gerardcarey
Veteran Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- CFx2, CPx1
“Me?” I exclaimed incredulously, “A role model? You have got to be joking.”
It's my niece Michelle on the phone and she's trying to convince me to accompany her and her two teenage boys along the Camino Frances.
“No no, not me,” I protested, “what you need for that is a proper bloke, a bloke with a sense of Christian values, one who is held in at least a modicum of respect in civilised company. Not someone like me. I'm definitely not your role model type of bloke.”
Yet here I am, heading up our lovely mountain once again. It's a fine mild sunny day, a champion day to go over the mountain.
My two young teenage great nephews, Jefferson and Lazarus, have taken off at a hundred miles an hour.
Their mother, my dear niece Michelle, has a sore shoulder and a couple of bung knees. She and I are moving more sedately, more carefully. A few weeks prior to our departure Michelle had been attacked by one of her dementia patients. She was now on the waiting list for a shoulder operation and had also been advised both knees would require surgery.
This determined lady had religiously done the preparation and, tho I had some misgivings, there's no way I was going to try and talk her out of doing this Camino.
Within a few years Jeff and Laz would be gone from the day to day of her life and she wanted a special time with them, a time she could treasure for the rest of her life. A Camino Frances would fit the bill nicely I had assured her.
It's only our second day and Lazarus and Jefferson are already well known.
At Orisson last night Laz's youthful embarrassment during pilgrim introductions had created much amusement. And they are distinctive in being by many years the youngest amongst this latest group of pilgrims St Jean has disgorged against the mountain side.
Together they gallop up and down the trail. They charge up the sides of the hillside cuttings, until the force of gravity overcomes them and their packs. They pause at the point of balance, slowly fall/spin around, then charge back down the slope, across the pathway and up the opposing slope. Back and forth across the path they go, like a couple of marbles in a mixing bowl.
I shake my head in wonderment.
Was I ever so energetic, so flexible, so full of the simple joy of life?
Now they have disappeared into the distance. I'm just starting to wonder if I should be getting concerned when back towards us they come, running, laughing, skidding to a stop.
“You ok mum?” they ask.
Their concern touches me.
She smiles and nods her acknowledgement.
“What about me?” I say, “bit of consideration for me wouldn't go astray.”
“We're too busy to waste time worrying about a really old person like you,” says Jefferson.
“Come over here and say that cobber,” I reply, “you'll get a thick ear.”
He grimaces cheekily. He's the taller. Stocky. Thick mousy coloured disordered hair, boots and colourful surfer style board-shorts, his T-shirt a bright red polyester, with a big scallop shell emblazoned on the chest, hot from the pilgrim shop in St Jean.
The mother asks, “Got plenty of water? What have you eaten? Have you got anything left?”
Jefferson is already gone again, but Lazarus lingers.
He shakes to display a full water bottle.
“Foods all gone,” he says, “but we are not hungry. A lady we met at Orisson last night, she's up ahead. She gave us each a banana. But her husband was cross. He said, “Don't give them our last two bananas!” But she did anyway. She told him to shut up.
“Did she now,” answers Michelle. “Ok Laz, you walk with uncle Gerard now. You need to learn about the elevations in the guide book, and find out for me how much further it is to the monastery at Roncesvalles. I'll catch up and walk with Jeff for a while.”
Laz and I wander over to a cliff-top where we sit in the grass and look down into those deep valleys where the sun sets early. He points out toy farmhouses, miniature cars on miniature roads, ant people. When he spots the Griffon vultures wheeling high above he jumps up, spreads his legs, and, with his hands on his hips, leans back for a better view.
“Eleven of them,” he informs me, “each one circling in his own space, like planes over an airport. But I thought vultures only lived in Africa.”
He plonks himself back down on the grass.
“Uncle Gerard?” he asks earnestly, “how come we have to walk all the way over this mountain, when there is a perfectly good road with perfectly good buses on it down there?”
He gestures in the general direction of Valcarlos.
There is no possible explanation that will satisfy a boy like him. I'll have to fudge an answer.
“It's one of the great mysteries of life Laz,” I reply, “like for instance....Who teaches seagulls how to fly?”
It's my turn to jump to my feet. I take a run across across the ankle-deep grassland, with my arms outstretched, waving my pacer poles up and down, attempting to imitate the take off of the great albatross.
I call to him. “No one really knows the answer to such deep and meaningful questions Laz.”
He's a lovely lad this Lazarus. Intelligent, mild of nature, slim of stature, fine featured. But most noticeable physically in that his head is surmounted a woolly shock of startlingly red hair.
It pokes out the top of an almost fluorescent blue Camino T-shirt. Like his brother's red one, it's got a big scallop shell emblazoned on the chest, and it sits similarly, on top of a pair of multi-coloured surfer style board shorts.
He really is a sight for sore eyes.
When I think he has the elevations and distances figured we wander off uphill again. We've still got a couple of hours of steady uphill before the start of the descent down thru the forest to Roncesvalles.
The open grasslands sweep up and away on both sides. Thru them the dusty path zigzags and finds a line of least resistance. We wander between groups of black faced sheep and mountain ponies.
Heads down, the ponies noisily rip great tufts of thick grass from the hillside. They don't appear to even notice let alone care about our presence.
Here's a little cairn.
The stones hold down scraps of leaves, little sprigs of flowers, tiny prayer notes tattered by the winds and rains, minuscule beads and trinkets.
This microcosm of kind thoughts and prayers gentles my spirit.
Lazarus ambles up and lays his boot into the cairn.
The stones spit and fight, scatter across the grass.
As does the anger across across my nervous system.
The brain instinctively decides.
The musculature instinctively reacts.
My arms describe a wide arc as the pacer poles flail around my body.
They crack him violently on the shins.
He jumps and yells in shock and pain, stumbles away, nearly falls.
“Why did you hit me me?” he shrieks.
“How dare you treat that little cairn with such disrespect!”
I'm screaming at him.
“Lying there are the hopes and dreams of many pilgrims who have stopped here before you. They have left prayers and thoughts for their family and friends. HOW DARE you treat them with such disrespect!”
He keeps his distance as I drop the pacer poles and fall to my knees. I gather the stones, re-order my little cairn. By the time the reconstruction is complete I've calmed down.
He moves a little closer.
“I didn't mean to kick them so hard,” he mumbles. “I was only trying to turn over a stone to see the words that were written on it, but my leg was wobbly, and I kicked lots of them.”
“Ok Laz,” I reply, “no great harm done. Next time don't be lazy, use your hands, and your head.”
But I'm thinking somewhat differently.
What's Michelle going to think?
Only two days out and already I'm a failure.
Supposed to be setting an example and here I am belting a boy with my pacer poles. Should be ashamed of myself.
I am.
Laz has wandered off disconsolately.
And now, there she is, up ahead on the path, waiting for me. A pilgrim lady.
I don't like that look on her face.
I figure I'm in for a tuneup.
“That's Lazarus,” she says as I approach, confirming his minor celebrity status.
“Yes,” I acknowledge.
“You whacked him with your walking poles.”
“Yeah, I'm a hero. I beat teenage boys with sticks. I'm real proud of myself.”
“I think everybody on the mountain heard you sounding off,” she says, “but he'll be all right. No doubt you shouldn't have done it, but what's done is done. It was short and sharp. No permanent damage done. And he won't forget the lesson. And you won't do it again, will you?”
She leans forward, looks me straight in the eye, holds my gaze, demands my confirmation.
“No I won't,” I reply, genuinely penitent to this unknown confessor.
She smiles gently, perhaps understandingly.
But I don't feel any better.
“And I'll tell you something else,” she says, then pauses and looks at me intently.
“What's that?” she forces me to ask.
“Do you read the Bible?”
Hullo. Looks like I'm going to get a biblical quotation to accompany my misdemeanour notice.
“Not regularly,” I reply, “but yes, I have done.”
“You remember when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” she says, “my guess is that his Lazarus got a heck of a shock also.
But I bet he never jumped half as high as your Lazarus.”
I don't know what a bloke's supposed to take from that.
Regards
Gerard
It's my niece Michelle on the phone and she's trying to convince me to accompany her and her two teenage boys along the Camino Frances.
“No no, not me,” I protested, “what you need for that is a proper bloke, a bloke with a sense of Christian values, one who is held in at least a modicum of respect in civilised company. Not someone like me. I'm definitely not your role model type of bloke.”
Yet here I am, heading up our lovely mountain once again. It's a fine mild sunny day, a champion day to go over the mountain.
My two young teenage great nephews, Jefferson and Lazarus, have taken off at a hundred miles an hour.
Their mother, my dear niece Michelle, has a sore shoulder and a couple of bung knees. She and I are moving more sedately, more carefully. A few weeks prior to our departure Michelle had been attacked by one of her dementia patients. She was now on the waiting list for a shoulder operation and had also been advised both knees would require surgery.
This determined lady had religiously done the preparation and, tho I had some misgivings, there's no way I was going to try and talk her out of doing this Camino.
Within a few years Jeff and Laz would be gone from the day to day of her life and she wanted a special time with them, a time she could treasure for the rest of her life. A Camino Frances would fit the bill nicely I had assured her.
It's only our second day and Lazarus and Jefferson are already well known.
At Orisson last night Laz's youthful embarrassment during pilgrim introductions had created much amusement. And they are distinctive in being by many years the youngest amongst this latest group of pilgrims St Jean has disgorged against the mountain side.
Together they gallop up and down the trail. They charge up the sides of the hillside cuttings, until the force of gravity overcomes them and their packs. They pause at the point of balance, slowly fall/spin around, then charge back down the slope, across the pathway and up the opposing slope. Back and forth across the path they go, like a couple of marbles in a mixing bowl.
I shake my head in wonderment.
Was I ever so energetic, so flexible, so full of the simple joy of life?
Now they have disappeared into the distance. I'm just starting to wonder if I should be getting concerned when back towards us they come, running, laughing, skidding to a stop.
“You ok mum?” they ask.
Their concern touches me.
She smiles and nods her acknowledgement.
“What about me?” I say, “bit of consideration for me wouldn't go astray.”
“We're too busy to waste time worrying about a really old person like you,” says Jefferson.
“Come over here and say that cobber,” I reply, “you'll get a thick ear.”
He grimaces cheekily. He's the taller. Stocky. Thick mousy coloured disordered hair, boots and colourful surfer style board-shorts, his T-shirt a bright red polyester, with a big scallop shell emblazoned on the chest, hot from the pilgrim shop in St Jean.
The mother asks, “Got plenty of water? What have you eaten? Have you got anything left?”
Jefferson is already gone again, but Lazarus lingers.
He shakes to display a full water bottle.
“Foods all gone,” he says, “but we are not hungry. A lady we met at Orisson last night, she's up ahead. She gave us each a banana. But her husband was cross. He said, “Don't give them our last two bananas!” But she did anyway. She told him to shut up.
“Did she now,” answers Michelle. “Ok Laz, you walk with uncle Gerard now. You need to learn about the elevations in the guide book, and find out for me how much further it is to the monastery at Roncesvalles. I'll catch up and walk with Jeff for a while.”
Laz and I wander over to a cliff-top where we sit in the grass and look down into those deep valleys where the sun sets early. He points out toy farmhouses, miniature cars on miniature roads, ant people. When he spots the Griffon vultures wheeling high above he jumps up, spreads his legs, and, with his hands on his hips, leans back for a better view.
“Eleven of them,” he informs me, “each one circling in his own space, like planes over an airport. But I thought vultures only lived in Africa.”
He plonks himself back down on the grass.
“Uncle Gerard?” he asks earnestly, “how come we have to walk all the way over this mountain, when there is a perfectly good road with perfectly good buses on it down there?”
He gestures in the general direction of Valcarlos.
There is no possible explanation that will satisfy a boy like him. I'll have to fudge an answer.
“It's one of the great mysteries of life Laz,” I reply, “like for instance....Who teaches seagulls how to fly?”
It's my turn to jump to my feet. I take a run across across the ankle-deep grassland, with my arms outstretched, waving my pacer poles up and down, attempting to imitate the take off of the great albatross.
I call to him. “No one really knows the answer to such deep and meaningful questions Laz.”
He's a lovely lad this Lazarus. Intelligent, mild of nature, slim of stature, fine featured. But most noticeable physically in that his head is surmounted a woolly shock of startlingly red hair.
It pokes out the top of an almost fluorescent blue Camino T-shirt. Like his brother's red one, it's got a big scallop shell emblazoned on the chest, and it sits similarly, on top of a pair of multi-coloured surfer style board shorts.
He really is a sight for sore eyes.
When I think he has the elevations and distances figured we wander off uphill again. We've still got a couple of hours of steady uphill before the start of the descent down thru the forest to Roncesvalles.
The open grasslands sweep up and away on both sides. Thru them the dusty path zigzags and finds a line of least resistance. We wander between groups of black faced sheep and mountain ponies.
Heads down, the ponies noisily rip great tufts of thick grass from the hillside. They don't appear to even notice let alone care about our presence.
Here's a little cairn.
The stones hold down scraps of leaves, little sprigs of flowers, tiny prayer notes tattered by the winds and rains, minuscule beads and trinkets.
This microcosm of kind thoughts and prayers gentles my spirit.
Lazarus ambles up and lays his boot into the cairn.
The stones spit and fight, scatter across the grass.
As does the anger across across my nervous system.
The brain instinctively decides.
The musculature instinctively reacts.
My arms describe a wide arc as the pacer poles flail around my body.
They crack him violently on the shins.
He jumps and yells in shock and pain, stumbles away, nearly falls.
“Why did you hit me me?” he shrieks.
“How dare you treat that little cairn with such disrespect!”
I'm screaming at him.
“Lying there are the hopes and dreams of many pilgrims who have stopped here before you. They have left prayers and thoughts for their family and friends. HOW DARE you treat them with such disrespect!”
He keeps his distance as I drop the pacer poles and fall to my knees. I gather the stones, re-order my little cairn. By the time the reconstruction is complete I've calmed down.
He moves a little closer.
“I didn't mean to kick them so hard,” he mumbles. “I was only trying to turn over a stone to see the words that were written on it, but my leg was wobbly, and I kicked lots of them.”
“Ok Laz,” I reply, “no great harm done. Next time don't be lazy, use your hands, and your head.”
But I'm thinking somewhat differently.
What's Michelle going to think?
Only two days out and already I'm a failure.
Supposed to be setting an example and here I am belting a boy with my pacer poles. Should be ashamed of myself.
I am.
Laz has wandered off disconsolately.
And now, there she is, up ahead on the path, waiting for me. A pilgrim lady.
I don't like that look on her face.
I figure I'm in for a tuneup.
“That's Lazarus,” she says as I approach, confirming his minor celebrity status.
“Yes,” I acknowledge.
“You whacked him with your walking poles.”
“Yeah, I'm a hero. I beat teenage boys with sticks. I'm real proud of myself.”
“I think everybody on the mountain heard you sounding off,” she says, “but he'll be all right. No doubt you shouldn't have done it, but what's done is done. It was short and sharp. No permanent damage done. And he won't forget the lesson. And you won't do it again, will you?”
She leans forward, looks me straight in the eye, holds my gaze, demands my confirmation.
“No I won't,” I reply, genuinely penitent to this unknown confessor.
She smiles gently, perhaps understandingly.
But I don't feel any better.
“And I'll tell you something else,” she says, then pauses and looks at me intently.
“What's that?” she forces me to ask.
“Do you read the Bible?”
Hullo. Looks like I'm going to get a biblical quotation to accompany my misdemeanour notice.
“Not regularly,” I reply, “but yes, I have done.”
“You remember when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” she says, “my guess is that his Lazarus got a heck of a shock also.
But I bet he never jumped half as high as your Lazarus.”
I don't know what a bloke's supposed to take from that.
Regards
Gerard
Last edited:
I can see you are becoming quite experienced at raising Lazarus.
