Frustration

Include the line ‘I don’t understand’, or ‘I should’ve known’, in your story.

IGNORANCE IS BLISS(“No it’s not, it ‘sucks”!)

When I was a young kid(“not a baby goat”!), my education began at primary school, and the playground was segregated(“the boys had their half, and the girls had the other half”!) but nobody told me, although I did wonder why all of the girls were hoarded into one particular half, and the boys had their own particular half!

Why could this be though? Were the boys that bad? The majority of us washed, “although I did wonder about some boys sometimes”, and I wondered what they had washed in(“in the farmers water trough by the smell of them, but the process of both, wondering and thinking, was too tiresome and boring, especially for my little playful brain!

I was talking to a small and pretty blonde girl, who was standing on the halfway mark of the playground, and with a humorous taunt the little blonde girl provoked me enough to run after her, and so I did! She lured me into the forbidden land- “or the restricted area for the boys to be in”, but I continued to innocently chase her around the playground, oblivious to this ruling, and I continued with my run, across the newly laid black tarmac, and it would, inevitably be, the cause of many badly scuffed legs and arms, and ‘I reckon that that playground tarmac, had more blood types in it, than there were in a blood-bank!

Unbeknown to me, the law of this separation system still remained, and it was strictly boys in one half, and the girls had control of the other half, but, under no circumstances, were the boys allowed to mix with the girls, and this ridiculous rule would mean that the young boys couldn’t ‘mingle’ with the girls, but I dared to cross this big and bold central white line, and ‘heaven forbid, that going to Primary school should involve any form of fun, especially for a five year old, and my rebel behaviour did not go unnoticed, the other girls all stopped and stared at me, not because of my bravado, or my tough rebellious behaviour, but because they saw the teacher quietly, but quickly, ‘closing in on me’, and I was oblivious to her thundering footsteps, and I continued to chase this little blonde girl around the playground, not conscious of any ‘such’ ruling, but she was deliberately slowing down just before ‘the white line’, which indicated the ending of the girls half of the playground, and she was aware that I had been lured into forbidden territory, and she had remembered the girl and boy separation ruling, and as I caught up with her, I noticed that all of the other children were staring at me, as though I was partly naked, except for some ‘Barbie doll underpants ‘maybe’? All of the young girls were stunned by my presence ‘in their half’ of the playground, and obviously my dashing good looks were too overwhelming for them? “Not so”! I had dared to cross into the girls ‘half’ of the playground, and all of the other girls were like gazelles, watching a naughty lion, who was about to be dealt with by the wardens, or the teachers ‘in this instance’, and I was that naughty lion!

The girls all froze, as I heard the weight of this teachers heavy footsteps, that were running behind and towards me, and before I could even look around to see who it was, I received the hardest slap on my backside, that I had ever had, and then again on my legs- my ‘bare thighs’, and the pain and noise was increased because I was wearing shorts, and the slap was so hard, that my thighs featured a bright red handprint, that was very clearly on both of my legs, the handprints looked unusually large to me, and they could have belonged to a Sasquatch for all I knew!

Anyway, I never forgot that ruling, which would only last for one term, before common sense prevailed, and modernisation had begun, but this memory would haunt me for decades!

‘Corporal punishment’ was, ‘very much’, do as you like in ‘my day’! A clip around the ear, a smack across the back of the head, a ruler slapped across the tips of your cold fingers, as you voluntarily held your shaky hands out(“ordered to, by a verbally aggressive teacher”!) and everyone feared the threat of receiving ‘The big one’, the King of all school punishments, the fear from the wooden bendy stick, that was otherwise known as ‘the cane’, and it may also be known as ‘The Baboon Maker’, because it would leave you with a red and swollen arse, and you would be reduced to walking around in a shameful slouch, and with your sunken shoulders you might make a similar noise to a baboon, after you’ve been issued with it!

“I never received the cane, because I was never

that bad”,

or was it because, I had a tall and fearsome Dad”?

“I don’t understand why War continues still today,

will we ever be civilised, and are guns and bullets

here to stay”!?

“I don’t understand politics, some science’s, or the

offside rule,

and I don’t understand why a classroom, always

has a classroom fool”!

“I don’t understand why men want to be shut

inside,

and locked in a cell that’s only 10 feet wide”!

“I don’t understand society, and sometimes I just

despair,

but I don’t indulge in ‘self-harm’, nor do I pull out

chunks of hair”!

There will be many things that I’ll never understand, like War!

A political leader might desire another Country ‘say’, but he seems to want to blow it to smithereens first, which will make that land undesirable, and with the possibility of not gaining any additional funds to restore it to its former glory, they could have a big expense on their hands, and that might result with you saying “I don’t understand”?

The billions of dollars that a War may cost, would be better spent on trying to heal their sick, improve the lives for their people, improve medical buildings and services, etc, etc! “I know that will never happen, because War and conflict has existed for thousands of years, along with that attitude, and fighting is the World’s illness, but it’s sadly a necessity sometimes, and if a Country couldn’t defend itself adequately, then it exposes itself to attack, and a possible dictatorship”!

So, I don’t understand, and I’ll never understand,

the ever changing political matters,

“but don’t spend money on War, when homes are

left in tatters”!

“But if you send brave men to fight, please

protect their lives,

along with their children, and their loving

wives”!