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.
Read Also
Downturn in grain farm economics threatens to be long term
We might look back at this fall as the turning point in grain farm economics — the point where making money became really difficult.
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.
