James Thomson

On the night of my birth, some twenty years ago, there fell one of the most intense storms in Canadian history. My father could not drive my mother to the hospital, as he was drunk and unconscious underneath the sofa. Since there were no vehicles on the streets, due to the thunderous winds and pouring rains, my mother was forced to ride a bicycle some six kilometers to the nearest healthcare facility. My mother soon learned that no matter how stormy the weather, the hospital is always full. Thus I was born on the emergency room floor, birthed by the strength of my mother and a retired doctor waiting to have a turn on the dialysis machine.

I was born at the technical time of three weeks premature, but upon examination from the doctors, was mature enough to be called a two-month-old baby. At the moment of my birth I was a medical anomaly.

On my first day home from the hospital I could swing a rattle. On my second day I crushed a Californian grape, and then threw it at the wall. By the end of the month I could swing a baseball bat at people who came too close.

I learned to walk after only seven days of crawling, and was running by the time I was six months old. My mother often tells the story of a particular time when I was forced to play with other children. I stood up, walked over to a shirtless baby and proceeded to ride atop his back as if he were a country mule. Much to the chagrin of the other mothers, I was able to get a good eight-second ride before the bucking baby collapsed under my weight.

At pre-school they called me 'Big John' and once sent me home for trying to chop down a tree with an axe I had brought from home. When I was four years old, my class had a hotdog eating competition to raise money for the school library. It was a tough competition, but in the end I won, barely beating my teacher by ingesting eleven meat sticks. When I was seven I challenged my hockey coach to a chicken wing eating competition and destroyed him by a score of 73-51, and mine were spicier too. I began to grow chest hair when I was twelve, and could grow a full beard by the time I was fourteen.

At the age of twenty I can throw an axe thirty-five feet into a tree, drink a fifth of whisky straight, and arm-wrestle a mountain goat, all before breakfast.