What was your year of maximum coolness?

The San Francisco Writers’ Grotto / 642 Things to write/prompt 6

Taken by a teacher at school for the Rugby tour of France

Coolness is not a word I associate with myself. If anything I associate it with others. So if I was cool it was in the company of those I thought cool.

Whenever I think of an age I felt so alive it was 15. It wasn’t all good but it was very much alive.

Fifteen was the year I moved from Junior High to Senior High school. It was the year the boy was left behind. There was a transition.

New school meant moving with Gerry and Callum two cool customers, at least I thought they were. I guess we all hope that coolness rubs off.

When I think back images flash into mind,

Those swimming pool parties at where I always seemed to lose my trunks.

Smoking Gitanes in Paris on a rugby tour of which I only played in one half of a game.

Ciara, she taught me a thing or two.

Politics. I wasn’t afraid to step into the spotlight. Most my age were, which bizarrely made it easier for me.

I could run and that brought a certain coolness, at least in my head as I write now, particularly the year I won 5 of the races. And then to give it a dramatic twist I refused to receive the awards as a protest against a decision of the Head teacher.

So if coolness is signified by your ability to be yourself, July 1985 to July 1986 was when I maxed it!

What was yours?

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