Friday, 11 June, 2025

I think I'm becoming a bit of an intellectual snob. The tendency has, probably, has always been there but I've been careful not to let it show too much. Now, though, I can't help myself feeling superior and letting others know how I feel.  I wrote a story recently where I made snide comments about a woman who prided herself on being an intelligent reader but she only read Mills and Boon novels and then I read the story to my writing group where there were, no doubt, other people who had similar reading tastes.  Were they offended? I have no idea and it never occurred to me beforehand that anyone might take offence.

Also, there's the matter of general knowledge.  We watch a couple of quiz shows on TV which involve the asking of questions.  I have acquired the insufferable habit of answering the questions before the contestant, and I say the answer out loud.  Poor Marilyn, having to tolerate my showing off!  And, of course, she is too polite to tell me to put a sock in it.

I know it's not the right time of the year for resolutions but I must resolve to show a bit more humility.  I'm not expecting myself to BE more humble; the best I can hope for is to conceal my cleverness a bit more cleverly.

I'm starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for stories and Memory Lane is not one of my better efforts.

MEMORY LANE                                                                                         OCTOBER 13, 2023

Russell had written a story at school which he called Memory Lane and he remembered that his teacher had been particularly complimentary.  The incident had stuck in his mind because compliments from his teachers had been rare and, as this one had come from Mr Stewart, his English teacher, it was particularly notable.  The details of the story were long gone from his memory but Russell assumed it had been the usual trite and clumsy stringing-together of unrelated thoughts and ideas which marked his attempts at literature.

Happily, he had little need to practice his writing skills in his new occupation as an Uber delivery driver and he managed to keep up his haphazard conversations with his Facebook community with the liberal use of emojis.  He liked to think he was something of an expert on the use of emojis, and his mates had often complimented him on how he expressed himself, so put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr Stewart!

Thinking about that small glimmer of success from his days at school had given Russell a warm glow of satisfaction so he turned again to his phone to check the address where he was to deliver this order of MacDonalds.  Yes, 213 Memory Lane.  It must be in the new lot of houses out on the highway, so he started his car and made his way through the suburban streets.  It was a bit further away than his usual deliveries but you have to take the rough with the smooth, he mused, and what you lose on the swings you pick up on the roundabout.  Russell was oblivious to the fact that he thought and spoke in cliches and often silently congratulated himself on his mastery of the English language.

He kept an eye out for his turn-off and here it was.  Taking the right-turn with care, Russell looked out for the sign to Memory Lane on the left.  He hadn’t been out this way for ages and there had been a lot of building going so he was surprised to find that the street looked very familiar.  His front wheel ran into a pot-hole: that was odd, a new street shouldn’t have potholes so soon after being built!  And the houses didn’t look as new as he expected.  What was going on?

Rounding a bend, he passed a school on his right.  It looked strangely familiar: timber demountables with peeling paint walls, a decrepit flagpole standing forlornly in the middle of a burnt patch of grass, a few straggly rose bushes lining a broken-up concrete path.  “That’s Rosemount Primary School!”, he realised with a gasp.  How can that be, in a new subdivision?  Russell had never prided himself on being a quick thinker and it wasn’t until he had identified a familiar corner shop, a park with swings and seesaw and a decrepit tennis court that he made the connection in his brain that he had somehow stumbled upon his old neighbourhood.  But, he had never lived in Memory Lane.

He rode on a little further.  The trees he remembered were all a little bigger, the houses a lot shabbier and the fences a lot more decrepit.  Surely, his memory was playing him tricks.  He had moved away from this neighbourhood after he had left the primary school and he had never returned, but it was eerily familiar, just that everything was twenty years older.  The only thing was that he could not remember any street called Memory Lane.

“I’ve had enough of this,” he thought, “I’m going to deliver this order, then I’m going home  to bed.  Maybe I’m coming down with something.”  He noted that he was passing Number 191, so he wasn’t far away.  He was also pleased to see that the houses were now starting to look a little more modern and better looked after.  It was odd, he thought, the school used to be in Rosemount Street and, just after we passed it, we came to a patch of scrub.  “What’s happened here?” he thought.

Russell wasn’t a genius, he knew, but he wasn’t a dill either so he soon worked it out.  “They’ve extended the street into a new subdivision, re-named it and I’ve been riding along it without realising I know this area well,” he thought to himself.

Number 213 was on his left now.  He rang the doorbell, handed the bag to a harassed looking young woman, accepted a generous tip and made his way back along Memory Lane to collect his next delivery.

Realising now that he was in familiar territory, Russell enjoyed his trip back along Memory Lane, identifying places from his childhood: the homes of his friends, the telephone box where they used to make prank phone calls, and the letterboxes they blew up on Cracker Night.  Memory Lane, indeed!