!962, Sri Lanka
During my flu recovery this week, I began watching a mystery and withiin the first five mnutes knew everything that would happen and who had DONE IT.
DT! You are surely grinning with delight.
Flashback:
As summerime is vacationtime from school in this country, wintertime was our vacationtime for the years in India. During this period my father’s work often took us to Sri Lanka, where the Maha monsoons were mightily alive.
Torrential rain and whipping winds produce explosive exuberance in a young one who has felt that freedom has arrived and the world awaits, however, one can only dance and scream for joy in rainy downpours for so long,….enter DT Niles. Daniel Thambyrajah Niles was a Sri Lankan pastor, evangelist and president of the Ceylon Methodist Conference, and a dear friend and colleague of my father’s.
One night after a rather tedious dinner on the floor of DT’s home, banana leaves having been filled and re-filled and fingers finally being splashed clean, the sign that the evening’s end was drawing nigh, DT winked at me and gestured for me to follow him into his study.
“I see that you have an active imagination.”
“I do!”
“Do you like to read?”
“I do!”
“Do you like puzzles?”
“I do!”
“I know that your mama and papa are very proud in their intelligence, but I believe in fun when it comes to reading.”
And he pulled back a block printed spread that covered an entire wall of Agatha Christie and Perry Mason paperbacks. He handed me a Perry Mason and said, “A treat for you during the monsoons. Let me know what you think, and when you finish?” He waved, with adoration at his bookshelf….”All of these will be waiting.”
At the age of eleven I became an expert (much to my mother’s screwed up eyebrows) on coagulated blood and poisoned dried toast. I read every single one.
The mystery solving skill that I honed at that time has served me a millionfold in my own life. What a gift.
Thank you, DT.