Neenie

Neenie (PM ccxxxviii)

"We thought you enjoyed fruitcake, Aunt Edna."

"Do you enjoy throwing up every five minutes, Claude?"

"Clark"

Hardly a piece of cinematic history but that one scene from National Lampoon's Vacation has resounded in every house I have lived in since the movie first hit VHS, or was it beta or laserdisc, I don't remember. The point is I think we all had an Aunt Edna growing up and a fairly stupid story about her. Our Aunt Edna was named Bess or Neenie and even though she was quite intelligent contrary to the Imogene Coca character she was quite set in her ways and we were usually about ten years too young to appreciate the things she was trying to teach us. It took me years to finally appreciate Robert Service where a five year old could just not grasp the life and death severity that existed living in Canada's north. Frankly anyone who has not tried to start a fire in a minus forty degree snowstorm with wolves howling in the distance has not truly felt the compulsion Farley Mowat probably did.

What our wonderful Aunt Bess did was introduce us to a world of literature outside the mainstream of the Canadian Scholastic Council of Jerks and prepared us to make our own decisions when we reached the time when we were forced to. Nevil Shute's The Far Country remains one of my favorite childhood books, I was introduced to it by Mrs Van der Sluys, a hundred and twenty year old English teacher Peter and I both had in Argentina. Even though we all had to read it I felt as though she had chosen the book for me personally and it had, in fact, been written for me. I know my Aunt Bess would certainly have approved of the book as I am also certain she read it.

I sat one night drinking scotch with my Aunt and we were discussing I, Claudius and she became so involved and moved by the talk that she started hurling knitting needles like javelins hoping to hit a barbarian or miscreant Gaul. She was a little embarrassed about her little show but from the glint in her eye as she hurled her spear at the big hairy barbarian I finally realized she was one of the coolest people I knew.

MCC