Now I know that this is from a very old source (USA in about the 1950s) but is still relevant.
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Yesterday when I walked around the bay I was feeling a bit faint and sat on a bench seat that I hadn't used before.
I had a close look at the inscription and saw that it was dedicated to a man born on 27 January 1951 and died in 2011.
My brother was born on 24 January 1951 and died in 2001. It was interesting that they had been born 3 days apart and I guess this stuck in my mind.
I went down to the water's edge and walked along to a place that I've never been before in the 12 years that we've been living here.
Beneath a couple of very old pohutukawa trees I found lots of little nooks and crannies behind the gnarly old roots and volcanic 'bomb' boulders that were like caves.
It was a magical spot and there were ideal hiding places great for building forts and pirate hideouts. My brother Terry and I and other neighbourhood friends would have used this area for all sorts of adventures when we were kids. Sadly there was no evidence that the kids of today were using this. There were no dugouts or structures, tree forts or huts - just a single piece of board nailed to a tree that maybe was used to tie a dinghy to.
This made me feel a little bit sad and to wonder just what kids do for fun nowadays.
6 comments:
Hope you're feeling better my old friend.
The best thing for a kid is to spend time with mum or dad and learn real skills, like building or cooking. I guess building forts is important too. Sorry about Terry. You take care up there in the north. Hang on to those happy memories. xx
PS. I haven't really bought a motorcycle, but both of my cars have had problems over the weekend. Today I was at the petrol station checking my oil when a big gust of wind blew the bonnet into the windshield. It's very badly cracked. Yesterday I was about to check the oil in Shelley's car when I discovered that the bonnet wouldn't open. She'd leant her car to her boss who let his kids play in it and listen to the radio. They must have been turning and pulling all the knobs. Little bastards and fuck him for treating the car like a playhouse. Ah well, that's life.
Thanks for the first comment Richard - our departed are always with us.
We did spend lots of time with mum and dad fortunately, back in those halcyon 1950s and 1960s. Terry must have learned dad's building skills and I learned mum's cooking skills (dad was a tradesman and mum was a professional cook).
re the second comment - sorry to hear about the car problems (I assumed that the motorbike was George's).
Why can't people show more respect for other people's property. There's no way that you or I would allow kids to wreck things on someone's car.
What a mean old judge. The whole deal with children is to play. It's like dingos playing with a kangaroo tail. It's learning the smell of its proper prey and not attacking sheep!
If we criticize children for playing addictive video games first we must ask who made them available (adults) and secondly why did not those adults take children away from the screen for, as you say, to explore the wilderness, and again the fault lies with us adults who are too lazy, ill informed or just plain evil.
Well, I can see that your reading and comprehension skills haven't improved Robert.
That judge was responding to the "we're bored" mantra that teenagers the world over - (well, not those countries, usually catholic ones, where children don't get a chance to play because parents and those greedy bastards that parents (should have used contraception or had abortions) sold their children to, have them from an early age 'employed' in slave labour) - bleat out.
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