Playing Tricks for Fun

I used to walk down every morning. I had a routine to go down and get bottled water, big fresh bottle. And you had to smuggle it back because people would be trying to get it off you and it’s a shame that’s about the only thing, you know, we got in. And there used to be elderly ladies and I would say elderly ladies well in their 60's and 70's on the side walk. They would never be sitting, they would be squatting and they would be making morning pancakes or morning bread and amazing watching them doing this with this dough and they would have a little low fire on and they would put this in the pan and they wouldn’t have a spatula. It would be their hands, they’d be, and some mornings we would walk by, she would say to me, she said, “piece, piece? ” And not to be offended, “yes by all means.” So she’d cut off a piece and I’d be eating it. What the heck is that? What is was they were missing certain ingredients so what they used to do was peel birch bark, strips of birch bark and they used to put it in the dough to hold it together. So I’m eating this and I’m getting a piece of birch bark hanging out of my mouth and I’m trying to be polite. So I finished the doughy part of it. So the next morning, I was going back down again. I took the young signaller with me. I said, “Come on,” and I was setting him up. So I said, “If you go by here and this elderly offer you a piece of bread, don’t refuse them. “But,” he says, “they don’t wash their hands.” “Don’t worry about it!” So they offered him. I said, “Take a big bite!” And course the poor Corporal took a big bite as he’s been told by the Warrant Officer. He took a big bite and it was nothing but pure birch bark. He bit into a little bit of dough and I said “Don’t spit it out. She’s watching you.” I said, you know, “say thank you,” and he was trying to say thank you and he was chewing down on this birch bark and I took a fit of laughing. It was just, then the elderly she took a fit of laugh as well. It’s things like that we laughed at , but you couldn’t, this is how they kept their ingredients together when they were making it. They were lacking, I don’t know what they were lacking, yeast or whatever, but this is how they would do it. To keep the dough together and oh, but they would eat it. But that was one of the things I use to tell, “Have a big piece!” and he right into it!! And he looked at me, “You know about this? ” I said, “I knew all about it!!” But it was things like that, you know, it was moments like that we had, we had a laugh.