Tall And True Short Reads
Milestone Reflections
Episode 50 (11 April 2022)
My parents separated in 1967 when I was five, and my younger brother and I went to live with our grandparents. Nan looked old to my young eyes, and leathery Pop ancient. But born in 1907, Nan was only sixty when we moved in, a cause for reflection when I reached my milestone sixty in March 2022.
Milestone Reflections
Show Notes
Season Two: Episode 50 (11 April 2022)
Milestone Reflections is a blog post from the Tall And True writers’ website, written and narrated by Robert Fairhead.
Read the post on Tall And True: https://www.tallandtrue.com.au/blog/milestone-reflections
Support the podcast: https://supporter.acast.com/tall-and-true-short-reads
Buy Robert’s short story collections online:
- Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Fairhead/e/B086HZ36NM
- Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/author/robert-fairhead/id1436773436
- Rakuten Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/au/en/author/robert-fairhead
Episode Insight
I celebrated my sixtieth birthday in March 2022. Milestone birthdays, like sixty, are times for reflection. And as my big day approached, I recalled a treasured photo of my Nan with her grandmotherly arms wrapped around my younger brother and me.
When I dug out the photo and looked at my boyhood brother and me, I realised it was from shortly after we’d moved in with our grandparents in 1967, following our parents’ separation. And that meant Nan was sixty in the photo.
Grandparents (and parents) always seem old to children. But looking at the photo of Nan with my middle-aged eyes and then at myself in the mirror, I see things differently. And writing Milestone Reflections was my attempt to put things in perspective.
Is sixty really the new forty? Is age a state of mind? And did Nan act old in her conversations, reading and TV habits or taste in music? Or was my boyhood perspective of her a generational response, like my neighbour’s daughter’s guess about my age?
I hope you enjoyed my Milestone Reflections. You can read this and all my blog posts, short stories and other writing at TallAndTrue.com. You can also buy my short story collections from the Amazon Kindle and Kobo online bookstores.
The next episode of Tall And True Short Reads will be in your podcast feed shortly. In the meantime, don’t forget to check your feed or the podcast website, for earlier episodes from Seasons One and Two.
And follow or subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it via your favourite app — doing so helps me share my writing and reflections with other listeners.
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And finally, please tell your family and friends about Tall And True Short Reads and the Tall And True writers’ website.
Podcast Theme and Sound Effects
Royalty-free music from Pixabay.com: Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastorale’ – IV. Rondo. Allegro ma non-Troppo, performed by Karine Gilanyan.
Sound effects licensed under Creative Commons 0 from FreeSound.org:
- Happy Birthday: https://freesound.org/people/theuned/sounds/391869/
Production Notes
Tall And True Short Reads is produced using Audacity.
Podcast episodes are recorded in Sydney, Australia, on the land of the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.
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