When I went down to see my daughter this morning, a drop-dead gorgeous blonde on the lovely side of 50, we spoke about saxophones, sand dunes, and tiny teddies.
We spoke about how life has changed. How things just ain't what they used to be.
Yes, they were strange things to talk about but, bear with me, it will all make sense in the end.
My daughter was a child of the 70's. Born in those halcyon days of freedom and delight in pretty much everything. Life was wonderful. Free. Full of optimism and fear was a word, not a way of life.
Yet we gravitated to more serious things and eventually talked about where she is and where she was. We talked about how times have changed
My daughter sent me a film clip of her son playing in the dunes with his young relative. The boys were laughing and heading down the sand banks on boogie boards and my mind was taking back over 30 years to when my girls went down to the beach after a storm,.
There had been a cyclone watch, and . while we never received said cyclone, we did receive the heavy seas.
The dunes were washed away and large strings of vegetation hung down like ropes to be descended and descended they were.
At that time, my daughters had been working on a video to submit to a popular television show - something that had to do with music and being responsible young Australians who wanted to save endangered species.
My girls came up with an idea. The concept that Tiny Teddy biscuits should be a protected species.Their stage? The beach that they loved so much.
Their friend played the saxophone. She brought it to the beach.
The girls, my daughters, and two other young ladies used the vines to descend the dunes and declare the beach a " Tiny Teddy Protected Zone. "
Sadly, my 3 dogs, a poodle, a Staffordshire bull terrier and a Doberman all agreed that there was only one thing to do. Eat the Tiny Teddies.
Which they did. Most vigorously.
My youngest daughter, caught on film, " Oh the humanity! "
The saxophonist, hidden in the dunes, started playing something rather dreary - it may have been the beginning of things to come...
The girls grew up. They went on to become mothers and grandmothers and still managed to keep their youth alive.
The delight in a day when a storm had passed and wonder was to be found in the sand dunes that the storm had left behind.
Tattered ruins of what was. Yet, somehow, things went well.
The long ago days of childhood are still there. The sheer pleasure of laughter when meeting old friends from years ago and the tragedy of today is forgotten in a memory clip of yesterday.
The days of delight in simplicity and the joy of just being able to ride down the elevator of a vine on a beach and soar to the heights of being a potential TV superstar.
It's a funny thing really.
My daughter said to me that the thing she loves most about her childhood was the sense of normalcy. The safety. The freedom.
I said to her : " Do you feel that your son has normalcy, safety and freedom? "
She replied " Oh Mum, No. He is not from my generation. "
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