Thanks to Jean Rowsell of Marystown, Nfld., who posted this ceremony to the Guiding Mailing List!

The following is done as a reading with mime. A youth and senior sit beside each other on a bench, looking at an imaginary screen ahead of them, but not at each other. They react according to how the poem is read; suggestions are given. The youth is generally fidgety and bored, and the senior is generally still and pensive.)

Youth and adult together:

Two people assembled for Remembrance Day
Two minds sat together, two worlds away
(youth sits fidgeting; senior sits still and straight)

Adult: Recalling the fear of the German attack (senior cowers slightly)
Youth: Sleeping through slides painted white, grey and black (youth yawns)

Adult: Remembering the countryside of faraway lands (senior nods head slightly back and forth)
Youth: Laughing and whispering, firing rubber bands (youth pretends to shoot rubber band)

Adult: Letters sent home promising he will make it (senior pretends to write)
Youth: An excuse to leave class, boring but taken (youth stretches and slouches)

Adult: Reliving the horror of life in the trenches (senior cowers slightly again)
Youth: Wasting his time on uncomfortable benches (youth squirms)

Adult: Proud to remember what he held so dear (senior holds hand over heart)
Youth: Wishing he could be anywhere but here (youth looks around)

Adult: The slide show continued but the boy didn't care, he couldn't relate because he just wasn't there (youth yawns again)
Youth: The man he sat next to was frail and white, he must be a hundred, far too old to fight (youth looks at senior, sizing him up)

Adult: The boy studied his watch and rolled his eyes, he glanced at the screen and met with surprise (youth looks at watch, rolls eyes, then stops, looks at the screen with sudden interest)
Youth: The face of a young man with rifle in hand, his uniform resembling that of the old man's (youth leans forward for a better look, then looks back and forth between the screen and the senior a couple of times)

Adult: But what the boy noticed most that day in the gym (the senior turns to face the youth, and they look at each other)
Youth: Was the fact that the soldier looked exactly like him.

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