Uncle Willie's Bus
by Ronnie Smith
Genre: Memoir
Swearwords: None.
Description: Uncle Willie's open evangelical meetings for kids were not for me, until the day I got knocked down.
_____________________________________________________________________
Uncle Willie, the kids’ travelling evangelist, owned the most luxurious personal bus…ever.
Painted grey and green with gospel exhortations running around a band in the middle, ‘Judge not, lest yea be judged!’ Uncle Willie convened his daily gatherings on the grass across from Nardini’s café during the long summer holidays. His mobile church was constructed of rows of small-kids’ chairs and a low wooden stage with a standing microphone awaiting his congregation’s more eager participants. A theatre where simple hymns were ritually murdered by a procession of child assassins, for the reward of a bar of Cowan’s Highland Toffee, in front of smiling, blushing parents.
My family concluded that I had no need of Uncle Willie’s ministry. His all-to-obviously American training was thought by my Presbyterian Grampa to be deeply suspect. However, one day I found myself inside the magical personal bus where no other kid had ever been.
Graham, my best friend, and I were arguing over which paddle steamer was thumping its way across the Clyde to Largs from Rothesay bay. He shouted ‘Talisman’ but I knew it was the Caledonia. So we had to rush down, from our vantage point on the hill of the Three Sisters monument, to the sea front to get a much closer look, as the ship arrived at the pier, to settle things.
Nardini’s terrace was full of tourists demanding their mid-morning cappuccinos on the warm terrace, loudly trying to catch one of the speedy Italian waiters in his perfect white jacket. At the front of the café, the zebra crossing was busy but there were gaps in the traffic wide enough for me to dash through to the promenade...
I still don’t remember the car hitting me but I remember dark drops of blood passing in front of my left eye and Graham looking at me, yelling, terrified. I had simply banged my head on the tarmac, nothing else, no other injuries, not even a bruise. As if I was made of steel and the car was velvet. I felt no pain until later.
Then, with nothing happening in between, I was lying on the couch in Uncle Willie’s bus thinking nothing but, ‘Wow, this is Uncle Willie’s bus!’ I worked this out because I could hear Uncle Willie talking in his warm, strong voice. He was louder and closer to me than he had ever been and the words, ‘sturdy lad’, ‘tough’, ‘seems OK’, ‘God’ and ‘doctor’ were circling the sanctum. The wail of a kid torturing another hymn seeped in from the very, very bright sunshine, ‘…specially for the wee boy who had the accident.’
I had been right, though, it was the Caledonia.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Uncle Willie's open evangelical meetings for kids were not for me, until the day I got knocked down.
_____________________________________________________________________
Uncle Willie, the kids’ travelling evangelist, owned the most luxurious personal bus…ever.
Painted grey and green with gospel exhortations running around a band in the middle, ‘Judge not, lest yea be judged!’ Uncle Willie convened his daily gatherings on the grass across from Nardini’s café during the long summer holidays. His mobile church was constructed of rows of small-kids’ chairs and a low wooden stage with a standing microphone awaiting his congregation’s more eager participants. A theatre where simple hymns were ritually murdered by a procession of child assassins, for the reward of a bar of Cowan’s Highland Toffee, in front of smiling, blushing parents.
My family concluded that I had no need of Uncle Willie’s ministry. His all-to-obviously American training was thought by my Presbyterian Grampa to be deeply suspect. However, one day I found myself inside the magical personal bus where no other kid had ever been.
Graham, my best friend, and I were arguing over which paddle steamer was thumping its way across the Clyde to Largs from Rothesay bay. He shouted ‘Talisman’ but I knew it was the Caledonia. So we had to rush down, from our vantage point on the hill of the Three Sisters monument, to the sea front to get a much closer look, as the ship arrived at the pier, to settle things.
Nardini’s terrace was full of tourists demanding their mid-morning cappuccinos on the warm terrace, loudly trying to catch one of the speedy Italian waiters in his perfect white jacket. At the front of the café, the zebra crossing was busy but there were gaps in the traffic wide enough for me to dash through to the promenade...
I still don’t remember the car hitting me but I remember dark drops of blood passing in front of my left eye and Graham looking at me, yelling, terrified. I had simply banged my head on the tarmac, nothing else, no other injuries, not even a bruise. As if I was made of steel and the car was velvet. I felt no pain until later.
Then, with nothing happening in between, I was lying on the couch in Uncle Willie’s bus thinking nothing but, ‘Wow, this is Uncle Willie’s bus!’ I worked this out because I could hear Uncle Willie talking in his warm, strong voice. He was louder and closer to me than he had ever been and the words, ‘sturdy lad’, ‘tough’, ‘seems OK’, ‘God’ and ‘doctor’ were circling the sanctum. The wail of a kid torturing another hymn seeped in from the very, very bright sunshine, ‘…specially for the wee boy who had the accident.’
I had been right, though, it was the Caledonia.
About the Author
Born in Glasgow, Ronnie Smith has lived and worked in Romania for the past eight years and is getting back into the writing of fiction after a long break. He publishes in Romania, in English and Romanian, and hopes to be published more in Scotland in the future. He is currently working on a novel set in post-independence Scotland.