When I was a teenager, my friends and I did wholesome
things. We had rock ’n roll, agreed, but we didn’t do the sex and drugs thing
(not unless you count alcohol and tobacco, which we didn’t because they were
just things the grown ups used routinely.)
Instead, during the dark part of the year, we would trek
over to a patch of open moorland close to where we lived and build a fire. And
when the fire had been burning for some time and there were red embers around
the edge, we would place potatoes and chestnuts in just the right place to
roast, then have a roast potato and chestnut supper.
We would talk, of course, mostly about the future, and
sometimes I would take my guitar and sing some Bob Dylan songs. Everyone
applauded when I’d finished. On one occasion I read a ghost story by the light
of the fire, and everybody said ‘Wooo, that was good!’
Every Christmas we went carol singing, choosing a different
neighbourhood every night for a week. We’d knock on the door and ask permission
to sing a carol, explaining that we were from Willfield Junior High School
and were collecting for charity. People believed us almost without exception. Only
one person ever rang the school the next day to check whether we were genuine.
We sang the carols properly – all the verses, and a
different one for each house on a rotation basis. I sang the base lines because
I knew them from playing trombone in the school orchestra. And people were
remarkably generous; we collected a hell of a lot of money and gave it all to
the school for the charity collection. We never kept a penny for ourselves,
even though we could easily have done so and nobody would have been any the
wiser.
And so I can quote from the Monty Python ‘Old Men’ sketch without
fear of invoking the same irony:
‘Tell that to the kids today, and they won’t bloody believe
you!’
* * *
I just remembered what made me think of it. I read an old
blog post in which I created a scenario involving Zoe, an open fire, Mr
Tambourine Man, and two glasses of sherry. It was kinda cute, and somebody from
Serbia
just read it.
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