Short Story

Those Were The Days

The Sicilian Storyteller

Time once again for
The Unicorn Challenge.
Jenne has provided the photo;
this is my 250-word response.

© Ayr/Gray

“Mother! What do you think you’re doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, Morris? I’m going to go sing with that band.”

“You can’t do that. You’re almost 73 years old!” her son replied. He was becoming impatient.

“What the hell does my age have to do with anything? Tony Bennett, Tina Turner, David Crosby were all in their 80s and still going strong.”

“Mother, you’re not exactly in the same league as Tina Turner!”

“Thank you for pointing that out to me and the family, Morris. You’ve turned into a self-righteous little prig 
. certainly not how I raised you.”

“Well, one of us had to grow up, Mother. You’re not going to sing with that band. I won’t allow it. This isn’t Woodstock!”

“Grammy? What’s Dad talking about? You were at Woodstock?” Dina asked her grandmother in disbelief.

“As a matter of fact, I was! You know, I wasn’t always your grandmother! I lived a whole other life before your father was born.”

“Grammy, why am I just hearing about this now? I’m 22 years old and never knew this! How is that possible? Dad, how come you never said anything?”

“You’re father’s embarrassed by me, Dina. I was always a very free spirit; I met a lot of incredible people before and after Woodstock.”

“Grammy, were you a groupie?” Dina asked conspiratorially.

“Oh, Dina! Lets just say I had great fun.”

“Mother, this conversation ends now!”

“Oh, shut up, Morrison!”

“Morrison?” Dina whispered knowingly, eyes wide.

NAR©2024
250 Words

The Unicorn Challenge-19/01/24

This is Mary Hopkin, “Those Were The Days”

The Doors with “Alabama Song” (Whisky Bar)

Grammy/Nancy

This portfolio (including text, graphics and videos) is copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and is not for use by anyone without permission. NAR © 2017-present.

44 thoughts on “Those Were The Days”

  5. lol! (the punchline*)

    funny thing, that age business. (we’ve a theory here at the Doctrine. long(ish) story, but the upshot is: we, all of us, lock in our self-image to a certain age. this is the person we suspect should be looking back at us in the mirror.

    Fun Story

    * a benefit (?) of being a certain age allowed an immediate appreciation of your humorous ending

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  7. There’s quite a lot my kids and theirs don’t know about me, nor will they! Leaving home at 17 and moving to London with a mate in the sixties set in place all kinds of adventures – those certainly were the days my friend!

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  9. Or ‘It took a whole lot of living to get all these wrinkles. Did you think I was born like this?’
    It seems understanding skips a generation.
    Maybe too much competition going on between parents and children.
    And the dreaded ‘You’ll make a fool of yourself!’
    Pah!
    There are questions I wish I had asked my praents…
    Good story, Nancy.

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    1. Thanks, Jenne!
      If I had a dime for every time I made a fool of myself…..
      It’s called living and I’ve done quite a bit of that with very few regrets.
      Since no one has mentioned it, that pic of the hippie girl is an AI generated image of me; my husband agrees the resemblance to the ‘real me’ from back in the day is amazing.

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      1. Far be it from me to disagree with both you and your husband, but the real you back in the day is much prettier!
        As is the nowadays picture.
        Are you the older of the 2 kids in the family shot?

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    1. One summer morning while on vacation, we were having breakfast with our son and his bride. The conversation shifted to when Bill and I met and what things were like ‘back then’ and before we knew it, we were getting into some stories we thought we’d always keep to ourselves. That morning was the start of a fabulous new relationship between us and our adult children.

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  14. I love the basic truth in this piece, Nancy, that only the few who knew us way back when have any idea who we really are.
    To most of the world we’re just that grey-haired coffin-dodger (or crabbit auld besom!) that they’ve never seen with any other eyes.
    Tell Grammy she’s always welcome here!

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