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“Parting Words from Moristotle” (07/31/2023)
tells how to access our archives
of art, poems, stories, serials, travelogues,
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Raja
By Vic Midyett
[Editor’s Note: This Missionary Kid story originally appeared on May 6, 2014. The author was reminded of his story about Raja when he learned from a cousin in India of a story about Dr. Kushal Konwar Sarma titled “32 Years Without a Weekend Off: This Elephant Doctor Treats 700+ Jumbos Every Year!” by Jovita Aranha. Make your day by reading both Vic’s and Ms. Aranha’s stories.]
I was about six years old when we got Raja, a half-grown elephant. He was about the same height as Dad. We didn’t have him long, because his appetite was bigger than Dad’s wallet. For several weeks though, I enjoyed his company immensely. I have no picture of Raja, so this one will have to do; Raja was about the size of the smallest of the three elephants.
Stories in print
By Vic Midyett
JT: Another Mighty Midyett, the book about my dad that includes my Missionary Kid stories, is being typeset and will shortly be available.
The fact that there is a book at all owes to my cousin Randy Somers, who was a small boy when his mother's brother, my father, James Thomas Midyett, left for India in 1950, where I was born within two years of my parents' arrival there. But even 12,000 miles away, Randy says, my father was a continual presence in his family's home:
Book in preparation
By Vic Midyett
As you know from previous “Missionary Kid” stories, I grew up in India to American missionary parents.
Caste
By Vic Midyett
When we visited with neighbors in the 1950s, in a part of Northeast India called Assam, the neighbors were usually tea growers. This was always a yummy and extravagant experience for me. Yummy, because we got to eat food we did not normally eat, although I can’t remember exactly what. Just that it was different.
Rabies
By Vic Midyett
I apologize ahead of time for this disturbing memory.
Rabies was, and is, rampant in India. When I was about 5 or 6 years old (mid-1950s), one of the missionary wives was bitten by a rabid dog. I can’t remember exactly, but I think it was discovered too late, or no vaccine could be found in time, or something else terribly untimely happened. The horrible and devastating affects had taken hold in the woman's body.
Raja
By Vic Midyett
I was about six years old when we got Raja, a half-grown elephant. He was about the same height as Dad. We didn’t have him long, because his appetite was bigger than Dad’s wallet. For several weeks though, I enjoyed his company immensely. I have no picture of Raja, so this one will have to do; Raja was about the size of the smallest of the three elephants.
Night Elephant
By Vic Midyett
One dark, moonless night, when my sister Anita and I were kids in India, we were riding with our missionary parents on a windy gravel road with thick jungle on either side. Our Jeep truck had about a 15-inch wide pine board going across the width of the vehicle behind Mom and Dad's two seats. This is where Anita and I slept lying in opposite directions.
Yellow wicker chair
By Vic Midyett
Our home, when I was a kid in India with my missionary parents, had a screened-in veranda almost three quarters of the way around – every side but the one the kitchen was on, which was the cliff and tree side.
The veranda was quite wide too, 8-10 feet, and screened in from floor to roof with the very minimum of wood framing.
Beejooly and Dad
By Vic Midyett
My parents arrived in India in 1950 as missionaries. I was born on the kitchen table soon after they arrived, and my sister, Anita, was born four years later. There were no paved roads where we were—only four-wheel-drive access.
