Just before we step into something a little bit more serious, I would like to tell you bit of a story that happened to me when I was young. I come from a part of Canada that’s always wet. Begins to rain in September and it continues up until probably April. And it’s the reason that British Columbia had such lush and beautiful forests. So I guess one should be thankful for the rain.
But as a child, as a young person, you are always wet and seemingly always cold. So to mitigate this, to minimize the trauma that occurred and this is a long time ago now, right, a long time ago. And so dryers were popular but there was a lot of children in my family. I had a lot of brothers and sister. Right?
We were busy people. So you’d go to school, you’d get wet. You’d come home, you remove the clothes, and my parents had a drying room, a very large room that all you did was hang up your clothes. That’s all you did. And they would dry.
The wood stove would burn away, and it was really wonderful. I remember the sensation of being at peace in this room. So one particular day to my story, one particular day, I arrived home and the stove was out and the room was cold. So I made every attempt to light this wood stove, but it just wouldn’t light. So in great frustration, I thought to myself, what can I use to kind of prompt the flame if I could put it that way?
And I thought to myself, well, my father keeps gasoline. Gasoline in his workshop. Now we were strictly forbidden to go into my father’s workshop and he had, gasoline in a separate room inside his workshop, but I knew where the key was or the keys were. So needless to say, I opened the one door. My father was not yet home from work, and I opened the second door.
And I found the gas, and I brought it, and I decided to liberally sprinkle it on the wood and the paper that was inside the wood stove. And so I needed an assistant, so I found one of my younger brothers. Now, my mother is blonde. My father is quite dark and curly haired, typical kind of French Canadian, and I am as well, but my brothers and my sister are all very blonde. So my brother, Francis, he was blonde.
So I asked him if he would assist me, and he was just a lovely little guy and he loved me so much. So he eagerly came to assist me. Now I’m quite a bit older than my brother. So I had him hold the lid. And I’m going to be the impresario here.
I’m gonna drop the match into the stove. It should be a simple process. You know, the mind is running. It should be fine. The fire will light and will be warm, and you know how this is when you’re about 12, 11.
You don’t really anticipate the, consequences of your So I tossed in the match. Nothing. Like, I thought for a moment the match had gone out. And in those seconds that nothing happened, I waited and pondered life. You know how it goes.
Not really, but something like this anyhow. But then suddenly, the flames shot out like a finger virtually, and my shirt fell off as did my brother’s shirt because he was standing about 15 inches in front of me holding the lid up. And I was stunned. Here I was semi naked, not really burnt, but just singed, if you will. But my brother, he was, of course, a little closer so he was singed a little bit more but he’s very blonde.
So you couldn’t really tell that the top of his hair, the top of his head was burnt or his eyebrows. It was all gone. But he’s very fair. Right? So he begins to wail and you know what you do with errant brothers at that age.
Yes. You quiet them. I’ll leave you I’ll leave you to that, your own thoughts. So I quieted them down, and then I took him into the shower to try to remove the cinders. So I did.
He’s still wailing, but I, you know, once again convinced him that we should keep this story between us men, so to speak, because my mother were deeply afraid of my mother. My mother, of course, would sense that something was wrong and we would be punished, or I would be punished for sure. My brother probably would just get off as innocent because he was younger and all that. So we go to the dinner table and I tell my my younger brother, look, if you talk, you die. You die.
You understand? You get it? Well, you know, those glaring eyes. Right? And my parents had a large dining room.
So we’re sitting in the dining room and everyone had their own place, and I sat opposite my brother, the one who had been burnt, and my mother was beside me on my left. And so I’m facing my baby brother. My mother asked me, Leon, how are you today? Oh, mama. I had a wonderful day.
Wonderful. Such a wonderful day. But she senses something’s wrong, and she looks across at my younger brother, Francis. Francis, how are you? And I could tell he’s gonna talk.
He’s gonna talk. So I gave him the you’re gonna die twice look. And so he responds, I’m fine, mommy. Said, Francis, you look a little red. Oh, mommy.
I have a don’t feel that well. It’s bit of a cold. And my mother let it drop, if you will. She didn’t pursue this. Right?
She didn’t pursue it. I actually told her about 20 years later and she was just horrified at what I had done. So I admitted my guilt. But by that time, I was already a man and you couldn’t really do too much, I guess, in a sense. You know, parents don’t want sometimes they don’t want to know these things, do they really?
So that’s my tale. Now I often think to myself, family is what really makes these adventures interesting and I’m sure we all have had them. Those wonderful adventures. My brother Francis went on to be a very successful professional. So, obviously, the singeing, the tinging of his skin didn’t really do all that much.
In fact, maybe it even enhanced his career. Who knows? But we shall see. And you know what they say. You know what they say.
Critical thinking is necessary if I’m going to change the world, change myself, and critical thinking is great. Until the next time. Please take care. God bless. Bye bye.