BABE Of The DAY - SUSAN STORM...

Image copyright MARVEL COMICS

I've shown this pin-up of SUSAN STORM on the blog before, but it was scanned from an FF MASTERWORKS volume and therefore had near-perfect reproduction.  This time, however, it's scanned from my recently-acquired issue of The FANTASTIC FOUR #10, with all the imperfections that '60s comics were prone to.  Still, it's good to see the original, isn't it?

BACK TO SCHOOL...

As I sat in bed this morning, looking around at the familiar furniture and layout of the room, I was reminded that this was the very same bedroom from which I emerged each weekday to trudge along to school back in the 1970s.  The school no longer exists (the original building anyway), so my room (and indeed house) are the last remaining links to a long-vanished period of my youth.

And then it dawned on me that it wasn't quite so.  A few weeks before my family moved from this house in 1983 (returning four years later), I had started going to night school classes in my old secondary school.  You see, I'd left the hallowed halls of Academia without sitting any Highers, so decided to pursue Higher Art, English, and History and increase my meagre qualifications.

I soon dropped out of art as I found it too boring, and then had to choose between History and English as they swapped English teachers on the night I attended that particular subject a few weeks into the course.  To keep the teacher I'd started with (who knew his stuff), I had to give up History, as the two subjects were on the same night and I couldn't attend both at the same time.

So, ten years after leaving school, I was back at the very same one, trotting along every week from our new house, though I'd begun the course while yet living in my old one.  I eventually acquired my Higher English qualification to add to my two O' levels (Art and English, the only two I ever sat), and had enjoyed the experience of reliving my schooldays in the process.

But, to get to the point (finally), I now realize that I regret having left school at 16, and wish I'd stayed on for yet another year or two.  In that way, I would have remained a 'schoolboy', and extended the period of my boyhood for just a little while longer.  After all, you can't really consider yourself an 'adult' while still going to school, can you?  Unless you're a teacher of course.

Some of my classmates stayed on after I left, and I find myself envious if I ever hear any of them reminiscing about their schooldays after I'd departed.  I was out in the working world, pretending to be an adult, while they continued their existence as 'schoolkids', with all the attendant holidays and lack of financial responsibility that such a life entailed.  Would I really do things any differently though, if I had my time over again?

Maybe, maybe not, but it's strangely fascinating to ponder how things might have been had I stayed on and continued life as a schoolboy.  Would the duration of my youth have seemed longer in retrospect, or would it have made no difference in the long run?  Feel entirely free to indulge my fanciful thoughts by adding your two cents worth in the comments section.

Or see me after school!