Toe in the Water

A Long Lost Tale

A Long Lost Tale

In Small Talk today, Solace asks us to complete the statement, "Something I lost and never found was..." That stirred old memories and I had completed a long and detailed answer before remembering that we're supposed to answer in no more than three sentences. Well, I wasn't going to let all that typing go to waste, so I decided to use it as a blog post, and give a much-truncated version to the original question. So here's the full version:

Something I lost and never found was my old reversible jacket. In my mid-teens, I had craved the standard indication of youthful rebellion of the time - a black leather jacket. I had concentrated my strategy for attaining this on my mother. She was a pretty soft touch and was easily the most likely to cave in to my endless blandishments. Even so, it was over a year before she finally gave in.

My parents always gave me the impression that we were poor. Birthday and Christmas presents were always disappointingly frugal and sensible and allowances were embarrassingly tiny, even for the era. The truth was, however, that my father had a good job and earned a salary that easily put us in the middle class. What I saw as their stinginess was not caused by poverty but by the fact that my parents had grown up during the depression years. That entire generation learned lifetime lessons of extreme caution when spending money, galvanised by the fear of ever again having too little to live on.

So my mother's caution in the matter of my jacket was entirely understandable. And her solution to the problem was also inevitable. I got my black jacket but it was not made of leather. It was, instead, a sort of imitation done in a standard material, not even faux leather, and had the odd property of being reversible. Well, it was all I had and so I wore it. Every day and everywhere that black jacket was my constant apparel and I came to love it dearly.

For years it was my uniform, even as the rocker era gave way to the hippy. That jacket and I became so inseparable that, when it became worn and tattered, I did not give up on it but tried it in the reversible style. This optional outer veneer, for so long regarded as a lining only, was a sort of dull tartan in colour and, to my amazement, was just cool enough to be worn with pride. The reversed coat became my habitual wear.

And so it went for many years. I went away to university, returned and found myself a crappy job, then married and fathered a child, and my jacket remained my constant wear. Time was having its way with the old companion, however, and it developed tears and springing of seams until it became little more than a handful of pockets held together by a few ragged strips of material. But it was still beautiful to me and I resisted all protests of my mother and wife to get rid of it. There may even have been a subconscious element of revenge on my mother for not making it leather in the first place. I would not desert my wonderful jacket.

And then, one day, it went missing. I searched everywhere for it, in every place I had visited over the previous months but no trace did I find. No one claimed to have any idea where it could be either. It took a while but, in the end, I had to give up on the thing and buy another jacket. So unloved was the replacement that I can remember nothing of it now. It certainly wasn't leather, however. Who could afford such luxuries when a young hippy with a family to support?

Now I must confess that, in one aspect, this long story has been a bit of a cheat when used to answer your question. You see, it is no longer true that I never did find out what happened to that beloved old jacket. It was many years later that my wife cracked and told me the truth. The fact was that we had been visiting the parents on a certain occasion and I had left my jacket there by mistake. My mother had phoned my wife with news of this error on my part and they had cooked up their solution to the problem between them.

My mother burned the thing in the backyard and swore everyone to secrecy. The hatred my friends and family bore that wonderful jacket can be ascertained by consideration of how secret and for how long that conspiracy remained. Never mind the trauma for me of learning how fickle are the loyalties of those that profess to love you.

I think I am just about over it now.


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