Blog Archives - FordeFables

June 30th, 2016

30/6/2016

Thought for today:
"Nowhere is such beauty to be found on this earth, than that which is seen in the reflection of womanly thought, thinking upon the memory of a past love or the anticipation of a meeting to come.

There has probably been more written upon the topic of 'love' than any other subject one can think of. Therapists provide advice on it, experts pronounce its absence or presence and romantic books never fail to profess its existence by the final page. For my own part, I have loved more than once and believe that there is no absolute in the emotion. I believe that each person we love, we love differently to any other. That is why we love the best when we love someone for who they are.

Love is often a pretend by-product of lust and remains just a word until we bring it meaningful definition. I know it means many different things to many different people. Some can obtain pleasure from the mere holding of hands, the sweetest of smiles or the sharing of souls, whereas others require nothing less than the emotional force of sheer sexual physicality to feel its presence. Without this coup de grace which they call passion, some romantics say they cannot know love at its best.

Perhaps it takes the hurt of a previous experience, the loss of a prior relationship and soul mate or even the advancement of old age which makes physical passion less necessary for one's future happiness. Love is most evident when it is seen in a couple holding hands and enjoying their moment of togetherness. When you can share your secrets and your fears with your partner, that's when you know trust is at its highest. I knew I truly loved, once I was prepared to remove my mask of concealed thought and feelings, the mask I often hid behind whenever I feared a certain outcome; the mask I could not live without until you came along and I felt safe enough to remove it and reveal my total nakedness.

Then there is also the one true love you no longer have in your life; the one you lost to another, the one you surrendered to illness or through tragic accident upon the battlefields of war and death itself. It is often so very hard to come back from such loss, to be the person you once were. It is only when your emotions have freed themselves to express once more the things you want but no longer have, that you might find new love. It is only when you allow your heart to be reopened to the possibility of ever finding love anew, only then, can you find the new you; not the person you once were, but the person you now are." William Forde: June 30th, 2016.

June 29th, 2016.

29/6/2016

Thought for today:
"A butterfly preparing to descend on the heart of a flower is like being touched by perfect love for the very first time. All that it takes is a sweet whisper, a gentle gesture, a loving kiss, a tender look or that knowing touch, and one's heart starts to flutter and establishes a beat that was never designed to co-exist with any other experience. You are overcome by the magic of the moment and open up your heart, mind and body to anything that may follow. You are floating above heaven on earth, adrift in a cosmos of possibility among the most brilliant of stars. You are in love!

As the lovely film star of my youth, Jane Powell sang in the 1954 film, 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers', 'When you're in love, really in love there is no way your heart can hide it. When you're in love, really in love, you simply let your heart decide it." William Forde: June 29th, 2016.

https://youtu.be/xMPX9g0fapE

June 28th, 2016.

28/6/2016

Thought for today:
"Oliver Wendell Holmes Senior, the 19th century American poet and author said, 'The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.'

I have frequently questioned the hygienic sense in allowing one's pet dog to give you or your child a big slobbery kiss and yet, come to think of it, I've never heard of anyone in the whole wide world dying from such a practice during my 73 years of life! It seems to be the preferred way that your dog likes to show its everlasting affection towards your taste; a bit like a pet licking its bowl clean after enjoying a sumptuous meal.

'I said you could have a sniff if you wanted Horace, not a big slobbery kiss. Now calm yourself down before I throw a bucket of cold water over you, you little rascal!' " William Forde: June 28th, 2016.

June 27th, 2016

27/6/2016

"Thought for today:
"One bad thing about old age is by the time you've worked out what you want, polite society considers you too old to have it! On the other side of the coin however, one good thing is when you learn to fart like a lady, no gentleman will ever turn his nose up at you!" William Forde: June 27th, 2016.

June 26th, 2016.

26/6/2016

Thought for today:
"The old saying that the best things come in small packages is often very true, but not always, I might add. An anthropologist study on one of the central African tribes of pigmy people many years ago revealed that despite their absence of height (less than five feet tall) and overall smallness in body size, the small males of the Aka and Mbuti Tribes fathered more children than did taller and larger men of other African tribes and most Europeans. It just goes to show ladies that size doesn't count, but sperm does!

When I was a Probation Officer, training up in Newcastle on Tyne during 1970, being a lover of dancing I was a frequent attender at every dance I could get to. I am relatively small in height (the result of an accident as a child which stunted my growth), but until recent years could always dance well.

There was one young woman on the Probation course whom I befriended called Carol. Carol loved dancing, but nobody ever asked her to dance.The reason was simply that Carol stood over six feet tall. She was naturally conscious of her height and foolishly dressed down in her attempt to minimise it; wearing the flattest of shoes. She always wore 'flatties,' as she called them, never wore a dress and felt that she looked much better in jeans or slacks.

Over the year in Newcastle, me and Carol became the best of friends and surprisingly, we also finished up being regular dancing partners. Given that this was the year of the Shake as opposed to that of the Waltz, dancing together became physically possible. I had always been a rebel and so breaking any stupid rules of etiquette which said small men don't dance with tall women because they both finish up looking a pair of wallies, seemed to me a rule worthy of breaking.

To digress momentarily, after my childhood accident, though small in size, I never felt small in person. Unlike me though, Carol had lacked self confidence for most of her life. However, during our year of daily contact and close association, she was to come out of her shell totally.

One night at the bar while other students were dancing, I noticed Carol there alone drinking a half pint of bitter. She looked somewhat isolated in a room of happy people and for the remainder of that night we spoke. She told me she loved dancing, but felt too conscious because of her height walking to the floor, even if anyone asked her to dance, which they rarely did. The bulk of our conversation that evening was around the problems of her height and how being a six footer made her feel. The evening concluded by me asking her for a dance, but due to the disparity in our height, she declined.

Being a Behaviourist and keen student of psychology at the time, I would often use less conventional thought and methodology whenever approaching problem situations of long-standing order; what many folk might describe as turning things on their head to best advantage.

Carol had agreed to let me help her if possible, overcoming her height consciousness, saying that she'd nothing to lose. Our first private exercises in her room involved her learning to stand on her toes, like a ballet dancer might. This exercise not only physically helped to strengthen her foot arches, but psychologically assisted her in learning to make herself as tall as possible.I also had Carol regularly practising exercises where all posture was upright with head looking straight out, never downwards and spine always straight, never bent, even when she bent her knees to pick a coin off the floor. All of these exercises were supplementary to the breathing, muscle control, imagination exercises and relaxation training I gave her for almost six months. I had used such exercises myself from the age of 12 to help myself stand and walk again after three years of being unable to walk.

Then we spent a number of weeks learning to dance the Shake together. Carol was an excellent dancer and when she moved to the rhythm of the disco music of the times, her long lean body lost all its ungainliness and assumed a sensuality it had previously lacked. A number of weeks were then spent persuading Carol to improve her wardrobe, change her hairstyle and colour and have her nails manicured and eyebrows tweezed. Although a student, being a single child born to financially well-off parents, Carol had no difficulty financing this make-over venture.

Throughout this entire period, when I must confess to having felt a bit like a Professor Higgins, many hours were spent talking about other associated problem areas she wanted addressing. When I considered Carol to be confident enough and after much coaxing, I eventually persuading to wear a stylish short dress that we shopped for together and high heels to the coming dance at the University.

My rationale was that all of her life she had tried to make herself look smaller and plainer by wearing flat shoes, and using a stooping posture in the company of smaller others; anything that made her fit into the background better, but this had not worked and had only made her more miserable and more conscious of her height. She even told me that in her middle teens, she would compensate for her height by looking for boyfriends over six feet tall only, be they good or bad, likeable or not. I told Carol that her good looks were there to make her stand out in a crowd, not blend in the background like a wallflower!

Carol had a natural beauty both inner and outer and eventually she came out to the University dance one Saturday night dressed to the nines. Her new hair style and fashionable dress showed off her gorgeous figure to maximum advantage, but it was the 4-inch-high-heels that clinched it! Carol had the longest legs in the dance room, but Carol also had the best pair of legs on the floor, and the high heels made them look even better. For the first time in her life, Carol felt good to be the tallest on the floor and to stand out from all others in the most positive of light. She confessed to having danced more that night than she had in all her previous life.

For three or four years after the Probation Course had concluded, we kept in touch. During these years her confidence grew and I was proud to witness her pass out when she joined the Northumbrian Police Service. Though I was unable to attend her wedding, she married someone who stood 5 feet 8 inches tall (six inches smaller than herself), and though her long satin dress covered them from sight of wedding guests as she walked down the aisle, she proudly told me afterwards that she wore 4-inch-high-heels!

Whenever I see a very tall woman today dressing down and wearing flatties, I am sorely tempted to pull her to one side and tell her about the tallest woman I was ever privileged to know.

While I have told you of a significant part of my relationship with Carol, some of the men out there will realise that I haven't told you all whilst all of the women know that I never would. What I can tell you however, is what Carol taught me. Despite being tall in height, Carol taught me that any small or tall woman can lead any man, big or small, a merry dance; so long as she has what the man hasn't, but wants." William Forde: June 26th, 2016.

https://youtu.be/n-XQ26KePUQ

December 31st, 1969

25/6/2016

June 25th, 2016

25/6/2016

Thought for today:
"My thought today is one that I have not discussed with you before and to do it justice, I cannot broach it sparingly.

'If I had my life to live over again, the next time I would find you sooner and I could love you longer.' These were words I heard spoken by a homosexual friend of mine to his partner over thirty years ago. The time was during the mid 80's when Aids became the greatest scourge of the homosexual world and many heterosexuals thought that this killer disease could be transferred simply by shaking hands or drinking out of the same cup as an infected person.

All of my earlier life, I had been reared in a Catholic household believing that intimate relationships between people of the same sex were 'abominable.' At that time, the church, the state and society at large outlawed such practices and until 1967, homosexuality was a criminal offence under any set of circumstances. Although I wasn't aware at the time in which I grew up, but there had always been discrimination against homosexuals deeply entrenched in the minds of the majority. Even many years after it had become legally acceptable between consenting adults, it still remained socially and religiously unacceptable. Many who are older and of my generation, may probably never be able to get their head around homosexual behaviour or see it as being normal/natural to be sexually intimate with a person of the same sex, and will knowingly or unknowingly, silently or vociferously discriminate against such practices until the end of their days.

I recall during the 1970's, the moment when my view towards homosexuals started to change and become more rationally based. At the time, I was one of the few Probation Officers in Great Britain practising 'Behaviour Modification' as a method of work in seeking to change illegal and deviant behaviour. This method of working was born in America and during its earlier years, it had acquired a bad name for having used Electroconvulsive Therapy (shock treatment) to change certain behaviours that were thought to be deviant. While this 'treatment' had many successes in changing some deviant behaviour during the 70s and 80s, the mere fact that it was never once demonstrated to have changed the long term sexual thoughts and feelings of a homosexual towards a person of the same sex was enough to convince me that for the homosexual, it was perfectly natural to be homosexual!

As a practising behaviourist, it mattered not to me whether homosexual behaviour had been brought about by human defect or design. Physiological body evidence of the time seemed to suggest in medical surveys, the existence of a malfunctioning created by an electro-chemical imbalance in the mind/body of the homosexual. This effectively told me that the gay person had been genetically programmed that way and therefore, for him or her, it was perfectly natural to think, feel and behave that way! Later, research by numerous eminent others globally suggested that if society wishes to see a homosexual as being influenced by deviant behaviour, then such a deviancy can be shown to be one of an electro/chemical imbalance that they are born with and not responsible for, anymore than you or I for having been born with brown or blue eyes, dark or fair hair.

Being an avid reader and the lover of words, in the 80's I frequently read over six books a week. I became intrigued by the word, 'gay,' when used as either an adjective or noun. I was curious as to why this term had changed over the centuries and had become more acceptable both by society at large and homosexuals in particular as their preferred description of usage. I was also eager to learn more about gays, especially as so many favourite authors of mine were said to be of this nature such, as Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf to name but two.

The word “gay” seems to have its origins as early as the 12th century in England and was derived from the old French word ‘gai.’ The word’s original meaning meant something to the effect of 'joyful', 'carefree', and 'bright and showy'. Around the early parts of the 17th century, the word became associated with immorality. By the mid 17th century, the word came to mean 'of loose and immoral living'.

Fast-forward to the 19th century and the word 'gay' referred to a woman who was a prostitute and a 'gay man' was someone who slept with a lot of women (ironically enough), often prostitutes. Also at this time, the phrase “gay it” meant to have sex.

Around the 1920's and 1930's, the word was given a new interpretation. In terms of the sexual meaning, a “gay man” no longer just meant a man who had sex with a lot of women, but also referred to men who had sex with other men. There was also another word, “gey cat” at this time, which meant a homosexual boy.

By 1955, the word 'gay' had officially acquired new definition; now meaning 'homosexual males.' Gay men themselves seem to have been behind the driving thrust for this new label as they felt (and many still do), that 'homosexual' is much too clinical sounding and suggests a disorder. At this time, homosexual women were referred to as lesbians, not 'gay.'

Since then, 'gay', meaning 'homosexual' has steadily driven out all the other definitions that have floated about through time and the term now refers to both men and women who are of homosexual nature.

It is not for me to moralise about the sexual practices between gays any more than it would be appropriate to moralise about any of the sexual practices between heterosexuals. What I can attest to is the experience that knowing some gay friends has greatly enriched me as a person. Although having been an expressive person all my life, there was a 'female side' of me that I'd been unable to get in touch with and which my gay friends helped me to 'out.' This side dealt with what many males considered as traditional 'female' emotions; those types of feelings that men believe they should not express in public and frequently feel uncomfortable having: especially those of us who, like me, were reared by 'manly' fathers of the John Wayne ilk who believed that 'a man's got to do what a man's got to do', along with the belief that 'big boys don't cry.'

The most important gay influence on me was to give myself permission to cry if either the occasion or the extent of my emotions determined it. The next important thing my gay friends taught me was to place the importance of my 'feelings' above that of my 'reasoning' wherever movement of the heart was concerned.

On a less serious side, I must end with one female practice that has always puzzled me. It is a piece of behaviour that only women seem to engage in that no man does, whether gay or heterosexual, and which no terminology or common phrase has yet managed to describe. I refer to the practice of women preferring to go to the toilets in a posse as opposed to on their own. I don't know where that practice stems from as I cannot find reference to it in any of my historical books, but I must say that it seems highly 'unnatural' to me, and given the opportunity, I'd criminalise it tomorrow!" William Forde: June 25th, 2016.

December 31st, 1969

24/6/2016

June 24th, 2016.

24/6/2016

Thought for today:
"Tidal waves illustrate all there is to say about life in general. They represent our 'hellos' and 'goodbyes' from day to day. Their ebb and flow mirrors our breathing in and out of all our activity. When life threatens to overwhelm us, our choices are to either surf its towering waters or go under and drown in the depths of its despair.

Take note from the sea of life. Never give up, for there will surely be a moment of time and place when the tide will turn for the good and change our destiny. I believe today to be such a day for Great Britain.

While I am naturally pleased that Britain voted to Leave the European Union, I recognise the disappointment, apprehension and even fear that many Remain voters will undoubtedly feel right now. They probably have an image in their mind about a future Britain outside the European Union which frightens them. If that is so, the only way out of this negative mental trap is to change that image and replace it with a more positive one that accords with the new reality of the dawn. This process of mental shift is the basis of all stress reduction, transcendental meditation and relaxation methods.

As I said in my post two days ago, living in a new world necessitates facing our fears and learning to believe in ourselves and learning to believe in our country once more. If this doesn't put a tiger back in your tank, it will undoubtedly put some national pride and bite back in your British bulldog spirit. As a born and bred Irishman who has lived in England most of my life, I have not felt prouder to consider myself British for many a long year than I do today. I look forward to the challenges ahead and the national prosperity that successfully facing and overcoming them can bring ourselves, our children and grandchildren. I also look forward to the English football team winning the European Cup!" William Forde: June 24th, 2016.

June 23rd, 2016.

23/6/2016

Thought for today:
"When we first established our 'friends with benefits' relationship on January 1st, 1973, I foolishly believed all of the promises you made to me about our happy union together, but during the past forty three years, your naked desire to have all of me without giving back anything of substance in return has finally opened my eyes. You deceived me wilfully throughout. You have stripped me of everything I was brought up to cherish, everything my father and grandfather fought for during two World Wars.

During the years we have been together, you have bullied and brow beaten me to abandon all of my ways and adopt yours. You have treated any innocent association I have ever dared to have with another with the jealous and punitive response of a control freak; reminding me constantly that without you, I am nothing and could not exist, and threatening me with all manner of fearful threats should I ever try to leave you.

When I think back upon our relationship, I have to conclude that during the whole of the past 43 years we have never really been together. All that has happened is that you have done your own thing, irrespective of what I've wanted and just expected me to tag along behind you like a grateful and obedient partner.

During these years of union, you have done everything to increase my dependency on you. Fearful that I might one day run away from you at the first opportunity, you have removed all my protective garments. You have stripped me of my sovereignty, my independence, my national pride, my basic rights and my freedom to choose my own destiny.

I'm having no more of this failed marriage! I'm having no more of you! I want out! I'm LEAVING you, you bully!"
https://youtu.be/UVzXVmoOGjQ

William Forde: June 23rd, 2016.