Sunday 14 December 2014

Hope for Christmas Travellers

My brother Quadrophonic has arrived in Edinburgh--hooray! Sadly he was affected by the computer glitch in Hampshire that grounded all planes in London on Friday afternoon.  I sat in front of my own computer for hours waiting to find out where he was and what he would do if he missed his connecting flight. One hundred years ago I suppose I would have been pacing outside a shipping office. Reading that he had just seen my last Facebook message was like seeing smoke on the horizon. Found! Found!

He had missed his connecting flight, but he got a new one. I raced his plane to Edinburgh Airport and met him outside the arrivals gate. My family always meets ME by the arrivals gate, so it is a point of honour for me to meet them outside the arrivals gate. Besides what is more beautiful to the eye that a loved one appearing through a door? I was edified by a small child, accompanied by an elderly couple, who shrieked "Mummy!" as a lumpy woman with dyed red hair came through the doors. Few would give that woman a second glance, but to one little atom of humanity, she is the center of the world. 

"Would you like to go the [Christmas Swing Dance in Morningside]?" I asked my brother as we waited for his luggage.

My brother, who had had two hours sleep in thirty-six hours, said that this would be wonderful. So--ah ha ha ha--I am going to a swing dance with an amiable male. He won't dance, but that's okay. Hopefully he enjoys the music and watching the amazing dancers. I'm sorry it's not a live band, but I'll take him to see live bands later. 

It was wonderful to catch up on family news, especially the adventures and misadventures of our nephew Pirate. Pirate's mother tries to limit his access to violent video games, but with limited success, as the parents of his pal down the street couldn't care less what garbage little boys get their hands on. 

And this is one arrived, two to go. Next up is my mother, who doesn't want to be met at the airport. An old Edinburgh hand, she has her set travel routine.

"Quadrophonics and I are going to Glasgow on Monday," I told her. "Or would you like to go to Glasgow, too?"

"No, I don't want to go to Glasgow," said my mother. "I want to bake cookies." 

2 comments:

  1. "...the parents of his pal down the street couldn't care less what garbage little boys get their hands on."

    Grrr. If I were Pirate's Mother, that would make me so mad (well, Pirate's Mother probably is quite angry about it.)

    I'm reminded of an episode from my childhood which I probably will never forget.

    I was about ten years old and had gone to a school friend's house for the afternoon. We decided to watch a movie -- for some reason, she chose one of the films from the "Scary Movie" franchise. She had seen it before. It was her father's video, I think.

    I felt VERY uncomfortable about the film. I mean, it's rated MA15+ for a few reasons (one being so that ten year old girls don't watch it.) I don't remember being too troubled by the violence (perhaps it wasn't that extreme -- I can't remember for sure, and I haven't seen the film again) but I found the sexual content very confronting. But as ten year old, I didn't feel comfortable saying "I don't like this and I don't want to watch it." I mean, her father was okay with us watching it, he knew we were watching it, and although I had a sense that my friend's father's moral compass was not aligned the way my own father's was, I figured that, well, he was a dad and he wouldn't do anything wrong, right? Dads don't do bad things, after all, right?

    Now, as an adult, remembering that episode makes me really very angry. How dare he let us watch that? I do recall, though, that my friend mentioned having found dirty videos or magazines in her father's cupboard. This was a nominally Catholic family who had their kids baptised and sent them to Catholic school.

    The message I've taken away from this episode is that if I ever have children, I am going to have to be very careful about the company they keep. Not necessarily because of the friends, who are, after all, just kids, but because of the parents.

    ReplyDelete

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