Anecdotes

[Sandra Craft]

When I was very much younger, I was telling some adults how much I liked being raised by just my Dad.  In fact, I told them, if I had to have two parents I'd want two Dads.  They got funny looks on their faces that I wasn't able to understand until decades later.

[xSilverPhinx]

When I was very much younger, I was telling some adults how much I liked being raised by just my Dad.  In fact, I told them, if I had to have two parents I'd want two Dads.  They got funny looks on their faces that I wasn't able to understand until decades later.

[xSilverPhinx]

Now that Christmas is coming I am reminded of the time when my mother and I went to her parents' place (in another state) and my grandfather, who is the type to speak his mind whenever he pleases, expressed his displeasure at us coming for the holidays because he felt obligated to buy us presents.

Then he went rambled on about how Christmas had become overly commercial, which must be the devil's doing (he's a seventh day adventist). We told him once again that there was no need to buy us presents, and we weren't there for charity.

Then my mother made the mistake of buying him a new pair of walking shoes to replace the old, worn pair he had been using for his morning walks. When Christmas night finally came and he was given the wrapped package he went into the same rant he had previously, about the devil's influence on what should be a celebration of Jesus' birth, and refused to open it.

He would barely even touch the present.

Talk about ruining a family gathering. When I left I vowed never to visit them for the holiday again. 

[Icarus]

Well damn the luck Silver. The several Adventists that I know are at least partially sane. In the US they have a large presence in the health care industry, often quietly enough.

One of my best lifelong friends was a devout 7th day guy. He never ever tried to convert me from heathenship and I never ever tried to persuade him that he had it all wrong.  Jack was a wonderful friend that did not let that stuff get in the way of a healthy and respectful friendship.

I reckon that both circumstances and personalities alter cases.

[xSilverPhinx]

Well damn the luck Silver. The several Adventists that I know are at least partially sane. In the US they have a large presence in the health care industry, often quietly enough.

One of my best lifelong friends was a devout 7th day guy. He never ever tried to convert me from heathenship and I never ever tried to persuade him that he had it all wrong.  Jack was a wonderful friend that did not let that stuff get in the way of a healthy and respectful friendship.

I reckon that both circumstances and personalities alter cases.

I have yet to meet a partially sane Adventist, the ones I know all like to feel pretty special, the true bearers of Truth to the world. And they'll never let you hear the end of it. 

Maybe I'm just unlucky.   

[Icarus]

Silver, my friend was a rational man at least to the extent that he did not try to impose his beliefs on others.  On the other hand I once car pooled with an outspoken Adventist who would not, could not, shut his mouth about the primacy of his Saturday religion.  We soon found it impractical to have him as one of our car poolers.  I took from that experience that ordinary Christians have little patience with others who presume to reset the holy day of rest.   Two of the four  car pool people were regular Christians and of course there was me the lonesome heretic. After ditching the Adventist there were only the three of us.

[Dave]

Mandy was a coati, a female - male coatis tend to be loners, don't like company much (except in the mating season of course), females are gregarious. She lived in a fairly small cage, with a "bedroom" that was inside one of the buildings. I felt a bit sorry for her and would make sure that we could socialise a bit before the public got there.

Greeting, for a coati, is a noisyish affair, not barking noisy like a dog but they sort of push air out and suck it back in very fast from their mouths, a sort of "whoosh". They also have to "kiss", no good trying to avoid it, she would just climb up you with her very sharp claws and incredibly strong limbs. We would sit and have a mutual groom for a while, then i would maybe put her lead on and taker her for a walk.

Walking meant stopping her hunting our few frogs (there was a virus around that was killing them off) but letting her dig for worms or snatch the odd spider (which she always treated with care, just in case). Not nice for the worms and spiders but she needed the chance to get somewhere near normal behaviour, and probably the micronutrients as well.

We rarely took her out when cudtomers were about, she was legally classified as a dangerous wild animal, needed a licence, despite being born in captivity and raised by humans after being abandoned by her mother. But we did ocassionaly. On one such ocassion we were coming back from the field, Mandy on my shoulder because she had got fed up with walking. As we neared the building she leapt off my shoulder as we came near a group that included a girl of msybe 6. Before I could pull her back Mandy had grabbed a small chocolate bar out of the girl's jacket pocket and was heading for her cage with it in her mouth! I have mentioned her strength?

We could not take it off her and give it back, for a start it had teeth marks in it and, second, Mandy might object violently! So we gave the girl another one and let her scold Mandy mightily - once the latter was safely in her cage. Mandy did not care, she was too busy scoffing the treat. Another teat was not so funny. We had two garter snakes, an older one, well used to being handled, and a very nervous youngster. On our matenance day, Monday, they let Mandy out into the main part of the building. I was not there of course, work day for me, so this bit is second hand. It seems that, as soon as the hatch (a small door with wire netting in it) from her bedroom was open she rushed out, strainght to the snakes' tank, had the catch undone, opened it, grabbed the little snake and was back in her room before anyone could react! I am sure there had to be an element of careful observation and pre-planning there. The tank catch was a "twist and flip" job, required knowledge to operate. Like their cousins the racoons coatis are very dextrous.

When the centre owners moved down to Somerset Mandy went to a very good home, the extremely well run Burford animal centre near Oxford. I visited there a few months later but could not recognise Mandy from  the group of five she now lived with. But I called her name softly and she was over like a rocket. We had a little mutual scratch through the wire and I got told off by one of the keepers. But he relaxed a bit when I told him Mandy and I were old friends.