March In already?

I think it must of been the date that's triggered it, because I'm currently awash with nostalgia. Everyone has a time in their lives that they look back on with rose-tinters, and for me it has to be the Summer of '96. Back then, I used to hang out with a guy named the Hip Cat. No, really. He was a guy who was simply cool to know, and a guy you could learn from, a kind of cultural wizard. He had an attic bedroom with an old-fashioned type writer, and the laid-back parents all teenagers dream of. It was good to have a friend with an open door.

These were the golden times. Times of football in the orchard, underage alcholism by candlelight, acoustic guitars on grassy lawns and dredging up vinyl from the celler; and all to the strains of OCS. Course, it wasn't Marchin' Already then, but Moseley Shoals, the soundtrack of my youth.

I remember in those days we used to listen to music a lot, but really listen. I'd walk the thirty minutes between our houses just to discover a new track he was raving about. I'd never felt more sophisticated than I did in the rustic kitchen of the Hip Cat; we worked the skillet with Ska, took Earl Grey with Ernest Ranglin and even ate egg banjos to the accompaniment of Echo and the Bunnymen. I can't remember what we had with Throbbing Gristle.

Still, these, like all things come to an end, and people drift apart. I can't even tell you how long it is since I last spoke to the Hip Cat, but last I heard he had grown a beard and was printing T-shirts in Brighton. Despite his faults, he was a good friend. He pulled me up and out from my own naivety, and showed me pieces of something greater in the world.

I regret not keeping in touch.

He's still got my Jam records. Bastard.