"A Little Story (That Did Not Actually Happen) (Though I Wish Dearly That It Had)"

I have a stack of ideas about meaty concerns that often come to my mind. 

For example,

Though I lean toward the “progressive” end of the spectrum, I worry that “My Team” does not, when it comes to its philosophical adversaries, live up to its “Kumbaya” side of the bargain.

My line about that is,

“Conservatives believe everyone’s wrong, but them.  Liberals believe everyone’s right, but conservatives.”

(Note:  This idea, though in loftier form, appeared recently in the New York Times, where columnist Nicholas Kristoff wrote, concerning the attack on a college law school professor for defending a disreputable client,  “… while I admire campus activism for its commitment to social justice, I sometimes worry that it becomes infused with a prickly intolerance, embracing every kind of diversity but one kind:  ideological diversity.”)

The fact that I collect such serious ideas says they are important to me.

The fact that they remain on the stack says I do not know how to write them.  (At least not in “readable fashion.”)

Reminding me of a song lyric I once wrote, that went:

“Whatever plan you’ve got,

You can’t be what you’re not.”

Fortunately, I have an affinity for “small stories.”  Which, thankfully, also come to my mind.

MEATIER STORIES:  “What are you doing here?”     

SMALL STORIES:  “Getting written, Smart Guy.”   

The anniversary of my once-in-a-lifetime Oxford Experience sent this memorable moment floating back to my consciousness. 

And I happpily welcome its return.

Wednesday July 11, 2018.  (I looked it up.)  Which is also stepdaughter Rachel’s birthday.  (Which I did not have to look up.)  England is playing Croatia in the soccer World Cup Semi-Finals in Moscow, the winner advancing to the championship game. 

This is a huge deal for England, who has not won the World Cup since 1966.  (Which I also did not have to look up, since I lived in London in 1967 and they were still talking about it.)  (Along with winning the “Eurovision Song Contest” the same year.)

After finishing dinner in “The Great Hall” (where they filmed Harry Potter scenes), we came out of the dining room, and there, perched conspicuously – and uncharacteristically – on the wall of the foyer was a big-screen TV, broadcasting the monumental soccer game, already in progress.

Some of the “visitors” (none that I met, English) – gathered to watch, more curious than passionately involved.  The game was close.  (Croatia eventually won 2-1, with England ahead, 1-0 at halftime.)

As I watched, my eyes turned back to “The Great Hall”, seeing the college’s “Wait Staff” clearing the tables and “setting up” for tomorrow’s breakfast.  It was a somewhat heartbreaking tableau.  You could tell by their body language, they wanted to be out in the foyer, their eager ears “leaning” intently towards the nearby tantalizing TV.

That’s when it came to me.

Why didn’t a brigade of “visitors” offer to help the college’s “Wait People”, so they could finish up faster and then go watch the game?

Wouldn’t that be something?  “Strangers to the Rescue”, so the real fans could enjoy the history-making event?

The “Wait Staff” would have probably said “No.”  

Ah, but the gesture.

“The Glorious Gesture!”  (As it would be remembered for years to come.)

I feel the shimmering echo of a scene from one of my favorite movies, The Last Holiday – the one with Sir Alec Guinness, not Queen Latifah – in which the guests at a posh beachside resort pitch in in the kitchen, after the hotel’s disgruntled employees solemnly go out on strike.  (I do not know if that “democratizing” scene was included in the “remake.”  I was unwilling to watch it.  Only partly because I wanted to remake The Last Holiday and someone with “clout” beat me to the punch.)

“Pitching in” here would be just like the movie. 

Only real.

Except it did not happen.

I am a “thinker”, not a doer.  I am no “Leader of Strangers.”  Or people I know, for that matter.  (With the single exception of leading a work stoppage of toy wrappers and Harrods.)  The idea came to me.  But that’s as far as it went.

Still, I fantasize heroically leaping into the fray.  Though, being me, not entirely successfully.

IRATE WAITPERSON:  “Not like that!  ‘Oy, are you trying to help us, or bleedin’ slow the job down?”

What I just did, I guess, is kind of what fiction is about – telling stories that didn’t happen, while pretending they did.

I did the same thing.

But without the pretending.