The Buckets by Greg Cravens for February 05, 2022

One year, long ago, my older brother sent me a birthday card that said “Just think. For thousands of years, our ancestors have been fruitful and multiplied, just to produce YOU!”

[open card]

“Either that or they just liked to be fruitful and multiply.”

I may still have that card packed away in a box.

That dawning awareness of the adolescent that there is nothing new under the sun. Toby hasn’t gotten to an understanding of that yet, but here’s a glimmer of consciousness.

The second half of the revelation doesn’t come until later, when you realise that most of the old folk out there are basically just young folk with high mileage and weathered paint.

Looks like they’re ready for the TED talk about population reduction.

And yet, all you think about is an act of procreation.

A interesting thought process.. it took the survival of everyone of our grandmothers to make me, or you. She lived in caves.. surviving ice ages.. epidemics and floods.. wars and famine.. and as a male, I am just here for the ride while my sister gets to carry on the trend.

The puberty will be strong in this one.

…and when I die, and when I’m gone, there’ll be one more child born to carry on…

We had a family reunion for my grandmothers 88th birthday. There were 130 people there, only family.I was sitting there talking to her when she looked out over the crowd and said “Every one of these people are here because of me.” I said, “yes for your birthday.” She said, “No! Because of me! I had the children that produced all of this!”

No, time to go back to the beginning, maybe we can get it right this time.

I was born into the generation that was going to fix all the problems in the world. When did that pass on to the next generation? And why aren’t they getting on with it?

They may be right considering their love affair with the cell phone……