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Writers Corner |
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Thou Shalt Not Steal
I received my early education in a Catholic school, in the 1950s and 1960s, in the little outport of Branch. My religious indoctrination was based on the good example of others, the Baltimore Catechism and whatever I picked up from the English portions of the Mass.
Thou shalt not steal was imprinted indelibly on my brain or on my soul or somewhere in that spiritual sphere. I think I was more afraid of the seventh commandment than all the others put together. This fear may have evolved from the fact that a transgression against this directive would not be forgiven until everything stolen had been restored.
Besides being a sin against the seventh commandment, in a tightly knit community, there were - certain circumstances under which one would never pilfer from someone else.
You would never, ever take somebody's rabbit out of his snare. If you came across another's entrapped animal, you would disentangle it and hang it high on a branch for the owner to retrieve.
If anyone was found guilty of stealing a person's firewood, he was branded as an untrustworthy character. Decent people did not steal tools from another's yard nor cod from his net.
However, grabbing and killing a rooster or a sheep to cook during a drinking spree was not always frowned upon. The composer of ' 'Aunt Martha's Sheep" can readily attest to this. Neither was the snatching from a clothesline of some unmentionable article of clothing to be used for mummering.
To get back to my own story, I must sheepishly admit to a few incidents when a group of us probably did bend that particular commandment. Well, maybe more than a few times and maybe the rule was more than just bent. These follies often happened on warm summer nights.
There would be nothing exciting going on and someone would suggest: "Let's go get some carrots out of Mr. So And So's garden". The aforementioned has been dead for years, but I refuse to mention his name, because I still fear recrimination of some sort. Maybe it will ease my conscience a bit if I say that Mr. So and So grew the biggest, juiciest, sweetest carrots in Branch.
Crawling on our bellies through the dew-soaked grass, with our hearts beating in our chests, I guess we felt like some important heist was going down. As I recall, we only lifted one carrot each or no more than two. So, I guess we were far from hardened thieves. I don't think the owner ever missed these carrots as we never heard any uproar after these episodes.
It was only years later that I concluded we were never in any danger of being caught red-handed. Mr. So and So and his wife could not even see the garden from their house. We probably could have waltzed right in through the gate and pulled up the choicest vegetables. In hindsight, I now I see that if we faced any risk whatsoever, it was merely in our imaginations.
Today, when I am strolling the produce section of the local supermarket, my eyes often fall on the plump, nourishing carrots. My thoughts wander back to how delicious they used to taste in their fresh, uncooked form. Periodically, I decide to partake of this health food in its natural state. It is funny how it never tastes quite as good as the ill-gotten ones I ingested some forty odd years ago. I keep thinking that Mr. Blank and his wife are watching me and that deters from the flavour.
I also get a bit uneasy because I haven't yet returned those veggies I swiped. Oh, well, I guess I will have to think of some other way to satisfy the limitations attached to the terms of forgiveness as they apply to the seventh commandment. Does a donation of carrots to the local food bank count?
Marina Gambin
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