On-the-road Entertainment

I can nearly recite all of Kipling’s The Elephant’s Child, except for the bit about his journey to the Limpopo.

My favorite bit is, The next day, when there was nothing left of the equinoxes (for the procession had proceeded according to precedent)…

I had the entertainment of reciting long chucks of it to my kids while we waited in line at Sam’s Club last week (I’ll admit I was watching the other choppers to see if they noticed my impressive feat), and the delight of having Natasha correct my accuracy on a few points and recite with me until she was sure I’d gotten back into the way of it.

They all prefer to listen, and I like the idea that I’m “normalizing” for them the acquisition of large amounts of material.  We aren’t making an effort now, but come August, I hope to line up a system of regular memorization.

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