Iggy Pop Read Online Free Page B

although you’d always see him at parties. His mom was popular, I liked to go over there, she always seemed so kind, calm and pleasant to be around.’ In contrast, Mr Osterberg frightened the kids: ‘I don’t know why,’ says Duane Brown. ‘He was a very tall thin man with a marine haircut and I didn’t like being with him. He never did anything that made us not like him, he just came across as very gruff.’
    In the family atmosphere of Coachville, where stay-at-home moms nurtured large families, the Osterbergs, with two wage earners and just one child, were out of the ordinary. Describing his earliest memories, Jim remembers mostly solitary images: sleeping and resting on a shelf over the kitchenette in his parents’ 18-foot trailer, watching Howdy Doody in black and white on a tiny TV screen, or observing his dad chatting to a friend from the services in the back yard - a fully fledged cowboy in boots and Stetson: ‘I’d never seen anybody like that and I really liked him.’ As an only child who had recurring bouts of asthma, he was doted on by both parents, who took out the back seat of their Cadillac and built a big shelf in its place where the four-year-old Jim could walk about or lie in his crib as they drove around enjoying the countryside on Sunday afternoons, during their precious time together. Later on, although he might join Sharon or Duane for a walk into the fields or down to the railway track, he would also wander off alone for long walks or, more often, sit at home or at his babysitter’s, Mrs Light, dreaming of science fiction, imagining himself as Superman or the Atomic Brain. Over these and subsequent years, he often missed school for extended periods due to bouts of asthma, and during these times he inhabited an imaginary world, which in his own mind set him apart from his schoolmates. When he was on his asthma medication, those imaginary worlds were even more vivid: ‘It was ephedrine. They’re cracking down now on pseudoephedrine, which is the basic ingredient for speed. I had real ephedrine, which was much better. It made me feel . . . great. It puts a bit of a poetic edge on things. And it stimulated my creativity, I’m afraid.’
    Perhaps it was the attention he got from his parents, perhaps it was the verbal sparring and intellectual challenges constantly presented by his father, perhaps it was simply a result of measuring his intelligence against others, but it was obvious from the earliest days at elementary school that Jim Osterberg thought he was special. Quite a few other kids, and some of the teachers, shared that opinion. Slight in build, Jim Junior was full of energy, with a cheeky, slightly coy smile. He had a natural bounce in his step, and a kind of cute goofiness about him; he looked almost like an overgrown kids’ doll, with a slim body, round head and enormous blue eyes with oversized lashes. His playful, almost coquettish charm seemed the perfect match to his looks. That cuteness allowed him to get away with a lot; most notably, it prevented the kid from a more educated household, with a bigger vocabulary and innate confidence, from being considered a smartass by his schoolmates. Instead he was a ringleader. Although for some kids those first days at school are a traumatic experience, Jim Osterberg, with his network of Coachville friends, had no such problems.
    For nearly a century, Carpenter Elementary had been a simple one-room Victorian schoolhouse, directly opposite what became Coachville Gardens; Jim and his Coachville friends were the first kids to enrol at a much larger, newly erected brick and glass building nearby on Central Boulevard, which opened to students in 1952. Jim’s network of friends soon included Sharon, Duane, Kay Dellar, Sandra Sell, Joan Hogan, Sylvia Shippey, Steve Briggs and Jim Rutherford - plus Brad Jones, who arrived from San Diego in 1956. They all regarded Jim as funny, energetic, smart and the leader of their gang, says Brown. ‘He