Small Paul  by Larry Low

A fairly long time ago, Small Paul lived in a log house fairly far away in the far frozen north.  Surrounding his log home were forests and not too far away was a skating lake that was frozen all winter long.  The place could have been Minnesota or even Wisconsin.  There were forests and there were lakes that froze over in the winter.  However, I am sure that it was neither Minnesota nor Wisconsin.  How do I know? I am not prepared to reveal how I do know.  Let me ask you one question though.  In the wintertime, what time does it get dark in Minnesota?  When school gets out, is it still light out?  Yes?  Then Minnesota and Wisconsin are not in the far frozen north, as you will see in a moment. Small Paul lived with his Mother, Momma Mall, and with his father, Tall Paul, in a place that was much farther north than either Wisconsin or Minnesota.  It sounds like Alaska to me.

Although they were all tall, Tall Paul was the tallest of them all.  Even Small Paul was quite tall. It would have been rather silly to call him Small Tall, now wouldn’t it? Compared with Tall Paul, who was six feet nine inches tall in his stocking feet, (with his big toe sticking out) Small Paul was small.  He was, you may have guessed, quite tall for his age.

Tall Paul had a small shop in the mall where he made the World's best fudge.  At least that is what the sign said:

                                                          TALL MALL FUDGE   BEST FUDGE OF ALL >>>> FOUR GOLD MEDALS

Every night when Tall Paul came home from a happy day's work in the Mall, he would arrive with some fudge for the family to nibble on after dinner.  He would come through the back door shouting, "Here comes Tall Mall Fudge, the best fudge of all."

Small Paul was a happy lad.

He was even happy getting up on frigid winter mornings and trudging off to school in the dark.  As he tramped along, he loved to hear the snow squeak under his feet.  When it is really really cold, so cold that your spit is a frozen pellet before it hits the ground, your boots squeak as you trudge along.  At each footstep you make a quicker and friendlier squeak than a ghost is able to make in a spooky house. Your breath comes out in a cloud like whale spout above the surface of the sea when the whale comes up for air. 

Small Paul was even happier, of course, skipping home in the dark.  It is already dark by the time that children come home from school in the far frozen north because the northern sun is especially lazy in winter.  It does not bother to get up until after ten in the morning and then before two in the afternoon, it settles back for a long winter’s nap.  I guess that is because the sun has been up all summer long and needs the rest.  It is just like when you have stayed up really late and are tired the next day.

Small Paul would skip for a bit and then would stop and make his feet squeak on the hard packed snow. As he reached his house, he would reach up and snap off a small icicle, which he would carefully not begin to lick until he was safely inside.  The outside air was so cold that his tongue would have frozen to the icicle.  Having your tongue frozen to an icicle is a very painful experience. Why would anyone suck an icicle after he had just been outside in the bitter cold?  Perhaps, someone had suggested that licking icicles is not a great idea.  Of course, you know that small boys always want to do what they have been warned not to.  Girls are almost never so foolish.

Small Paul was happy at home.  He was even happy doing his homework if you can imagine such a thing as being happy doing homework.  There was only one thing that marred Small Paul's perfect existence. Small Paul hated eggplant.  In fact, recently he had come to hate eggplant with a passion.  Before hating eggplant with a passion, he had merely despised it.  However, one evening, he heard his mother say to one of her friends on the telephone, "Small Paul hates eggplant with a passion."  Although, Small Paul did not know what passion was he did know that it was something that he hated along with eggplant.  Small Paul was of a mind that he could very well get along without eggplant or passion.

Eggplant is a purple vegetable.  His mother baked it in the oven. She would add a handful or two of chopped tomato and mince a little onion to go with it.  She would then grate some cheese and sprinkle it over.  This always turned into a gooey mess after it had been in a hot oven for awhile. The peculiar thing about this eggplant monstrosity, which her mother insisted on serving on a regular basis, was that it smelled yummy when it was cooking but tasted yucky when it was eaten.  How can anything that smelled so wonderful taste so awful?  It must be one of life's little mysteries.  As far as Small Paul was concerned, eggplant was the yuckiest, stickiest, gooiest stuff anyone could ever try to feed to a kid.  Momma Mall said that eggplant was good for him. She would expect Small Paul to eat it up.  Momma Mall would sigh, when Small Paul began to complain about the yucky eggplant monster.