 |
 |
School Socks and Calves Calf-high socks in the ’fifties were Auckland school uniform. The socks on short strong Chris Brown stayed up while mine slipped down. He aspired to lead, became Regimental Sergeant Major of our Cadet Battalion - on then to Duntroon, Sandhurst of our region. I liked Cadets - not so much the drill as the weapons, old rifles, and Bren Guns. Firing twenty-twos on the school rifle range was the only sport I did well in. I even won a prize - for coming third: Tom Brown’s Schooldays. Rugby School! - long pants and facing up to bullies. Of which we had our share. I bring to mind M.A.G.Bell spoiling for an unfair fight during the lunch-hour with my goofy classmate, John, Christian, splayed feet, turning the other cheek - he'd not, provoked, hit back. Bell’s socks flopped below his sturdy calves to show defiance of rules - rules policed by prefects selected each year from those senior boys who had a bossy streak or excelled at sport. Brown, you’re one! To my surprise I also got the silver badge. Should have said no. It was my keenness on Cadets, always wearing my cap straight, and my socks up, thanks to Mum’s elastic. My calves alone never achieved the trick. Bossiness I was bad at, but liked morning assembly, standing on a box up front, towering over third-formers, themselves still boy sopranos, baritone-bellowing ‘School, stand!’ as the Head in black gown swept in with a train of black-gowned masters to sit on stage behind him. ‘School, sit!’ Restlessness quelled by my voice! It was my Fascist moment. Luckily the Army, needing for Anzac Day a squad of those proven good at drill, looked at a line of us for military bearing, and de-selected me, thanks to my skinniness. A painful moment overdue. Chris. standing as tall as he could, consoled me, smugly. For years I stayed away from every Anzac Day. Conscripted at eighteen we weren’t issued shorts. We bruised our shoulders on Enfield three-o-threes; graduating in due course to Army Reserve in years of my lucky generation’s rose-spectacled peace. My friends liked shorts, I shielded my shy calves from sunburn and condescension and satirical snorts till stiff senescence. Now belated reports reach me: Calf implants! - on men? Since when? Decades? Too late for me, even back then. The year I could see I was growing up skinny - finding 'body-building’ quite beyond me - was when I might have dreamed of ‘surgery’, but for the expense. The word now is ‘enhance’ - Don’t even say ‘cosmetic’, just: ‘had them enhanced’. How many fine calves strutting the beach now and in future years are as false as the smiles stretching their face? Or the reshaped chests on their female friends? Many? Not that nowadays I’m much on the beach spying on bikini breasts - or not that anyone - much - can notice, I trust.