Greggs

21 Elm Row
Edinburgh EH7 4AA
http://www.greggs.co.uk

by Beau Cadiyo

I try to play my son at least one new song every day, either on the guitar or Spotify.  Sometimes, it's new for both of us - "Palestinian Music" is particularly interesting - and sometimes, I pick something that I love, or that will be important for him to be exposed to. 
This morning, my first attempt - the Horst Wessel song - failed; I'd read about it, but had never heard it, and it seemed perhaps that it was doomed to stay that way forever.  Asking for James Earl Jones reading the Bible was also a flop - all I got were random clips from the Lion King.  Finally, Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits returned a playlist, and he listened as I sang along with them. 
Midway through the playlist, I had the thought: once upon a time, "Scarborough Fair" and "Mrs. Robinson" and "The Boxer" and "The Sound of Silence" were all as revolutionary as Rage Against The Machine or Two Live Crew were.  Now, most of what we remember of that time seems to be the bravery of the protesters against unjust wars, and a nostalgia for the Peace and Love generation.  While listening to "America," I imagined: what would it be like to be a young person traveling across the country without a smartphone tracking my movements, without the ability to contact anyone at any time?  How magical must that have been - to be lost, anonymous, free. 
And then I had the thoughts:

1. No matter how bad it gets, one day, this will all seem so quaint.  
2. No matter how bad it gets, what will be remembered is love.  
3. No matter how bad it gets, one day, we won't even be memories.  If we're lucky, we will get a digital line on a family tree maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  
4. Seen from space, what we each do today, and throughout our entire lives, has absolutely no bearing or impact whatsoever on the universe.  Nobody knows we are here.  We are so absurdly insignificant it's a joke.  
5. Greggs has the option of getting extra bacon on a breakfast roll; with brown sauce, it is unbeatable.  No wonder they are winning the sandwich wars.