The Old Academy

Some philanthropists, solicitous about the possibility of my becoming bored with so much leisure at my disposal, naively advised me to open ‘a wee shop’.  However recalling all the money I had paid out of my own pocket for pens, pencils, jotters, catechisms, readers, copies and rubbers for some of my old pupils (who did me up to the two eyes!) I decided to steer clear and wide of any commercial reef. When I was young I had often heard people talk in awed tones of so-and-so who was in Stubbs Gazette.  I therefore had no great urge to appear in that dreaded chronicle of financial disasters.  Wisely I decided to play it cool.

Every morning, waiting till the streets are well-aired, I lie in bed, not having to clock in any more.  I read the civil register page of the Irish News and, on discovering that I have not yet died, I rise and start the day. Sometimes on my ambles I catch a glimpse of the academy wherein I wrought for so many  (forty) years.  It still looks right well from the outside, but not having entered it for the past ten years, I cannot vouch any more for the inside! Truth be told, for all I know or feel or care, I might never have been inside it!

Speaking truthfully, it evokes no nostalgia whatever!

…. more later …

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