Always look on the bright side of life

“If, as appears increasingly likely, we are heading for World War III, one of the first targets for Russian missiles will be Shannon airport. In a worst case scenario, the missiles may become nuclear and Dublin will be a target. If that happens, most of us will die…”

Come back reader! These Musings will be much more uplifting, that is the opening of a column by Patrick Murphy in a provincial newspaper last weekend. I didn’t read any further and in fact returned to bed and drew the blankets over my head for the day! Murphy is a very good columnist by the way, but lighten up, why don’t you!

It put me in mind of my younger sister, we’ll call her Orla, for that is her name. Aged five years or there about, on visiting our grand-aunts Peg and May, she would say, “Anny Peg, Anny May you’re both very old and you’ll soon die and I’ll be very sad” to which Aunt Peg would invariable reply, “Ach Orla, why don’t you call more often to cheer us up!”

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” penned 19th century French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr – (The more things change, the more they stay the same).

Way back in October 1962, leaders of the US and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense 13-day political and military stand-off over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. It is told, employees in America and other nations left work on Friday evening saying to their colleagues, “See you on Monday, if we’re still here” as the hawks urged Kennedy to unleash hell. Mercifully he held fire, agreement of sorts was reached and the threat of nuclear war was avoided…

It was American writer Dale Carnagie, ahead of his time in promoting positive mental health, who over a century ago, came up with the slogan, “Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the mud, the other saw stars.”

I know of what I speak as yesterday (Thursday) I experienced a day would have put lesser men in a complete state of chassis. I had a well earned day off work and decided to make best use of the over 60 pass with a day trip to Omagh. Long story but am based in the east these days… now read on.

Ses I to the man at the desk in the Ulsterbus Depot in Dungannon, “What time’s the next bus to Omagh?” Ses he, “2.40pm”. So I stood at the bay marked ‘OMAGH’ as you would and 2.40 came and went, so did 2.45 and 2.46… I stepped back into the office and asked the man, “What’s the story with this Omagh bus?” to which he replied, “It left from the Belfast bay”. Now I saw no bus leave the depot marked ‘Omagh’. Over 60s are too tired to fight, and I trundled off muttering under my breath, “He should have told me it was the Belfast bay… no-one shouted “Omagh bus!” Wet and weary, I climbed up Scotch Street as someone in their wisdom decided to build Dungannon on a huge slope up to the Hill O’Neill which was so positioned to keep off invaders.

After coffee and a scone to recharge the old battery, I checked at the bus-stop in the Square and sure enough the No 80 left for Coalisland at 4.15pm. And it passed 4.20, 4.25.. a few school kids reassured me, “It will be here, it is always late”. This is painful… but healing… the bus arrived and no sooner had I clamoured on, made the obligatory pensioner joke to the driver than I realised my iPhone was gone, vanished, phone – the end. A quick jump off the bus and check but I knew it hadn’t fallen. Not the wisest thing to put it in a jacket side pocket. Stolen, pick-pocketed, pilfered or as they say in Dungannon, ‘knocked’ and with it every number and photo and conversation. There’s a new phone now and am still on the same number with the huge inconvenience of having to rebuild a folder with dozens of contacts.

The Mammy said, “If that’s the worst happens to you, you’ll be ok”, the sort of advice would be given to a teenager. It’s far from the worst thing has happened and would definitely pale in significance against nuclear war. ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’ was Billy Ocean’s mantra in 1985.

My late beloved friend Mickey H oft-times sought inspiration in Desiderata, composed by Max Ehrmann in 1927, that includes, “The world is full of trickery, but let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.” So true. Recently I wrote the story of Margaret McCrory from Rouskey who donated a kidney to give a complete stranger a life and the Woods’ brothers from Coalisland who ran the London Marathon to raise thousands of pounds for Young Lives v cancer. These hugely uplifting stories come our way all the time. Heroes walk and run among us.

As for the person who nabbed my phone, hopefully he will go on to do more productive things. In the best spirit of The Waterboys, I send him my love and a bang on the ear!