Three
or four decades ago, when I decided the time had come to replace a pair of
shorts I had been wearing for the last 40 or 50 years, I suddenly ran up
against the shocking recognition that, couture-wise, the world had moved on,
leaving me as if living in the dark ages. My specific discovery was that the
sort of shorts I had been wearing were no longer available, except in a
swimsuit. What I had always called
shorts were garments that came down to almost but not quite halfway on your
calves, leaving you free to run and jump. But the only “shorts” available in
the shops when I enquired were long, baggy, things that came down at least to
the knees and appeared to be suitable only for those who had no intention of
ever running or jumping anywhere.
I resisted for a year or two, but finally I
surrendered, with the result that today I have a drawer crammed with five or
six pairs, maybe even more, of baggy ugly things that I know are called
shorts, but most of which I wouldn’t be seen dead in. (You might well ask how I
came to have bought them, and it is something I have asked myself many times.)
Now, how I got on to this subject was
like this:
This morning, a Saturday, I was out
and about very early, wearing one of my classy, baggy, drooping khaki shorts that
makes me look like an Army deserter, hoping desperately to establish this as a
new trend for the older customer, making
my way through the streets surrounding McGill University towards Le
Castel, my favorite coffee shop at
Peel and Sherbooke. I found to my surprise that the streets were full of young
people, walking along, most of them, behind a leader with some kind of
banner. Evidently, these were
newly-enrolled students having their fun before going to the serious business
of learning when the University opens next week.
Now, I am a trained observer, as a
result of my lifelong practise of journalism, and I could not help but observe
that whereas the male short has lengthened, the same cannot be said for the
female short. In fact --- here I am treading into really really dangerous
ground, but, for god’s sake, I am 90 and surely above all suspicion of
prurience ---- what lay before my
observant eye was what might be called a veritable festival of the female leg.
Now, in the interests of what is
nowadays called full disclosure, I confess that in my younger days I was an
enthusiastic admirer of the female leg, but all that means in the current
context is that I developed a capacity for judgment that possibly makes me one
of the world’s foremost experts in the subject. Of course, no one could claim that every
female leg is admirable. In fact, many
simply pose the question as to why their owners have chosen the unwise
course of revealing them to the world. But I have to admit that a high proportion
of the young women I observed --- more or less unwittingly, I didn’t go out
looking for this, but merely stumbled upon it ---- seem to be in good shape, in rude good health,
and seem ready, heads held high, eyes shining with hope and so on, to go about
their search for The Knowledge --- this is how I normally describe the
University as the place where eager young people search for The Knowledge from
their elders, little knowing that this Knowledge they are searching for is already
well along the way to destroying the essential systems, air, water and soil
among them, that sustain all life on his
planet Earth.
This, I believe is where my status as an
earnest observer of the human condition should rescue me from the imprecations
that might be expected to pour down upon me from the adherents of the feminist
movement, for my having dared mention an item of female anatomy. For surely it
is clear that my observations of these young people include that whatever the
shape of their legs, they evidently are
among the brightest and intellectually most successful members of their generation,
for have they not already been accepted into one of the nation’s leading
universities, admission to which is limited to only the best and brightest
among us?
No matter that they seem to have been
reduced to a state of economic penury, if I am to judge by the fact that their
jeans are invariably worn down to such a point that they are full of holes,
before being cut down to serve as shorts. Poor kids, having been forced to such
extremes of poverty. One imagines them in their miserable hovels, slaving night
and day over their books, desperate to make the admission standards. No wonder
they were out in the streets celebrating.
The coffee shop of which I am an
habitué is close to McGill University, and over the six years of my habit, I
have spoken briefly to a large number of students, young people from around the world, asking them what is their
particular field of study. I kid you not, it seems that almost a majority of the young
women students are into engineering ---civil, electrical, whatever --- or
biology, or geometry or chemistry, or physiology
or any other of those technical subjects
from which, during my high school years, I instinctively slunk away,
preferring to pass my time on the football field, cricket pitch or tennis
court.
In my recent peregrinations among the
hospitals, I have been astonished by what high skills are needed in this
technological world, even to be a nurse. And when one moves into the higher
echelons, bright-eyed young women seem always to be prominent among the armies
of doctors.
So, when push comes to shove, I have
to admit that the shape of their legs is quite possibly the least relevant
factor on which to judge any woman. But, wot the hell, I am a doddering old
fool, slobbering my way to oblivion.
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