“Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I’m getting old, and I need something to rely on
So, tell me when you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired, and I need somewhere to begin”
Timothy James Rice-oxley / Richard David Hughes / Thomas Oliver Chaplin
A good friend recently asked for a little help with a talk he was due to give to 120 teenagers in a school. This friend, let’s call him Colm, is an accomplished , educated, well read, humorous, kind, happy, and confident young gentleman. In fact , if he was any more sound you’d swear he was actually from Monaghan, and not simply Monaghan-adjacent through marriage to our life long friend Carmel. Colm is heavily involved with a sports club called Ranelagh Rockets, that caters for kids with additional needs, and he was seeking teenagers to come on board as coaches. I told you he was sound !
Anyway Colm has given talks to politicians, journalists, business shape shifters, and large audiences more times than I have, but his concern in this case was that it was to a much younger audience, which also contained his teenage daughter. This was causing some mild panic. Knowing that I had spoken in schools he asked for some advice.
This is what I said.
“With that age group I usually start off by saying that when I was their age and we had a guest speaker come into the school I always thought that they were boring old farts…then as I got older and looked back and reflected on who they were and what they said I realised that I was dead right , they were boring old farts ! And now here I am…the boring old fart.”
I went on to say something about being yourself, try not to sound like a priest giving an insincere homily, and that basically kids can see through any bull, gloss, or smoke, so the more honest you are with them, the more tolerant they are of you.
He thanked me, and told me that he’d let me know how he got on. I’ve found that most people don’t get back to you after you’ve given them help or advice, they perhaps assume that you don’t want to know, but I always do. Colm, obviously, being sound, did get back to me. It had gone well, his daughter hadn’t spontaneously combusted and there were even some questions at the end, which is always the true mark of success.
I was delighted !
Obviously the ‘old fart’ bit is said tongue in cheek. That’s what I assume the kids think of me anyway, so why not say it straight out and get it over with ? And also , I don’t really consider myself old , and certainly not boring, and that’s the point, saying that , but acting otherwise, gets the kids on your side…and yet…
Despite putting my cancer to good use a couple of years ago and using it as an excuse to resign from the plethora of committees I was on, and swearing both to myself and my long suffering and often abandoned Soulmate that that phase of my life was over…I seem to be on three committees at the moment. And it hit me after Colm’s emails that I think I’m the oldest person on each of them.
Years ago I had joined committees for clubs, schools, festivals , parishes and been the ‘new blood’, full of new ideas and enthusiasm. On each of those committees I’d always found at least one or two older committee members, who had put in years of service, who invariably greeted my enthusiasm and suggestions with raised eyebrows, huffs, and the odd puff. Perhaps they’d tried my idea in the past or knew how much additional work would be involved, or were just tired ? Or perhaps they were simply better experienced than I was, but I converted my frustration with them into their obvious ‘oldness’ and tiredness.
I think I may only be realising that now.
I don’t feel like the oldest person on these things. And I don’t believe that I act like the oldest person…certainly not in terms of respectability, authority, or common sense.
I may have allowed it to get me a bit down.
And then three things happened within an hour. Elliott sent me a message out of the blue about our upcoming LAST marathon. Robyn sent me a cool new tune by Wunderhorse. And Jake told me the story of James Kearney, the park keeper for St.Stephen’s Green in Dublin during the Easter Rising in 1916.
The Irish Citizen Army had taken control of the park initially, but had retreated to the Royal College of Surgeons on one side of the Park, whilst the British Army had commandeered The Shelbourne Hotel, on the opposite side. They all amused themselves taking wild, but sustained potshots at each other during the day until Countess Markievicz, commander of the Irish force, spotted an elderly man walking through the Park carrying a brown paper bag.
“Is he one of ours ??? Call him back !” she shouted over the gunfire.
“No Ma’am !” John McKenna , a sound chap from Monaghan replied. ” It’s Kearney, the parkkeeper.”
“CEASEFIRE !” the Countess roared. The guns stopped in the College immediately, and after a few moments the guns on the other side stopped too in reply. “I thought everyone living around here had been told to get out ?”
“Yes Ma’am.” McKenna replied. “But he wouldn’t. Said that someone had to feed the ducks.”
The Countess looked down and saw that in the distance James Kearney had arrived at the lake in the middle of the Green, and was indeed surrounded by the ducks. “Send a message to Captain Andrews in the Shelbourne. Tell him we’re not going anywhere, but that we’ll stop shooting each day while Kearney feeds his damn ducks.”
Captain Andrews replied with a simple message “Agreed.”
And so each day during Easter Week in 1916 the opposing sides had a daily ceasefire so that James Kearney could go and feed the ducks.
I love that !
I content myself with knowing that we’re all just trying our best, and that I wear the coolest tee shirts, and if the occasion arose…I would feed the ducks.
I am an old fart.
A happy old fart.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. For all of my fellow happy old farts, this is the new , and divine song from Public Service Broadcasting , ‘The Fun Of It’
