It's Time

It’s Time ©

By Michael Casey

It’s Time, as opposed to IT time, there is a difference, a big difference. It’s Time can mean, time for Execution, your Execution. Watch the Green Mile by the way, a really great film. It’s Time, can fill you full of dread, time for exams to start, or Time being called and you have to put down your pen, and Pray literally Pray you’ve done enough to Pass and get to the University you so desire to go to.

When God made Time, he made plenty of it was what my dad said, his Birthday in 1977 was a very low point in my life, but 6 months later I got into IT, or computers as it was then called, and I found a safe harbour. So Time and Tide are relative, and your Luck can change. The snap of the house, the stone building is from Cromane Lower Killorglin County Kerry Eire, just near the slipway. This is where my mother was born and raised, 9 people all together. This is where her Time began in 1920, so this is where I look back, to another place and to another Time. It is one of the most beautiful places on God’s Earth as the saying goes. Opposite is Dingle where Ryan’s Daughter was filmed.

A place has meaning, and it has Love and Memories, those days are long gone, but yet it has a draw to all of us. WE dream of the Home in another Land before we made our home where we are now. In USA millions feel a link to Ireland, or scores of other places where our mum and dad came from, or our grandparents, or however many generations before it was that they came. And yes it was the Chinese and the Irish that built the Railroads, and don’t forget how badly they were then treated. Nowadays we thank God for both of them, or so we should.

It’s Time can mean it’s time to go for a beer, to go for a meal, or get out of the house to go to Church or Temple or Mosque. Though for some their house of Prayer is a bar, and it’s time to recognise that good people come in all shapes and sizes of all Faiths and None, smelling of beer and sweat, and not always in a freshly pressed suit, “asking” for donations to their Mega Church, which does not even have a Crucifix in, as it would clash with the decor.

It’s Time, also means it’s time for bed, get some sleep and be fresh for school in the morning. And yes use that App to switch off the Wifi so that kids really do sleep, or all “toys” must be left in the old battered brown cardboard suitcase at the top of the stairs, like the Cooler in a Speakeasy when the Kennedys were making their money. Everything must be surrendered for the night, and Grandpa Walton sticks it under his bed in that suitcase, the one he used when he left Ireland all those years ago. So that Peace reigns and he is not disturbed by the noise of toys. Grandpa could have gone to USA, his sister was going to send him money from Chicago, but he had just bought a ticket to England with Thomas Cook, so he ended up in England in 1944. And that is why this Writer does not speak with an American accent.

It’s Time to understand this and that, to sit the kids down and explain, that nagging about switching the light off is not just nagging. Everything costs money, or your dad’s Sweat, you are making dad work another day or two or three, because you could not be bothered to switch the light off. He could spend the money on ice creams for them, if only they switched lights off, or put a jumper on instead of the central heating. Central Heating is a joke, I grew up without it, sheet ice on the inside of the bedroom window in bad winters. In 1973 we got central heating, because the city council forced us to, via clean air legislation, so our coal fire disappeared. Yet just yards away in another Council area they were allowed to carry on.

It’s Time has many many meanings, all in all it’s about growing up, literally and metaphorically. The biggest journey is the Interior Journey, this may take a little time, or an entire life. In my case 10 or 11 was when I grew up, family events helped that, I was a precocious kid too. Some people say “you are treating me like a kid” or teachers talk down to kids, or students, or now you even have teachers trained to use  “gender neutral”  expressions. I’ll just say sometimes Henry Ford was right, “you can have any colour you like, so long as it’s black”

It’s time to Marry or have a relationship, or just to get your leg over. But then was it all worth it? How do you feel afterwards, did you rush Time, because everybody else did this or that or the other? Everybody has their own season, their own season in the sun, their own reasons, their travelling done, until they find a safe port or harbour.

So Life goes on, time for this and time for that. Sometimes there is no time to think, we too busy being Twitter people, though a good decision is always a well thought out one, a well planned one. Don’t give in to Lust, whatever the situation, he’ll still be hot and eager next week, or actually not at all, you’re glad you have “Wait till Tomorrow” as your motto, or “It’ll Keep, throw salt at it” as my mother  used to say. A decision takes Time. Not unless it’s a child walking into the path of a car, then you’ll save her instinctively. When God Made Time, he made plenty of It, that’s what my dad used to say. My mother had a saying for every occasion, that was her knowledge, she left home at 14 to go work for a farmer.

As your life moves on you are slower, and spend your time looking at the hands of the clock waiting for your next meal. Until you have your final meal. My dad’s was breakfast, and he was asked did he want another boiled egg, when the old people’s home owner came back with the 2^nd boiled egg my dad was dead, God had called time.

Then no doubt God will ask how did you use your Time, though in my dad’s case he had been given 5.5 years extra time thanks to Padre Pio’s intervention. So all of you reading this, think how you use your time, can you spare a minute for your old infirmed dad, or time to play ball with your kids, or to make a phone call, to touch base with your sisters? Or time to make love to your boyfriend, or are you so tired you have no time for him. So he runs off with the office cleaner.

Use your Time, don’t squander it on rubbish, like Twitter, don’t be a twitter person, read a book, listen to Radio 4 news. Think for yourself, ignore all the Politicians. Make a better life for yourself and your family, by using time, having quality time together, watching Strictly  Come Dancing and taking the Mick out of all of them as you pass around the Cadburys chocolate as you have 10 different conversations

Simultaneously. Strictly may be on but you are all ignoring it as you have Quality Time with your family. This is what time is for, it’s to be enjoyed to spend time together as you twitter about important things, like who is that strangely gorgeous fat silver haired man in shades who lives next door. Oh, him, he’s Michael Casey, he’s from Birmingham.