WordCast Semi-Centennial

Tap­ping his cream plaid pant-covered knee, Mr. Green said, “Con­nie Cooper, come sit on my lap for a while.”

Con­nie Cooper looked up from her Span­ish lessons, promptly dropped her diamond-studded, lilac coloured pen and bounced over to Mr. Green. With a one, step, two and three, she was seated on Mr. Green’s lap.  Connie’s par­ents were away for the week­end you see, and as Mr. Green was a close fam­ily friend, he had offered to look after Con­nie over the week­end whilst her par­ents hol­i­dayed in Panama.

“The rea­son I asked you to come here Con­nie,” Mr. Green began, “Was to tell you some­thing of utmost impor­tance.“
“What could be more impor­tant than my Span­ish verbs?” Con­nie enquired. Con­nie was one of the top stu­dents in her class through sheer ded­i­ca­tion and hard hark. She knew that she had to work but she found joy in her work.
“Do you know what today is?” Mr. Green asked Con­nie, star­ing intently into her liq­uid green eyes.
“A Sat­ur­day to be sure!” Con­nie replied back quickly. “The day after yes­ter­day and the day before tomor­row!”

Beam­ing, Mr. Green gen­tly pat­ted Con­nie Cooper on the top of her head. He was rather fond of her.

“That is cor­rect but today also marks a very spe­cial day.“
“What could be more impor­tant than the day where we sigh in relief know­ing that we still have a whole extra day ahead of us before school starts again on Mon­day?” Con­nie replied cheek­ily.
“Con­nie! I am shocked. Shocked!” Mr. Green exclaimed.

Laugh­ing, Con­nie waited for Mr. Green to continue.

“Today, my dear Con­nie, is the day Word­Cast cel­e­brates its 50th episode!!“
“Oh my!” Con­nie exclaimed, bring­ing both hands up to either side of her face. “It has already been one year since Word­Cast first broad­casted its first episode?“
“Right you are Con­nie. In fact, the record­ing of the episode is rumored to have taken place this very day!“
“When will we get to lis­ten to it Mr. Green?” Con­nie asked excit­edly, for Con­nie was an avid fan of Word­Cast and looked for­ward to lis­ten­ing to it with her friends every week on a Tues­day after­noon after school and before tea.
“It’s going to be out in a few hours Con­nie. Just you wait!”

With that last remark, Mr. Green lifted Con­nie off his lap, gave her a gen­tle pat on the bot­tom and told her to go out­side and play. Laugh­ing, Con­nie skipped out of the study room into the large gar­den on Mr. Green’s estate… happy to have a break from her home­work and look­ing for­ward to another episode of Word­Cast later that day.

On This Day

• Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne Gets a Pod­cast and Video Pod­cast — 2008
• Show­ing Some Love — 2006