There was a time in life when I thought it was important to “keep up” – with the latest trends, styles, books, movies, what have you.
Lately, I can’t be bothered keeping up with the proverbial Joneses. I’m having enough trouble keeping up with my daughters. In public school I was able to keep up pretty well in the knowledge department, but in high school it was a bit of a strain, what with new developments on all fronts, not to mention the advent of computers since I was young.
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Now that the offspring are in university, I’ve just about given up.
Both of them are studying history.
One is studying the mediaeval period, which I can’t be expected to know much about since even I wasn’t around when the Plantagenets ruled England.
The other one is studying modern history, which I know quite a bit about since what she is studying is what I lived through just a few yesterdays ago – the War Measures Act, the election of John Turner as Liberal Leader, the Hungarian Revolution and the Korean War. A lot of what she calls modern history I called current events.
She has been good enough to use me as a resource for one or two of her papers, but I’ve yet to find out how I was listed in her bibliography.
Then there’s their music. Why is it that one generation always seems to have trouble with the music of the next?
I can remember my father calling some of my favorite songs “noise” and I find myself doing the same to some of theirs.
On our recent holiday in Thunder Bay, my eldest daughter and I wandered downtown to take in a festival called Harbourfest at which a band called Moxy Fruvous was the main attraction.
I had serious doubts when I found not only that everyone at the concert was 20 or younger, but also that I was expected to fold my aging bones onto a wooden platform four rows back from the stage.
It took a while, but once I got used to the pain in my joints and the noise level, I began to enjoy myself. At one point, my daughter, taking pity on her old mother, turned around to suggest we leave.
She found me rocking away with the rest; we stayed through the concert and the encore and I was the first in line for a free postcard.
At home, telling my husband about it, I mentioned rocking with the best of them.
Well, daughter said, as well as mom can rock.
I guess I’ve still got a way to go to keep up with my daughter.
