"WITHOUT TIME AND WITHOUT END..."

I was gently brushing the dust from one of my classic collectables earlier today, when something occurred to me. I had originally owned this particular item back about 1967 or '68, but the one I currently have is a replacement I acquired in the mid-'80s. I had probably owned the original for no more than two or three years at the very most, while its present-day stand-in I've now possessed for nearly twenty-seven years. Strange, because it still feels like a fairly recent acquisition, while the one I had as a kid seems to have been part of my childhood for a far longer period than it actually was.

It's the same with comics. I remember buying the first issue of the 'new' SMASH! in March of 1969, but before the week was out, I had sold it (along with free gift) at cover price to one of my classmates, BILLY MONTGOMERY, who had missed out on buying his own copy earlier. I sold it to him around mid-week, intending to buy a replacement before issue #2 came out on the upcoming Saturday. As it happens, I didn't manage to obtain that replacement until over fifteen and a half years later (October 13th, 1984, from an Edinburgh comics shop, to be exact), but I remembered practically every page as if I had seen it only the day before.

Amazing, isn't it? I had only owned the original comic for three or four days at most, yet it had made such an impression on me that when I think back to that time, it seems that I must've had it for far longer. And, just like the previous item to which I referred, those few days don't seem any less than the nearly twenty-eight years I've owned its successor.

Which brings me closer to the point. "Hurrah!", cry countless thousands of readers. (If only.) I was listening to a radio play a goodly number of years ago and heard someone quote a line very like the following one: "The memories of childhood are without time and without end." Or it may have been "...without end and without time." (I've tried to trace its source, but to no avail. If anybody knows it's origin, feel free to let me know.)

Regardless of the exact wording, I know exactly what it means. When I recall my childhood years, it's often difficult to remember events in their proper sequence, or the exact duration of certain periods of time. Whether I had a comic or toy for six days or six months, it all seems the same to me in retrospect. Same goes for houses. As a child, I once lived in a house for just over a year, but when I think back on it, it doesn't seem that my time there was any less than the four years I spent in the house before it, or the nearly seven years in the one after it. Don't get me wrong - I know there's a difference - I just don't feel there's a difference.

According to the Good Book, "One day is as a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years as one day." When I think back to the days of my youth, I kind of know what that must feel like - although obviously on a much smaller scale.

"Without time and without end" - if only life itself were like that. Wouldn't it be great?