This was in the country, back in the day when shorts, or "footy nicks", were short and close-fitting - much more like today's boxer briefs than those hideous tarpaulins boys now disappear into. So a well-hung boy like Ed, after dropping his tracky dacks court-side, needed to get his house in order, which he hadn't done. The most startling thing was that it wasn't weird, sexually or otherwise. It was no more weird than the more usual mum licking a finger to wipe a smudge of dirt off her son's face. A genuinely funny moment, but not weird. His mum was a gutsy woman, a single mum raising three kids and working long low-paying hours to do it. But Ed's buddies congregated at her house because she was such a hoot, really got on well with boys as boys - could let fly with a demon temper when needed but more usually was a barrel of laughs, dispenser of home-cooked food and good listener. Perhaps she was more a throwback to a pre-WEIRD time when weirdness didn't have its filthy little claws in our every nook and cranny. I would think she'd make a better fit with those Florentine mums of the Renaissance who fussed over their sons, making them presentable in order to attract a better quality man. |