The Things That Stick
There were sixty-four melodies to choose from. When it rang late Sunday morning the doorbell was set to Greensleeves. Outside the sun shone and the sky was blue. It could have been summer, but it was late December.
I don’t remember anything of Christmas except the film Santa Claus being shown on television that afternoon, and our neighbour Jean sobbing with her arms wrapped around me as I tried to watch it. I loved films, but I wasn’t interested in watching this one. I just wanted Jean to leave me alone.
My father was technically ingenious. At least to me aged ten. He loved gadgets and helped build my video library. For his Bar Mitzvah he had one request: a kit to build his own hi-fi. He left school a week after his sixteenth birthday with a grade ‘A’ in CDT and very little else. By the time I came along, life and responsibilities had taken him in a different direction. He was office-bound and chartering aeroplanes for a living.
He was, however, one of the first to own a Sony Betamax video player. And then one of the first to own its substandard usurper: the VHS recorder. And he was the only person I knew who linked the two together to copy films from the local video store. He told me it was illegal, but I would insist.
That week I wanted to add Back To The Future to my collection. I’d already seen it in the cinema a year or two earlier. I loved the way Marty McFly sped along freely, holding onto the back of moving vehicles whilst riding his skateboard.
Dad had bought me and my sister skateboards during our visit to Israel that summer. So when we got back I found a jacket with removable sleeves like Marty’s. But I drew the line at grabbing speeding cars. I may have been impressionable, but I wasn’t stupid. Instead I convinced Jean’s boys to cycle as fast they could with me holding on to their saddles. Sometimes I would volunteer to take my best friend Barkley out for a walk so he could pull me along as I held the leash.
