Oddities

 
I’d seen them before, a twosome usually but sometimes with an addition, walking down the streets of our small town. Strange people I thought, certain too that other normal people would think the same. (I can really be very arrogant in my thoughts at times! Just as well others can’t read them.)

Anyway, the most outstanding of these two was the man. Tall, with a shaven head and two small piercing round eyes looking out from a most pugnacious face. No shirt, or jacket, even on the coldest of days; just a singlet showing off his somewhat skinny chest, narrow hips and long thin legs with great lace-up boots on his feet. His bulk seemed to increase too as he drew nearer. I could feel the animosity that came with him as he approached me. He bristled with it; ominously. And his look, when his eyes met mine, was quite belligerent. The message his look conveyed to me was, Ugh! You pathetic looking wimp. I should squash you with my boot, and watch it, ‘cos I just might!

I would sometimes proffer a timid greeting, given in a casual light-hearted way, in an attempt to inculcate his favour, if there was any favour to incul if you get my drift. Sometimes he answered! Fiercely, with eyebrows furrowed and knit tightly together looking down on me, surprised as if expecting a sudden attack from a pathetic looking wimp who had the audacity to address him. But I could never catch what it was he said as it was forced through clenched teeth. Perhaps it was just as well.

Sometimes I was spared the effort of a greeting as he was busy throwing words over his shoulder at the slight form of femininity trudging behind him. At times I thought he might have been completely stoned. But here’s the thing: he was the same person I had seen as a schoolboy, just a few years’ ago during my years as a teacher. There was a strangeness about him even then, when, despite being dressed as other schoolboys in his uniform he was never lost in the crowd. Something indefinable in his walk, his look, the way he held himself, together with a strange aloofness (bordering on the cloud-nine variety) suggested to me – vaguely – that something was out of kilter somewhere.

How easily I, at times, have thus appraised my fellow men. I wouldn’t say I judged them; more that I was able to assess or sum a person up fairly quickly. Of course I’ve also been wrong at times, and I certainly wasn’t sure in this case.

I saw this man again another time fairly recently, with the slight form of femininity. This time though it was different. This time they walked together, side by side, and he held her hand. And this time, in his other hand, he held a tiny bundle close against his chest. His look was still fierce but it was the fierceness of a man who has fathered a child. And should anyone have dared to challenge him about the baby being his I do believe his very look would have turned them to stone…

For me – and I’m sorry to have to say this, but – for me, I felt something was wrong. The picture just didn’t ring true. His eyes still lacked something; something that I would describe as the light and warmth of true fatherhood. Both of these qualities were missing, and I must confess my heart froze slightly with that realisation. Would what I thought of him as a person be passed on to the child? Wasn’t the pride I saw only there for himself? Was he really a father? Or had he simply supplied the male sperm that fertilised the egg?

Well, down the street they went. A brief and moving picture of three human souls that passed me on the street that day. Of their background, heritage and future fortune, I knew nothing, but I have thought much since then of the small bundle in that man’s arms. What of its life? Would the mother be a mother; the father a father? Would the child experience all that a human father may bestow – of warmth, love and care?

The strange man was there on the street again today, walking with another man (who appeared to be quite normal) and chatting as they walked. And she, the slight form of femininity, was back a pace or two as they walked before. No babe I saw, and I felt concerned by that. As I was about to turn away from the scene, still wondering, my eyes saw that she had stopped, head down, looking at her feet, while the two men walked on a little way. And do you know…the strange man noticed she was not following and he stopped too. Then pausing only a moment, he walked back to her and, placing his arm around her shoulders quite gently it seemed to me, leaned forward and spoke softly to her. They held each other briefly, before holding hands and joining the other, and they continued down the street.

It was then I thought this: could it be that I am the odd one out?

Dennis Crompton © 1995

Walks with my dad

 
A few scenes with my dad are rather special to me. Times when I discovered something about how he felt; things that helped shape the way I see and feel about things today. I was about eight years of age at the time of the following events.

There always seemed to be so very many people in Lune Street, Preston; a busy, bustling street with so much to see and take in. I guess we had gone about a quarter of the way along it when I heard the sounds that roller skates make as they move across flagstones – a sort of click-clack as the wheels cross the join between two stones.

The sound quickly got closer, and suddenly there he was: a man aged about 55 with thin, grey hair, scuttling in between the legs of the passersby whilst seated on a square, padded piece of wood with small metal wheels at each corner. He propelled himself along with the aid of two short sticks, his hands protected by pieces of cloth. Very skillfully he manoeuvred himself around, and was gone as quickly as he had appeared.
There was something else about him, something that only registered in my mind after he had passed by. The man had no legs, just two short stumps also wrapped in pieces of cloth. I was just about to as Dad about him when we came across this next scene.

An elderly man was seated on a box in a doorway to our left. His fingers were moving slowly across the page of a large open book that he held on his knees, and he was talking at the same time. The man was blind, and he was reading from the Bible which was in braille. On the ground at his feet was a cloth cap into which people had thrown a few coins. Dad dropped something into it too as we passed by, and the man paused in his reading to quietly say thank you.

When we had gone a little way down the street I asked Dad what had made the man blind (because Dads are supposed to have the answers to many questions, aren’t they?). “I don’t know, lad,” said Dad as he stopped and looked at me. “But every time I see him there like that, it makes me think how fortunate I am and I thank God that I have my sight.”

Those two encounters have stayed with me all of my life.

Dennis Crompton © 1994

A surprising reversal

We brought nothing into this world and it is certain that we shall carry nothing out of it. However, the bit in between immerses us in many variations. I once watched a plain piece of metal being silver-plated. The process didn’t seem to take long. The piece of metal was lowered into a tank. I saw a few bubbles rise to the surface and when the piece was lifted out it was gleaming with a thin silvery coating. We could liken various stages of life to that kind of process.

In my collection of discarded books from local libraries I have a New Zealand Almanac in which I found several pages of obituaries. For one month there was mention of:

• a chief electoral officer;
• an air vice marshall;
• a chairman of  New Zealand  company;
• a leading horse breeder;
• a paramount (Maori) chief;
• and three others, including a former pilot, a recipient of a heart transplant, and the youngest at 2 1/2 months old was the unsuccessful recipient of a liver transplant.

Those and the rest of the obituaries were for people considered to be of some significance, the kind you’d expect to be there in the Almanac. Because I’m stimulated by thinking outside the square, I wondered then who ought to have been in those pages but were not. For instance, there’s a great deal of hype and ballyhoo surrounding sport today. Fifteen make up a rugby team yet it’s the one who scores the try or kicks the conversion who gets the most recognition. It’s the same in most team sports of course. Everyone can’t be mentioned but surely there could be a more balanced appraisal?

The same applies in the wider field of life. I smile when I recall something said one day by the headmaster of the school I attended from the age of 10. It was winter, the cold was biting into our lightly clad bodies as we were lining up to get into the classroom where it would be warmer. As usual, muscle power or the threat of its use, saw the bigger lads in the front. The headmaster looked at us, his long thin nose red from the cold, sporting a small but distinct dew-drop. “Quiet everyone,” he called. And quiet there was. The boys at the front, now with a perceptible forward lean, poised on their toes ready for their motion into the classroom. But then the headmaster said, “Everyone turn around. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Now, the boy at the back move first and lead the way around into the classroom, and the rest follow him.”

Oh, with what childish delight we, at the back, marched past those bigger lads. When we were settled into the classroom, the headmaster looked at us and said, “If you care to read St Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 19, verse 30, you’ll find the origin of the rule used outside today.” Hes smile was only just outdone by the lads who’d marched past the bigger lads. From that time on, the headmaster kept us guessing as to what he’d come up with next as regards the order of things. It stimulated our thinking no end, and in doing so, he won my admiration and allegiance.

He was an ordinary man. The kind, I like to think, who when it came time for him to leave the stage of life, would have heard the words, “The last shall be first, come on in!” And I reckon that all manner of ordinary people would be close behind him.

Dennis Crompton © 1999

The rent man

We lived in a stone cottage in Preston in the 1930s – two up, two down – and shared an outside loo with the folk next door. So the rent wasn’t much, one shilling a week, but it still had to be found in the days of the Depression.

The rent man was pleasant enough, with a voice that seemed too quiet for such a big chap. He would arrive on his push-bike, remove the cycle clips from the legs of his trousers, then placing them in his raincoat pocket. I thought he had rather big feet, but never said so. He also wore a Trilby hat, “a little ahead of his time,” according to my father, who wore either a flat cap or a bowler, depending on the occasion.

Once inside the house the rent man would remove the rent book from his jacket and open it on the table. Each time he did so, my eyes were taken by the neatness of the columns of figures and signatures in his book. The money was picked up and placed carefully away, then, writing his signature in the rent book and, after a few friendly comments, on would go his hat, his cycle clips, and off he would go.

There were one or two times when he was not able to collect the rent, either that, or we just didn’t have it for him when he came. He never got angry or raised his voice. I’m sure he understood the difficulties we faced as a family. He would just say in his quiet way to my father, “Perhaps next week then, Fred?”

I took the rent to his home on two occasions. His wife opened the door and led me through to the living room. She was rather house-proud; dust dare not settle while she was around and if it did it wasn’t there long. Everything was where it should be but it didn’t seem comfortable to me. I wriggled in my seat, a big, padded armchair. My feet kicked the base and the sound reverberated around the quiet room. The rent man’s wife looked at me and shook her head. It happened again – my feet kicked the base. This time her look was icy. I hated that chair and the house and was glad when I finally left to go home. I felt sad for the rent man to be married to a lady like that – it didn’t seem right to me.

We didn’t have much in the way of padded armchairs and the like, but our rented house was a home and it felt good to be there.

Dennis Crompton © 1997

The man behind the photograph

He was very pleased that he’d followed her advice. The photograph turned out fine. Just the right angle and lighting, with the colouring and setting adding to the dignity. In the best magazine and newspapers too!

A few things had worried him though. He hadn’t altered his hairstyle. Martina, his dear wife, suggested that he should part his hair down the middle. The remembrance of that brought a chuckle bubbling up from his stomach. It felt so good that when the chuckle turned into a laugh, he let it out – at full rip. “Man, that was great!” he murmured, wiping his eyes and seeing his happy, relaxed face reflected in the mirror. He moved up closer and whispered confidentially to the mirror, “You should laugh more often, Reggie.” The imitation of his ‘special friend’ as she’d wiped the lipstick evidence from his cheek after a recent council meeting, was spot on.

As expected, the photograph didn’t please Martina at all. No middle parting of his hair. The shirt he wore was his favourite, not the one she had bought for him at the men’s outfitters her daddy frequented. But the tie, well the tie was the last straw. Martina was furious about that. She left town some weeks’ later – destination unknown.

Her daddy moved in with Gerald, from the men’s outfitters.

As the newly elected mayor, Reggie got together with his special friend to thank her for the recommendations she had made, with regards to the photograph. And for the tie. Yes, of course, the tie!

Dennis Crompton © 2000

Passing time

“Now lad, you don’t want to go wishing your time away. It’ll go fast enough without that.”

That was the comment I got from my father when asked what I was thinking about one day. I must have been wishing it was the next day and then I could…..whatever. Anyway, he’d sown another seed in my mind, and I’ve thought about time ever since, at varying intervals, exploring the whys and wherefores of it all. But it was only a few days ago that I linked my thoughts about time with chance, and it opened up a whole new world of possibilities, which I have found both exciting and depressing.

I mean, I could have been born 4,000-odd years back in time, when man was still a hunter. Perhaps the discovery in 1991 of the Ice Man’s body, high up in the mountains between Austria and Italy, started that train of thought? How I have admired and respected the courage of that man, our unknown ancestor. Where was he from? Where was he going? Why? Who had he left behind? And of course, what did they do when he didn’t return…?

But the most interesting thing for me is this: we and our immediate ancestors reach back as far as that man, and then even further back still. We can link with him. Our bodies may have developed slightly differently since then, but our essential make-up is the same. Our minds may contain more information, but wouldn’t he think as we think? He’d think about what was around the next bend of the river, and over the top of the hill. He’d love and hate, laugh and cry, and wish it was tomorrow, up there alone on that mountain top as it was getting dark. He’d wish that it was light again so that he could resume his journey. And, of course, he’d think about life and death.

We’ll never know his true thoughts, but we do know that the cold, intense and bone-chilling, finally overtook his ability to remain alive. Then he had no time left. When he was found in 1991, his spirit and personality had long since gone; only what was left of his clothing remained. That, and his wonderfully crafted creations of tools and weapons, and the sense of his courageous effort in beginning his journey so many years ago. Time and chance had worked against him.

For all that, he didn’t die in vain, because I’m sure that throughout the world, where people have heard of his story, imaginations have been lit which will set a course for many an adventurous soul. And thus it has been ever since man first walked upright on this earth.

And I think my father was right: we shouldn’t wish our time away.

Dennis Crompton © 1996

Balance

If there is a beginning, then there has to be an end,

that’s logic says the learned man, with a slight nod of his head;

yet that annoying statement leaves too much to be desired

and so throughout the age of man more speculation’s been applied

to the penetrating question of what life is all about.

*

“We’re here today and gone tomorrow,” says the easy-going chap

“My granddad reckons that is so, ’cause he’d been told it when a lad.”

“There ain’t no more to life, so might just as well live it up!”

“No! No!” cries the local vicar, in a pulpit higher than the pews.

“From where I stand I’ll have you know there’s a very different view

there’s the theological question of what life is all about!”

*

Now if I’d had the patience, and been assured by what he’d said,

I’d most likely have agreed with him, as I lay back thinking on my bed;

fact is, I couldn’t stand the way he reckoned he knew best:

confess and get things off my chest, and follow what he said on

the religious set of questions on what life is all about.

*

The world is getting smaller, day by day I know it’s so

for mass communication presents so much more for me to know;

there’s religions, creeds and churches, some good and some that stink

and most that tell me what to do, and just a few that make me think

about the spiritual question of what life is all about.

*

I dreamed last night I’d floated to the space high above the earth

where my view was clear, unimpeded by the happenings below;

there was balance, there was beauty, a harmony of colour and of form

no sign of any discord from the hostilities I’d known, caused by

the all-embracing question of what life is all about.

*

Awaking the next morning, feeling fresh and full of life

I resolved that I’d tell no-one of the things I’d dreamed about;

that I’d simply get on with my life, while life was mine to hold

believing that eventually these things would all work out.

That’s what I think, anyway….is what life is all about.

*

Dennis Crompton © 1995