Green Green Grass

The Happy Life, Part 301 in a long drawn out tedious series.......

In late 1981, a friend of mine, Paul Martin, introduced the 17 year old Karen to me in Wigan Pier, a nightclub in Lancashire. I think he introduced "her to me" and not "me to her" if you know what I mean and she promptly took an instant dislike to me, mainly because I was spouting off about kicking my wife out or having my decree absolute delivered that week. Soon after that we were sort of dating.

Another drinking partner was therefore welcomed into their group (which numbered about 30 souls) and 23 year Dave became "a born again teenager" in the pub that would become home, The Poacher in Winstanley, Wigan. The frenzied night life associated with this mob was the catalyst that led to my grant money for Edge Hill College not being enough and the eventual desertion from college back into the workplace to earn real money to buy (sort of) real beer.

I could expand on the middle bit, maybe later my invisible watchers, but Karen and I sort of dated with the slight fragrance of dysfunction, for three or so years. I was sent off to Long Beach to work at McDonnell Douglas in 1985 and the relationship sort of folded in on itself, mainly because of me (as usual) having it off with an American Girl (tm) while I was there and subsequently Karen going off with one of my drinking buddies. Strangely, regardless of that, the time I spent in Long Beach was by far the "best days of my life" at that point.

This drops into the "cause and effect" category. If I drop into engineering mode, the formula I mistakenly believed at that time was that "California + Money + Girls + Cars + Money = Happy Life" and I made every attempt to achieve that as I'd been fundamentally unhappy since my first wife had sex with the fireman, plus the odd meandering relationship with Karen and other girls, I proceeded to attempt to leave the UK for the "greener grass" of the USA.