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Jim McCrory

The One Place Time Stands Still

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Edited by Jim McCrory, Friday, 13 Sept 2024, 07:42

No matter how far we travel, the memories will follow in the baggage car.

                                                                                                 August Strindberg.


 Image provided by https://unsplash.com/@enginakyurt

 

Once upon a time, time began at the moment of the big bang. Don’t try to work that out; that’s what theoretical physicists get paid for.

As soon as the Book of Genesis proclaimed, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth " Time not only began, but continued to move forward. As soon as you read one word here, the moment has gone, never to return. It’s easier to find porchetta at a Bar Mitzvah that move back time.

Fortunately, time refuses to stands still in our head. If I ask you the capital of Scotland, you might say Edinburgh. But if I ask you to describe the last meal you had with family or friends, a film rolls in your head. A captured moment in time.

 

My Captured Moment in Time.

 

As a child, I was brought up in Govan, Glasgow. My friends and I would take the ferry over the River Clyde and eventually find ourselves in the Dowanhill area where Avril Paton’s famous painting was set.

https://avrilpaton.co.uk/prints/windows-in-the-west

I would stare into these homes envious of the happiness that seemed to emanate as I observed get-togethers and cosy chairs with people sitting reading with cats on their lap and children playing board games on a table. Strange, many years later, I had the same sensations when I saw observed winter scene in a Stockholm suburb. I can only conclude that it takes us back to our cosy fairy-tail childhood where logs where on the fire and the family sat around reading and talking. It is a rolling film in my head that only dementia can rob me of.

Writing:  © 2024 Jim McCrory

 


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Jim McCrory

Good Morning Germany! I Like That Word

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Edited by Jim McCrory, Thursday, 12 Sept 2024, 18:01

The mediocre teacher tells. 

The good teacher explains.

 The superior teacher demonstrates.

 The great teacher inspires.”

― William Arthur Ward



Image by https://unsplash.com/@mockupgraphics


When I think of the German word Fingerspitzengefuhl, I think of Mr Abbot, our science teacher at St Gerard's in Govan, Glasgow.

Academics were in 3A. Girls were 3B, and we were in 3C. Whilst 3 A were absorbed into the more scholarly curriculum that included subjects like Latin, French and German, we, 3C focused on technical subjects like metalwork and woodwork. We were the offspring of hard drinking, macho shipbuilders. We were destined for the shipbuilding yards like our fathers and forefathers.

With that in mind, Mr A knew we would never be Nobel Prize Winners in science, so, he taught us to make fishing rods. Every Thursday, with our two periods of science, we would get out the fiberglass, glue and twine, and skilfully make seven-foot fly rods. They were works of art and it engendered self-esteem in us teenagers.

When the project was completed, he would take us all in the minibus over to the Clydebank canal to catch 1-to-3-pound goldfish. Yes, you read correctly: goldfish.

During the war, families could not obtain food for the pet fish, so they did the humane thing and poured them into the canal. The warm water emanating from the nearby Singer Sowing Machine factory allowed the fish to thrive and reach considerable sizes.

Fingerspitzengefuhl (literary finger-feeling) describes someone who has the finger on the pulse. Someone who can assess human nature and bring the best out in them.

Mr Abbott changed our life. Every weekend, Sammy, Tam and I would hop on the bus with our rods and fish in the Barrhead Dams and Loch Libo in Neilston. Many young people in those days adopted a life of gang violence and crime and I often wonder, what if I, we, never  experienced Mr A's Fingerspitzengefuhl?


Writing:  © 2024 Jim McCrory



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