Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Row, row, row your boat
Now the harvest's done
Merrily, picnicky, frollically, peacefully
We can have some fun.

Moo, moo, eat your fill
While the field is green.
Merrily, Daisy and Clara-Bell
Make some milk and cream.

Mow, mow, mow the field
Into bales of golden brown,
Merrily, wearily, but still cheerily
Take them to the barn.

Rain, rain, water the field
The air's now fresh and clean
Merrily making lotsa puddles,
Every small boy's dream.

Shine, shine heavenly sun
Spring is in the air
Make the rows of swaying corn
Smile from ear to ear.

Variations by Lionel Hartley

Chronicles in the Life of Peter Blank, Part 8

Episode 8: The First Day In A New Land.
It was Peter's first day in the new land. With a seven-cubic-foot cabin trunk and an airline travel bag, Peter struggled from an airport shuttle 'bus onto the footpath outside the City Central Railway Station. Having been warned of the danger of leaving luggage unattended in the big city, he searched in vain for a luggage trolley. With difficulty, he then manually hauled the trunk to the luggage depot to have it put on the train for him. He was, however, told that "due to an industrial dispute" luggage would only be accepted at a named station elsewhere in the city -- a station he would have to "go to anyway to change trains" so as to get to his chosen destination. He was also told that not only were there no luggage trolleys or porters, but that the only way to the underground platform was on an escalator. The stairs were closed for re-tiling and there were no elevators.
With a great expenditure of breath and perspiration, Peter managed to get the trunk to the top of the escalator -- a clanking mechanical staircase which hurried passengers down into the bowels of the railway station. The wide trunk only just fitted between the stationary sides of the moving staircase and they descended while Peter stood on the step above, balancing the trunk with one hand while holding his travel bag with the other. As an herd of hurrying commuters pressed behind him, Peter was to learn something he had not even imagined. The walls of this staircase tapered together as they neared the bottom. This had the unfortunate effect of wedging the cabin trunk in mid-air. The cabin trunk stopped. Peter did not. In fact, the unrelenting escalator dragged him under the wedged cabin trunk, and it was there that he stopped! Of course, the escalator continued to move, each step clouting his head and piling angry commuters upon him and the cabin trunk. Somehow, someone found a switch to stop the mechanical monster. And, with some difficulty and an abundance of Australian colloquialisms, Peter was extracted, carried, cursed, and bundled onto a waiting train in an almost singular movement.
The commuter train, in contrast to the escalator, was amazingly free of passengers -- Peter guessed that most had sought safety from him and his trunk in other carriages.
Knowing he was to leave the train after only a few stops, he waited with his trunk, just inside the door, rather than try to find a seat large enough for himself and his travelling companion. This would have been a good idea if, at the next station, a convoy of bicyclists, each with an antler-handled velocipede, had not tried to squeeze into the space he occupied.
The air was filled with phrases in the Australian vernacular -- words of unknown meaning yet unmistakable intent.
Finally the troublesome trunk, which seemed to grow heavier and larger by the hour, was lodged at the luggage depot at the named station. Peter could now relax while an electric train sped him to the seaside town, which marked the end of the electric line and the half-way point in his rail journey.
Upon arriving, he made his way to the adjacent platform to await the diesel train to take him the next leg of his journey. It seemed he was the only one travelling further north as everyone else had disappeared into the town. He checked his timetable again, and patiently sat alone on the platform to wait.
Presently, an elderly couple asked his reason for waiting. His response prompted them to advise him that the industrial dispute he had been frustrated with in the City affected all trains other than the electric commuter trains. There would be no trains further north that day. However, before he had time to become anxious, they asked him the location of his final destination. He had hardly uttered the name of the tiny village when they exclaimed that they would be going by car through that very village -- and would he care to travel with them?
That very day he arrived at his destination, travel-bag in hand, thanking God for His mysterious intervention.
The following week he had to return to the City to locate a lost cabin trunk and to have it put on the correct train, but by then the lessons learned were applied. However, Peter is quick to acknowledge that his life lesson is not finished yet.


-- Lionel Hartley, Not Finished Yet -- Chronicles in the Life of Peter Blank
"This serial saga, although novel, is not a novel. It is merely a series of true-life episodes highlighting the extraordinary working of an extraordinary God in a very ordinary life. Each episode contained a lesson for Peter Blank, a lesson we can all learn, from a lesson-book life that is not finished yet."
As first appeared in FreEzine Magazine July 2000 ff