The Art of Reminiscing

THE ART OF REMINISCING

The screen went blank. Enough. Next time he wouldn’t even bother to switch on the television, the news was too depressing. Yet another window of opportunity lost. Why couldn’t they deliver it as they did during the war? He remembered the London docks being on fire for a week before they even announced that they had been hit. He knew because of the red glow in the night sky but the rest of the nation was still left in hope.

Nowadays the announcers seemed to dwell on the number of deaths from this pandemic and the number of new cases. He was shielded, too old, no hope for him if he caught it so he was confined to his little flat. Thank goodness his wife was no longer alive, she would not have enjoyed this one little bit. He didn’t mind though, the television wasn’t that brilliant but his mind was still sharp and he found his computer very useful. With the such likes of Google you could flit from subject to subject. Pandemics lead to floods, Noah, Moses, The Library at Alexandria, his local library, funny the way that one thing leads to another.

Interesting about pandemics, they had always been around, Moses and the plagues of Egypt, Athens, Antoine, Justinian, the Black Death, what about Polio and the Spanish Flu, that wasn’t really Spanish was it?? One thing where this current pandemic was helpful was that the library had asked him not to bring his books back for the a couple of months, brilliant, they even asked him if he needed more, would he like another ten? He only got eight as the library had panic borrowing, this pandemic was doing very strange things, first toilet rolls then library books, what on earth was happening?

Many academics thought that the Malthusian predictions of global overpopulation and insufficient food supply were wrong but was nature now having her own back? Yuval Noah Harari had written a couple of books where he speculated that we were the worst species to have inhabited the planet, that we would probably wipe ourselves out and the rest of the planet with us ; we had totally cocked up over global warming but then his next book postulated that it didn’t matter as we would counter everything with artificial intelligence but then AI would regard us as a totally useless species, totally inferior and wipe us out anyway. Quite amusing really, wonder what the scrolls were like in that library at Alexandria, wonder how their curators viewed the future before they got wiped out along with the library.

If the pandemic was nature having her own back then she was being most effective, she had grounded most of the aeroplanes that polluted the skies, anchored the multitudinous, huge cruise ships that polluted the oceans and drastically reduced the number of motor vehicles on the roads. That would help with the global warming problem. On the other hand maybe nature was having none of it but had sent this virus in order to drastically reduce the multitudes, balance the global population/food ratio, punish us for causing all this climate change, wipe out the obese, wipe out the elderly, many of whom did not want to live these much longer years anyway. All very well living longer but what about the quality of life, medical profession please take note. Maybe Malthus was right, maybe there were too many people and he, of course, was one of them.

He should have been wiped out years ago, no one thought that he would live past thirty five, now ninety loomed. Why had everyone thought thirty five the limit? He thought back, he reminisced. Apart from all the illnesses that he seemed to pick up maybe it was his life style and his many stupid acts, like crossing the channel in a canoe when he was just twenty three, like swimming out to sea too far one day, like those London Docks and collecting shrapnel, like………….could he recollect all these happenings?

Well the collecting of shrapnel was really stupid as he used to climb out of his bedroom window of the laundry in Acton, West London, where they used to live. This was always after an air raid, he would hang on to the wall and very, very carefully edge his way along the narrow wooden ledge on to the roof of the laundry next door. One slip and he would have been straight through the glass roof which was supported by the ledge upon which he was gently edging. He did have the best shrapnel collection at school though.

When he was a little older, after the war had finished and they were living by the sea, he challenged the local swimming champion to a race. He should win, he had swum in a real swimming bath and had been the school swimming champion. The local champion was wiser, said they should swim out to sea and the first to give up would lose the race. It must have been six to seven hundred yards to get out of the bay and into the open sea, he had swallowed too much water, you don't get waves in the swimming baths. He indicated that he ought to go back and they both set off in return, somewhat difficult as the tide had other ideas.

He was exceptionally tired but his companion constantly urged him not to give up, he was used to these waters and realised the danger. They could not have been more than two hundred yards from the shore but the next thing he remembered was the crowds all around him,

“We thought he was dead”

“Couldn’t stop him swimming, he swam all the way up the beach, his arms and legs were still going but his eyes were shut”

“Miracle he’s still alive”

“Ought to know better with these tides”

He owed his life to his companion that day, apparently he had been unconscious for over an hour and the biggest problem that the people on the beach had was to stop his arms and legs moving because, although unconscious, he still went on swimming automatically. Now he couldn’t recall his companion/opponents name but, yes, he did owe him his life.

As for the canoeing, well, he wanted a trip abroad, couldn’t afford it as he was studying to be a lawyer and the remuneration was minuscule, however he loved canoeing, in fact his folding canoe went everywhere with him. He would take it on the bus from his little bed sit in North London, assemble it when they got to the Thames and canoe to his firms highly respected clients. That was until he went to a Rickett Cockerell coal depot near Greenwich, left it on their wharf , went to go home in the evening and found it full of coal dust. That was the last time that he ever did that !

This time he took it to Dover on the bus, assembled it on the beach and set off with a little pocket compass and a packet of sandwiches. He paddled out from the main port entrance, got hailed by the authorities who wanted to know the name of his vessel. Bet that was the first time that they had had to register a canoe as a maritime vessel. He made up some name and paddled onward.

You can see the coast of France from the cliffs at Dover but not when you are at sea level and sat in a canoe . After three hours he didn’t know where he was, the waves were getting bigger but he didn’t dare let the canoe capsize as he hadn’t got a life jacket, didn’t get a weather forecast before he set off and had not informed the coast guards. Very, very stupid A small sea going freighter was passing in front of him with a somewhat bemused look out so he hailed him and asked the direction of Calais. The lookout pointed to a totally different direction to that in which he was heading . That couldn't be right he thought, so he continued onward but now it was getting dark. He was getting more and more anxious when he spotted some lights on the horizon and eventually finished up on the beach at Sangatte and that wasn’t Calais ! Maybe that look out on that freighter had been right all along.

He couldn’t speak much French so he indicated to the somewhat bemused French onlookers where he had staggered out of his canoe, that he needed somewhere to sleep for the night. He wasn’t much good at French but even less so at sign language as they took him to the local brothel! Eventually they found him a bed for the night in a small hotel and after a hearty breakfast he decided that he would rather catch the ferry home. This time some common sense did prevail.

He thought back to the time when everyone had warned his wife not to marry him as he was too wild a character but, as she had always told him -

“I could never settle down with a nine to five person, whatever you do I will always come with you”

She did not mean that literally, someone always had to be there to pick up the pieces, and in one instance, almost pieces of him. They were married and had two small children, she had already been to Spain but the only time that he had been abroad was when he had served time in the army. Before they went she he gave him lots of books on the country one of which was Hemingway's “Death in the Afternoon” which detailed every known fact on bullfighting. He was hooked, knew the book backwards and was so proficient that the Spaniards at the local bullring where they were staying said that he could cape a young bull, only one year old they told him.

He was delighted, practiced all his passes with the cape that they lent him, his ‘Veronica's’ and ‘Media-Veronica's’ and every other pass that Hemingway had detailed. They led him into the bull ring, somehow it seemed a little small, then a gate opened and in came the bull, that bull seemed very large indeed, that must be more than one year old he thought. He planted his feet firmly in the sand, the book said that you never move your feet, that was cowardice.

The bull lowered his head and came straight for him. He did everything right but obviously the bull hadn’t read the same book as the next minute he was flat on his back grasping these two huge horns either side of his chest. The Spanish matadors rushed in, caped the bull away from him. He got up, the bull charged but this time he actually managed to perform a pass. He was delighted but when caping a bull you do not stand waiting for applause, this time the bull turned, charged, caught him unaware on his backside and then he was flying through the air.

The main damage was from the bull trampling all over him. The matadors, once again using their capes to distract the bull managed to get it away and hauled him out of the ring. Talk about black and blue, his face was an utter mess, his ego more so. His wife patched him up, patched up his ego and he was confined to simply reading about bulls from then on.

How on earth had he got passed thirty five, the scuba diving, the motor racing, the traversing of seas and oceans? It was his wife, she was always there for him, no matter where he was or what he was doing he always felt the need to get back to her, she was always there waiting for him, patching up every problem. No matter where he was or whatever mad escapade upon which he was engaged, he missed her and just longed to be back home with her and their now growing family.

It was the family that now kept him in order, his son had taken away both his racing and mountain bikes, said that he was dangerous, he had given his grandson his skateboard. His friend, consultant and now surgeon had welcomed that move as they had had to replace two of his hips already. His daughter was carrying on where his wife had had to left off by attempting to educate him as to being a much better human being. Bit of a hopeless case there many thought.

He should cut out all this reminiscing, his son had tried to cure him of that, made him throw out all his old legal and business papers. He couldn’t remember the successes, only the not too good results, that wretched case that had taken years to resolve. How had he achieved that? They were in front of three Lords of Appeal in the Strand, he had been most eloquent and gave one of his best smiles to the most senior judge at the close of his submission.

“You are quite correct on your points of law” said the Judge

“However what you have related actually proves the case for the other side..”

He thought quickly, rose and replied

“My Lord, I think that this matter may be resolved more speedily were I to retire to your excellent cafeteria with my learned friend here and discuss this whole matter over a cup of your equally excellent coffee”

“do so” was the reply “and be back here within the hour”

An hour later he and his opponent were back. Case settled. Should have done that in the first place and saved five years of utter legal nonsense. The older and more senior these Judges became the more practical and intelligent their pronouncements. That was one thing to be grateful for, the English legal system.

This reminiscing was all very well but where did it get you?; actually nowhere. What was it his wife used to say when he reminisced,

“Yesterdays gone, tomorrow hasn’t come so the only thing that you have got is this very moment, that’s all there is, this very moment and nothing else”

His daughter once gave him a little gift of a small memento to hang on his wall with these words firmly printed on a beautiful pale pink background,

“The best things in life are the people we love, the places we’ve been and the memories we’ve made along the way”

How very true

He switched on the television, talk about the London Docks, they had just had a huge explosion in the docks in Beirut. Obviously we never learn. Maybe nature was going to have the last word. Now we might be able to open that window of opportunity, address climate change, greed, be nicer to our neighbour, be kinder to everyone we meet, be happier…………...and spread that happiness far and wide !! What would he do……….live in the moment……...so, sod the television, lets really open up those windows of opportunity …………...now, where was that bottle of really good red wine he’d been saving for a rainy day?