9 minute read
Facts and fiction Now that's what I call living
8 © Now that's what I call living!
The following text is from a British novel about a boy who is trying to discover what kind of person he is. ‘Now that’s what I call living!’ is the title of a little story told by the boy in the novel.
1 Before you read What do people mean when they say someone is weird? What does the word mean to you? Here’s a little story.
This guy, let’s call him Jimmy, he lives with his family in an old school bus in New Mexico. There’s him, his mom and dad and his five brothers and sisters, all in this old bus. They’re driving it all around New Mexico and up into California, staying in different places, just bumming around.
Only one day the poor old bus dies. “Dag nabbit,” it says, at the end of too many hot and hard days, T v e had enough of ol’ Route 66, or wherever we are. I’m off to meet the great bus-builder in the sky.”
So when they get to the next corner, Dad turns the wheel and the hippy bus, for the first time in its life, doesn’t follow. Yes, for the first time in its long life, it does what it damn well wants. Goes straight on and off the road, down a slope and finally stops upside-down on its roof.
And would you believe it! Mom and Dad and Jimmy and the other five little Brokers all climb out of the doors and windows, every one of them just fine.
And Dad says, after he’s counted them all quickly, “OK. That’s the last time I live in a bus.” And off he goes and buys a tent. A big old army tent. And they’re off again, stopping here and there, and life’s not so bad until one day the poor old tent is grabbed by a tornado, up into the air and away. And Dad says, “OK. That’s the last time I live in a tent.”
So they go to the coast, where he buys an old boat. One that’s seen better days, of course. And they’re planning to live off what they can get from the sea, only none of them has any idea about fishing. Two fishes they catch that first day, two fishes between the seven of them, and Jesus might have been able to feed the five thousand like that, but Mom and Dad, no way.
A storm starts and they can’t get back into the harbour. So they’re out all night, thrown around by the waves at their most extreme. And Dad doesn’t know much about sailing a boat, I’m afraid, not having had much experience because he grew up as far from the sea as anybody can get, but he manages. Just about, he manages.
And when they finally get back to dry land, Mom and Jimmy and the five brothers and sisters all say, like they’ve been rehearsing it for days, although they haven’t actually, “Listen, Dad,” they say. “That’s the last time we live in a boat. It’s time to get you act together, start living in the real world, find yourself a job and us a home!”
And he does, in a way. He gets them a big trailer to live in and he turns himself into a taxi-driving part-time gardener (although he doesn’t know a lot about gardens,
and he thinks he can drive a cab the way he used to drive that poor old bus, not well at all).
And Jimmy and the rest of the kids have a more normal life after that, with a roof over their heads, and schools, and enough food. But every one of them has been affected by their unusual childhood and so they can never quite match other people’s narrow expectations. In other words, they’re weird. Real weird.
One grows up to be an artist in Ulan Bator, another becomes a wrestler in Southern Winnipeg and a third is a lion tamer in Outer Mongolia. (I actually haven’t any idea what they did - it didn’t tell you in the Sunday Information where I read about this Jimmy guy, but never mind, I’m sure that’s what story-telling is all about, making it up as you go along.) And each one of them goes their own crazy way.
2 Stop and th in k What do you think an unusual childhood is? How might it affect your later life?
And Jimmy? Well, I can tell you a bit more about Jimmy. Jimmy saves lives. Jimmy studies and passes exams, and passes more exams, and Jimmy becomes a doctor.
And not for Jimmy the nice easy life of a town doctor in the American Midwest, oh no. Jimmy goes to the Congo. Jimmy goes to a village in the middle of Africa, a village of great poverty, a village with lots of disease and no doctors at all. There Jimmy starts a hospital, and there Jimmy saves lives. Lots and lots of lives.
People hear about this, and they come from miles around, on animals, on foot, any way they can get there. They camp outside and wait until Jimmy can help them. As many as his few medicines allow.
And the people love Jimmy because he has a special gift. He can cure with drugs and he can cure with his hands. He’s thin and he has white skin and he wears little round John Lennon glasses like his father before him. Well, all those Africans think he’s the strangest guy they’ve ever seen, but they respect him. They respect him and they love him.
For he can cure anything, almost. He comes to your bed when no one else wants to come to your bed, holds your hand when no one else wants to hold your hand, and he talks to you gently, sometimes in your language and sometimes in his. And you don’t understand what he’s saying and you don’t know how holding your hand is going to make you feel better, but it does.
And from time to time Jimmy leaves. He leaves his hospital in the hands of the African doctors and nurses he’s trained, and he flies back home to America and he begs for drugs and money to go on with his work.
And he travels all around, talking to businessmen and politicians and church groups and colleges and anyone who’ll listen. And he tells them about women dying because there is no clean water, and children dying because they need medicine that costs fifty cents in the United States. And he shows them photos of hungry people and photos of disease and he shows them pictures that would make anyone with even half a heart cry.
And this Jimmy, he shows all these people a photo of a girl who was brought to the hospital one night. She’d been carried twenty miles. She’s completely bald and her body is thin and her arms and legs are like sticks. Then, would you believe it! Here’s a picture of her a few months later, with a beautiful head of hair, a round face, and a big happy smile!
And they do! They take out their wallets, the businessmen. They open their doors, the bankers. They clear out their drug cupboards, the doctors, and they give our Jimmy what he needs to go on for another few months.
And the drugs he gets, he uses to cure people. And the money he gets, he spends on cleaning the water system so there’s no more disease. And the rest of the money he spends on schools. Schools to give people an education. And one of the things he makes them teach people in the schools and the villages is how not to get AIDS.
So that’s Jimmy. That’s what he does, that boy I was telling you about, the one who grew up in a bus, travelling around New Mexico.
And it’s all true, because I read it in a Sunday paper some time ago. I’ve changed the names and the facts a bit, but it’s more or less all true.
And if you’re still wondering why I’m telling you Jimmy’s story, not mine, then you don’t understand what I’m talking about at all. I’m talking about life! I’m talking about not just living the same old way everybody else does. I’m talking about getting out there and doing something real.
Because that’s what I call living! That’s what I call living!
(From Who is Jesse Flood? by Malachy Doyle)
22 3 Talk about Jimm y 1. How is Jimmy’s life different from most other people’s lives? 2. Why did he become the kind of person he is?
4 Look a t th e style How is a story told in the first person different from one written in the third person? Find typical phrases in the text
5 E xam ine the te xt structure Divide the text into parts. Write down what each part is about Start: Childhood: line 1 - ...
6 Father's story Look at the pictures and describe Jimmy's father's life.
7 Jimmy's story a) Think o f Jimmy's activities in America. How does he raise money? Why does he need the money?
b) What does he do with the money in the Congo?
8 W riting te xts: B iographies Choose one o f Jimmy's brothers or sisters and write their biography. You can make things up if you want to!
9 Create an ad for Jimmy's cam paign for Africa
^ 10 Collaborative w ritin g: B iographies In groups of four, decide on a person that you all know or admire. It can be someone famous Make a plan o f the person's life, using your text structure from exercise 5 to help you. Then each o f you writes one part o f the biography. Check and improve your texts together. Is the style of your texts the same? Then read your complete biography to your dass.
