Dedication
"I would like to dedicate this story to those appearing in it, in order of their appearance:Leslie Sanderson; Pat Weger; Elizabeth De Groot; David Laird; Edna Dawson; Anna Enkelmann; Marilyn Laird; Donkey, Camel, Sheep-Standing, Sheep-Lying, Chicken, Mouse; Barbara Howard; and The Kids, Parents, Teachers, Helpers and Supporters of the Ellesmere Church School."
Yes, I did do those drawings myself, Gordon
It sounded so easy when Leslie asked me, A DONKEY FOR THE CHRISTMAS PAGEANT
"How about joining the 'Open Circle' making animals for the Christmas Pageant?"
"Sure, I'll try anything once". I heard myself repeat that oft-used and dangerous phrase.
Leslie arrived with newspaper, a barrel of flour and a cooking pot.
"We need you to make the donkey."
"Sure, how do I start?"
Soon we had taken big long balloons and wrapped them in newspaper. With long strips of newspaper and copious quantities of the 'Cream of Wheat' Leslie had prepared for us in the pot, I was soon in the spirit of this. Of course it was not Cream of Wheat. It was flour and water. But it looked like the stuff I was presented with every winter morning of my youth.
I found it helped to get some string to wrap around the paper covered balloons, so that I could then squash up more newspaper and stick it under the string. I was constructing an oblong thing, about as big as a bread box, which I intended to be the body of the donkey.
String began to be more important to me than to Pat, Elizabeth and Leslie, but I comforted myself with the knowledge that years of working with Mechano and Erector sets as a boy, and building push scooters out of apple boxes had given me a greater sense of the mechanical forces at play in this project. I would probably be called upon at some future time by these women, to give them a hint of Construction Principles. It was not their fault that they had been trained in cooking and sewing instead of the science of construction. But I would wait to be asked.
That was enough for today. I had built an oblong double balloon shaped object which would make a very fine body, with a little padding. But what about legs and a head, and how do you attach them? "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
A few days later with the paste safely dry we took out our body shapes and entered a crucial stage. Some of the women were already attaching legs. Leslie had something that was beginning to resemble a camel, but I knew that those legs would never hold. She had constructed them from rolled up newspaper. Here is where Construction Principles would separate the goats from the sheep, the men from the boys, the camels from the donkeys...You know what I mean.
Legs are very important. Didn't I hear that an army is only as good as its legs, (or was that feet)? I certainly have heard the expression in sports, that the knees are the first to go. And we had lost both Keyvan Jenkins and Mervyn Fernandes to the Grey Cup with leg injuries.
I guess I knew things about legs that the women didn't. Elizabeth dropped out of the contest by having her sheep lie down. No leg problem there, but no challenge either. Leslie's camel would never stand. We would certainly have to prop him up. Pat's sheep was trying to stand up on paper rolls. Good luck Pat!
It was time for the secret weapon!
Last summer, my son David had been playing a lot of tennis. He had accumulated dozens of empty tennis ball cans. I had brought them to Church School with the idea that anything in multiples could be used in our craft time. But Edna squelched that idea. Everything could be used except 2 dozen tennis ball cans! Slightly smarting I noted where those cans had been stored in the Thrift Shop, so I could use them for Something Important!
This was it! The time to strike! The tennis ball cans would be the legs for my donkey!
Leslie told me to wrap them in newspaper and Cream of Wheat to glue them together and they would serve as perfectly strong solid legs for my donkey.
Soon I had them wrapped but then how was I to attach them to the two balloons wrapped in newspaper glued with Cream of Wheat?
Now was the time my Creative side was to be used. Along with my understanding of mechanics, and the laws of tension and interactive forces, in short: Construction Principles. I jacked up the balloon body with a box, parked the four tennis ball legs on the corners and began to lash them on with longs strips of paper and Cream of Wheat. Where was that ball of string? To take the place of the sinews and muscles we have in our arms and legs I had substituted paper and Cream of Wheat and string. But, by George, those legs were beginning to do their thing. I now had a kind of body shape with four tennis ball can legs. Not resembling a donkey yet. That time will come. But resembling a solid but very unusual coffee table, wrapped like a mummy with string and dangling paper.
My thoughts turned to the images of our Creator. There were those who wanted to loosen us from the thought of the paternalistic male type creator to allow us to see that there were feminine qualities to our Creator as well. That may well be so, but our bodies with their fine muscles show a wonderful appreciation of the laws of tension and interactive forces: Construction Principles. And when I gaze at the legs of that camel and the sheep lying there or standing on spindly legs, I wonder, I wonder...
The next time I began to attach a head balloon, but how to get it to be a little more upright. I used a kindergarten chair to prop up what one day would be the chin and then lashed the head on with longs strips of newspaper and Cream of Wheat. But again there were Construction Principles which needed to be observed. So more string. Catching him under the chin I took a line over the top of the body, around the legs and back to the chin. The problem was that the string created a triangle of space over the body, like the guy wire does on the mast of a ship, so I had to run another line around the body and cinch it in, much as we might put a saddle on a horse. I will leave the donkey out on the counter to dry. Sufficient unto the day...
People were beginning to notice the donkey. Leslie said the legs were too short, and she was right. She suggested an operation of grafting another four Tennis Ball Cans onto the bottom of the legs. That could be easily done, and now the farsightedness of my bringing those cans to the Church was obvious.
I did intend a fairly small donkey, but now Donkey was growing. And he was growing not because I as creator wanted him to grow but because there was an internal force within that donkey that wanted him to be bigger. His very dimensions demanded longer legs.
Something was happening to me too. I was beginning to be sensitive when Anna or anyone else commented on the appearance of Donkey. I was beginning to dream about him, to be attached to him. He was after all, something, no, Someone, of my own creation. It was becoming hard for me to separate my feelings. Criticize my Donkey and you are criticizing me!
Donkey, without much of a head, not even a face, but with four very strong legs and a solid body was beginning to be a presence, to take up space, and to occasion comment. I had to explain that he was intended to be a donkey, for he was beginning to resemble the stolid appearance of a cow or even an ox.
It was time to move ahead, that is to move on to the head. I munched up some paper and attached it to the covered balloon with long strips of newspaper and Cream of Wheat. More string was needed. I passed the line around the face and cinched it to two of the legs. But that darn head kept slipping down. Donkeys have, I think, a more upright neck and face. I am not sure, because I realized that I never had a good picture of a donkey when I started this project. See if there is anything in the Church School Cupboard. Well, there's a book, but it is more like a cartoon picture. And Donkey has a great deal more dignity than to resemble a cartoon.
Do a donkey's ears grow out of its eyes, or its eyes grow out of its ears? No matter. I grabbed a couple of coat hangers from the closet and bent them into the shape of large ears. I knew that if I had big enough ears on any animal shape it would be a dead giveaway that it was a donkey. And in a Christmas Pageant, everybody knows there will be a donkey. And as long as nothing else clearly resembles a donkey, maybe they will allow Donkey to claim that part.
But after I had lashed on the two ears with long strips of newspaper and Cream of Wheat I realized that there was a large lump back of the ears on Donkey which was not likely to be there on ordinary donkeys.
If any of the readers are planning to construct a donkey in the near future, a word to the wise. Make the ears be at the top-most hump of the head.
I thought maybe Marilyn might have some brown wool from which I could in the future make a shock of hair to cover that lump. But sufficient unto the day...
. But now I noticed that I was getting ever more sensitive about Donkey's appearance. I couldn't just leave Donkey in the Church Hall lest someone make a uncalled-for comment as to his appearance. After all he was supposed to be starting to resemble a donkey, and while he no longer looked exactly like an ox he really wouldn't strike you as a donkey, unless it was explained to you carefully in advance of seeing him.
Meanwhile Camel with the spindly legs was getting a covering of paper towel, preparatory to his being painted. And I am sure he will be a fine camel, propped up somewhere, but he certainly won't be able to stand. And Sheep were getting twirls of cotton batten and were really looking quite sheep-like. "Yes, yes," I thought, "get on with the cosmetics and forget all about the Construction Principles."
There were those who commented upon Donkey's size. Wasn't he getting too big? He would be certainly bigger than the camel! How could I explain that I was no longer in control of his size or shape or much else about Donkey. He was beginning to have a life of his own. His other dimensions demanded his height. The very placing of the tennis ball cans on his four corners had given him a stolid appearance like no other donkey I had ever seen (had I ever seen a donkey?). He did not have the grace of a sports car, more the appearance of those square little English Morris Minor cars, which seem to have wheels on their extreme four corners. Probably so they would not turn over easy. Donkey would not turn over easily either.
I decided to take Donkey into my study so as not to have to explain him or apologize for him. But he took up the place of two people. And his head reached the level of my desk. And it was disconcerting to have the vacant places where soon there will be eyes staring at me. But it was better than turning him around.
The next morning when I came into my study there was Donkey. Wasn't he a little fat for a donkey? I brushed aside an unworthy thought that he had been into the Cream of Wheat overnight. But after all, wasn't I creator? And Donkey, was after all, just balloons, and glued paper and string. I could make him thinner. I could just put him on his side on the floor of my study and put my knee on his flank and he would be narrower, more donkey-like.
But then an image flooded my mind. I have always hated the moment in the Calgary Stampede when the cowboys rope the tiny defenseless heifers, throw them to the ground and tie their legs. What if someone passed my open study door and saw me wrestling with Donkey on the floor?
I realized that Donkey now was the basic shape he was going to be. Like it or lump it. "I am what I am," Donkey seemed to be saying. "Maybe I don't look like other donkeys but other donkeys don't look like me! Take me as I am, or find someone else!" Donkey's emotional security was truly awesome!
But it was now only one week before Show Time. How will Donkey face up to what is ahead, the stage, the dress rehearsals? The sidelong glances and maybe even jibes of the other performers. I am not sure that Donkey likes children. Or is that fond of this whole festive celebration.
Will he have to audition? Terrible thought. Will there be others vying for the role of Donkey?
And I thought of what I had yet to do, for didn't I still have some role as creator? I had to fill in the valleys in his back and side and cover the string and paper with paper towel. Then the painting with poster paint. And finding some brown wool for the shock of hair to cover the misplaced headlump. Oh, and eyes and some kind of mouth. And cover up the paper tail.
Would I graft on "haunches"? All animals seem to have haunches on the backs of their back legs. Donkey's legs were the shape of Campbell Soup tins stacked one on top of the other. The dimensions of the top of the leg was exactly that of the bottom. Couldn't I at least give him some kneelumps?
I wonder if I will have time for anything else this week?
Edna asked me what colour Donkey would be. "Brown, of course," I answered.
"Not grey?".
What colour are donkeys anyway?
I decided that we could cover Donkey's body with Safeway bags with the red advertisements turned in, and let his colour be the rich donkey-colour of brown grocery bags.
As Donkey was being dressed with his new clothes the string and paste was finally being covered and some of the lumps and valleys were smoothing out. Finally he had eyes and a toothy grin which belied secret, rather evil thoughts. When his shock of brown wool hair fell over his brown paper eyelids, finally his personality emerged. He was quite a good looking Donkey.
One morning I arrived in my Church office to find him staring at himself in the mirror on the back of my door which was usually reserved for nervous grooms. Surely that fact wasn't giving Donkey ideas.
It was hard to say. Donkey did not wear his heart on his sleeve, or on his kraft-covered shoulder in his case. He was becoming secretive with his feelings, even with me. But there was a certain, not unwarranted pride of appearance entering the picture. I couldn't blame him. He was a fine looking Donkey.The final touch was a plaid blanket from my car, flung over his back, reaching down almost to the ground. What would be the significance of a Scottish tartan on the Donkey of the Nativity?
There was a belief that there was a lost Hebrew tribe which ended up in England. Perhaps this tartan related to a tribe which got lost and ended up in Scotland. Well, we mustn't get too historical about donkeys for a Christmas Pageant.
The dress rehearsal was scheduled for the next night. Donkey took his place on the stage in the Church along with Camel, Sheep-Standing, and Sheep-Lying, and a marvelous Chicken. As a surprise Edna had made a Mouse which was nestled in Donkey's wool hair. Some unkind person had put a sign at his feet, which I am sure will be removed by Show Time, which read: NO HUNTING OR TRESPASSING.
When the dress rehearsal started it was now finally obvious that Donkey was clearly accepted for his part, and that his part was THE LEAD. A number of the noisy children had been given bit parts, such as Innkeeper and family, Shepherds, and the couple with the baby. There was no doubt in Donkey's mind that Transportation was the theme of this show (he had heard of Expo 86 which was formerly to be called Transpo 86). Donkeys were experts on Transportation.
It was Show Time and he was the star!
Donkey tried to hide his contempt for some of the other animals, particularly Camel. "Stand on your own four legs, Man!" Donkey whispered to Camel as he looked at that pathetic creature leaning against the organ. But he resigned himself with the fact that some were destined for Stardom and some would always be in the Chorus. Perhaps he should get a few thoughts together for his thank you speech after the performance.
"Hmm," he imagined, "I want to thank all the little people behind the scenes who made this evening possible and especially my friends in the animal cast!" Maybe I should say, "Take a bow, Camel!" It would be good for a laugh to watch Camel fall on his face!
There was a really cruel side to Donkey.
The evening of the final performance arrived. Donkey was ready. This is the moment it was all about. "Break a leg", Donkey called over to Sheep-Standing.
But as the Nativity scene unfolded even Donkey was touched by the story. No room at the Inn. They had to sleep in a stable. They laid Him in a manger.
"Our Lord came first to the animals," thought Donkey.
When it was over Donkey noticed that he felt a little different towards Camel, the two Sheep, Chicken and Mouse. They had all, after all, Experienced something very important together! And they weren't such bad creatures. He would even call them Friends.
Barbara asked Donkey to do an encore in the Adult Pageant in a couple of weeks. "Why not?", thought Donkey. "I am beginning to like this life. Let's take it on the road!" And visions of one-night stands in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, and then on to New York rose up in his head.
But he was getting a little tired. It had been a long day. In fact a long two weeks, since he had been only a couple of balloons, wrapped in newspaper and stuck together with Cream of Wheat and string!
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," he thought.
"Goodnight, and Merry Christmas," said Donkey.
