April by the Fire

April sat down by the fire. She was soon joined by by June and May. July came, followed by August. February, January, September, beautiful October, November, March and December also turned up and sat down by the fire.

 

This was an official meeting. The only point on the agenda was to divide the year between the ladies present. A long a tedious debate followed. At long last an agreement was reached. June got the days of many hours of sunshine, July and August got the days of hot weather, October the days of falling leaves, December the much loved Xmas season, etc. etc.

 

They were about to leave, when they noticed that April sat sleeping by the fire. She had been asleep for a long time, and no days had been allocated to her. She was very upset, but May promptly offered her three of her own days. The others followed suit, and all offered her a few days from their own month and soon she had a full month of her own.

 

And that's the April that we have come to know and love.

Parental Guidance

James was twelve years old. One day, walking home from school, he saw that new posters had been put up everywhere. On lamp posts, on walls and in the shop windows. They were bright and colourful and they announced that a travelling show would visit town for two weeks. Cowboy Girls - The Hottest Show on Road the posters proclaimed. And there were pictures of beautiful horses and young suntanned, blond girls.

 

That night at dinner he asked his parents if he could go and see the show. "No!" his dad said, "it's not something for you. You would see things you ought not see."

 

James, of course, was disappointed, and for the next couple of days he pleaded with his parents for a ticket to the show. But his dad was adamant: "No, you would see things you ought not see."

 

However, being a resourceful young man, James managed to get a free entrance by helping carrying seat and benches into the big tent, when the travelling show arrived in town. And he went to see the show. Only trouble was, that one of the neighbours had seen him go in and had told his parents.

 

Dinners were quite silent for a couple of days. One evening after dinner his mother, however, said that maybe it wasn't all that bad after all. "And what did you see, that you ought not see?", she asked with the curious smile of a mother following her son's advance from a child to an adolescent. 

 

James looked down. "I saw Dad", he said quitely.

Harassment at Work

This story goes back to the 60s.

 

The economy was on the up. The consumer society was under way, and people started spending after the meagre immediate post war-years.

 

Many young people saw an opportunity. One of them was Tim. He soon realised that a television set would be a must in all homes in the years to come, and he raised money in the bank to set up a shop in High Street. Televisions, radios and records.

 

Business was good, more than good. Tim The Telly Man his shop was named. Soon he had to employ extra staff, the shop was extended and he became the symbol of the modern entrepreneurial man in town. And he got himself a fast and fancy new estate car for deliveries to customers. You just saw the back of Tim The Telly Man, it said in big bright letters on the back of the car. Thinks were moving fast.

 

One thing wasn't moving so fast, though. It was Tim's father. At that time I worked in a furniture factory in town, and one of my fellow workers was Tim's old man. He was not in the production line properly speaking, but moved around the shop floor to do the odd jobs of cleaning, small repairs and applying a few drops of oil or a bit of grease to the machinery. And he didn't move fast. Not at all.

 

One day I noticed a grin on the other workers' faces, when Tim's father was in the vicinity.  When he slowly made his way past where I was standing, I found out why. A sheet of paper had been taped to his back: You just saw the back of Tim The Telly Man's Dad, it said in big bright letter.

 

This shows that harassment at work goes back at least to the days of black and white television, if not further, and that behind every son - sometimes far behind - there's a father.

You are going to die soon

An elderly couple turned up at the doctor's. The man had not been feeling well for some time, and his wife had persuaded him to come along to see a doctor.

 

The doctor examined the man. It was a thorough examination, and the doctor looked a bit worried. He prescribed some medicine and wished him good luck.

 

The wife took the doctor aside. "I want to know the truth", she said. "Will he make it?".

 

"It's a very rare and serious condition", the doctor said. "It doesn't look good at all. There is one chance, however. If you try to make his life pleasant he might make it. Let him eat good steaks, don't make him do the dishes, don't take him shopping, let him watch soccer on the telly on Saturdays, let him have his afternoon nap in peace, and above all, don't nag him. And remember, if you don't follow my advice, he will probably die soon."

 

The couple drove home in silence. At dinner the man finally had enough nerve to speak about the visit to the doctor's. "I saw that you talked to him", he said. "Tell me what did he say?"

 

"Oh, Honey, it's so terrible. He said that you are going to die soon."

High-Vis

- it's not moving, is it?

 

- no, it isn't. Or wait, maybe it moved a little bit. No probably not, just my imagination.

 

- yes, now I'm sure, it is moving. What is it?

 

I was standing with my Uncle Jack on the roadside outside his house gazing at something at the far end of a field.

 

- a small fluorescent yellow spot, moving slowly along the road", Uncle Jack ventured. "Then it's an old guy on a rusty bicycle in a headwind. I have seen this before, in the summer.

 

And he was right. The spot turned on to the road where we were standing. And as the spot approached we could see that it was indeed an old man on a rusty bicycle, and not just any old man - it was my dad.

 

I now remembered that my Mum gave him a high visibility bicycling vest for his birthday some years ago. She had for several years been after him for not taking care of his health. She had urged him to take up bicycling as he did when he was younger. He had maintained that it was not safe with the traffic these days. Too may drivers not paying attention on the roads. It was safer to sit inside the Pub. That's why she had bought him a fluorescent, yellow bicycling vest, which had been highly visible in his closet for years, but he had pretended not to see it.

 

- you've become sporty, Jack said. Who are you trying to impress?

 

- I'm not trying to impress anybody, he answered. I've been invited to Bill's anniversary. Bill's the stingy sort of person, and John said I had better bring my bicycle as there would be far between the drinks.

 

Motivation is important if you want to get fit. And I suppose that one kind of motivation can be as good as any other kind.

When Death Hits the Hardest

The day my mother died I felt relief. She died much too young, and she had been a marvellous mother and a wonderful person. She was loved by everybody.

 

She died of cancer. The last year of her life was misery. She knew she was going to die. She had pain, she suffered, and she feared the end. The last months of her life was spent in hospital. Gradually and mercilessly the cancer did its horrid work. At the end she was on morphine most of the time.

 

I was a university student at the time. Living in another town and busy with my own life and myself, and my future, as I believe most young people are. I did not go to see her in hospital every weekend, because it was a journey of several hours, and I had work to do (or was it parties I wouldn't miss?).

 

I was there the day the died though. The hospital staff had let us know that the end was imminent. And I felt relief when it was over.

 

I felt ashamed of myself. I felt relief, but I also felt I ought to be grieving my heart out for the wonderful mother I had lost.

 

Later that year I passed my exams. Every time I got a good result, an imaginary conversation started inside my head. I was imaging how I would pass on the news. "I told you not to worry, I can do it Mom .......". Oops!. There was no Mom, there was a void where she once was. The one I would most have liked to please by doing well was not there. The one I most wanted to tell the good news was not there. That's when her death hits the hardest. That's when the real tears came.

 

Later in life when getting my first job, getting married, becoming a father etc., I have always thought of my mother and how I would have liked to share those moments with her.