As a child I never learned to ride a bike or fish, these are
things that came to me much later in life and subsequently I’m a wobbly bike
rider and I lose most of my fishing tackle in the weeds. It’s not that I didn’t
want to learn I did, but in our house failure wasn’t allowed and that hardly
encouraged you to try something new.
All the other boys on the estate went fishing and dashed
around on bikes. I often wondered how they learnt to do it until one day I
realised that they’d learnt from their dads who’d shown them what to do, even
holding onto the back of the bike seat, running along beside them until they
could balance on their own.
Of course my dad was a busy man and he wasn’t really
interested in fishing or bikes. He was interested in football and cricket though.
I’ll never forget those happy days in the park and on the beach as he powered
yet another goal past me or bowled me out for another humiliating duck. How I
laughed as he ‘quacked’ me and tossed me the tennis ball. Of course this was
always followed by his innings, which went on and on as he knocked every ball I
bowled into the far distance either scoring a six or running back and forth
twenty or thirty times until I emerged bloodied from the hawthorn bushes with
the ball.
As he often used to remind me: I was rubbish at football and
cricket. Eventually I gave up playing beach games, taking myself off to paddle
in the sea on my own as my dad didn’t like the water much.
Later, in my teens, I discovered I was pretty good at rugby
and got on to the county team. My dad even came to watch one match, but
disappeared to one on my mum’s friend’s houses after ten minutes or so. Well it
was cold, and it would have been rude not to pop in (she was a redhead my mum
met in hospital whose name escapes me), besides my dad didn’t really like
rugby.
Andrew Height
ReplyDeleteIf my dad reads this he'll probably call the police again.
Paul Eddison on FB
ReplyDeleteI once heard something on a crappy American tv show, but it did ring a bell... Every relationship needs a hero at some point. But only If you want to save the relationship. Like i say, it was a trash U.S. talk show... But sometimes it's better to explore all options. At least you can say u gave it your all.
Andrew Height
ReplyDeleteYes Paul. I did give it my all, but if you knew where that led to then you'd have to question either my sanity, bravery or stupidity. Personally I think the latter.