It was a crazy, lovely, beautiful day
“My Ironbridge Summer” Vol.7
The 7th and final volume in support of my early December 2024 self-published book “My Ironbridge Summer” is also the 55th and penultimate chapter that ends
“It was just like any other early Saturday afternoon in October, and my oldest friend had come to town”
Quite by surprise too.
And it made my day.
As you’re about to read.
You can read the chapter in full below or via the link to the original article or, dare I say it, within the book itself (reasonably priced in paperback and hardback) or free to read if you have an Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” membership.
"My Ironbridge Summer" - link to Amazon
It was a crazy, lovely, beautiful day
It was just like any other early Saturday morning in October, the minutes counting down in the witching hour that often leads to madness in the wrong hands but not in October, not in baseball season. The sun was still high in a Los Angeles sky high above Dodger …
It was just like any other early Saturday morning in October, the minutes counting down in the witching hour that often leads to madness in the wrong hands but not in October, not in baseball season. The sun was still high in a Los Angeles sky high above Dodger Stadium as those brave boys in blue took to the field with those Pesky Padres from San Diego. It was shit or bust time. The season was on the line.
A local rivalry simmering way past boiling point.
Just another early Saturday morning in October as the sun was setting on a Friday night a world away and on a baseball team’s ambitions for yet another season now under the floodlights of Dodger Stadium, a boisterous crowd roaring their approval. For the Pesky Padres were vanquished, never given a chance to even compete in a series of baseball they’d largely dominated until the keeper of the season’s secrets came calling, and the Los Angeles Dodgers finally came out to play.
It was just like any other early Saturday afternoon in October when I awoke in the glow of baseball triumph many hours later, and after a morning full of October rain had given way to the brightest of autumnal, early afternoon sunshine. Out of the Dodger blue my oldest friend was in toy town and within the hour I was playing tourist guide and in the happiest of my elements. Where a wife and daughter were absent on a secret mission in their stead were a gaggle of my home city’s finest, my oldest friend’s larger family, and gentlemen for children. Absent too were my old friend’s parents but they were here in the spirit and guise of boys grown into men and a man I’m lucky to call my friend.
My oldest friend.
A picture book world heritage status toy town was explored, antiques acquired, views taken from high atop a hill in the yard of a church with the sweetest of bells to toll. A second invitation wasn’t required for the trip to the wonderland of the town’s only sweet shop and after introductions were made I joined Jeremy, the owner of this sweet toothed paradise, in our Ironbridge dance of sweets to be tried, local places to visit and how simply being in this surreal tiny toy town of a world releases the shackles of the old world, that other world away from the river, away from swans named Fred and Mary, away from the smiles and laughter only the aura of Ironbridge can create, even on an early afternoon Saturday in the baseball season of October.
Long after my friend’s departure I mused to Jeremy how proud I was of him and the family that surrounds him, of the boys transformed into men, of the boys we were, the boys that became teenagers, children of men and women of great renown and good standing in the city of our birth. I didn’t then, and still don’t have now the words to adequately describe the couple of wondrous hours spent in the company of largely strangers who welcomed me into their gang or of my feelings now. I glow and I smile and naturally I loved playing tour guide!
But it was seeing my old friend’s children and the pride they must be for the man I knew as a child himself well over four decades ago, and who hasn’t changed and no doubt ever will. I fell into the pitter-patter of home city conversation, a city I miss for the grand old lady residing within its walls and perhaps the ghost of a kid who left her in the pioneering pursuit of dreams. I doubt he’ll change either.
It was just like any other early Saturday afternoon in October, and my oldest friend had come to town.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.