We Are Made Of Stars

Wow. I go on a trip with Lucy for a few days and all hell breaks loose!

On Sunday morning, I left with Lucy in our new car for a road trip. No, not in a Rapide, but a white Morgan.

I had a dream to realize . . . offline.

Back when I was a little kid, maybe 11, I had a paper route in Eastern Green, Coventry. I would wake up at 6 am using the travel alarm clock that my Dad got as a gift from someone at work, walk up Hockley Lane, down Sutton Avenue, to the back door of Clifton’s Newsagents. The streets were empty. I was the first one up.

I would pause at the dooor for a moment and dream of the day when I would be driving a car like the store owner’s white Morgan convertible that was parked out the back next to the door. Then I would go in. Oh, the owner was up before me!

Source: paul mccartney – ever present past

After Frodsham Hill, Clifton’s was the next stop down my memory hole.

It’s great to be back! My memories are cast in amber. Frozen in time. A perfect calibration point between the UK of today, and the UK in my mind – pre 1975.

Lucy was impressed with my stories. I told her how I treated my Raleigh 5-speed as if it was a car. I just remembered . . . it was not a 10-speed. I would roar the “engine” as I ramped up speed and changed gears. I knew how engines sounded as the gears changed. I knew how I had to let off the accelerator when I clutched . . . for that smooooth shift. I even had a gutteral sub-routine down pat for when this unfortunate thing happened: “och, I blew the shift!”

I watched my Dad do it in the variety of cars he drove while at Standard / Standard-Triumph / Triumph / British Leyland. I sucked everything in like a black hole.

I drove a powerful bicycle in those days. Or maybe it was me? I can’t remember.

Lucy wanted to know if anyone ever heard me make these weird noises. I would stop to pick up passengers on Goldthorn Close, opposite the newsagents. I don’t remember. I was in my own little world. I didn’t care. I was having lots of fun. My car turned into a bus for a few minutes.

We parked the Morgan and walked past the lamp posts on Goldthorn close. Ah, the memories. I remembered being the conductor with that metal ticket machine. I developed the art of stopping my bicycle and balancing without touching my feet on the ground in that fantasy bus-land.

The passengers were all such nice people too. We often had litttle chats.

Anyway, when you are a kid, dreams are not screwed up by pesky details . . . like money. Many things are “money.” Swapping, favours, football cards, conkers . . .

Or half a fiver. If someone takes it . . . it is now money!

It doesn’t matter if anyone heard me revving my imaginary engine anyway. I was a legend in my own Walter Mitty mind . . . just like all kids. Look at the kids now. They are just like you were. Oblivious to money details.

Your inner child is dying to break out again . . . to live out loud . . .

Don’t worry if anyone looks at you funny.

Just do your thang. Say your thang!

I do!

Source: moby – we are made of stars

Oh, Clifton’s Newsagents has changed its name to Stars Newsagents.