Saturday, May 10, 2008

A drive down memory lane

Last night, when the company transport van pulled up and the door opened to let us in, a solid wall of Deep Purple spilled out. Most of my fellow passengers were rather taken aback but I flashed an appreciative grin at the driver and he didn't make any attempt to turn down the volume.

A couple of nights ago, there weren't many people on the bus so when I was the last passenger left, the driver gave me a somewhat apologetic smile and cranked up the music.

He needn't have worried. Santana (the early years) came on, followed by Deep Purple, Ritchie Blackmore/Rainbow, The Eagles, Eric Clapton, Gary Moore.

He wasn't just driving me home, he was taking me back to my misspent 20s in a basement pub called The Cellar. I had just landed my first job after graduating and it was as a reporter covering the arts (simply because I had an English Literature degree) and nightlife (because nobody else wanted to do it) beats. I had an editor who considered sitting in the office a waste of time if you weren't filing anything, so he made me go sit in a pub instead. Like that was hard work.

I still have all that music stashed in a box in my mother's house somewhere. Only thing is, they're all in -- gasp! -- cassettes. Now to find them all in iTunes.

2 comments:

H. said...

Oooh I remember taking the midnight rides back home! I stayed in Marsiling, which all the drivers seemed to hate going. There was one driver who got so upset when I told him to go to Marsiling that he got into a tiff with the guy in charge and was fired on the spot!

Unknown said...

My goodness, they made you work till that late when the transport started running? I mean, I'm on permament night shift, you weren't.

Oh, and good luck for the exams.