MEMOIR
Chicken Soup at the Commonwealth Games
Sunlight filtered through curtains
The overriding memory is of the color orange, which invaded every corner of my sick room. The light filtered through my mother’s best front-room curtains and fell across my bed that my father had manfully carried downstairs.
The room also contained our television so I could watch the 1970 Commonwealth Games, live from Edinburgh. This was a rare treat in the days of very little daytime TV. My father had rigged up an extension to the aerial so it would reach from its customary place in the living room. So. like the bed, it was alien to the parlor which was rarely used, and usually only occupied for any length of time at Christmas or for birthday parties.
My vivid pink antibiotic suspension, a bottle of Lucozade wrapped in a crackle of yellow cellophane, and a box of weirdly scented tissues were the other interlopers to the skewed landscape I viewed from my prone position.
My fellow bedridden partner was Pandy, a soft toy with a hard center that, when wound, played Brahms lullaby while rotating his head sleepily. It used to scare the crap out of me at times, as it emitted a residual last bong when you were least expecting it, sometimes in the middle of the night.
