Brilliant OMR Stories - Page 8: No Shirt – No Shoes – No Worries Each month I visit my daughter and grandson in Brisbane. These visits have been a regular occurrence. It gives me time to be alone with my grandson; to seek out, what he’s been doing, such as rugby league; school and other activities in his life. On my last visit, after picking him up from school we went to the local McDonald’s for ‘the pick of the shelf’ which he normally picks anything from the top shelf. Whilst we enjoy one another’s company, our conversation got around to his playing rugby league. Last year his team won the premiership for under twelve years. Trials for under thirteen years were that night and the football boots he wore last year were too small. He needed a new pair. I don’t know if it was a flashback to my day when I played rugby league, at a similar age to my grandson, my mind remembered I received a new pair of footie boots. My parents couldn’t afford to buy them. I remember a fellow who worked with my father at the time purchased a pair for me. I was delighted. After some deliberation we visited a shopping centre and forty dollars less in my bank account later, my grandson had a new pair of football boots. He proudly wore them to the trails and afterwards discarded them soon after returning home with a no care attitude. I don’t know if he appreciated my reason for purchasing the boots. I don’t think he did. You see in our day we didn’t have gracious grandparents who splashed out on their grandchildren. My family weren’t poor, however, it was the custom of the day to wear no shirt, no shoes, and have no worries. No one cared how you dressed. Everyone was the same. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had a time machine, like the one Rod Taylor had in the film of the same name, to go back in time and show my grandson how we survived? I would show him when I was his age, I never owned a pair of shoes. To escape from today opulence and take our grandchildren to a time when we were their age would certainly be a lesson of not wanting everything instantly. Would it make a difference? I doubt it somehow. Everywhere we went, except days at school, often even at school, we went barefoot; wore no shirt, and definitely had no worries. We were kids after all living our dream in a country town.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 20:04:20 +0000
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