To recognise oneself to be so repugnant to society is an acknowledgement that can shatter your very soul. We don’t often get the chance to start again.
So where was I to go from here? Zachariah was fading before my eyes, yet I knew that he was more a part of me then than ever he had been before. Strength brewed within me, bubbling and fermenting. My own frailty ebbed. Clarity clattered into my thoughts and brought about a satori, an enlightenment, if you will.
It was time to make a difference.
I had to begin at the beginning.
Instantly, I knew that I had to find some children. Sometimes you just know these things. Don’t make me explain it.
I looked at Zachariah, slumped as he was against the wall, and decided to leave him there. I would come back for him, of course, in due time. But for now, I had to concentrate solely on myself. This predicament I was in was mine alone to solve. As I crawled out into the daylight, the sun flooded into my soul. I felt inebriated, drunk on nature and willing to receive all that came into my presence. But I absolutely had to find some children. I was in that groove.
But isn’t that just the way? You clamber out of a hole in the ground all set to look for a child and the first thing you come across is an old woman patting a donkey. It’s happened to me more times than I can remember.
“Hello, dear,” said the old woman. “Would you like to pat my donkey?”
I smiled and patted her donkey. The only advice I would ever dare to give anybody is that if you come across an old woman and she asks you to pat her donkey, just go ahead and pat it. What’s the sense in not doing it?
I was here to learn and learn I would. I was blazing inside, just ready to go, go, go. Alive, alive, alive. Be-bop-a-lu-la. Woo hoo! Don’t stop me now! The music was with me and there was not a Beatle in sight. I was the drums and I was the bass. I was Levon Helm and Rick Danko, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, The Mighty Max Weinberg and Garry W Tallent. You don’t need any more than that. Not when your mind is falling apart. Come on!
The sun shone high and the sky was blue, blue, blue. Where this newfound energy within me had come from, I knew not. The only thing that made sense was to keep on keeping on until somebody stopped me. Were I not fifty years old, I’m sure I would have forsaken my lumbering gait for a sprightly skip.
I wandered down to the field where they had held Tollesfest in 2005. Ah, Tollesfest. It had been a mad mini-bus ride from The King’s Head, bales of hay, rock and roll, children hurtling around, drunkenness, drunkenness and the stars in the night sky lighting up the way back home. It was olden times and it was pure and it was absolutely beyond the law. May every town and every village have a Tollesfest. And may it be the benchmark for what is right in this world. Amen.
And in that field where once I had seen ramshackle bands and drunks and burgers strewn like fallen heroes, there now was a sight which I must describe for you. A barn strode the horizon, all wooden planks and age and sprouting hay as if it were hair. It was surely creaking a greeting as I approached it. How long it had stood there, I knew not, but there was one thing I felt to my bones - I was meant to be there and something momentous did portend. Never before had I felt so drawn.
As a friend of mine once said, “you can lead a lunatic to the clinic but you can’t make him take his medication.” He had been wrong, but then haven’t we all at some time or another?
Well, well, well.
So I stood there, the barn some twenty yards from me. As I stared at it, I felt as though everything behind me had been painted out of the picture. There was just me, the Tollesfest field and this barn. The sky dangled above me, just the sparse clouds keeping it from crashing right down and splintering across this land. The air was so clear and every line beautifully crafted. And the one smell that pervaded all was that of
So where was I to go from here? Zachariah was fading before my eyes, yet I knew that he was more a part of me then than ever he had been before. Strength brewed within me, bubbling and fermenting. My own frailty ebbed. Clarity clattered into my thoughts and brought about a satori, an enlightenment, if you will.
It was time to make a difference.
I had to begin at the beginning.
Instantly, I knew that I had to find some children. Sometimes you just know these things. Don’t make me explain it.
I looked at Zachariah, slumped as he was against the wall, and decided to leave him there. I would come back for him, of course, in due time. But for now, I had to concentrate solely on myself. This predicament I was in was mine alone to solve. As I crawled out into the daylight, the sun flooded into my soul. I felt inebriated, drunk on nature and willing to receive all that came into my presence. But I absolutely had to find some children. I was in that groove.
But isn’t that just the way? You clamber out of a hole in the ground all set to look for a child and the first thing you come across is an old woman patting a donkey. It’s happened to me more times than I can remember.
“Hello, dear,” said the old woman. “Would you like to pat my donkey?”
I smiled and patted her donkey. The only advice I would ever dare to give anybody is that if you come across an old woman and she asks you to pat her donkey, just go ahead and pat it. What’s the sense in not doing it?
I was here to learn and learn I would. I was blazing inside, just ready to go, go, go. Alive, alive, alive. Be-bop-a-lu-la. Woo hoo! Don’t stop me now! The music was with me and there was not a Beatle in sight. I was the drums and I was the bass. I was Levon Helm and Rick Danko, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, The Mighty Max Weinberg and Garry W Tallent. You don’t need any more than that. Not when your mind is falling apart. Come on!
The sun shone high and the sky was blue, blue, blue. Where this newfound energy within me had come from, I knew not. The only thing that made sense was to keep on keeping on until somebody stopped me. Were I not fifty years old, I’m sure I would have forsaken my lumbering gait for a sprightly skip.
I wandered down to the field where they had held Tollesfest in 2005. Ah, Tollesfest. It had been a mad mini-bus ride from The King’s Head, bales of hay, rock and roll, children hurtling around, drunkenness, drunkenness and the stars in the night sky lighting up the way back home. It was olden times and it was pure and it was absolutely beyond the law. May every town and every village have a Tollesfest. And may it be the benchmark for what is right in this world. Amen.
And in that field where once I had seen ramshackle bands and drunks and burgers strewn like fallen heroes, there now was a sight which I must describe for you. A barn strode the horizon, all wooden planks and age and sprouting hay as if it were hair. It was surely creaking a greeting as I approached it. How long it had stood there, I knew not, but there was one thing I felt to my bones - I was meant to be there and something momentous did portend. Never before had I felt so drawn.
As a friend of mine once said, “you can lead a lunatic to the clinic but you can’t make him take his medication.” He had been wrong, but then haven’t we all at some time or another?
Well, well, well.
So I stood there, the barn some twenty yards from me. As I stared at it, I felt as though everything behind me had been painted out of the picture. There was just me, the Tollesfest field and this barn. The sky dangled above me, just the sparse clouds keeping it from crashing right down and splintering across this land. The air was so clear and every line beautifully crafted. And the one smell that pervaded all was that of
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