My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my wife when the dog turned on her."

A very poignant and touching moment of brotherhood and silence passed between the two men.

"Can I borrow the dog?"

Paddy curtly replied, "Get in line."

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES

Carol Hansen forwards this link to a site which enables you to experience the art of discovery:

Catherine Nesbitt forwards a link to a slow-motion video of an owl flying right at the lens of a camera. Worth watching to see the movement of the feathers as the owl prepares to grab the lens:

Gerrit deLeeuw sends the URL for a rendition of Bach´s Toccata and fugue in D minor as you have never heard it before:

Gerrit also sends a link to a video of an impressive example of multitasking - stripping while juggling:

Tom Williamson suggests this site for a speeded-up video of a ship going through the Welland canal, which runs 42 km from Port Colborne, Ontario, on Lake Erie, to Port Weller, on Lake Ontario. As part of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the canal allows ships to traverse the Niagara Escarpment and avoid Niagara Falls:

Remember the video of the baby hippo washed up in a tsunami which was adopted by a 130-year-old tortoise? Here is an updated video of their ongoing relationship:

Brewster Kahle is building a truly huge digital library - every book ever published, every movie ever released, all the strata of web history.... It´s all free to the public:

To check out the features of the "freedictionary", which changes daily, go to