Childhood Memories: The Chaser

Part two of a series of memories from my childhood.

It wasn’t just a Chaser, it was The Chaser. Black and fluro-green with sixteen-inch wheels, it was my first bike. It even had training wheels to begin with. And I loved it more than any of my other material possessions, because I saw it as my ticket to freedom.

From the day I got it (a birthday present for my third birthday) I probably spent more hours on the seat of the bike than I did off. We lived in a cul-de-sac at the time, and I had the route down pat. Down our moderately steep driveway, up to the end of the street and back around to the corner. At first, I didn’t dare go further — there were older kids just past that point and a strange old man with gravel instead of lawn. But as I grew older I grew more adventurous. I started to venture down the lane-way next to our house to the street on the other side, riding up and down the street for a bit before returning down the lane-way (the other way would take me past the older kids).

One day though, I was determined to conquer my fears. Strapping my black & color-speckled helmet on, I rode down to the corner — and around it. Excited that I now had a new world to explore, I rode down to the end of our street, and up into the next. Pedalling as fast as I could to the small park at the top, I stopped to grin over my newfound achievement. Everything had changed at this point, and I was already considering where I could ride to next. It would only be a couple more streets to the shops, or a couple more still to the school I had started to attend.

Over the following few years I upgraded to bigger bikes, bikes with gears and other new things, and riding beyond the street I lived in stopped being so exciting. But I never sold The Chaser, even as we moved house and it became too small for me to ride comfortably.

It sits in the backyard now, worse for wear and not having been ridden in years. The Chaser is like a lot of things from my childhood really - neglected in favor of a busy life and less simple pursuits.

Posted Sunday, October 18th, at 7:00 AM (∞).

Childhood Memories: Building Blocks

Part one of a series of memories from my childhood.

I had a lot of Lego has a kid — two big boxes of it, boxes that I’d spend hours sifting through for just the right part to add to my latest masterpiece. I was six, maybe seven at the time, and I bored quickly of the instruction manuals. What I liked to make instead were things that wouldn’t fly into a thousand pieces if I dropped them (or usually, if my younger brother dropped them).

I’d build tanks and planes and boats, practical things that I could play with. Function over form most of the time, but I’d always make sure all the bricks were the same color — it was sacrilege to even consider otherwise. And I’d use nothing but first-rate Lego, not the cheap imitation brands that just didn’t fit properly or that were colored more pink than red.

The Lego men I put inside these creations were always likenesses of myself, or my friends, or my family. I used to imagine it was me flying that spaceship, and my best friend steering that tank, because I knew I could trust that other little yellow man to always have my back. That was until we had a falling out not long after my parents divorced, in which case he couldn’t be trusted and never stepped foot into my spaceship again.

But most vividly I remember the day I had a fight with my younger brother. Knowing my love for Lego — and how long it had taken me to build up my collection — he methodically picked every Lego man out of the boxes and buried them in the back garden. Finding out not long after, I’d dug furiously in the spot I’d learned to be their impromptu grave, until I’d hit yellow sand and found not one head, torso or pair of legs.

Soon after that I stopped playing with Lego completely, disheartened by the loss of the friends that had joined me on my adventures into space, into wars and across the countryside that was our kitchen bench-top.

Posted Monday, October 12th, at 6:41 PM (∞).