Zz

SNAKE ON THE TABLE is worth several in the grass, five-year-old Adrian Dewhurst, a Glen
Lake School student found on a recent visit to East Bay Science and Nature Company
on Oak Bay Avenue. Monty, a 10-year-old African Ball Python belongs to the Camosun
College biology department. Pythons live 15-20 years in the wild, longer in captivity.

Photo by CHUCK RUSSELL

Special memories triggered
by those links to the past

y friend and I picked our
way across a dry,
bramble-laden ditch and
crawled through a
barbed-wire fence. Our destination
was an old abandoned house, about a

quarter of a mile across the field.
We both worked in the local hospital, and
our excursion was in the

and the floor was strewn with beer cans and
fast-food cartons.

We didn’t even know what to look for. The
cupboards in the kitchen yielded little more
than a few cracked plates, a couple of cups
and some bent cutlery. There were some
rusty pots and pans, a broken table and a
bench. Nothing there to trigger a special
memory.

The bedroom was as bare;
only an old iron bedstead,

manner of an experiment.
The old lady who had once
lived in the house had

and an empty wardrobe. And
overall, years accumulation

recently come to us from a

of grime.

The only place left was the

long-term facility. She was
a problem. It seemed that
she had simply given up on
life; as far as she was con-
cerned, she had come to the
hospital to die.

She would only eat when
coerced, and declined to
speak a word to any of us. It
was as if we weren't there .
. . her reality was some-
where far removed from the

=Geldenred=

By IVY KENT

small shovel, a box in the
corner still half full of dirt,
and lots of old tomato cans.
Most were empty, but some
still contained the withered
stems of old plants.

We looked at each other,
and then at the tomato cans.
What farmhouse of our
childhood did not have
flowering geraniums in the

us to do something to cheer her up.

That was easier said than done. We had
tried just about everything. Someone, grasp-
ing at straws, suggested that if we went out
to her old home, we might find a clue, a
special something to trigger interest, jog a
memory, some magical key with which to
open the door to communication.

It was a sad looking old house. The paint
was peeling, and the steps were rotting.
Broken windows stared blindly from either
side of the door, and shards of glass made
pinpoints of light in the dead-leaf debris the
wind had blown into a corner of the porch.
Rusty hinges creaked a protest as we pushed

- open the door. The place was a mess. One

look was all it took to make us doubt the
validity of our errand.

What could possibly be here that could help
us? We looked around the small rooms but
could find no obvious link with the past. The
few pieces of furniture were in sorry repair,

. Physically. h windows? Then we looked at
eee ee cane she the old rocker. Under all the
should have been on the : dirt and debris it didn’t seem
mend. But she wasn’t, and the doctor wanted be in bad shape.

It took us a week to get things ready. Then,
one afternoon when our patient had gone to
physio, we made our move. Her room was a
private one, with a big west window. We
arranged the colorful plants in their bright
tins all along the windowsill. Then we
brought in the rocker, repaired and refur-
bished, and placed it by the window, a small
table at its side. The afternoon sun shone on
the blossoms and brought out the grain in the
polished wood of the rocker. We admired our
handiwork and awaited its results.

It would be nice to say that a miracle hap-
pened, but that was not the case. Our patient
was tired after physio, and seemed more
withdrawn than ever. I doubt she even
noticed the flowers, or recognized her old
rocker.

But the next morning, for the very first
time, she spoke, quietly asking the startled
nurse if she might have toast and mar-
malade for breakfast instead of the usual
cream of wheat.

It was a start.

Urea eae IRR

This Week September 12, 1990. Page M15
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