Those times
I went out to Kairanga today, to the hall, to speak to the Country Women's Institute. I blathered on about Japan for about half an hour, to the dozen or so old ladies gathered there in the small room.
Afterward I stepped into the hall itself, for the first time in about a decade. Unvisited for the last third of my life, it was nevertheless a focal point of the first third.
There was the smell, to start with. Masked slightly by some kind of lingering cooking, but there nonetheless: old shiny wood, musty under-stage and formica. On the doors were all the original signs, hand lettered because back then printing was something you did with movable type. The old panel and bar heaters still clung to the ceiling. The rickety wood and steel chairs were stacked haphazardly to one side, as they always were.
This was the place where so much that was central to our lives took place. Guy Fawkes night, intimidating but thrilling, soaked in some kind of primal awe at the burning; Lamb & Calf Day and frantic model-building the night before; the Fancy Dress Ball, with folk dancing rehearsed for weeks; the School Concert at the end of the year; Kraft Day (Kairanga has a "K" in it, you see.); the school centennial (holy crap, that was 20 years ago). It all came rushing back, these things that I have not reflected on in...eons, it seems.
The last time I was there it seemed tiny, because I was no longer 11 years old and five feet high. These days I can wrap my head around it better.
So yeah. That's where I'm from.
Afterward I stepped into the hall itself, for the first time in about a decade. Unvisited for the last third of my life, it was nevertheless a focal point of the first third.
There was the smell, to start with. Masked slightly by some kind of lingering cooking, but there nonetheless: old shiny wood, musty under-stage and formica. On the doors were all the original signs, hand lettered because back then printing was something you did with movable type. The old panel and bar heaters still clung to the ceiling. The rickety wood and steel chairs were stacked haphazardly to one side, as they always were.
This was the place where so much that was central to our lives took place. Guy Fawkes night, intimidating but thrilling, soaked in some kind of primal awe at the burning; Lamb & Calf Day and frantic model-building the night before; the Fancy Dress Ball, with folk dancing rehearsed for weeks; the School Concert at the end of the year; Kraft Day (Kairanga has a "K" in it, you see.); the school centennial (holy crap, that was 20 years ago). It all came rushing back, these things that I have not reflected on in...eons, it seems.
The last time I was there it seemed tiny, because I was no longer 11 years old and five feet high. These days I can wrap my head around it better.
So yeah. That's where I'm from.