Almanac Life: Discarded boots, our old car, and ‘Hotel California’

 

 

 

Nostalgia and detachment are constantly at war.

For me, the former wins more than it should. But sometimes disinterest rears up like a startled horse and I make an utterly sensible decision.

 

In July of 1993, I bought a pair of boots and trudged about in them for decades, across continents. I wore them to work. I wore them to the footy. I wore them everywhere.

 

During recent years when they began to require frequent repairs, I determined that new soles and patched holes in the leather toes were just steps to guarantee the immortality of my beloved boots.

 

I’d be buried in them.

 

But one day in September I drove to an Op Shop on the Broadway, flipped open the collection bin lid, and deposited my boots. They’d become heavy to wear and almost curmudgeonly. I now saw them through different eyes.

 

Suddenly, we were done, and surgical detachment triumphed. I didn’t stare at them wistfully, shed a lonesome tear or even have a rush of cinematic vision, showing thirty years of life’s high (and low) lights of me in my boots.

 

I then made my way to the kiosk where I looked at the beach and sipped a cappuccino and relished the cheerful afternoon breeze.

 

*

 

Claire’s car is also in its third decade. No mere toiler, it’s a treat to pilot: compact, nippy, and gently joyous. It zips along Anzac Highway like a nimble fawn.

 

 

 

Having done 435,000 kilometres, I’ve been wondering about the time it’ll need replacement. Looking online at the cost of similar vehicles we may need to up the insurance for it seems to be worth more than I thought. Evaluating the RAV 4’s condition has triggered some introspection and a rediscovery of personal values on longevity and utility.

 

But I hope we can celebrate the half a million milestone when it should get a signed telegram from the King or at least someone in the Palace who can use a pen.

 

I now feel refurbished sentimentality for this precious motor and its unswerving everydayness. It could star in its own Little Golden Book.

 

*

 

On Boxing Day, the transformative power of objects again grabbed me. By the airport I drove past a sprawling discount shopping centre, sat fat and foolish. Cars were parked chaotically in the creek bed, nose-to-tail on the verges and, if I checked, likely on top of each other too. Instead, I went to Mr. V’s record store on Semaphore Road. He offers no festive discounts.

 

 

Exploring vinyl albums is a sentimental experience. I am returned to being a teenager and these artefacts lead to a wholly immersive bliss. While I enjoy flicking through the modern releases, I find a deeper delight at the 70s and 80s section where my younger self forever lives. Rationing this indulgence, I ponder purchasing one of these:

 

The Boys Light Up– Australian Crawl

 

Straight in a Gay, Gay World– Skyhooks

 

Place Without a Postcard– Midnight Oil.

 

Rather I zoom across the Pacific and buy Hotel California. It’s unstoppably captivating and I’ve always surrendered to its narrative power. Kapunda’s a long way from the Hollywood and Beverly Hills setting of these songs but my connection is strong as steel.

 

 

Listening is a cheerfully simple, analogue experience. With a crackle the needle descends on The Eagles and I’m again in a boxy Kingswood patrolling the homely streets of Kapunda. It’s the clumsy sway of the last dance at high school socials (formals or proms to some of you). It’s the boyish allure of American cityscapes.

 

*

 

What to finally make of dumping my boots, refreshed appreciation for Claire’s car, and the untarnished radiance of an adolescent record? The past is seldom still, but sometimes rushes at us like a rampaging bull and leaves me standing in its dust, bewildered. I’m caught between nostalgia’s gilded cage and reality’s sharpening edges.

 

But I always was.

 

 

To read more by Mickey Randall click here.

 

 

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