Fun & Games with The Boss in Toy Town
“Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain”
With the pleasing reemergence of the sun from its English Summer hiatus and the promise of a bacon sandwich and my electrifying company, the (son)shine of my life readily agreed to a picnic breakfast beside the river and was quickly picking the tunes for our short journey to my spiritual home of Ironbridge. From Bob Marley professing he only shot the sheriff in self-defence, the giggling fool beside me quickly and unexpectedly switched our musical listening to Bruce Springsteen and “Thunder Road”, then “Born to Run”, and finally “Backstreets” as we made our descent over the higgledy-piggledy humps and hollows of a steeply dropping road leading to toy town, and a descent that will forever please this old fool if not the young tyke beside me turning a whiter shade of pale.
We skipped the light fandango and across the oldest iron bridge in the entire world a little after Noon and only after a trip along reverie lane as I reminded my beautiful son (his memory is as untrustworthy as mine) that “Thunder Road” will forever be my favourite song from The Boss and a tale in 4 minutes and 50 seconds of love, loss, loneliness and of breaking free from the shackles of life. His early lyrical inclusion of Roy Orbison will always remind me of my Mum (though I need no extra motivation in this regard) and although “The River”, “Racing in the Street”, “Better Days” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad” will always vie for top spot in my affections, the harmonica beginning to “Thunder Road” will forever send me down that lane of memory to a grand old lady and a Shakespearean fool who introduced me to Springsteen in my college days of the late 1980’s. I’ve spread the word of the gospel according to The Boss ever since and it naturally pleases me that the light of my life needs no urging to turn to Springsteen when music is called for. “Born to Run” is the kid’s favourite song though I believe he favours “Badlands” rather highly too.
The kid has a fine taste in music. It’s just a shame he cheats at cards!
As the sun continued to dance occasionally behind the fluffy white clouds of a typical English summer’s afternoon, Ironbridge was alive to the heartbeat of humanity drawn to this little piece of heaven on earth on days such as these. The sun trap outside The Tontine Hotel was already filling nicely as tourists young and old paid homage to the oldest iron bridge in the world before snaking their individual trails into the many and varied shops that line the High Street. Bikers arrived and departed during their own noisy pilgrimages as favourite spots along the riverside were occupied by excited families, dogs eating ice cream (a forever pleasure to watch) as others enthusiastically leapt into the coolness of the River Severn, scattering ducks hither and thither. Biased though I may be, there’s no place like Ironbridge on a sunny day and my happiest of all places was gleaming in the afternoon sun as we fed the local ducks (another forever pleasure) before we decamped in the local park for our familial and familiar tradition of a picnic breakfast, tall tales, and some fun and games we’ve called our own for a decade or more.
Although home cooked bacon sandwiches together with some fruit, sweets and homemade chocolate brownies were on the picnic agenda, game playing defeats lay ahead for me and from a highly motivated son who shyly giggled when I said he’d be desperate to beat me at “Uno” as today, two game wins would see him reach the thunderous lifetime game wins total of 500. The smiling assassin in The Shining t-shirt opposite me went one better by winning all three of our games as despite me scoring 94, 96 and 70 points in our races to 100 points per game, he plucked cards from the ether like David Blaine and couldn’t hide his giggling delight. As is tradition, Yahtzee was up next (we’d moved on from bacon sandwiches, grapes and apples by this point to the delicious homemade chocolate brownies) and another defeat for your humble narrator as I failed to throw a “Four of a Kind” with the last throw of my five dice, collapsing to defeat by just 11 points, 255–244. And if that wasn’t enough of a game playing humiliation, we played the quickest game of Tri-Ominos ever (think dominos, but with triangular shaped tiles) as I crumbled to another defeat by 167 points to 121.
So the beautiful giggling fool and (son)shine of my life has now wracked up 500 game wins at Uno and I’ve clearly taught him well in the tactics and intricacies of Yahtzee and Tri-Ominos too. I still think he cheats at cards though! But we fed the ducks for a second time before retracing the steps along the riverbank we’ve also made our own for over a decade. He played some Springsteen on our journey away from Toy Town so I’ve taught him well in this regard too and I’ve probably forgiven him as I pen these words now for beating me at some silly games beside the river in the sunshine.
Probably…
Thanks for reading, much appreciated.
My book from last summer in Ironbridge:
"My Ironbridge Summer" - link to Amazon
