Dream nostalgia
Wednesday, September 21st, 2005 07:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanFor the first time in many months, I remember the dream I had last night. This is rather unusual for me.
My subconscious seems to have turned to cheap spy pulp for inspiration: I dreamt that I was at a conference somewhere, and that I bumped into a woman I knew at college back in the late 70s. I have barely thought of her in the intervening quarter century, in that way people just slip out of your consciousness when they are completely absent from your sphere of friends or acquaintances for long enough.
Anyway, in my dream, Inga was suitably aged - the years had served her well, but she was not still the 18 or 22 year-old I knew back then, but still dressed in jeans and tee shirt. Whatever she was up to at the conference in the dream, it was clearly something she was anxious not to be recognised for. My "hello" was met with a moment's recognition followed by feigned incomprehension, and a shadowy other person would then begin running interference whenever I tried to contact her.
Very strange. I wonder what my subconscious is, or has been up to?
I recall my first day at college as a spotty 18 year old, sitting in a lecture theatre as part of the induction process, looking across the sea of faces, and trying to work out who in that crowd was the exotic tall blonde Swede called Inga Rutenberg. I found out some hours later, that she was neither blonde nor Swedish, not particularly tall either. And she was from Coventry.
I last saw her in 1982 with her husband to be, at a mutual friend's wedding. Contact with all long since lost, I find myself wondering what became of the mysterious and exotically named Inga...
My subconscious seems to have turned to cheap spy pulp for inspiration: I dreamt that I was at a conference somewhere, and that I bumped into a woman I knew at college back in the late 70s. I have barely thought of her in the intervening quarter century, in that way people just slip out of your consciousness when they are completely absent from your sphere of friends or acquaintances for long enough.
Anyway, in my dream, Inga was suitably aged - the years had served her well, but she was not still the 18 or 22 year-old I knew back then, but still dressed in jeans and tee shirt. Whatever she was up to at the conference in the dream, it was clearly something she was anxious not to be recognised for. My "hello" was met with a moment's recognition followed by feigned incomprehension, and a shadowy other person would then begin running interference whenever I tried to contact her.
Very strange. I wonder what my subconscious is, or has been up to?
I recall my first day at college as a spotty 18 year old, sitting in a lecture theatre as part of the induction process, looking across the sea of faces, and trying to work out who in that crowd was the exotic tall blonde Swede called Inga Rutenberg. I found out some hours later, that she was neither blonde nor Swedish, not particularly tall either. And she was from Coventry.
I last saw her in 1982 with her husband to be, at a mutual friend's wedding. Contact with all long since lost, I find myself wondering what became of the mysterious and exotically named Inga...
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-21 09:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-21 09:30 am (UTC)Ah well, I prolly won't think about her again for another 25 years!
names from our past
Date: 2005-09-22 01:20 pm (UTC)When I see what my old classmates are doing now, through sites like friendsreunited, I just remember how snooty most of them were, and how little I had in common with any of them. These people belong in my past. Let them stay there. The friends I have now are much nicer.
Re: names from our past
Date: 2005-09-22 05:26 pm (UTC)You're right, though. Most of them were oiks and cads, each of whom I discard. Their loss, not ours, I feel.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-22 05:37 pm (UTC)Let's see, what would some of them be doing now?:
Simon Farrant - mafia don
Richard Seymour-Whiteley - pope
Paul Osborne - professional maniac (i/c of nuclear missile silo)
Simon Keast - still a cockroach, doing human impersonations in Las Vegas
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-22 05:43 pm (UTC)Milburn - Porn entrepreneur and junkie.
Dave Wassell - Town Crier (actually he's a lawyer).
Nick Guymer - Insectologist.
Nigel Burton - Hairdresser ;-p.
Roger Holmes - failed Marks and Spencer Chief Executive (true)
Johnny Cotterill - God-Emperor of Mongo; Field Marshal, VC and Bar.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-22 06:24 pm (UTC)R Holmes failed at that? What happened? Serves the snooty fellow right!
J Cotterill is indeed an army officer. A guy I was at junior school with knows him. The fascist git once tried to strangle me so I hope his regiment (the 3rd Footpads) is posted to Ulster and he gets his willy shot off.
M Milburn had his rare moments of decency, but I do remember the school-wide sensation when he was sacked for picking a purse in a shop in town(though it was a clear case of entrapment). I can picture him now, walking past the gym, behind Bostock the woodwork teacher, a day or two before he was shipped off in disgrace to his folks in Germany. Bostock looked suitably dark and disgusted, and MM was putting a brave face on the whole thing by grinning sheepishly. He probably is indeed a porn entrepreneur now, and making more $$$ than both you and me combined.
N Broad travelled the world a few times, I hear. I bumped into him in Covent Garden once, doing some Christmas shopping, and he said he was working on an oil rig, and had been stranded for a while in Jamaica. Always had the gift of the gab, so he probably worked his way out of there on a ship.
I think Percy Bradley became a dentist. Rather him than me. Nice fellow and one heck of a bassplayer.
Yes, Keast was 100% evil, and is probably on Death Row somewhere in Texas for being a serial poisoner. I'd rather be the loser I am than a completely despicable dirtbag like he was.
xtc
Date: 2005-09-22 08:11 pm (UTC)Inga Rutenberg
Date: 2008-02-20 10:20 am (UTC)Small world ('though I wouldn't want to paint it). Anyway, for no apparent reason the name Inga Rutenberg came to my mind recently. I went to school with her in Coventry, although our paths didn't really cross until 6th Form. On a whim, I searched for her name and came across your journal, and felt moved to add my small reflections.
Inga was tall and rather beautiful, with very long hair - I recall it as being darker than blonde, but it was 30 years ago. She was studious and rather serious, as I remember, but that made her all the more appealing to us somewhat immature boys. For a while, Inga went out with a mate of mine who was desolate when they split up - he played 'More Fool Me' from Selling England by the Pound for weeks. As a perennial under-achiever, I was always impressed by Inga's dedication to study, yet she could be funny and frivolous sometimes.
The last time I saw her was in the 6th Form common room at school, in 1976. Let's hope life was good to her and she to it.
Cov Chap
Re: Inga Rutenberg
Date: 2008-02-20 11:33 am (UTC)Ah, the power of the interweb!
Yes, she had brown hair as I recall – the idea that she might be blonde just came from my anticipation before meeting her that she might be stereotypically Swedish. At that point I’d only seen her name on the fresher’s list.
When the mood took her she could be quite impish, as I recall. There was one instance I recall from around 1978-79 when a bunch of us had been at a Guinness promotion in the Students’ Union and afterwards we ended up, for reasons that made more sense with a skinful of beer, racing down the Wolverhampton ring road at about 12.30 at night, the blokes giving the girls piggy back rides. I dimly recall a shout of alarm as headlights appeared and a mass of limbs as about 10 of us piled over the fence onto the central reservation to save our necks.
Of course, I was much thinner and fitter then. And it was 30 years ago!