Dear Sixteen

1947

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asks us to commune with our teenage self!

DEAR SIXTEEN

Dear Sixteen, please use your eyes!

Being self-centred isn't wise.

Try practising some empathy.

It's surprising what you will see!

You're NOT the only one whose looks

Are rarely seen in glamour books!

You're NOT the only one whose figure

Is growing hideously bigger!

You're NOT the only hopeless case

When asked to catch or swim or race.

You're NOT the only one to feel

You're quite devoid of sex appeal.

You gaze in the mirror, before bed,

And sometimes wish that you were dead.

Knowing you have to go through life

Looking like 'this' cuts like a knife.

Elizabeth Taylor, on the screen,

Looking so lustrous and serene,

Seems to look down at you and sneer,

Saying 'Better luck next year'.

Though both of you know that things are set

And may, indeed, get more loathsome yet!

Yes, Dear Sixteen, just look around!

Girls like you simply abound.

You're nothing special, nothing rare,

With your podgy nose and wispy hair!

And you'll all get through it and survive

Ending-up glad to be alive.

*

Oh dear! Oh dear! It wasn't much fun.

I much prefer being eighty-one!

*

---------------------------------------------------------------

Some years later

MINNIE MORSE!

Another trivial photo, but trivia's always around

And often it's far from trivial, as I have often found.

The Morse Code is quite antiquated; it doesn't quite belong,

But it was considered wonderful when first it came along.

*

As part of a holiday outing we visited, just for fun

A little old fashioned Post Office. (It was good to get out of the sun!)

And there I used the old-style way of contacting a friend,

Though the message had to go through the post when it reached the other end.

*

 I suppose you will not be surprised (it's obvious, of course)

That it was invented by a man with the name of Samuel Morse!

This was in the 1840s, and he used electricity

To send his dots and dashes with great alacrity.

*

It isn't used so much now because high tech is the norm,

But still it comes in handy in a great flood or a storm.

And many people owe their lives to the ingenuity

Of Samuel Morse, the inventor, and his perspicacity

*