In addition to our regular jumble sales and street stalls, our World Vision has a social morning at least every second month. This month we had a Nostalgia Morning. It was a great success, and so simple: everyone was given a sheet of paper and asked to draw the floor plan of a house they had lived in when they were growing up. Then we took turns to tell what memories came to mind.

The stories were wonderful and mostly funny. We heard about about farm life, rounding up cows, learning to ride a bike, bathing in a round iron bathtub, saving the “best” room for visitors (“but the Queen never came”), father falling over the furniture after mother had rearranged the room, one woman told how she grown up believing she was a bed wetter, until her older sister confessed many years later that she had wet the bed and rolled her sleeping little sister into the wet patch!

I chose a couple of incidents that came to my mind when I drew the plan of our kitchen:

1. There was a tank stand just outside the kitchen window. Dad used to stand by the window and rub two knives together. When he heard it, our cat Soxy would come running in, expecting food. Dad would pick him up and put him out the window onto the tank stand. Then he’d close the window and rub the knives together again. Soxy would climb down off the tank stand, run around to the back door and come into the kitchen again. Dad would put him through the window again. I don’t know how long they kept it up!
2. Our teapot had a lid that didn’t fit properly (probably from a different teapot.) so Mum tied it to the handle with a piece of string. One day when Dad poured himself a cup of tea, the lid fell off into his cup. Dad was usually very mild tempered, but this time he got annoyed. He grabbed the lid, ran outside and threw the lid as far as he could. Mum went outside afterwards, retrieved the lid and tied it back on the teapot. (They weren’t easy to come by in those post war days.)

Everyone voted our Nostalgia Morning a huge success. But before I left home that morning, I wondered how I was going to get there!

I had organised to pick up a few people on my way, then drop them off and pick up more in the other direction. Usually, no matter how well organised I am, I find myself hurrying at the last minute and rush out to the car about 5 minutes later than I intended.

This time, I don’t know what made me decide to back the car out of the garage about half an hour before we were due to leave. I went out to the car and noticed one of the doors had not been closed properly. I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. Dead silence.

Thank heavens, I still had 30 minutes to organise a lift for some of my passengers. The others, who lived near me, I thought could share a taxi with me. I went back out to the car, hoping for a miracle.

My “miracle” was in the front yard of the house next door. I’ve never known my young neighbour to be home at that time of day, but there he was – and he soon produced a set of jumper leads and got my car going again, just in time!

Toastmasters Conference

Jack, the man who had won first place in the Humorous Speech Contest last October hadn’t been well. Since I was runner up, I had been told I might have to compete in his place at the next level of contests, which were held this month. So I brushed up on my speech “Don’t Look at the Dog” – just in case, as well as working on my Easter speech for our club meeting.

I was relieved to see Jack arrive at the Conference. That meant I could relax and enjoy the contests. But I must have still had my speech on my mind when a woman approached our table and I heard her say to me, “Do you have a speech here?”

“Yes,” I said, rummaging in my hand bag. “It’s in here.”

She gave me a rather odd look and went off, carrying the spare chair that had been beside me!

Slam!

Our last Toastmasters meeting had an Easter theme, so I did a speech on Pontius Pilate. It was a bit of little known history that I had found fascinating when I first heard of it, but I felt a bit uneasy about the speech. “I’m afraid they’ll be bored,” I said to my sister, Relle.

“So what?” said Relle.

So I decided to go ahead and do it with a “So what” attitude. I was gratified to see everyone looking alert and intensely interested as I presented the speech and my evaluator said it was the best I’d done! Phew! You never can tell!

We were the last to leave after the meeting. I got in the car with my two passengers. “Uh, oh,” I said. “The door light is on. One of the doors is not closed properly!” I gave my door another slam. The light was still on.

“It might be this door,” said my front seat passenger. Slam! No change.

“It must be this one!” said back seat passenger. Slam!

The light remained on.

Back seat passenger reached across and slammed the door on the other side.

Light still on.

We all tried again.

Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!

And again, Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!

“It has to be the other back door,” I got out and opened and closed the far back passenger door. My back seat passenger hadn’t been able to reach far enough across to close it properly.

The light went out. Ahhh!

“Just as well there are no houses close by,” I said. “Anyone looking out would think we’d gone mad. It’s nearly as silly as the time…”

And I told them about the day I had been driving along the road with a car full of people. Halfway along the street, someone said, “This is the wrong street,” so I started to make a U turn. (It was a quiet street.) As I turned, someone else said, “No, this is it!” So I completed a full circle and continued on. Anyone watching would have been amazed to see a little red car suddenly perform a pirouette in the middle of the street and continue on its way!

The search still goes on

I’m still looking for another car – or at least Joel is. He took me to look at some more. He was very impressed with a little hatchback. It was in very good condition, and the price was right.

“But I don’t know if it would be big enough,” I said. I don’t want a big car, but I do need enough room to pack in all the stuff for our Jumble Sales, and it must be a 4 door car to accommodate the elderly people I take to meetings.

“You don’t want to buy a car with just Jumble sales and passengers in mind,” said Joel.

“But thats what I do!” I said “That’s why I need a car! If it was just me, I could catch a bus!”

Meanwhile, my old car is running quite well, as long as I can get the doors and windows to close properly!

Joel rang last Saturday. “Do you want to go for a drive to Burpengary and look at a car?” he asked. He’s been looking out for another car for me. “See you in 15 minutes.”

Miles went with us. It was a nice little car we looked at – a Dihatsu hatchback. It was neat and clean and ran well. “But it’s not worth the price they are asking,” Joel told me as we took it for a test drive. “It’s had a lot of use.”

“I like it,” I said, “but it’s not much newer than my old car.”

“Ten years,” said Joel. “It’s a 94 model.”

“I’d rather pay more for a newer car.”

While Joel was chatting to the owner of the car, Miles had befriended the little girl who lived there. She took him for a tour of the garden.

Miles was clutching a wilted bouquet of short stemmed flowers as he climbed back into Joel’s car.

“She liked me,” he beamed. “She said Miles is a lovely name, and she gave me these flowers.” He held them carefully all the way back home.

“I could stay at your place, Meemar,” Miles suggested.

“I was just thinking that,” I said. “I’ll take you home later.”

We had a lovely afternoon together. We read books, painted pictures, played Boche in the backyard and told jokes. Miles latest favourite joke is “Why did the toilet paper cross the road?” “To get to the bottom.” Typical 6-year-old humour!

When it was time to take Miles home, I tried to adjust the seatbelt in my car to fit his small body. It was too awkward to get at while the car was in the garage, so I said, “Hop in the back seat while I back the car out, then I’ll fix the seat belt.” (I like to know where kids are before I start backing.)

Miles got in the car and promptly threw himself down flat on the back seat.

“Are you tired?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m just keeping low so the police won’t see me without a seatbelt!”

“There are no police in my driveway,” I reassured him.

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No need to cry

Hayley has started going to Daycare one day a week. She loves it – except for rest time. She usually cries when they all have to lie down and go to sleep. Lying still with the intention of going to sleep is a foreign idea to Hayley. Sleep just happens accidently when her guard is lowered.

But this week at Daycare, when it was time to rest, Hayley looked thoughtful and asked, “I don’t have to cry, do I?”

“No,” she was told.

“OK,” she said. “I’ll just lie down and go to sleep.”

And to everyone’s amazement, she did just that!

She’s finally learning to submit gracefully.

Speech No. 5 in the Toastmasters “Storytelling” Manual

Date presented: March 2005

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The objectives of this speech were:  

• To understand the purpose of stories about historical events or persons
• To use the storytelling skills developed in the preceeding projects to tell a story about a historical event or person

Time 7 to 9 minutes.

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The Man Who Washed His Hands

“What will you do with this man?”

He was innocent, of course. Pilate was quite sure of that. But the angry mob pressed forward, so closely that he could feel the spittle on his face as they shouted “Crucify him!”

Calling for water, Pilate washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he declared. “It is your responsibility!”

Mr Toastmaster, Toastmasters, I’d like to take you back 2000 years to see if we can find out what persuaded Pontius Pilate to allow an innocent man to suffer a cruel death. A death that was usually reserved for the most hardened criminals.

It was the year A.D. 26 when Pilate was appointed as Governor of Judea.

He had full control of the province. He was in charge of the Roman army that was occupying Judea at the time. He appointed the high priests and controlled the temple and its funds. He had full powers of life and death. Any capital sentences had to be submitted to him for ratification. So when this prisoner was brought before him, everything hung on the attitude of Pilate. What kind of man was this Roman Governor?

The ancient historians portray him as a proud, devious and heavy-handed man.

He was contemptuous of the Jews. What they called principles, he would have called their fanatical prejudices. Previous Governors had dealt with the Jews with kid gloves. Pilate arrogantly proposed to use the mailed fist.

The historian, Josephus tells us of a couple of incidents that enraged the Jews.

Roman troops carried standards which were poles topped with an image of the reigning emperor. Now, the Jewish law forbade any graven image. In deference to this, previous Roman Governors had always removed the images before marching into Jerusalem.

Pilate decided on a different policy. He marched his soldiers in by night with the imperial image on their standards and, under the cover of darkness, he had them fixed to the walls of the Antonia fortress. When they found out, the Jews were outraged. Crowds of them walked the sixty miles to Ceasarea to request Pilate to remove the images. Pilate refused.

“It would be an insult to the emperor,” he insisted.

The Jews persisted. They camped outside Pilate’s palace for five days. On the sixth day, Pilate agreed to meet them. His troops surrounded the area while Pilate informed them that unless they stopped disturbing him, the penalty would be immediate death.

The Jews threw themselves on the ground, and laid their necks bare. “We will die,” they told him, “ rather than have our laws transgressed.”

Pilate was forced to yield. He could hardly arrest or slaughter a whole nation. He ordered the images to be taken out of Jerusalem.

After a while, Pilate had another idea. Water was scarce. He would build an aqueduct. It was impressive. It ran for twenty to forty miles and brought sparkling clear water into the city. The Jews were not pleased.

To finance the project, Pilate had spent the sacred money that was stored in the Temple. The next time Pilate visited Jerusalem, a great crowd of them assembled. Thousands of Jews surrounded Pilate’s tribunal and screamed abuse at him. This time, Pilate had no intention of backing down Amongst the crowd, he had planted his soldiers disguised as Jews. Under their robes, they had concealed daggers.

Pilate told the Jews to go away, but they surged forward, shouting. He had touched the holy money! He had defiled the temple! When Pilate had had enough, he gave the signal. At once, his soldiers fell on the crowd with cudgels and daggers. The crystal clear water from the new aqueduct was used to wash away the blood that stained the flagstones and spattered the walls.

Pilate’s position as Governor hung in the balance. The Jews had threatened to report him to the Emperor. He couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes. So when the Jewish religious leaders came to him to demand the death of a popular preacher, Pilate found himself in a political quagmire.

He knew that this man was innocent, but his past misdeeds gave the Jews a lever for blackmail.

“If you release this man,” they threatened, “You are not Ceasar’s friend.”

“What then,” he asked the crowd, “am I to do with this man? What evil has he done?”

“Crucify him!” they shouted.

There was danger of a riot. It must be avoided. It would cost him his job.

And so Pilate passed the buck. He made the futile gesture of washing his hands.

Legend has it that to this day there are times when the ghost of Pilate emerges from its tomb and goes through the action of hand washing once again.

Well, I don’t know about the ghost of Pilate, but his action is perpetrated whenever we neglect to stand up for what we believe is right. And I believe that, as we reflect on the events of that fateful day, we are all haunted by the question Pilate posed:

“What will you do with this man?”

 

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COMMENTS  

This speech was very successful, especially as our meeting had an Easter theme. I had written the first draft a year ago – and didn’t realise until after I had presented the speech, I had taken some of it from William Barclay’s commentary on Matthew’s Gospel. Oops, plagiarism!