Looking after each other as Boys

 While the international picture is a matter of considerable concern my thoughts are more centred elsewhere.

It's not the most comfortable thing to say but as men and boys we struggle with emotions, some coming close to denying whole areas of them unless deemed to be "manly" they are experiencing, that are actually affecting how and why they are behaving at that moment.

We do experience trauma and loss that as much as we don't wish for any soppy stuff is affecting our actions and relationships.

We "shut down", we become unusually irritable, uncooperative or even angry because we are affected as much as we're trying to kid everybody we are not having not processed our feelings.

Yelling "Get Over It" really is nothing like the answer because we just haven't as anyone whose been through PTSD will tell you.

We need to learn to accept help and be the help for our mates who may be struggling with issues.

Getting proper started

It is a pretty warm week having been out without even a coat on enjoying the fresh air between keeping an eye on our Forum which as own falls down to me as the person who is held by the host to be in charge of it.

We do see a far bit of talk around the differences in school type uniform from the days we saw it first time around to todays.

One area tends to be around wearing dress shirts and ties  as some schools usually combined infant and juniors have ditched them for school polo shirts and yet others have reverted to old school shirt and tie even if it's a clip on tie rather than the sort you tied yourself.

The other thing is the perennial shorts lengths discussion give how many school where shorts still are an option tend to be just above the knee  where for many of us they were appreciably shorter and always worn with long usually turn over socks.  

This summer Japanese Uniform isn't a a bad compromise keeping shirt and tie in even if the shirt is short sleeved and sleeveless jersey with logo.

What caught me eye were the sensibly short short trousers for comfort and plenty opportunities for fresh air and sun on your legs and the medium length socks that are more flattering than ankle socks.

For the modern touches it is very much in touch with spirit of traditional school boys uniform.

Somehow there seems to be a dirth of traditional comic type adventure stories for boys of the sort we loved to read and I really don't see that modern boys at the core are that much different even if the publish companies seem to be very PC.

Of course it isn't all helped by the battle for space in newsagents and the trend since the 90's for tv and cartoon based tie in publications.

There just has to be a way of getting such material out to a potential audience.