BUCK UP

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       I had just finished filling my car with gas when the kindly-looking Eastern European gentleman approached me.

       “Buck up,” he said.

       I was touched. “Buck up” is a particularly old-fashioned British piece of advice, exhorting one’s fellow to be of good cheer: it was not one I’d heard used for years, even by a British person, and it was somehow soothing to have it rendered to me from this most unlikely source. Nor was it entirely inappropriate: although I won’t claim that all ten plagues of Egypt had been visited upon me in the course of that morning, it had nevertheless been a mildly trying one, and apparently it was showing in my face.

       “Thank you,” I replied to him, because he was right, of course: life can be difficult for all of us, but then we can most of us stand to have it pointed out that it could be worse. “I have many blessings and, you’re right, I do need to take time to focus on them. Thank you for reminding me of that.”

       The gentleman nodded patiently.

       “Buck up,” he repeated.

       Unexpectedly, I found myself smiling. The last person who had suggested I “buck up,” had probably been Mr. Henderson back in London. Mr. Henderson had been our neighbor when I was a child. Mr. Henderson had been a retired senior administrative officer: he had sported a bristling white moustache, had smoked a pipe and carried a large white handkerchief in his breast pocket, and had said things like, “steady the Buffs,” and, “that’s uncommonly civil of you,” and, yes, on occasion, when he thought someone needed cheering, “buck up.” Mr. Henderson had invariably raised his hat when he saw me in the street, which as a nine-year-old, I had found irresistibly entrancing. Mr. Henderson, now that I thought about it, had very possibly been – in an impeccably proper and gentlemanlike fashion, of course – somewhat taken by my pretty (and, no doubt to his further most gallant approval, faithfully married woman and proud Catholic co-progenitor of five) mother. I wondered now, briefly, exactly how this sweet-faced Eastern European in the gas station had come by “buck up.” Maybe he too had known – somehow, somewhere, who knew where or when? – his own Mr. Henderson along the way of his life, and thought that this was how all English-speaking people spoke. Maybe he was an aficionado of pre-World War Two British cinema. Maybe he was a poetic sort who simply liked the phrase.

       “Buck up,” said the gentleman again.

       Slowly but surely, I was beginning to feel better.

       “It’s quite a good idea, isn’t it?” I said.

       When you took time to consider it, I now thought, it was a quite delicious idea, a much-needed jolt of positivity preserved in a throwback to a more innocent time. If only, I thought, life could be so simple that we could all just buck up, put our troubles into perspective, and decide to look on the bright side instead of bemoaning them. After all, I reminded myself, every cloud has a silver lining, and the rainbow must surely end somewhere. Already, I could feel my troubles of the morning receding: maybe, I thought, the whole world needed to be more like Mr. Henderson and this nice gentleman and adopt the “buck up” philosophy as a lodestar for living. Maybe, I thought, I’d start to say “buck up” myself.

       “You know something?” I said. “I think I will do just that.”

       He nodded and smiled. I nodded and smiled. We stood for a while, nodding and smiling at each other, a perfect exemplar of human understanding breaching the divides of race, culture and gender. It was really quite beautiful.

       My new friend cleared his throat just a little.

       “I need you to buck up please,” he said then. “Your car is blocking mine.”

       Still smiling, he looked at me hopefully.

       “Oh,” I said.

       “Sorry,” I said.

       I climbed into my car and, as he had requested, put it into reverse, and backed it up and out of his way.