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The Expanded Reilly Method
In his preceding 2008 collection of vignettes, Getting To The Bubble, McCardell described meeting an autistic, runny-nosed, nine-year-old named Reilly who is certain he will catch a fish in the polluted Vancouver pond named Trout Lake by using a stick, a piece of string, a paper clip for a hook and some gummy bread for bait. "I believe you get whatever you want,"; Reilly told McCardell.
Impressed by the boy's unshakable faith in the prospect of good fortune, McCardell has extrapolated from Reilly's hopeful approach for another beguiling collection of human interest stories, The Expanded Reilly Method (Harbour $34.95), another typical McCardell bestseller.
Only this time McCardell seems to be taking feeling good, well, seriously. With his trademark 'aw shucks' style, he espouses the following Dr. Phil-like advice by using the autistic boy named Reilly as a touchstone for sanity:
"We got offers of fancy fishing equipment that we passed on to his foster mother by phone. But the reply was, 'No, thank you.' Reilly said he would rather fish his own way.
"I go to Trout Lake often and look at the water and watch the dogs swimming at one end and kids at the other. It is the smallest beach in the city. It has only a few spots where you can walk out on a wooden pier and put a line in the water.
"I've seen other kids fishing and a few old timers. You can only fish there if you are very young or very old. I never saw Reilly again.
"Maybe I missed him. Or maybe he moved on to another pond and another foster home.
"But did he catch a fish? He said he would. He said he believed he would.
"He had other things to overcome, like no hook or float to tell him he had a nibble, or bait except for bread. He also had to overcome strange things that go on in the minds of autistic kids, like not being sure about things that most of us don't even think about, and the temper that flared up without warning that his foster mother told us about.
"He also had that darn runny nose, and it is hard to concentrate on fishing when you are sniffing back nasal drippings.
"I have only one thing on which to base my faith in Reilly's method: me.
"Since I started getting up in the morning and saying, 'This is going to be a good day,' I have not had a bad day. Not one."; 978-1-55017-500-4
[BCBW 2010]
Impressed by the boy's unshakable faith in the prospect of good fortune, McCardell has extrapolated from Reilly's hopeful approach for another beguiling collection of human interest stories, The Expanded Reilly Method (Harbour $34.95), another typical McCardell bestseller.
Only this time McCardell seems to be taking feeling good, well, seriously. With his trademark 'aw shucks' style, he espouses the following Dr. Phil-like advice by using the autistic boy named Reilly as a touchstone for sanity:
"We got offers of fancy fishing equipment that we passed on to his foster mother by phone. But the reply was, 'No, thank you.' Reilly said he would rather fish his own way.
"I go to Trout Lake often and look at the water and watch the dogs swimming at one end and kids at the other. It is the smallest beach in the city. It has only a few spots where you can walk out on a wooden pier and put a line in the water.
"I've seen other kids fishing and a few old timers. You can only fish there if you are very young or very old. I never saw Reilly again.
"Maybe I missed him. Or maybe he moved on to another pond and another foster home.
"But did he catch a fish? He said he would. He said he believed he would.
"He had other things to overcome, like no hook or float to tell him he had a nibble, or bait except for bread. He also had to overcome strange things that go on in the minds of autistic kids, like not being sure about things that most of us don't even think about, and the temper that flared up without warning that his foster mother told us about.
"He also had that darn runny nose, and it is hard to concentrate on fishing when you are sniffing back nasal drippings.
"I have only one thing on which to base my faith in Reilly's method: me.
"Since I started getting up in the morning and saying, 'This is going to be a good day,' I have not had a bad day. Not one."; 978-1-55017-500-4
[BCBW 2010]
Submitted on November 5, 2009 in By David.
