tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post6632309961933985181..comments2023-07-06T10:55:44.311+02:00Comments on Attempted Essays: Summer of '81Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-5544938187741822672011-06-19T12:12:48.687+02:002011-06-19T12:12:48.687+02:00Thanks for all the comments. :-)
I find it intere...Thanks for all the comments. :-)<br /><br />I find it interesting that all those who commented immediately made the connection to their own lives and what they were doing that year.<br /><br />I think such glimpses back - the Wordsworthian "emotion recollected in tranquility" - can be useful in many ways. They help us take stock, put form on and order the stories of our lives.<br /><br />For we are all constantly developing stories and stories need structure if the storyteller is to be able to tell it - even to him or herself. And much of that which we tell of the past has far more to do with who we are now than with what we were then.<br /><br />My daughters will be 24 and 20 this summer. I frequently find it useful in the development of this wonderful new stage of my relationships with them - encountering them as adults rather than "my little girls" - to cast a look back at what I was doing at their age.Francis Hunthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-43122066316684270062011-06-18T19:33:07.362+02:002011-06-18T19:33:07.362+02:00I was ex-NI and probably selling dud weaponry to t...I was ex-NI and probably selling dud weaponry to the Argentinian junta in preparation for the Falklands - a sleight-of-hand operation to cover banking tracks through a post-junta fire sale. Came back to help my local cricket club win the league after a period laid up by injury.<br />Mad times, followed by going back to uni to teach. I could go with Marley if it wasn't for the wife-beating.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-8660948535303141192011-06-16T03:20:29.141+02:002011-06-16T03:20:29.141+02:00I was in my first year of med school when you went...I was in my first year of med school when you went on your journey. <br /><br />And I remember it being a very stressful, uncertain time for me too. <br /><br />But...yes...being so young and in such good health...it was also just...rapturous.Mariahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05049511202014141182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-74896974823215030282011-06-15T23:31:22.928+02:002011-06-15T23:31:22.928+02:00Ah that was quite a sumer Francis. It makes me thi...Ah that was quite a sumer Francis. It makes me think of that time . It was an odd summer for me. I was 18, just left school and waiting to see if I got the grades to go to university.<br /><br />Looking back the concerns of the teenager seem minor but they were huge at the time.jams o donnellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17315325008175184363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-54126980692296938802011-06-15T14:09:32.662+02:002011-06-15T14:09:32.662+02:00By the time you spent your wonderful summer travel...By the time you spent your wonderful summer traveling around Europe by train I was in my mid-30's with my own 2 year European adventures many years behind. Instead, I was exploring the early years of adventure living in one of the strangest countries in the world, although most Americans think their land height of normality. John Lennon's murder was akin to losing a family member. <br /><br />By then I'd been a big fan of reggae for some years. Marley's 'Small Axe' was another favorite:<br /><br />If you are the big tree,<br />We are the small axe<br />Sharpened to cut you down,<br />Ready to cut you down.<br /><br />For some reason I always found those lines comforting - something about light and goodness winning out despite appearances.susanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16747450215034568033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-12717273625578989832011-06-15T09:11:41.989+02:002011-06-15T09:11:41.989+02:00Your summer of adventure occurred 19 years later t...Your summer of adventure occurred 19 years later than mine and in different cities; but if time were paradoxical like a Möbius strip, we might have met somewhere. I’d have liked that. But in fact, when our lives were synchronised by the news of John Lennon’s death, I was entering something not unlike what you were escaping from. You were pondering your future in the narrow cloister represented by the Dominican Order. I had just gone from a bohemian software company called Zeus-Hermes into another kind of narrow cloister: Touche Ross & Co, Management Consultants, whose managing partner, as it happens, was a rather militant Catholic. I was quite indifferent to John Lennon’s death, and as for Bob Marley, I hadn’t yet heard of him. It was like Buddy Holly all over again, they both died before I discovered them and loved their music.<br /><br />If we were to discuss our respective pasts, I think we might find our trajectories criss-crossing one another, always going in the opposite direction, but both our tales, like poetry in Wordsworth’s definition, would take their origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.<br /><br />But I can relate too to Pagan Sphinx in the matter of ‘depression, low-self esteem and a lack of opportunity’---and rising like Phoenix in later life to make up for it all.Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-13903811098123350192011-06-14T22:56:27.719+02:002011-06-14T22:56:27.719+02:00Oh, Francis! I laughed and oohed and awed (?) :-) ...Oh, Francis! I laughed and oohed and awed (?) :-) Your adventures and your talent made for a most excellent read! <br /><br />I did not have such adventures at that age, being stuck in the United States and all that was going on my life, depression, low-self esteem and a lack of opportunity. I'm making up for it now, though! :-} In fact, we have two weeks planned in Amsterdam in about mid-July. Am immensely looking forward to it. Finally after all these years of wanting similar adventures to yours.<br /><br />Beautifully written, much enjoyed. And the song, well. Yeah. "Every little thing's gonna be alright". It was my lulla-bye in those years.<br /><br />Sending a hug,<br />GinaAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17296223961815248113noreply@blogger.com