Woke up recently with a cough that sounded like a Canadian Snow Goose– that really solid “HONK!” that seems too big for the body –definitely not a healthy way to start the day. Think it was the first time I’d ever heard that kind of cough escape me. But I’ve been sick all week, each day getting a bit worse instead of better, and had stupidly pushed myself through 3 ten hour days of work. After another night with a high fever had I been barking like a German shepherd think I would have just made sure there was water in my dish!
“Marna!” That’s the first thing that popped into my mind as one honk followed another. We had a girl in our elementary school- must’ve been around 2nd grade –taller than most of us boys, short brown hair and I seem to remember that she occasionally wore a kilt- or at least a skirt that looked like one, big old safety pin in front and all –who, when she coughed, honked like a goose. She could do it on command.
As in: “Hey Marna! Cough like a goose.” And very indelicately, probably the reason she was popular among the kids, would lean her face forward- open her mouth to cough… and “HONK!”
I was always impressed.
Don’t know what happened to her. If we never had any other classes together, if she moved, or if she just stopped honking. No clue. Oddly, just checked fb- there’s a Marna in Long Beach… my age and everything (we even have a mutual friend). How many “Marna’s” can there be in one city? Googled the name and at www.thinkbabynames.com it’s never even cracked into the top 1,000 names. Even sort of a “support group” of Marna’s connecting there posting their shared stories saying stuff like: “So nice to meet other Marna’s! I have never met another.”
On the plus side of being sick this week– remembered that girl named “Marna.” On the more challenging side… hurt like the dickens to honk like a goose, (don’t know how Marna pulled it off), and have spent the last two days flat on my back. Can’t wait to be “better than ever… “ again – or at least well enough to bark and run with all the other “old dogs!”