Memories

[Alan]

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I’m going to transport (remember that word) you back to a time long, long ago. This was when people talked to each other face to face, instead of mobile to mobile, when mothers pushing baby in the pram talked to baby face to face instead of gassing to their mates on the mobile, when pop singers actually sang words that you could understand and stood up straight while they were singing instead of crouching with bent knees bobbing up and down and pushing a microphone down their throats almost to their tonsils, when you knew what the weather was like outside even when you were inside a car.

And now we come to it - the first car you ever bought. I bought mine for £35 from a garage by the seaside. It only had three forward gears and one reverse. It wasn’t that it was in any way defective, it’s just that the manufacturers thought that three was enough for going forward. There was no heater in the car and so on cold winter days you had to have a rug of some sort over your knees making sure you didn’t lose sight of the gear stick. You had to wind down the driver’s window and make wild gesticulatory movements with your arms to indicate whether you were turning left or right. Well, that was when the indicator wasn’t working properly.

It was a glass illuminated lever that rose up from the sides of the car. Unfortunately sometimes it didn’t rise and even worse it would rise and then stay risen, confusing everyone behind you. Your first car is a bit like your first love affair. When you think back to that time, there seems to be a misty haze in the picture you see in your mind’s eye. You forget the times when it (I should say ‘she’ of course) didn’t start and I can recall one frosty evening in the middle of winter, having come out of a cinema in central London, being obliged to use the starting handle, ignoring the jeering and laughing crowd that stood and watched. Because it was so easy to open the bonnet, one horrible individual actually opened it and helped himself to probably the most expensive asset the car had - the battery.

After a couple of years, I had to take her to a garage that bought second-hand cars. When I asked a heavily oiled mechanic there what he would give me for the car, he thought for a while, sniffed, wiped his nose with an oily hand and said: Nuffink. For those that are not familiar with bad London English, that means ‘nothing’. But eventually I sold her for £20 to a dealer and it went in the end to a West Indian bus driver.

Well, I say ‘sold’ but the dealer in fact gave me an I O U for that sum. That’s all I have left of my dear old car because to this day some 45 years later, the dealer never redeemed the note and I was just left with memories.
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Present Simple

[Kati Svaby]

Dear Alan

You managed to transport me back to a time long-long ago. It is interesting that I put a question a few minutes ago „
„ Do you think family life is different today from what it was like 30-50 years ago?” I could write this question in the same time when you wrote this story about the past.
Our family life is changed. Why? Because in the evenings we were talking to each other to face to face. Our family remained together and the parents told us their life. I liked very much these stories, I was able to listen to the same story not once but several times.
Yes, you are right, when I became mother 48 years ago I spoke to my daughter face to face during pushing her in her pram.

Even the Beatles used to sing their first songs stood up straight, in tie and suit.

In Hungary you have to wait for your first car 5 years. You had to pay the money what the state used for 5 years and you could buy your first car that was a Russian Lada. We were very happy, in winter it was very warm in it; because it was made to be good in Siberia also. This car was a love-affair also for us. And my husband could repair lot of things on it. Not than now; if something bad happens with our car he can’t do anything. We also was in a situation when people looked at us with jeering and laughing face.

You are not a good businessman, than us. We always bought everything expensively and bought very cheaply. But I think you surpass us. So your oiled dealer wanted to give “Nuffink” for your car. At the end your dealer gave to you an IOU that you never could redeem. So its only a beautiful memory remaind from your youth.

C’est la vie.

Best Regards:
Kati Svaby
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We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

[Kati Svaby]

Hello Alan,

Do you know this poem of Walt Whitman ? Why did he write this? I think because when he sees these old women remembers those who used to be, remember "In the shadow of young girls in flower"

"Walt Whitman: Beautiful women

Women sit, or move to and fro—some old, some young;
The young are beautiful—but the old are more beautiful than the young."

Regards:
Kati Svaby
_________________
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

[Kati Svaby]

I always make a mistake. I thought of In Search of Lost Time. Very sorry.
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We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

[Kati Svaby]

Dear Alan,

I am looking for your letters. The last letter was written to Torsten. This one:

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2011 9:41 am Subject: Headquarters?
Hi Torsten,

Yes, I would add an 's'. Yes to an 's'.

Alan

I hope you are well .
Have a good time!

I am sorry that in my age the people and me also become over-scrupulous.
I would like to see your letter after the Headquarters.

Regards:
Kati Svaby
_________________
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.