What did you want to
be when you were young?
Well now, all little boys wanted to be engine drivers when I
was young, except me. I didn’t. When I was a kid I wanted to be a missionary.
And then I changed my mind and wanted to be a film star. At age fifteen I
briefly wanted to be a geologist, and then at seventeen the yen turned to law
school and becoming a barrister. By my early twenties I’d settled on becoming
an author. And then (and then) by the time I reached thirty I wished I’d become
an engine driver.
I suppose the appeal of being an engine driver is all the
romance that comes with it – the pulling of the chain to sound the whistle, the
charging through the mountain pass in the snow with a whole regiment of pine
trees for an audience, and the going into bars in strange towns and cities to
chat up the local colleens who would ask: ‘Hey mister, you stink of sweat and
smoke. Where’ve you been?’ and I could answer: ‘I’ve been everywhere, little
lady, except one. How are you fixed?’ I think I would have been the politest
engine driver ever to exult in the sounding of a whistle.
And now I’m forced to concentrate on my next life. At the
moment I’m torn between being an astronaut and Emperor of China.
(The black dog is currently trying to open a can of Meaty Pieces
with his teeth, by the way, which is why I’m able to make this post.)
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