Part 83
I had a very unexpected emotional experience last night.
In June, as I have mentioned, my wife Hero and I moved from West Sussex to a large retirement complex on the outskirts of Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire.
We had mixed feelings about moving into a place where the youngest age permitted to live here is 55. Looking around, I don’t see too many residents in their fifties. The majority are in their seventies and eighties with many of them whizzing around in their motorized wheelchairs at alarming speeds.
“Wait a minute,” I hear you say, “but you are 85 and Hero nearly 83.” True, but those are just numbers. Virtually everyone here is seriously retired; but to give them credit, they potter around endlessly in the gardens and flower beds that abound on the complex grounds. There are a lot of green fingers amongst them. We have a profusion of wonderfully colorful blossoms surrounding us. It’s quite inspiring seeing some rather bent-over and very deaf elderly lady finding a new lease on life in gardening. There are also all kinds of other activities here, ranging from sewing, water coloring and oil painting, even to carpentry.
I believe I’m about to get roped in to write some skits for their annual pantomime. For American readers, this is a long-held British theater tradition, where a classic fairy tale is rewritten as a slapstick comedy and the principal boy is always played by a girl. The audience is encouraged to sing along and to humorously catcall the performers. It’s all very silly but can be very funny.
Anyway, my emotional moment came about as we were watching a musical evening, which had been a regular feature of the complex until the pandemic struck. This was the first in some months and was attended by at least a hundred of the residents. We all dressed up for the evening and were treated to a simple but surprisingly good dinner before the event.
Then the show started. There were just two people, a husband and wife team of Andy and Sarah Jayne Crust. Andy began with a repertoire of voice impersonations ranging from Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers and Elvis Presley. He was very good and his voice changes to the different singers was amazing.
Hero and I were relaxed and enjoying the evening. Neither of us were obsessive Country and Western music fans, but we both enjoyed many of the hit songs sung last night.
Andy finished his set with a tribute to Elvis by singing a song that had me suddenly and unexpectedly break down in grief. It was the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” For a few moments I could not understand why it had hit me so hard. I’m not American, although I can claim an American great-grandmother, along with my potpourri of nationalities.
I did not, as far as I can remember, participate in the American Civil War. So, what in the hell had pushed a button listening to an Englishman giving a fair rendition of Elvis singing that song?
Then it struck me. I know that the majority of my readers of these blogs are American and I want to put this point across very firmly. You are not alone in dreaming the American Dream!!!
Millions of people all over the world have bought into the concept of America, the Land of the Free – whether it be because of the country’s incredible publicity machines and the constant repetition of phrases like “The Greatest Nation on Earth” or “The world’s most potent fighting force” or the endless reminders that the American Constitution is the finest document ever written to provide a fair and stable government.
As a child along with millions of other children, I would read books of the Wild West. In my particular case, I was entranced by the idea of becoming a lumberjack.
I grew up during the golden age of American ballads sung by such greats as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, even Frankie Laine and many others. Most of these ballads had lyrics that spoke of love and hope and even wonder at the huge opportunities the nation under the Stars and Stripes could provide.
As a child in World War Two England, the American GIs assumed an almost godlike status – creatures from another planet, who chewed gum, drank Coke and talked tough.
In that moment, I even recalled when I first visited the United States in 1982 to film a segment of a documentary about the South African Foundation (mentioned in a previous blog). One of their four international offices was in Washington, D.C. Two things struck me immediately: the splendid buildings and memorials in that city, including the Smithsonian which we filmed as a backdrop to our story; and most of all the intense pride that Americans had in their capital and their nation.
On another occasion, I was in Clearwater, Florida, over Christmas and was fascinated by the Christmas lights, illuminated sleighs and reindeer that lit up the streets, along with so many Stars and Stripes – once again aligning the US with all things good and bountiful.
I’m sure you can guess why I cried last night. No matter what your politics or beliefs, you surely cannot ignore the terrible implosion of all those great values that have been the envy of the world for generations. America’s tragic loss of confidence, of decision-making by its leaders and its imminent plunge from its pedestal to the depths of just another country in trouble, these are shattering thoughts for so many across the globe.
As a species, we rely upon hope to pull us through the darkest days. We constantly reach for dreams of a better world. When the role model of humankind’s efforts to build this utopia starts to totter, we on a remote island on the other side of the Atlantic are also deeply affected.
The singing of “Glory, glory Hallelujah” by Andy, cleverly impersonating Elvis representing the American Dream, just hit me in the gut. I once managed a tour of Elvis Presley movies in cinemas around South Africa and became acutely aware of the singer’s rise and fall culminating in early death from drugs and general abuse. It suddenly seemed to me to be an analogy of the American nation rising to unheard of heights and then decaying to the point where her very foundations are now in doubt.
Being the eternal optimist, by the second half of the show last night I had recovered and consoled myself with the fact that there are still so many people of good will and good intentions in the US. I truly believe that a turning point can still occur and the nation will say “Enough.”
Once again, it reminds me of what we are so close to achieving with ExoTech. In this wonderful fresh and uncluttered look at computing, we are going to offer a real alternative to the current murky world of fake news and distortions posing as facts.
It may only be one facet of a society that has lost its way but it’s a major one. ExoBrainers and the wonderful ExoTechnology can and will secure a toehold on a truly new and better world that others will then have the confidence to build upon.
So, ignore the darkness. I watched the second half of the show with a lovely impersonation in full costume of Dolly Parton (Sarah Jayne) and Kenny Rogers (Andy Crust) and looked around to see a large number of the audience in their golden years, getting up and dancing cheek to cheek, with joy of past memories in their eyes. I could see Hero beside me moving to the music. So, putting my sadness aside, I rose up on my two left feet and did my best to accompany my wife, a superb dancer in her day, as we rejoiced in moments past, with the growing confidence that there can still be a wondrous future ahead!
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.