Procrastination, Wheelies, Burnouts and Bald Tyres (Part 1)
Procrastination is a weird one. Some days it doesn’t even cross ya mind, other days it’s all you can do. It could be a deadline, it could be getting outta bed, or just getting something done that could’ve been done ages ago but you never get round to it.
A free-range ’80s childhood
Like many kids in Australia, I was a lucky one. I had so much freedom and not a care in the world because my folks, well, they seemed to do it all. I never saw them; they were always working, or doing some adult thing I had no part in and wasn’t invited to.
You could say I was bored, and I was. Knowing what I know now, that’s actually a privilege. We didn’t have much, but we had so much.
So I played, got up to silly stuff and was perpetually covered in sores, grazes, stubbed toes and the odd broken bone.
I look back on these memories with a smile and a laugh. Those days in the ’80s were good fun: no cameras, no phones, no money and no care. We knew we’d had a great day when we couldn’t remember what we did, whose house we left our bikes at, when we ate lunch or how we got another grazed knee.
This didn’t help me at school. All I did was look out the window and imagine where I could be and what nuisance I could get up to. So when homework was handed out I could procrastinate like no one else on planet Earth. I was the GOAT, and if you need some tips, let me know; I’m down with all the tricks to avoid something. You could say I was a free spirit who couldn’t get anything done that was important to someone else, or myself.
Part 2 is where it turns around: a blue steel Huffy, a driveway of concrete slabs, and the wheelie that taught me the cheat code.