A First Time For Everything

Hello, dear readers!

Oh, to be young again.

Not that I’m old. Not really. Not when you consider the near twenty years I would have to wait to get my hands on a bus pass (if it weren’t for my disability, that is). No, age is, as they say, just a number. You’re only as old as you feel, etc, etc, etc.

But, sometimes I feel as old as I am. And that has a tendency to make me slightly (and only slightly) envious of the younger generation.

Let me tell you why.

 
Mourning Glory
It’s not so much a matter of recapturing my glory days. I have, after all, both been there and done that. The three o’clock in the morning,-as drunk as a Pepe Le Pew (other skunks are available)-falling through a glass shower screen nights out that I mostly remember are now a thing of the past. Very rare exceptions excluded.

I do miss meet ups with friends, especially in these Covid haunted days, but even those have become slightly more sensible affairs (again, in the main. I think most wine and cheese nights, the attendees are supposed to remember the taste of both wine and cheese. I also think both of them are meant to stay in the stomach for a little longer than mine did). It’s all part of growing up. Our excesses become more modest. Our wildness more tame.

So, you might ask, if it’s not the energy, stamina, and intemperance of youth I covet, then what could it possibly be?

Experience.

Buy The Book
Yeah, I know. That sounds odd to me too. Experience is, after all, something we pick up with age; with living this crazy thing called life. It is a byproduct of our past. A memory of the things we’ve done, the thoughts we’ve thought, and the mistakes we’ve made. The trouble is, each experience belongs to our past.

It doesn’t matter how far you go back. It might be a matter of years, or mere minutes, but once an experience has been, um, experienced, it can’t be, ah, experienced in the same way again. Not exactly. Not with that same sense of anticipation and excitement that comes with not knowing exactly what comes next.

All of this was brought home to me this last weekend. That was when my nephew, Jack, turned the ripe old age of eight. Now Jack is wonderful and very curious young man. He seems to have a thirst for knowledge that far outstrips his years, and he’s also quite the reader, a trait he shares with his uncle Mark (I seem to remember being told I had an adult reading age not too far off the same point in life). Coupled with Amazon Prime one day delivery, it meant the ideal gift seemed to be a couple of books, and namely, two of Roald Dahl’s masterpieces (The Twits, and Revolting Rhymes).

Never Again
Dahl's are books I remember devouring as a lad. James And The Giant Peach, Danny Champion Of The World, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Great Glass Elevator; all these and more weaved wonderful worlds of Whiizz-poppers, Frobscottle, Oompa-Loompas, and Vermicious Knids. For a young lad with something of a roving imagination it meant the turn of every page unlocked new and gloriumptious worlds full of mystery, intrigue, and adventure. I can still remember, with absolute delight, my first time reading those wonderful books. Something I can sadly never do again.

That’s not to say I can never read the books again. I’ve not been banned. The Dahl Readers association of Great Britain and Associated Territories, or D.R.A.G.B.A.T. (Yes, of course I’ve made it up) have yet to take out any injunction against me and I haven’t lost the ability nor the desire to read. No, what I can’t do is read those books again for the very first time (anyone suddenly fancy a cola? No? Just me?).

More Or Less
I cannot enjoy something with the same relish the second time around. That first time experience is something lost to me forever. Of course, there are more books to be read, more films to be seen, more places to go (once we know we can come back), and more food, drink, activities, pastimes, and adventures to try. In short, there're more experiences to be had. More first times (some of which are bound to be last times as well). But with age there are, necessarily, less of them than there were, and that number will only ever decrease. It’s what gives me that slight feeling of jealousy as  I think about Jack opening up Revolting Rhymes and reading the immortal line ‘once more the maiden’s eyelid flickers. She draws a pistol from her knickers’ (A line my broken brain seems to have memorised).

Still, I guess it’s all part of the normal progression of this thing we call life, and at least I have the privilege of passing on this particular nugget of joy to the next generation, with the hope they will get as much out of it as I remember getting myself. I can pass on that baton and head off in search of my own magical moments. My own fresh discoveries.

Now, did I actually get around to reading Esio Trot?










Until next time…