Caught Flat-Footed

My uncle in Nova Scotia bought an 8mm video camera around 1960 ... I don't know the exact date because I don't have access to the videos from here ... but while he was still alive he gave me access to all the videos he took over the years of us and my cousins families. I sent the videos in two batches to California to have them converted to mp4 digital video files and I have them all on cd-r and as files on my desktop at home.

I can comfortably view them all ... with the exception of anything with me in it ... it just reminds me of how I tried to measure up to my cousins and failed ... they were all extroverts ... they could carry on a conversation in any social situation ... they all looked like they stepped out of a magazine or a TV show .. I wanted to be them .. I would try and emulate them ... but you needed moxy that I didn't have ...

One of the biggest joys in visiting my grandmother in the summer was my mother's sister's husband talking us fishing down to the 'french shore' ... if you go to Google maps and find Weymouth, NS ... just up the road from Digby .. now continue along the coast ... Bernard's Cove ... Church Point ... Saulnierville .. etc. There were two fish cutting plants down there and one of them would throw some of the cuttings in a central area beside the plant .. as the tide came in ... you could thousands of fish coming in to feed on this ... pollock .. mackerel ... flounder ... etc. ... so fishing off the dock was guaranteed success ... mackerel were the most fun to catch as they fought like a swordfish ... it felt like I could do something .. it felt like I could hold my own with my cousins ... but of course ... there was always another opinion ... 

There are three things I have never forgiven my mother for .. we could argue that it was really only two .. and we will get there and you can decide ... but right now let's deal with the first one .. I think we were at my uncle's cottage .. all the cousins visiting were there ... now I was a whiny kid  ... the kind that can irritate you quickly .. maybe I was doing that and my mother was embarrassed ... in front of everyone she starts going on about my flat feet ... and making comparisons between them and maybe pancakes ... here I am .. low body self esteem  already... and she lays this on me ... I thought about it every day after that we remained on vacation... it was another item in the long list of physical traits where I didn't measure up ... 

I would find myself looking at my feet ... trying to figure out what a flat foot was and maybe how to correct it ... so ... when I look at the videos of me ... I still don't measure up ... and all I see is someone .. with flat feet ... as I have said earlier ... I just wasn't the trophy son that they had hoped for ... but to get that kind of son .. you have to invest time and nurturing and do these things with him ... or at least have a son that had enough self esteem to learn through friends .. I had neither ... 

Phil - (1 January 2021 - San Patricio de Melaque - 8:20 PM)

Krome Koan - 'Thinking on your feet is great; what happens when you sit down?'