The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker: New Stuff

Tuesday, 17 September 2019

New Stuff

michaelgcasey Uncategorized 17/09/2019 5 Minutes

New Stuff ©

Michael Casey

Earlier I spoke about being or rather feeling old if you surf for keyboards, the ones with the Alphabet on. Well I’ve had my dinner and met Annie on the Hill as well as the orange cat and our neighbour the blind man with the Alsatian guide dog, and my daughter has more junk to take with her to University, so I was thinking New Stuff. So that’s why you are getting this, whether you are in Russia or South America or Thailand, some of my readers these past 2 days. And yes none of you have stopped by Amazon to buy the English version of my ebooks, but I’ll forgive you if you can get Putin or Trump to mention me in a Press Conference. Even if its just to say that fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England is a disgrace, leaving a trail of dandruff everywhere. Fame at last, and then Head and Shoulders will put my face on every bottle, don’t be like HIM, use US instead.

But back to the plot, New Stuff, we all like new stuff. My first pair of long trousers made me feel great, Summer of 1970 I think, just before I went to Grammar school. Mum was sat in the garden on a broken backed barn chair, she took up the hem, then I tried them on. A pair of puke coloured cords, I remember dancing up and down the yard enjoying the sensation of long trousers. I used to wear shorts with long socks with garters to hold up the socks. My new long trousers were great, they were in fact an old pair of one of my brothers, 2nd hand or even 3rd hand, but they were mine, all mine.

And yes I’ve always had short fat and hairy legs, just like Ernie Wise, though mine are incredible strong. Which came in useful when I needed veins to transplant into my heart for what turned out to be a quadruple heart bypass. I weighed myself the other day so I think all my weight is in my thighs, I am 116kilos, and no I’m not going to pose for you, you’d have to know my biblically to find out. Fetch the bucket to be sick in.

Back to new things, it’s the smell and the touch which is so nice. A book, a physical book has colour and text and smell, and a cover design. If you are lucky it is well written as well, otherwise you use it in the outside toilet as reading matter, or to wipe your bum with, or you may just burn it on the wood burner.

New things smell new, and they have a feel to them that makes you happy, you have something new, as opposed to hand me downs. They can come gift wrapped as well, and that can add to the excitement, just like Christmas. Though men are really fed up with socks and ties every Christmas. Shoes, new shoes are a weakness of mine, I used to buy brown because they were cheaper than black, but now years later I do actually like brown the most. Black shoes denote work, whereas brown is for relaxation, for taking your ease as my dad used to say.

Though he wore size 10 steel toe capped boots, for his time in the steelworks. Me I wear my old shoes as slippers, so rather than throw them away I give them some extra grace and use as indoor slippers. Believe it not I was 2015 UnCool Dad of the Year with Clark’s Shoes, part of the prize was 2 pairs of shoes of your choice, I’m still wearing a brown leather pair right now. Musto, they are too worn to wear outside any more but after cleaning the sole I now wear them as my house slippers. That photo of me in an Orange Polo was enough for me to win the prize, the only good thing that happened in 2015, which was my own Annus Horribilis.

Getting something new is always nice, we used to have Fashion Parades when somebody got something new, so we could all comment and gawk at the member of the family with the new item. We may all try it on too, even trying to put a coat on the family dog, and my mother chiding us, don’t break it on the child. New things denote prosperity, or a bit of slack in the family budget, it’s a joy, dad has got a bonus, or one of the family has got their first pay packet.

In some cultures you may give your 1st pay packet to your dad, but even if you did he’d probably just give it back to you. He had the honour and the offer, and he could boast my child gave me his first pay packet. I can remember I got £30 or so and I bought a hifi which lasted years, and it was so nice to be able to listen to records. In them days they were real records on black vinyl. The hifi sounded great, and I never changed the stylus in the 10 years I had it. I think I gave it to me sister once I bought my 1st proper hifi a Technics, 30 years ago. I did get some cheap albums, which I bought the fire salvage shop nearby, I bought them if the cover art looked good.

Nice things are nice, because they are new and smell new, and it’s proof somebody loves you. A gift is good because it’s evidence of love and friendship. It’s even nicer if somebody bought something that you actually wanted, be it a pair of brown shoes, or a doorstop to keep the door open as the lock is broken and you don’t want to be trapped in the bathroom again. Yes, that is a real example. I was actually trapped in the toilet on the Paris to Calais train in 1984, but that’s another story.

Sometimes old things are better than any new stuff, remember that chair my mother sat on as she turned up the hem on my trousers? I took that with me when I got my own house. So it reminded me of my mother, I only lost it when we moved house a year ago now. So for 50years that chair was part of the family, and mum always nagged me to bring it back, so she could stand on it to clean the windows, but she stopped nagging me in 1996.