Things come together eventually

We enter a new month as the old and the new as ever crisscross in my life as one sad thing was the funeral of Karen's father which followed about a year back her mothers, a man most respected by all of us and the wider community of which he was a pillar.

That on top of the loss of Karl's father kind of reminds you of how the bone age is advancing, a point he raised with me the other week when he enquired about my parents who naturally are of a similar age which bearing in mind we were all in the same class in Juniors isn't that surprising

The difference in a way is while they have some traits still from childhood, they're not mentally in grey shorts like me or pinafore dresses in the way some adult little girls may be, not that I'd know and if anything the thing I can say is today more perhaps than ever I've jettisoned much of the thin surface of simulated adulthood for the position of that boy called "sonny" by men and with just as much real say and authority as a ten year old child.

Covid has had lots of effects but for me the bigger one has been to just living more as a boy subservient to adult authority, having to follow the rules no matter what, being overseen, guided and verbally chastised standing in shortened grey shorts by men who are my adult authority figures as a boy of nine or ten who are younger in bone years.

I am more conscious of my emotional age finding my level returned just a boy and yet in such a trying uncertain situation more comfortable  for just doing what grown ups tell me.

Boys own?

One thing I feel is that in general boys do benefit from being educated in an environment where the class is just of boys because the teaching and social education can be better tailored that which boys alone do much better at.

I can recall the difficulties in trying to pick books for a co-ed English Literature class as the class interests divided, very evenly along gender based lines which is why some some schools do have boy or girls only classes for certain subjects

So absorbed in our reading, we fail to notice our mud laden soles probably requiring a spot of chastisement somewhere down the line.