Reflective Repost: PARENTS, POSTERS, & PUPPETS (Er, MUPPETS)...

Not one of the original posters mentioned, but
better than nothing.  Image copyright DISNEY

Bear with me, Crivs, but there's a reason for repeating this particular post from 7 years back, which should, I trust, be obvious when you get to the end of it.  Hopefully, you'll think it was worth the journey.

******

I'm not a parent, but even given my status as non-participant in that category, I'm smart enough to realise just how difficult - and even heartbreaking - the position must often be.  There's an ad on telly at the moment (this was 2016, remember) featuring The MUPPETS (the full version is very funny), and seeing it just a few moments ago took my mind back to an occasion involving my father in the late 1970s. Allow me to relate it to you now, as I'm sure it'll remind you of similar incidents concerning your own parents.

My father loved nothing more than going into Glasgow every weekend and trawling around his old haunts from his youth.  He always visited The BARRAS or PADDY'S MARKET, and one Saturday evening he returned home with two Muppet posters for me and my brother.  At that time I'd have been in my late teens or early twenties, and my brother was in the latter age group, so we both poured scorn on the very idea of having a Muppet poster in either of our rooms, as it would've been 'uncool'.

This attitude must've confused my father, because me and my brother both watched The Muppet Show and enjoyed their mad antics, so he naturally assumed we'd each appreciate a poster of the objects of our TV affections.  Our ingratitude must have hurt, although I don't recall him showing it.  A similar incident happened a few years later when he brought back a poster of Scottish Steam Trains for me, although I'd never shown any interest in railway matters.  Again, my lack of enthusiasm or gratitude for his parental thoughtfulness must have hurt him.

We were living in another house at the time of the second poster event, and I remember, a few weeks after moving from it back to our previous home, I called in (by prior arrangement) to the house we'd not long vacated to take some final photos of the place (ah, ever the nostalgist), and the tenant with whom we'd swapped properties suddenly dug out the train poster from the cupboard outside what had recently been my bedroom.  I took a photo of him holding the poster, while feeling vaguely ashamed of just how heartlessly I'd abandoned it.

I had to abandon it a second time, because he never offered it to me to take away as I left, but at least I've got a photograph of it to remind me of how thankless kids can be to their parents, however unintentional it may be.  Maybe one day I'll track down replacements for all three posters - then, should I ever have kids even at my advanced age (hey, you can get many a nasty sting from a dying bee), it'll remind me to try and be patient whenever they behave in a similar way as myself (and my brother - I refuse to take all the blame) when I was a mere young and thoughtless youth.  Then again, weren't we all?

Any similar incidents in your own youth you'd care to share?  That way, I can maybe pretend that I wasn't quite the ungrateful little b*st*rd that I must've seemed at the time.  C'mon, help assuage my sense of guilt, eh?

I see that we also left the light-shade.  How casually
we abandon things that have served us faithfully, eh?

Update: Truth to tell, it never occurred to me to ask him for the poster back then so I assume I still never really wanted it.  36 years later, however, I felt it would be nice to have something that my father bought specifically for me, so I went searching on eBay and found its doppelganger, along with a similar poster, which I promptly bought.  I don't really have the space to hang it anywhere, but knowing that I can unroll it whenever I want to and remember those long ago days gives me a nice feeling inside.  I may not have appreciated my father's thoughtfulness at the time, but hopefully I've now redressed my ingratitude from all those years ago.  Below, the two posters I've just purchased, which will shortly be winging their way to me.

And, while we're on the subject, the poster below may well have been one of the two that my father bought for my brother and me back in the '70s.  It certainly seems to ring a bell in memory's belfry.

Posted in: Cartoons