What’s happened to us?

Once upon a time when the world seemed to revolve more slowly and people had lightheartdness in all their greetings and dogs tails constantly wagged, then we had a world that really was worth living in .Dandelions and daisies were in abundance and little girls were always making long long daisy chains. Small boys had short trousers with crusty scabby knees that were always just about to bleed, there were yellow green streaks from wrist to elbow on their pullovers and had those opaque bubbles in suspension from the nostrils which were punctuated with a regular sniff at the beginning and end of each sentence. Attentive dogs lolled nearby, they, never have seen, or known, a collar, or even imagined such a thing as,” neuter”. A ride in the middle of the road always got the crowd going and after a few good guffaws all the auld lads headed for the pub. The rest stayed out for pitch and toss with heavy pennies, if you got it right and barred them you were made. A good race down the street with four or five lads beating bowlies was hard to beat for excitement then. Come to think of it there was a lot of widow women back then, grey hair or raven black to match the black black shawl and there was always a brazen one with a tilted head and a flaming headscarf. They cackled among themselves and always killed the fun with buckets of cold water over the grinning dogs.

Aghagower 8/3/12