Previously Untitled

Grumpy reckons that when he hit high school, the noble Christian Brothers, under whose educative yoke he toiled, didn't even recognise Armistice Day or ANZAC Day. No remembrance services, no two-minute silences. That's bloody criminal. There were public floggings at my school for anyone who violated these moments of sombre reflection.

Can you believe it - I was only joking about the floggings! (But our deputy principal certainly looked like the flogging type.)

Anyway, I come from a somewhat military, gun-toting, bloodthirsty background so I have been known to have, er, certain sympathies. Not all the time. But they are there, nonetheless.

However, I wasn't really sure what to make of this exchange yesterday, with a kid related to the next-door neighbours. While the other kids were busy running their ten-cent shop, and trying to entice me to buy what they cheerfully admitted were sub-par items of fruit, this kid was stalking an invisible enemy through a far-off, foreign war-torn land, visible only to his mind's eye.

Hazelblackberry: You're a digger, are you?
Blamey, Junior: Yep. This is a blank-firing, double-barrelled, pump-action shotgun.
HB: Delightful!
BJ: But I wish it was a Lee Enfield.
HB: Of course!
BJ: Because if I had a blank-firing Lee Enfield and a slouch hat and a uniform it would look much more realistic.
HB: Didn't they use shotguns in the war?
BJ: Yes, but really only for hunting livestock.

Then he hunched over and slowly made his way across the invisible enemy lines of his imagination where he shot one of the filthy enemy. Shot, but not killed. Because then he started bludgeoning the wounded soldier with his rifle. The glint in his eye made me hesitate to bring to his attention the Law of Armed Conflict. Hell, as if he would have cared.