Friday, November 19th, 2019 — -1ºC / +30ºF – Sunny & clear @ 10:04 am in Atlantic Canada –
— Walking With Uncles and Dad in Stratford –
—> I was walking South on Main Street in my old ‘Home Town’ when my uncle Bruce, { who died several years ago – but I didn’t think about that when I saw him } – He came up to me and said, “We’ve been looking for you in church -”
— I told him I was going to Boy Scouts – he thought I meant the troop that was connected to the church I was Christened in and confirmed in and haven’t gone near since my nephew Sam was Christened there in 1989 (?)
— I told him I joined a different troop, one that was an off-shoot of the troop associated with the church. { & by the way, I never saw my Uncle Bruce in that church, or any church }
— My father came along and joined us and we resumed walking south and the next time I looked, my Uncle Bruce had been replaced by my Uncle Larry, from the other side of the family, my mother’s side – and somebody called to my Uncle Larry, who was also my God-Father – he waved to that person and crossed the street to talk to them. { My father and Uncle Larry were firemen together for a lot of years }
— My father and I then veered off the sidewalk and walked up-hill through an area of mowed grass with quite a few trees in random spots – then we came to a house and my father said he had to see somebody in there – we went to a screened-in porch’s door. I stayed outside – my father went inside and through the porch, saw the man of the house, shook his hand and went farther inside, I thought to talk with the man and his wife.
— On the porch were three grown children – two men and one woman – they were sitting with their backs to the house, proper, facing a table and may have been playing a board game – the man closest to the door smiled at me and said he was really glad he knew me.
— I went to shake this man’s hand and he said, “Really? I’m not exactly the most highly respected person around here.” I noticed he had a couple days’ growth of beard stubble. { I did not recognize anybody in that screened porch, or the father my father shook hands with before he went farther inside. }
— I responded, saying, “I haven’t heard any of that – I’m out of the loop.”
— He sort of shook my hand, reaching up over his head and not shaking my hand in any normal way, clasping it from the side and pushing the hands up and down.
— That’s all that happened, & then I woke up.
~~~~~ Jim
