Scene and heard

For those of you who are either too young or too un-English to know, this was a form of greeting and response in England in the early-to-mid 1960’s, when I still thought that 4’ was tall. (For the record, I was 10 when I reached that magical plateau.)

This memory was evoked by the creative arm swingers I have been noticing recently:

I have seen at least 2 men who, when their arms are in the forward position, hold their palms open and facing inwards. As they take their next stride, the arm comes back and twists with a last-second jerking motion so that the open side is facing the rear. I don’t see how this can be done without concentrating rather too much on the process of walking, or more precisely in their case, ambling.

This memory was in turn triggered when I saw a man earlier this week whose arm swing was really violent; a clenched fist pummeling the air as if meaning to do it damage, contrasting with both his gentle walk and diminutive stature - perhaps 5’ tall and 110 lb. And yet another association awares itself to me: (According to the Oxford English Dictionary, I just made that word up, but I’m guessing you’ll understand its intended meaning.): I will call him Bill, largely because that’s his name. We worked together some time back. He too is about 5’ tall, but certainly weighs rather more than 110lbs! He claims to have got over all of his height related problems, but nobody believes him. A nice enough guy, but with a chip on his shoulder the size of a planet (forgive me for that one, I’m reading Douglas Adams at the moment); he smiles at the world through gritted and grinding teeth. And yet another associated memory pops into my head. This time, from when I was driving buses in London: A little man in a large car went halfway into oncoming traffic just before a red light, attempting to overtake me. Problem was, there wasn’t enough room for him to fit. But that wasn’t his fault - apparently. He boldly charged over to my bus to tell me what he thought of me, but I couldn’t see exactly how I was to blame for his impatience and dangerous stupidity. His final words to me, with trembling voice were: “You’re a right dickhead!” – delivered with all of the menace of the most fearsome of Teletubbies. OK, to some people of fundamentalist persuasions, they were rather fearsome.

And now to the scariest arm swingers – we’ve all seen them – women who walk with their arms swinging in an exaggerated arc. Fine if they are in the suburbs, but not so on busy Manhattan streets or where there are shopping crowds. Stick a cigarette between two of their fingers and not only do men have to concern themselves with potentially painful groin contact if passing within a foot of her, but all now have to be concerned with having their clothes burned.