Chapter 12 – The Garden and Alan and Sally
The garden was the place to meet most people. Number 303 was a mirror image of 301. They were like a terraced block. Mr Rose owned both of them. The garden was shared.
In the early even Danny would often go out into the garden to relax and play. He might have a swing on the swingboat or sit on the rocking seat and take in the magic.
One of his favourite things was the hoop-la. He’d spend hours throwing the hand-made hoops at the four sticks that Mr Rose had set up. He’d got quite good at it.
That was how he met Alan and Sally.
Danny was the undisputed king of the hoop-la. It was his meditation. He found it restful to stand there getting his mind into the zone and throwing the hoops to fall over the poles. There was an art to it. Mr Rose had constructed the hoops from lengths of plastic tubing. He’d simply cut the tube into similar lengths and used a wooden plug as the link. It was effective. But the wooden plug created an uneven weight distribution. The art was to throw the hoop with a spin so that the weight was evenly distributed and you avoided any wobble. It was nigh on impossible to drop a hoop directly over a pole as Danny had soon discover. So Danny had perfected a technique to throw the hoop so that it was at an angle. The rear of the hoop hit the pole first and the hoop dropped. It meant you could throw it hard and it depended on accuracy.
‘You’re pretty good at that.’
Danny looked round to discover he had an audience. A large youth, big boned and carrying a number of excess pounds, with long dark hair greasy looking hair and beard to match, was standing in the shadows watching. He reminded Danny of Bob Hite from Canned Heat.
‘I’ve been practicing,’ Danny said.
‘I’ll give you a game,’ the youth said, stepping forward. ‘My name’s Alan.’
‘Danny,’ Danny Champion replied. They shook hands. Danny went over and collected the hoops. ‘OK Alan, let’s see what you’re made of.’
Alan took the ten hoops, stared intently at the poles and began to throw. Not one came close.
They both had a chuckle. Danny took aim and managed to hook six.
‘What say we have a drink instead,’ Big Alan suggested.
Danny agreed. Throwing hoops was thirsty work.
Alan shared the front basement flat at 303 with Sally. The front room was cosy with a big comfy leather armchair that was Alan’s and a sofa. It was dominated by a large television. Danny noticed that there wasn’t a single book in sight. There were a stack of albums next to a hi-fi though.
Sally was older than Alan, very thin with shoulder length wavy black hair. She seemed nervous and bubbly, like a little bird jumping from twig to twig, and eager to wait on Alan. She went off to retrieve some beers.
Alan sat in his chair and I went over to have a rummage through his albums. That was a standard thing to do. It was polite to comment on the musical taste of a new friend. You could tell a lot about a man from the music he listened to. Alan’s seemed to be towards the heavy end. Along with Beatles, Stones, Hendrix and Cream he had a lot of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Quo. Danny could handle that.
One beer turned into an evening of beer. Alan drank remorselessly. Danny didn’t bother trying to keep up. The spliffs followed and Alan became freer and easier with a deep guffaw of a laugh while Sally hovered anxiously on the periphery but joined in and added her little laugh.
That was the start of Danny’s friendship with Alan and Sally.
These are my six books of poetry. They are available as paperback or on Kindle from Amazon – all for under £5 for a paperback. You could buy the whole lot for just £27.62!!
They are not conventional poetry books. They are like you find on my blog with a page of explanatory prose followed by the poem. The prose is as important as the poem to me.
Codas, Cadence and Clues – £4.97
Stanzas and Stances – £5.59
Poems and Peons – £4.33
Rhymes and Reasons – £3.98
Prose, Cons and Poetry – £4.60
Vice and Verse – £4.15
Science Fiction books:
Ebola in the Garden of Eden – paperback £6.95 Kindle £2.56 (or free on unlimited)
Green – paperback £9.98 Kindle £2.56 (or free on unlimited)
Rock Music books
In Search of Captain Beefheart – paperback £6.91 Kindle £1.99 (or free on unlimited)
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Other selected books and novels:
Anecdotes-Weird-Science-Writing-Ramblings – a book of anecdotes mainly from the sixties and other writing.
More Anecdotes – following the immense popularity of the first volume I produced a second
Goofin’ with the cosmic freaks – a kind of On the Road for the sixties
The book of Ginny – a novel
In Britain :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1461306850&sr=1-2-ent
In America:
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In all other countries around the world check out your regional Amazon site and Opher Goodwin books.