I am not sure. By the way, what we are talking about is posting here. Do people read this? Does it matter? I don't know, so I'm going to post verbatim the thing that meant the most to me. you decide.
Back when I worked in the primary school whose playground I still live in, there were only ever at most two men on the staff, one of them was me.
Primary schools are like families. You take on specific roles vis-a-vis other people—mother, husband, wife, father, brother, aunt...
To the kids I was always the slightly-deranged older brother. I had a toy soldier club, I had the best collection of Pokemon cards...if they had troubles they could come to me but when I used the voice and told them to do something it got done.
My relationships with female staff were based on our respective ages, I was old in janny terms even then. Some were my aunts, some my sisters, some my wee sisters—wee sisters who I spoiled.
David was a teacher and David and I were brothers who shared a warped sense of humour. We formed a male support group, our bodies ourselves, dedicated to maintain the masculine, in the face of this monstrous regiment of women. We told the other teachers that we had done so.
We had a catchphrase, "aw o' them?" Which related to a story that David had. He'd been a taxi driver and some other driver had said, "aw women are f^&*((g mad", to which some other taxi driver had replied, "what, aw o' them Rab?"
Actually it wasn't really a catchphrase, it was more of a way of us signaling to each other that we thought that what was being suggested lacked sense. Or a way of trying to get the other to laugh inappropriately.
I remember one christmas [a huge thing in a primary school!], we were doing the christmas decorations [it was a tradition that the entire staff put up the decorations some evening; so that the kids came into a joy the next morning]. I was at the top of a ladder trying to arrange a string of kid-made stars such that mother [the head] was satisfied. David was at the bottom of the ladder feeding me the needful. Julie [I think it was] came over and asked us to do something [I forget what]. The following conversation occurred...
Me: I don't think that's my job
David: Nor mine
Julie: Why not? [tetchy]
David & Me [together]: Because that's women's work
There was general shouting and laughter from all corners of the hall.
David always biked to and from work. I have a fixed mental-image of him doing it; when I saw him I always started thinking about how we could wind people up.
David died of some aggressive cancer a couple of years ago. By the time I found out he was so ill he was refusing visitors, he was in such humiliating pain.
Tonight as I was walking back from the shops dwarmingly realizing that I'd made a stupid mistake in my topology TMA I saw him cycling out of the school. Then I remembered. It was just someone who looked like him.
A striking sadness but a reminder of so, so many joys.I
I wrote this some time ago, it's crap, but I so miss David often, I so miss the people who share my joy-in-life, those people who imagine that we are here, on this earth, to make the best of what we are.
Rather than people who take what other people have from them. Because of their reading of a book. But then I should be aware that I might be wrong about that.
Too.