Friday, July 10, 2009

LOUIS STORY

Canned sardines in salt waterImage via Wikiped

My mother had 11 brothers and sisters that survived past infancy. There were several more that sadly did not.

One of her brothers, my Uncle Louis told me a story once about when he was just a little boy. Now I won't tell it the way he would have because as people have said to him "do we have to pack a lunch for this story".

The way I remember it was that back in his youth, around 1928 maybe, he was walking down the street in their home town in Manitoba. It was near Winnipeg, perhaps Transcona.
Uncle Louis looked down at the ground and found a nickel. That was more money than he could ever hope to have.

Oh my goodness what would he do with this fortune. He thought about it and thought about it. After all he has so many brothers and sisters. He went to the store and spent his nickel. He bought a can of sardines. Not candy. No. Simply a can of oily sardines. And do you know what he did with his treasure? Wrong. He went and hid in the attic and ate the whole can himself. You know what. I can't blame him. They lived in such poverty and this was his one selfish act to have the prize all to himself. To not have to share every waking and sleeping moment with the others.

Now Uncle Lou could have told this story much better than I could but then we would have had to pack a lunch and all the sardines were gone.


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3 comments:

dustbunny8 said...

"do we have to pack a lunch for this story"! I love it! what a great line!I bet Uncle Louis was a great story teller!My mother talked of sharing everything with 8 siblings,3 or 4 kids to a bed,hand me down clothes,never having anything of your own.We take a lot for granted.Thanks for sharing Uncle Louis and I would pack a lunch to hear him methinks.

Michelle said...

Don't you love all the familys stories. I try to document them in my genealogy program before I forget them!

Lori E said...

Uncle Lou had many stories. Lots were not fit to print however. Lol.