Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: TASTE (07/01/21)
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TITLE: Sweeter than Wine? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mariane Holbrook
07/08/21 -
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Jimmy was a clown by any definition. His family received their first clue when his mother tried to feed Jimmy his first solid food, green peas. He tasted it, licked every bit of green from the spoon, then blew the mouthful all over his mother's glasses, laughing all the while.
When Jimmy was two, he escaped the confines of his house and dashed outside where an ice storm had rendered the road unfit for drivers, let alone toddlers dressed only in a diaper. Jimmy tasted an icicle then walked to the street. His alarmed father grabbed an overcoat and ran down the road after him. Slipping and sliding, Jimmy's rather corpulent dad finally landed on his back and ended up next to the curb. A neighbor, witnessing the comedy, caught Jimmy and helped Jimmy's distraught father back to his front porch.
Jimmy, early on, had a fondness for candy so as a three-year-old, he was often seen tasting a red cherry sucker which was held together with a round cardboard loop. His mother received a phone call one day with the alarming news that Jimmy, dressed only in a short T-shirt, was sitting on a curb two blocks away at the corner of Broad Street and Moore Avenue enjoying his sucker. A concerned shopper in that downtown area questioned Jimmy and learned from the child that he was waiting for the bus to arrive. Jimmy waved at all the cars passing by. His mother had earlier put him to bed for his afternoon nap, so this frightening news prompted her to run the two blocks at break-neck speed to retrieve her mischievous, adventurous son.
When Jimmy was four, he woke early and listened for the milk truck to deliver quarts of bottled milk to his porch as well as all the neighbors' porches. Slipping quietly out the front door, he would make his rounds up one side of the street, then down the other side, removing the cardboard caps from each bottle of milk. He carefully drank the few inches of cream from the top, smacked his lips over its cold, delicious taste, and replaced the paper lids.
This daily caper went on successfully until one neighbor decided to rise early to wait for the milkman. He discovered Jimmy drinking the cream from his milk bottles and marched him by the collar back down the street to face Jimmy's embarrassed parents.
Jimmy's family attended a church that served communion twice a month, using real wine instead of Welch's grape juice often served at other churches. Eight-year-old Jimmy sang in the children's choir and attended Sunday School regularly. The minister liked Jimmy, as did everyone else in the congregation, so it wasn't unusual for Jimmy to be asked to do a favor by the pastor.
Before one morning service, a member of the church had corralled the minister to unburden herself with a major family problem. As a result, the rector was late in making sure the communion trays were filled for use at the end of his sermon.
Seeing Jimmy, he marshaled him and Jimmy's friend, Carl, to the church kitchen where the preacher had hurriedly been filling the several trays of communion cups with wine. In his haste, he had filled them all to the very top where he was sure they would spill over while being served to the congregants.
He instructed the boys to carefully pour out a small amount from each glass into a large container. After wiping the outside of each mini-glass with a paper towel, they were to place them back into the communion trays. Satisfied that they could carefully perform this important duty, the minister hurried to the sanctuary to begin the worship service.
Jimmy and Carl did as instructed but time was slipping away. Jimmy had an idea. "Why don't we just drink a little bit from each mini-cup, wipe off the rim, and put the rest of it back in the communion tray?"
Carl agreed and the boys began sipping wine from each cup. Thirty minutes later, the ushers entered the kitchen to carry the filled cups to the communion service.
The boys were discovered in the adjoining bathroom, bent double, vigorously ridding themselves of the taste of wine from 200 communion cups.
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Easy style and carried along well. Loved it!
Easy style and carried along well. Loved it!