Hello, hello

 

Hello, hello ©

By

Michael Casey

 

This will be the last piece  to go into 2020 Words, which will have me in a “mask” on the cover, we are in Year of The Covid after all. Trump hopefully will exit stage right, far right. And we will never see him again. He has corrupted everything he has touched, and now we have Georgia on my Mind.

I always have a title and then away I go, so I had a title for this and I knew the spots to join and where it would take me, and you. However I get loads of ideas, so this will be a 3^rd idea, and we’ll see together where I go. I’ve been in pain from my back for a month now, but at least I can walk about the house. I have not been down the hill or out of the house for a month. Yes, I have to avoid Covid 19, what with my health record, but I just would not have been able to go anywhere such is/was the pain. Anyway I discovered an old “Flasher Mac” in my wardrobe, and I’m using it as a walking duvet, and it’s really warm, though I would not wear the “Flasher Mac” outside. I recycle everything, always have done for 50 years and more, so it makes me smile when folks lecture, have they new been poor? Do they have no imagination? Don’t throw-away, use again, or give away, or the mean sell  you their S*&%, to paraphrase my  dad, or to be exact, people are so mean they wouldn’t sell you their S*&%.

 

What’s that got to do with anything? Well I’m forming an idea as I write, make it up as I go along, but I do have an enormous reservoir, so I just tap it. My dad I remember used to say Hello Dear, how are you? Only a father of six can say that, without it being misconstrued, one uncle a farmer user to say, Hello Michael my darling young man as he slapped my knee in a bar, he was a father of five by the way. So a Hello, really does make a difference. I myself in my hotel days, Crowne Plaza Birmingham NEC, 2002 to 2005, I used to boom hello at everybody. I was like a puppy dog welcoming everybody. And I was told by the guests I was the best thing in the hotel, I’ll allow myself to reveal the truth, no flasher mac included, now that it’s so long ago. And yes it was the most Welcoming of Hotels.

 

Down the hill, I enjoy saying hello when I do go to the shops, and old Annie up the road from our house says she goes down for the company, she is 80 plus now. It is all these little social interactions which form the chattering cement of our society, and yes I  coined that phrase in 1987 when I first wrote The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, just in case anybody wants to call me a thief of words. Chattering cement binds us, and in the old days in the butcher’s there as a chair to sit on for any weary customer, and that too is in my comic novel. Maybe it’s because of the style, the ordinary people that it’s read in translation, up to 10 different languages on the same day, and I have readers in 80 countries now. It is the universality of things that make them popular, though I may be dead before any recognition comes. So long as my daughters read all my files, then they have part of me with them forever.

 

People say  hello, and  fat farty Frank is missed because his echo was not there one day. I didn’t reach for the air freshener today, why’s that? Has anybody seen Frank, you mean fat farty Frank. No, I was wondering why I did not have to open a window. Now that was option 2 of a story I could have written, but instead you are getting option 3, as a test you can write a one page story for yourselves, then translate it into English for Queens, not that Marg, ever reads my stuff, Marg stands for butter,  or is it Majesty. I’d tell anybody to kiss my a*&^ if they wanted to be called Majesty. You can make a stink about that, and yes fat farty Frank had fallen downstairs, but the shopkeepers came and found him. Just as in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker the shopkeepers save the day, and the life of a child, you can read the book for  yourselves via my wordpress https://michaelgcaseyfrombirminghamengland.wordpress.com/ 

or even buy my original English on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

 

So why is a hello so important? It means we recognise each other, we notice each other, we are not a company of strangers. StatMR where in 1978 I started in computers, market research into alcohol sales,  yes really. It was renown as a company of friends, people did not want to go home, and such was nature of the work it involved long long hours. I could list all the names, but they know who they are, I’ll just say hello to Gill with a G, because I liked what she said about my writing, I lead people up the garden path.

 

So this Covid 19, 2020 year, has brought some of us to our knees, but on your knees can be a very interesting position. I could list what I mean, but some of you are ahead of me, so I’ll just leave it there as Gill slaps me. I was talking about tying up my shoelaces, it’s all in your mind, on y soit qui mal y pense. Now make way at the bar, StatsMR are here to do their after work, market research into alcohol. So you say hello to them as I say good bye to Covid 19.