The third step. We played for two years at Kretzulescu?s, under the arch which now shelters a religion library. We started working at around ten. We fixed our buttocks on the stone stairs and step on it! We used to break for about four hours, for a shaorma and for the small football match we used to play using a small ball that Silviu had made of cloth. We used to play exactly in the same place where we used to sing. Our games were kind of horrifying for the passers-by. The little ball would fly God knows where. Either in the head of a respectable gentleman or in the shop windows of the library next to which we were actually manifesting our talent. Everything we managed to build through music was ruined by football. ?How can that be? Isn?t it enough that you keep on stepping on our nerves from dusk till dawn?? the bookshop assistants were shouting at us- and I have noticed that the respective type of shop assistant has a particular ego, which means that, dear God, they work with books and not with salami and sausages.

The money we would earn was quickly spent on sweets and the dinner we used to take at Lido?s almost every day. We also took up pipe smoking, out of snobbery of course. And we had two pipes each! Now, you can?t get your hands on them because they are extremely expensive! Not to mention that we preferred good-quality tobacco, Captain Black. There had been years when we could have purchased instruments, but who was to know that the folly was to carry on even after a decade?

At that time I was attracted by the Movement for Romania, urged by the late-teenager bravado. Actually, it wasn?t the movement itself that was appealing to me but its newspaper which had the same name, spelled in green on the frontispiece. I was taking delight in flicking through the pages of the respective newspaper while travelling by bus. I used to fold the magazine in such a way so as to make the title fully visible to the passengers.

I was gradually turning into a small stall legionary. I had got a pair of army boots from my brother and I was putting them on be it winter or summer. I used to have barrack-like looks. Therefore, when it came to give a name to our band we insisted on Little Green Sleeves. It had a twofold meaning for us. Little Green Sleeves-a medieval English song ? was one of the first songs we had rehearsed together. That since withdrawing from the shadow of the Kretzulescu church. Since we had enlarged our repertoire. We used to earn our money more and more honestly. It couldn?t have passed a week without us learning two or three new songs. We mainly did it for us, but also for those who happened to pass us by more than once. We also did it for the bookshop assistants who were cursing us in silence. Since we were hurting their ears anyway, at least we were trying to do it in as varied a way as possible. The other meaning of the band?s name, whispered to our close friends in a very complicit way, was actually concealing inter-war nuances. Hence, Little Green Sleeves. My first band?