Good Will Hunting Again

I just watched Good Will Hunting on tv, I'd seen it before. I do in fact have a few cousins in Boston, one is a cop. 

Anyways this time it got me thinking about my grammar school days back in 1970. WE had one lad who was just like the star of Good Will Hunting, his name was RP he had brains to burn as they say in Ireland. Unfortunately he had a deformed back, Esmerelda and the bells were no doubt said by us, though I never actually remember hearing it. RP was especially great at Maths and Sciences, years later at a school reunion, thanks to physio he was alright. He was writing computer games somewhere. God Bless him I say now and I said then.

All this brings to mind just how great God and genetics really is. As I've mentioned in other blogs things can run in families, maths or music or painting or writing, good looks or lack of them. Then every now and then Nature can play a binder. Look at the Mozarts of the world. Remember the film Amedeus, I can remember looking back and seeing 2 people crying in the audience at the old Futurist cinema in Birmingham. So why are these geniuses thrown up. Is it  God saying, just when you lot thought you knew everything I throw a googlie or a curve ball, or whatever sporting metaphor you care to choose, or does God bend it like Beckham.

I think it is for a reason. Perhaps to make us Mankind humble, to make us realise we don't really know much after all, we may have jumped of the 3rd rock from the sun and had a day trip to the moon, but really we are all still chimps banging two rocks together to make a fire.

Great Art, such as the Cistine Chapel the very sparks of Creation and of Intelligence now this  does show us many things. A cow grazing  on green green grass, giving us milk which really is a great invention,now that's something we all overlook.

Life really is a great invention, junkies think they see great things when they shoot up, but I'm sure God can take their hand and lead them to a beautiful garden and from there they can see the movement of the spheres, see planets form and reform, see erupting super novas. All of God's creation, then finally we are all shown a mirror and we see ourselves, our so small selves. It is only be having Mozarts that we can aspire to be better than being chimps on a rock hurdling though space and time. Can you hear the music? 

My Daddy's like Google he knows everything

My Daddy’s like Google he knows everything ©

By Michael Casey

My kids were in London today for a day out  with my wife and one of her friends. Me I stayed home I’d picked up some bug last night , so I nursed my bug.

The girls were all excited when they came home and my smallest one was telling a story. It began with a box fell from the sky, but it was no ordinary box, it was a magic box.  So I told her to keep the idea in her head and she could write it out in the morning, it was late now. Her bigger sister observed that when she wrote she wrote all posh, but when she talked she did not. I then tried to explain the difference between :- speaking, writing, presenting, teaching. Some people may be able to do one but this does not prove/equate to being able to do another. Then my smallest let loose with the line that I was Google and should be a teacher and that I should write kids books. I’ll do anything IF somebody sponsors me, or becomes my patron, though in my case it would be Saint Rita or Saint Jude themselves who’d help. Thinking back to 1969 I did win a Junior Free Handwriting Competition, I have the certificate somewhere, Brook Bond sponsored it, I’d forgotten about it till just now.

Daddy, any daddy has to try and be an encyclopaedia to give his kids some information, in some SciFi film  or it may have been in Dr Who I saw a battered Robot became the teacher, with holograms too. If only I could be some sort of magician, then that would be swell as the Americans say, card tricks with lessons on, slight of hand passing messages of learning. I am award that I have to try hard and give good information out, otherwise 1984 becomes a reality, rubbish becomes fact, and facts become rubbish. There are more questions than answers, luckily I’m very eclectic so I can give a base camp answer, then watch as their minds click and you can see from their expression, from the look in their eyes that they understand and they can begin to work things out for themselves or just have a look online.  The main thing though is that Daddy, this daddy, me, encourages his girls to use their brains.
The cobwebs may grow IF I didn’t have children asking this and asking that. In a couple of years time my biggest daughter can read my book, it’s a 12 certificate so although she’s seen it she’ll just have to wait for the dubious honour of reading daddy’s The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker.

Where do the tears go when they are shed?

Where do the tears go when they are shed ©
By
Michael Casey

Where do the tears go when they are shed
While I lie here crying on my bed
Do the tears drip drip away and seep though
The  floorboards and head for the sea.
Do my tears join an ocean that rises and falls
Do the tears yell and scream but only sea farers
Hear them, do whales moan as they crash through them
Only whales know of my distress as my tears groan
In deep deep oceans in the unknown dark deep seas.

Do my tears head north to the North Pole and Santa
Does Santa Ho Ho Ho so much because he is trying to drown out
The cries and sobs and tears held back for so many years.
Do tears form ice shelves and become icebergs, silent and majestic
Like giant cathedrals of ice. Is this the way to silent the voice of tears.
Frozen in Time for 100s of years, the fears of today and yesterday are merged
As one, gagged for eternity in an ice cathedral.
Will everything be forgot, deep freezed, quick frozen like garden peas.

Do my tears evaporate and head for the sky, joining the clouds as they pass by.
Are my tears blown this way and that, are they taken far away over the ocean.
As planes pass through the clouds that are my tears, can the passengers hear
Can the passengers hear my tears, all my hopes and fears, or are my tears
Drowned out by the in flight movie, 007 killing my prayers to heaven.

Do my tears wash away my pain, my guilt, are they like mothers’ milk?
For tears touch us all, they are like a morning mist that shrouds us.
For tears are the dark dark night of the soul, a cold coat that covers us.
In the morning we remember we fell asleep crying, but what of now?
Now we’ve looked at our dead mum’s photo and think of what she would have said.
We smile as we remember, her fight, her love, her spirit, her smile.
But never tears, she shed no tears for us, she shed no tears for us.
Tears will come, tears will come again, but they are just water, we are stronger
Than mere water, we have a boat and that boat is Love.

p.s. I stumbled over this poem on my PC so  I hope you like it. We were at a wedding a few weeks ago, that's us in the photos

Its Just Got to be Winnie The Pooh

Its Just Got to be Winnie The Pooh. My youngest daughter just loves Winnie The Pooh, my wife thinks its because I look like Winnie The Pooh, judge for yourselves.

We have a collection of soft toys tidied away behind the settee, about 40 I think. Every now and then my small daughter lines them up in rows and she's the teacher. Winnie The Pooh is always 1st in the queue. Then she takes the register and tells the toys to pay attention. Then she reads to them, everything is done in an orderly way. I think she'll end up a scientist as she's so organised, my wife did Science back in Shanghai, so its in the genes. Her Chinese grandfather did a bit of writing too, as did her Chinese great uncle, and then there is me www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com , so writing is in the blood too. Does anybody remember Abbott the Physics text book? That just sprung to mind, we were told to read it cover to cover, my brother actually did do that.

So back to Winnie The Pooh, I'm being told that she wants a Winnie The Pooh lunchbox, she just saw it in the Netto leaflet that came through our door. Then another leaflet had a Winnie The Pooh duvet and duvet cover. I did buy her a Winnie The Pooh blow up cushion but that delevoped a slow leak, so I stuffed Winnie the Pooh with a few old pillows, and she was able to continue sitting on it. We have Winnie The Pooh dvds and some old VHS tapes too, and a few days ago we bought her a Winnie The Pooh cutlery set along with a face cloth. So thats just the tip of a big iceberg, she has a white Tigger thats not really Tigger but he does look like a very very pale snow Tigger. When she grows up we will tease her about this. But I know one day a chubby cuddly man will ask my permission to marry her, perhaps his name will be Christopher Robin.

The Best Days Of Our Lives

The Best Years Of Our Lives ©

By

Michael Casey

They say that the best years of our lives are our schooldays.

Maybe its true, but we are all too busy doing the homework, or suffering Latin homework. I can vouch for Latin in Grammar school, it’s a form of torture, but it does help your vocabulary, and it does make you persevere.

I suppose Uni is the best days of your lives too, until you get the bill. And realise that nobody rates a degree any more because everybody has one so the currency is devalued. 3 years experience doing something while you did you degree in film studies. So the experienced one gets the job.

Getting married and setting up home, are they the best years of our lives? 

Then the first baby and the lack of sleep, learning to catch and throw dirty nappies out the house, just like a wicket keeper. 

Finally getting your book published. Getting a few plays on the stage, having a column in The Sun and The Telegraph, would these be the best days of our lives. www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com 

Or is it the old days, when your life is in part 2, when the grave can be seen in the distance, it may be 50years away but you’ve have the 1st 50 years so you are on the slide to the grave. With experience and love your view of life has changed, you have a young family, but you know how to love them. You can feel it in the air, you can see it in the garden, you can hear the children’s laughter, you can enjoy a glass or two, but you are at Peace, that’s when you have reached The Best Days Of Your Life.

Michael Casey

The Lambs are Silent

The Lambs have gone its Silent, my girls are in London today, my wife took them there. So I'm home alone, and its so silent.

"Dad, what does xyz mean" asks my big daughter, but she's not here,

I explain and tell her to use one of the dictionaries  we have.  I want her to be able to find out answers herself. When you explain things you find that you try and be so exact so that you don't confuse your kids. It probably makes me think more clearly too.

This morning my smallest girl put a Tamagatu purple cat on the desk, she said it would keep me company while they were away.  Its still on the desk besides me as I talk to you. My old copy of Don Camillo's Dilemma is there too, I've read 50pages just 200 more to go, then its Don Camillo meets the Hells Angels, then I'm done, 6 books all about a Catholic priest and a Communist Lord Mayor. The stories were 1st written over 50 years ago, I know no Italian so I read them in English translation. I was actually going to learn Italian several years ago, only I got  distracted by this Shanghai girl, I married her, you can see some photos of us all on this site, we were at a wedding a few days ago. I'm the George Clooney look alike in the photos, though my hair looks as though I've washed it in DAZ. Our 2 girls are there too, along with the wife, not forgetting the Bride and Groom. As for Italian, I put the books in an old holdall and put that under my bed, years later my nephew was learning Italian, so I donated everything to him.

You could hear a pin drop in the house, its so silent, and yes I hate it. All I have is the pain from tearing down the fence, its sharp and makes me wince a bit, but aren't we all stupid sometimes, or is it just me who's cornered the market. I look to my right and can hear the clock ticking, its a battery powered but still I can hear it. No small girls running about in the room above me. No Blick DAB radio blaring out Galaxy on their radio above. The clock in the living room strikes nine, my girls should be getting on the train home now. London Euston to Birmingham, 28pounds for the 3 of them with Virgin trains, see the offers for yourself. I can hear the boiler click into action, heating the water for baths on their return. The computer hums in front of me, just by my knee. I hope I win the HP Envy 17 laptop in this weeks Sun's competitions, our computer is 7 years old and freezes a lot. The irony is I joined the MySUN site so I could enter the competitions, and then I stumbled into putting my blogs here on MySun. The sound of the keyboard echoes around our empty house.

I jump in my seat, the telephone has just exploded, my wife has just rung to say they missed the train. Only she was teasing, I can hear our kids in the background on the train. So all is well, but too too quiet. I know one thing I could never live alone. Tomorrow the kids will want Tux Paint on the computer, or want to use the Graphic Tablet on the computer. There will be noise galore, a family noise, the noise I prayed for all those years ago.

Cheerio from Birmingham and London Euston

www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com  

Take My Fence Away

Take my Fence Away ©

By 

Michael Casey

Well just for something different today I took my fence away. The day had started noisily when a courier nearly knocked my door down, and it wasn’t even my parcel.

So wishing him well I closed my door. Half an hour later a polite knocker knocked at my door. “Sorry for disturbing you” he began “yes you are disturbing me” I finished as I closed the door. I don’t know about you but I just wish cold callers didn’t bother. Or they all got a disease and took the Junk Email writers with them, a kind of modern plague, where the skeletons decayed over computers. But perhaps I’m being too mean today.

As for my fence, we have a rickety old one on one side next to the entry, its  parallel supports with boards nailed alternately  on the inside and on the outside. However with age it’s developed a stoop, or backward lunge, a kind of limbo dancing look.

The alley  is kind of blocked because of this, but nobody uses it but me, however I decided it was getting dangerous, so the fence had to go. Just in case. So I leant on the fence and it creaked and groaned, not unless that was my back. 3 sections gave way, the supporting posts had had it for years. Then all I had to do was saw the last bit away. Only I don’t have a saw, but I do have a metal saw ,or rather just the blade which was part of the tools I inherited 30 years ago. They gather dust mainly as I am not a DIY kind of person. I can work out what needs to be done, but as for doing it, I leave that to the experts. I once tried painting a wall, only it took gallons of paint, the wall was covered in a  wallpaper that was just like carpet, so it just soaked up the paint, a bit like painting a bear I suppose, not that I’ve ever tried painting a bear.

But back to the fence, finally I’d sawn away the last support and I had a kind of woodern  ladder in my entry. All I had to do was heave it to the rubbish area at the bottom of my garden. I had to jump up and down to break it up, I had to be very careful too as there were 6 inch nails all over it. Rusty nails but still dangerous, apart  from the one I nearly stabbed my chest with, everybody must have done similar such things. Did I ever tell you when I painted my bathroom.  It’s on my site somewhere

www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com Michael’s Bathroom. But back to the fence, I was triumphant when I was finished, then the washing line broke, my bright orange Polo top with a polo scene on it  went sailing to the ground along with my jeans. Another task for me. 

Over the road in the hardware store I got a plastic washing line, £4.50 I was robbed.

I also bought some green twine, £1.60, I had an idea you see. Once home I got my biggest daughter to hold the end while I tied it to the tree and then to the peg in the wall. I didn’t realise just how long 20m is, so I was able to have 2 new plastic washing lines. This is good in the long run as I live with 3 girls, if only I had another bathroom, but I need a lottery win before that happens, or Rupert Murdoch sees this and gives me a job. Hold on a second while I watch a pig fly past.

So now I had a new washing line, all I needed was a new fence. That’s where the twine comes in. I called my girls outside, together we ran up and down the yard tying the twine to what was left of the supporting posts. A kind of net, a bit like the net at Wimbledon was formed. Straight lines then vertical lines in between, plus some coloured paper to make it more attractive. My big daughter has done crochet at school so she was well pleased with her efforts. My wife said it looked like prison bars but she just has no imagination said me and the girls. We hope small birds will rest on the top line and sing to us. It was a fun hour or so, apart from the twinge in my back, the fence was heavy after all. I forgot one thing, I wanted to teach the girls about Gravity, so I shook the Apple Tree at the bottom of the garden and they watched the apples fall, Newton remembered. Then they gathered a few apples and pretended to cook them, the apples were bobbing in a container, Archimedes came to mind so I mentioned him to them. All in all an educational Summers Day