{"id":5270,"date":"2022-10-04T21:21:56","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T01:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=5270"},"modified":"2022-10-04T21:24:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T01:24:00","slug":"mrs-eby","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=5270","title":{"rendered":"“Mrs. Eby”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a<\/em> bacon scrapin<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

One of the jobs in our \u20189-stop-signs\u2019 sized community is to take down and store the 500+ metres of snow fence along the main entry road, ready to be put back up again in the late fall. The dozen or so volunteers work in 2s or 3s spread out as we work along.<\/p>\n

Conversation moved smoothly and cheerfully from one-thing-to-another in our group, and the topic of destructive demonstrators and, \u2018When are we going to learn to talk to, and listen to each other?\u2019 somehow came up.<\/p>\n

Tony said, \u201cFor some reason, we seem unable to learn from the symbols left for us by those before us. There\u2019s good and bad in most folks who have done anything big and important in any country, and for some reason we can\u2019t find a way to keep and use those symbols in creative ways so that we can learn about our past, and how to treat each other better in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

George said, \u201cWe need less confrontation, and more listening to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony added, \u201cAnd, we also need to learn how to talk to each other. Not just yell, stomp, pout and throw stuff. You know, the \u2018playing nice in the sandbox\u2019 stuff!\u201d<\/p>\n

I suggested, \u201cWe need more Mrs. Ebys!\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony asked, \u201cWhat? Who\u2019s Mrs. Eby?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me share a \u2018Mrs. Eby communications\u2019 situation.\u201d I said. \u201cIn a previous life, I taught grades 6 \u2013 8 in a small town beside the lake. Over 40% of our students were from Saugeen First Nation. They were mostly Chippewa and had Ojibway language classes instead of French at school. Most came in on a bus, and some walked with the rest of the \u2018townies\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe school\u2019s back yard had a long slope, which was good for sliding down in winter, and which overlooked a large playground shaped like a large L. If you stood at the top of the slope, you couldn\u2019t see around the L to the far corner of the yard. The students were all over the place, of course, but the oldest kids tended to gather in the hidden back corner to \u2018hang out\u2019. There was a clump of trees about 15 feet tall and it was a good place to test the rules, one of which was no smoking.\u201d I continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about Mrs. Eby?\u201d probed Tony.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeachers would be on yard supervision duty, in pairs, to be able to cover all the area. My regular partner on one of the days was Mrs. Eby. She had been there so long that she had taught many of the kids\u2019 parents, and they knew they\u2019d get no sympathy at home if they had a run-in with Mrs. Eby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, what about the \u2018learning how to listen and talk\u2019 bit? pushed George.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne recess I had the top of the hill and the lower pavement, and Mrs. Eby took the lower section around the corner with the soccer field and the corner trees. Mrs. Eby related this incident to me after we came off the yard together that day.\u00a0 It seems she saw smoke rising above the heads of a group along the far fence by the trees, so she wandered over. She was stealthy and they saw her too late. Here\u2019s what happened, as she related it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Ritchie! Mr. Roote! Miss. Mandawoub! Are you smoking?\u201d she demanded.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!\u201d blustered Lester Ritchie quickly, \u201cWe were just calling home!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d said Mrs. Eby firmly, with an invisible smile, \u201ccome over here, and give me all your matches. But first \u2013 HANG UP!\u201d<\/p>\n

With adolescent grins, they \u2018butted out’. All walked back to the school together.<\/p>\n

\u201cYup!\u201d said George, \u201cWe need more Mrs. Ebys as model communicators.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd,\u201d concluded Tony, \u201cwe\u2019d only lose the frictional matches<\/em>, but we\u2019d keep our symbolic smoke signals<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n

NOTE: The characters\u2019 names in the Bacon Scrapin tales are fictional. Except for the first person singular, AND Mrs. Eby. Mrs. Eby really exists, and I\u2019m pleased to know her.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>You may send appropriate email comments to the writer at thisiswilmot@gmail.com<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin. One of the jobs in our \u20189-stop-signs\u2019 sized community is to take down and store the 500+ metres of snow fence along the main entry road, ready […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4072,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5270","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5270"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5273,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5270\/revisions\/5273"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}