Stand With Care

I have a brother and a sister. At home, when we were teenagers, the arguments with our parents were always about the length of hair and skirts. Views were divergent and discussions heated.

My parents were quite religious and moved in circles where the virtues of the good ones and the vices of the bad ones were a constant topic of conversation. Long hair and short skirts were not good, and neither were the things that went with it, like rock music, drink and "all such things", as my mother would say, without ever specifying what was meant by "all such things" (although we had a pretty good idea).

I don't think they minded our "style" so much in itself. We were after all doing well in school, were polite to other people, got along well with friends and only on very rare occasions drank excessively. It was probably more the idea of what the others would think and say that motivated their opposition.

I was 19 when the first rock festival in the region took place. I was obsessed with rock music and "all such things" and desperately wanted to go. I pleaded with my parents for a long time, and finally got their reluctant acceptance.

It was a great festival. I went with friends and we spent three days in the rain and mud with rock music, beer and "all such things".

When I got home I had a much needed shower and put on clean clothes. I went into the living room. My mother was looking quite stern. On the table was the local newspaper. On the front page was a big photo from the festival. I took the paper and looked at the photo. It was a very small section of the very large audience, standing in the field gazing at the stage. Right in the middle you saw a young man with greasy long hair, a bottle of beer in the hand and the arm around a beautiful young girl in a mini-skirt. The young man was me!

All my mother said was, "why did you have to stand right there"?

I don't Stand for Re-election

We are often told by our politicians that the unpopular laws they pass in their national Parliaments are decided by Brussels.

 

But wait a minute. How is the EU-legislation passed? Well, essentially it is passed by the leaders of the governments at meetings in Brussels and Luxembourg.

 

In a time of crisis cuts and restraints are on the agenda. They agree on what they think they have to do as responsible leaders to get the economy back on track. The measures adopted are, of course, not always popular. And so, back in their home countries austerity measures become the work of EU, whereas the more popular measures are to be credited to the government. After all they are thinking in terms of votes. They want re-election. Fair enough, but then they can't complain that people are not supporting the European ideas.

 

My Uncle Jack says that it works in a similar way in his family. When the kids asks his wife for things she thinks they should have, her answer is "yes". When they ask for things she think they shouldn't have, her answer is "ask your Dad".

 

As a responsible father he tries, he says, to make the decisions he thinks are best for the kids and for the family as a whole. "But then again", he says "I don't have to stand for re-election as a father".

Strong Language and Stronger Language

It was in a diner at the roadside of a busy highway. A man was sitting quietly eating his lunch.

In the diner there also were three bikers of the tough type, Hell's Angels-patches and all. They were obviously looking for some "fun" and went up to the man having lunch in the diner.

One knocked over the man's cup of coffee. "Oops, bloody sorry about that he said", grinning. The man said nothing. One of the others stepped on his hat, that he had put down on the floor beside his chair. "Hell, hadn't seen that Bro" he said. "Awfully sorry". The third one stuffed out his cigarette in the dish the man was eating of. "Bleeding bloody hell, thought it was the fucking ashtray".

The man got up without saying a word and left the diner.

The three tough bikers went up to the counter. "What a moron! what a scaredy-cat!. The bloody fool didn't even try to stand up for himself. Didn't have the courage to speak up for himself. What an incompetent fool."

 

The man at the counter was looking out the window. "Yea!, and he can't even drive a truck", he said, "he just flattened three Harleys with his truck getting out from here."

The Bus Stop

He was visiting his grandmother on the maternal side. Didn't see her often. She was in a home now, in the big town, and his parents went to see her four or five times a year. It was a modern building with all the latest in equipment and apparatuses to help the care workers fulfil their tasks.

 

His grandmother had Alzheimer, and he wasn't sure, whether she recognised him or not. When he was a small child, her grandmother had looked after him a lot. Taught him songs and told him stories. He felt sad now. It was as if she was no longer the same Grandmother at all, but an altogether different person. There was no contact.

 

He started exploring the building. At the end of a corridor, much to his surprise, he found a bus stop. Not a real bus stop, of course, but the sign for at bus stop and a bench to sit on. He looked at it wondering what it was doing there.

 

A young nurse passed by and noticed his perplexed look.

 

Let  me explain you, young man, why we put it there. The old people here all have Alzheimer. They don't remember much anymore. But they are often restless and long for their old place and want to go home. They then tend to wander off looking for at bus stop or a train station, without actually knowing which place to go to or how to do it, and without knowing how to get back to this home.

 

Now they can go to this bus stop. They sit a while and wait for the bus, and then they forget why they are sitting there and go back to their room. It's much safer than if they go out into town.

 

He knew that his Grandmother was going to die soon. His mother had told him that someday soon she would not be there anymore. But if anybody would go to Heaven, it would be Granny, she had assured him.

 

So this was her last bus stop. He almost started crying. He hoped the bus would be late.

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NB! I actually heard about a home that has installed a fake bus stop.

NB! I just read a novel by Dimitri Verhulst. About an old man in a home. There is also a description of a fake bus stop. Very entertaining novel: De laatkomer. It is in Dutch, but I am sure it will be translated into English some day.