“O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in’t!”
-William Shakespeare, The Tempest
ALTONA, MB
A church lunch this past Sunday has Mr. Friesen singing the praises of fried vereniki with such eloquence that people are starting to wonder if we’ve somehow entered an alternate universe.
“O wonder! What a changed man am I,” said Mr. Friesen, vowing never to return to his old boiled perogy ways ever again. “How beauteous, o brave new world, that has Taunte Mary’s fried vereniki in it!”
Mr. Friesen, who had never been too keen on literature in the past, was so enamoured with the new treat that he suddenly was quoting the Bard of Avon.
“How many goodly creatures are there here in Altona,” said Mr. Friesen. “To fry or not to fry – that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of inferior vereniki, or take arms against a sea of schmaunt fat, and by opposing end them?”
Mr. Friesen’s sudden loquacity has raised some questions among some members of the community, however.
“I can’t understand a word he’s saying. He must be from Jantsied,” said observer Mr. Klassen. “Plus, no proper Altonianite eats their perogies fried!”
Mr. Friesen has already written more than dozen sonnets in praise to the lowly fried dumplings.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” said Mr. Friesen, hoisting his beloved perogies into the air. “Thou art more lovely and more temporate.”
So far his wife Aganetha has not expressed concerns about her husband’s new love interest.
“I think it’s just a phase he’s going through,” said Aganetha. “Some men buy a sports car, while other recite soliloquies to perogies. It’s only natural. You should have seen the poems he wrote when he found out you could eat farmer sausage raw. The man was a regular William Butler Yeats for a while after that.”
Mr. Friesen will be performing his spoken word poetry at an online social-distancing faspa this Sunday.