His Story

 

Long before he became a streetwise child orphan

wandering back alleyways among others like himself

he knew deprivation without knowing what it 

was other than existing in a state of perpetual hunger.

Hard to imagine what he thought of agricultural

work shipped from Europe to North America at the

turn of the century to become a farm labourer along 

with others, a philanthropic plan to offer homeless youth

new opportunities, indentured for years until they paid

their passage. He laboured and endured then was free

to wander the streets of another city as an adult no

longer hungry. Meeting another refugee married and

had children living penuriously but free from racist

harassment. Never exposed to formal education he

inhaled knowledge with experience, devoured books

proclaimed himself a 'self-made man', eager to engage 

in debate at any opportunity, any subject, shuddered 

at the rounding up of Europe's Jews knowing that 

might have been his fate. A man stunted in physique 

but capable of  hard work, he discovered others from 

his home town, played a tuba in an amateur orchestra

sent his children to parochial schools so they would 

know from whence they came. Fate sought him all to

soon, he protesting the while to the final stage of life 

for which he was destined despite the delay on the way 

to carry him to a lingering and all-too-brief farewell.