In the year 2050, 1 always presumed life would follow as it had for my grandparents - retire, breed a pack of greyhounds, race them, have the kids up of a weekend for a Sunday roast, then stroll down to the park and watch the steadily rising concrete jungle on the horizon. The evening news would still shock, and yet with each headline trying to outdo the next, my senses would become more dulled, less effected by the bloodshed. There was, however, one thing I vowed would set me apart from my predecessors. It always proved highly amusing indeed to see the subtle, yet poignant expression of agony on Nan's face as I reached for the volume dial when Grinspoon came on the radio. Whilst she was a gem when it came to making an effort to stay abreast of the latest fashions and Hollywood sagas, which I confess captured my own obedient following, music often took second place to B grade chat back radio stations.Good 'ol Nan always had an opinion when it came to pinpointing MP's of dubious behaviour, the dinner table conversation often being devoted to one scandal or another. Pop put in his two bob's worth too, mind you. The funny thing was though, between the two of them, they had an uncanny knack for smelling a crooked player. I sometimes thought it was they who first masterminded the slogan, "Keep the bastards honest!" They would have been squillionaires if they had collected royalties for the amount of times they used that expression. Not that all the money in the world would have changed anything at all. Pop would still spend hours in the shed up the back grooming the dogs and exercising them on the running machine that we used to muck around on when we were kids. Nan would still make the best gravy I've ever tasted and both would retire to faithfully catch Wheel of Fortune on the tele when evening came. If indeed music was to fill the small house where mum and her siblings were raised, it was always Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole. And in my youth, whilst I appreciated each in their own small doses, I could never grasp my grandparents affiliation with the music of old, as I fondly called it.
In retrospect, I suppose I was just as set in my tastes of music in the 90's as were they in the 50's, although I viewed myself as having right to do this because I was a teen. After all, I was supposed to belong and try to fit in, wasn't I? And if that meant throwing myself into a surging mosh pit and crowd surfing to a pulsating beat that rang in my ears for days afterward, then so be it. As with everything though, the novelty of crowd surfing soon wore off for me. It came when I disappeared through the canopy of hands and fell to the darkness below. The forest of legs and crippling humidity zapping my faith in pit hospitality in an instant. As I grappled midst the rally of Doc Martins and army boots, it was the one time in my life I thought I was truly going to die. How ironic that my entire 17 years had come to this. Dying alone, surrounded by thousands of people. This was short lived however, as a strong arm reached down to retrieve my ailing frame. And that was how I met my husband to be. The grand kids still groan when I revisit those good old days. Although I can never understand why, for if it had not been for their grandfathers quick thinking, they wouldn't even be here.
Yes indeed, the kids sure have it different nowadays. Moshing, I'm informed by my 18 year old grandson, is now considered way passe. With a great lack of tact he tells me it went out of fashion yonks ago. Talking just last week he was saying how they now do this thing called spackering, which entails some form of robotic dancing to a synthesised hip hop multi-media light show. Or something along those lines. He said they all drive around in el-bugs. Another fang dangily word referring to those electronic cars which were introduced after the regular car was banned due to lack of powering resources. It broke my heart to see the back of my prized '63 model Volksy Beetle. To be sure, allot of social restructuring took place after the announcement of the complete diminishment of natural resources.
Ultimately, we had no choice but to endure the change as result of our incessant greed. Around the turn of the century it started. I remember the earthquakes, floods, a constant reign of natural disasters. I think it was the earth telling us it was sick, you know? Letting us know that we were destroying it. Giving us a warning. At last people started to take notice. After a lady named Sal Moore became the first female president in about 2015, everything became solar, wind and hydro generated. My grandson was doing a project on the history of our nation not long ago and I think he was quite impressed to know his Nan was around when all this was happening. He said that he wished stuff like that happened these days. Oh, and the music thing, even though I remember vowing to remain 'funky' and up to date with the latest trends, I've found that there are simply somethings one finds comfort in, tunes which bring back memories of the past. I now understand why my own grandparents preferred King Cole to Korn, because it took them back to a time in their life which they wanted to remember. Explaining it to my grandson, I put it simply. I suppose every generation has their own songs, dances, fads and most importantly, stories which bring you back to when you had the time of your life ......
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