Gordon Harrison

When I was in primary school, we were always lining up for one reason or another. We wiggled and squirmed and the line wavered as we attempted to contain the irrepressible energy of youth. In one particularly long lineup leading to an elderly man seated behind a school table, I could overhear him asking each boy a few personal questions. One of these disturbed me greatly. "What's your religion, son?" he asked repeatedly. My extended family was neither religious nor irreligious and despite my abortive Sunday school career, I was clueless. So embarrassingly, I was stuck for an answer. At that time I didn't realize that in Canada Catholics had their own school system, and almost all the families in my neighborhood were Protestants--a word I had rarely heard. I decided on the spot that that's what I would be. Never was a boy so quickly and easily converted. As I stepped forward, he asked me, "What's your religion, son?" "I'm a pro-tes'-tant, sir." He looked at me kindly and smiled at my mispronunciation and said, "I bet you are."