The spirit of this place

The sun is low, almost set and shadows reach long fingers across the lawn. Yet the evening air is warm, no chill disturbs us as we sit quietly together on the old and well worn chairs placed so long ago for just this purpose. There is no need of words, for we are at one with our world and ourselves and words would only intrude on our unity and disturb the flow of that spirit which unites us. The swans fly to their nests and we fly with them, bound to them by the grace and glory of their flight. The evening breeze speaks to us as it wafts through the leaves of the mountain ash that gives us shelter. It tells of far off places where it has been, of piccaninny maids, of wide, brown lands, of saltbush and mulga and ironbark trees. Of gidgee, gum and mallee scrub. The wind is the spirit of this place

The creek is happy, laughing and playing among the rocks and tree roots. It starts back behind our block and winds its way under the boundary fence and down the valley. Down beside the barn and through a stand of Claret Ash, bouncing off rocks, gurgling to itself like the babes way back when they were new. Frogs and tadpoles are its keepers and the birds come to drink from its waters. Parrots, kingfishers, kookaburras, magpies, rosellas all come here to drink. The creek has no favourites she gives freely of her waters to all comers; all who are thirsty may take their fill. The creek is the spirit of this place.

The trees are Mountain Ash, tall and slender. Some of them top 300 feet and within their walls are countless nests and hollows. Rosellas nest there also in carved out hollows, Crimson and Eastern are most common but here was once a Golden. The Galahs roost in the trees for the night and sometimes we watch them as they settle. One Galah will choose a tree and all the others use the same tree. The last bird in gets the worst perch and he will decide that another tree will suit him better so he goes off. The rest of the birds all think that they will miss out so they go off after him to the tree that he had chosen. Then they all settle for the night and sleep. The last bird in who got the worst perch has the twig break under him during the night so he squawks and takes off and the rest of the flock squawk and follows and so the process goes. The birds are the spirit of this place.

The animals come to the creek to drink. Wallabies and kangaroos sometimes will come out of the forest to graze on the grass, as it is more nutritious than the forest growth. We see wombats waddling up, rolling their way along as only a wombat can. They know that the shortest distance between where they are and where they want to be is a straight line and god help anything that gets in the way. Why go round, why detour when you can go straight through? Sometimes we see a hare or two, jumping crazy. Nobody knows why they do it, they simply jump. When they’ve jumped enough, they stop and go about the normal everyday hare business. A dingo came down once, he must have been travelling through, we never saw him again. There are koalas back in the forest, but they don’t drink, so we never see them at the creek. There’s a good stand of Manna gum there and they get all the moisture they need from the leaves. The animals are the spirit of this place.

The forest is behind our block. Right along the back boundary. It’s mainly Mountain Ash, but there are a couple of stands of Manna Gum where the koalas are, and a bit of Blue Gum as well. The Mountain Ash grow tall, around three hundred feet usually and very straight. One of them, back in the forest a bit, had the top taken out by a lightening strike a few years back and what’s left is still just under three hundred and fifty feet high. She’s a tall one. There’s all sorts of things in the forest, birds that nest there, sometimes in hollow trees, sometimes is raggedy looking platforms of a few stick that look as if the next breeze will send the lot crashing to the ground. Some of them like the curlew and the plover are ground nesting and it’s a good idea to be careful where you put your feet. They’ll soon tell you if you come too close. Some wallabies there and a few kangaroos, but not many. The wallabies are mainly the little blackfaced ones and they are a nuisance, they can destroy a new crop of oats in one night. But they all depend on he forest for shelter and food, even the snakes live there in peace, we never see them. There’s a little tree that grows there as well, I don’t know what it’s called, but the tree ants seem to love it. The leaves are tied together into big balls with a sort of spider web stuff and that’s where they live. They eat the nectar from the flowers, so I guess they do the same job as the bees. The trees are the spirit of this place.

The smoke rises from our chimney, drifts off in lazy whirls and disappears among the branches. Secret places are now its homes, the holes where parrots have their nests high in the treetops, the scattered platform of the eagles eyrie in the old tree, the lightning tree we call it, struck in the storm when we first moved here. And into the barn to visit the owl, Old Cyclops. He has been Old Cyclops for many a day now, the previous owners told us his name but we couldn’t buy him, he wasn’t for sale. He takes the mice from the feed bins and looks at the world as it goes past. Old Cyclops is the spirit of this place.

Banks? We fight back!!!

My dear Bank Manager,
I am writing to thank you for bouncing the cheque with which I endeavoured to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations some three nano-seconds must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque, and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire salary an arrangement that, I admit, has only been in place for eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account by way of penalty for the inconvenience I caused your bank. My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to re-think my errant financial ways. You have set me on the path of fiscal righteousness.
No more will our relationship be blighted by these unpleasant incidents, for I am restructuring my affairs in 2008 taking as my model the procedures, attitudes and conduct of your very own bank. I can think of no greater compliment, and I know you will be excited and proud to hear it. To this end, please be advised about the following changes.
First, I have noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you I am confronted by the impersonal, ever-changing, pre-recorded, faceless entity that your bank has become. From now on I, like you, chose to deal with a flesh and blood person.
My mortgage and loan repayments will, therefore and hereafter, no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by personal cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee of your branch, whom you must Nominate.
You will be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope. Please find attached an Application for Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his/her medical history must be countersigned by a Justice of the Peace, and that the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof. In due course I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in all dealings with me.
I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Let me level the playing field even further by introducing you to my new telephone system which you will notice, is very much like yours. My Authorised Contact at you bank, the only person with whom I will have any dealings, may call me at any time and be answered by an automated voice. By pressing the buttons on the phone, he/she will be guided through an extensive set of menus: I) to make an appointment to see me, 2) to query a missing repayment, 3) to make a general complaint or inquiry, and so on. The contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may on occasion involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration This month I have chosen the refrain from The Best of Woody Guthrie:
Oh they are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are filled with silver
That the miners sweated for!
After twenty minutes of that, our mutual contact will probably know it of by heart. On a more serious note, we come to the matter of cost. As your bank has often pointed out, the ongoing drive for greater efficiency comes at a cost - a cost which you have always been quick to pass on to me. Let me repay your kindness by passing some costs back. First, there is the matter of advertising material you send me. This I will read for a fee of $20 per A4 page. Inquiries from your nominated contact will be billed at $5 per minute of my time spent in response. Any debits to my account, as, for example, in the matter of the penalty for the dishonoured cheque, will be passed back to you. My new phone number service runs at 75 cents per minute (even Woody Guthrie doesn't come free), so keep your inquiries brief and to the point. Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.
May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous New Year
Your humble client.

Why me Oh Lord?

It’s 6:30 am and there’s bike funeral I have to go to at Numurkah, so it’s out of the garage, down the driveway and straight into the rain. It’s cold rain too. Not a gentle warm rain, but water driven by the wind, driven hard and horizontal. My hands were warm when I put the gloves on, but that doesn’t last long, by the time I get to Dorset Rd. they are cold and wet; encased in sodden gloves. Road works in Dorset Rd, three different sites and all involving a ditch right across the road, which is covered with a steel plate. Countless tyres have polished the plate so it is slippery anyway and it is also now covered with a film of water, which only adds to the slip factor. There is a twenty-minute wait at the middle ditch while the men sit around and decide what to do next
By the time I am through the last of the road works, my hand have gone to frozen and my feet are cold and it’s getting no warmer as the days progresses. Ride on brave heart. On to Lilydale without any more disasters except I have now lost my hands and my feet have gone to frozen. Onward, ever onward the intrepid hero rides and finally makes it to Yarra Junction, where the hands have gone to non-existent, the feet have frozen and the face is cold. By the time Dixon’s Creek in near the feet have joined the hands in some parallel universe, the face is frozen, the body is cold and the fog has come down and I can’t see where I am going.
Riding very slowly, I eventually get to the top of Mt Slide and find that the timber jinkers have come out of the forest yesterday and left the road covered in slippery wet clay. So here I go, bottom gear because I can’t see where I’m going, both none existent feet out so I don’t fall over, desperately trying not to fall off. This goes on as far as Yea where the fog lifts and the sun comes out and I stop for the sort of break that gentlemen don’t discuss in the presence of ladies. It occurs to me to look at the time and I suddenly realize just how far behind schedule I am. Right, nothing for it but to open the bike out a bit. So I get back on, fire it up and open her out a bit. Actually I opened it out quite a lot. It’s a big bike and a sports tourer, so it’s no sluggard. Most of the time the throttle was wide open and worry about the corners when I get there. I slowed to about 160 through Trawool and felt something hit my boot. I didn’t know what it was but the bike was still going so I’ll worry about it later, probably just an insect anyway.
Wound it out again and went on; through Seymour, slowed down there, the coppers get busy over that way and out onto the Goulburn Valley highway. Up to about 200 there trying to make up time. Check the fuel gauge and its running a bit low, all this fast stuff really pokes holes in fuel tanks. Kialla is coming up soon; I’ll refuel there. Swing into the service station and switch off. Look for the keys to switch off. Can’t find the keys. Wonders about the insect that hit my boot at Trawool. Can’t go back and look for it now. If the key and the lock are worn enough to fall out, I wonder if another key would open the tank? Worth a try and a spare locker key does, Switch off the engine with the kill switch to refuel, hit the starter button and she fires up once more.
Now comes the decision time. If I go on to the funeral and switch the engine off with the kill switch again, by the time the service is over, I’ll have a flat battery. I could disconnect the battery lead, but the tools are under the seat and I need the key to unlock the seat There is a spare key and I know exactly where it is. Hanging on a nail in the garage at home. Nothing to be done except turn round and go home. Couple of minutes down the road, I wonder if the lock is so worn that keys fall out, is it worn enough to let another key turn it on. Pull over and try it out. Yes the same key that opened the petrol tank turns the ignition off. Beauty. So I turn the ignition on again, except that the key won’t turn the lock on. Nothing for it but to park the bike, hitch into Shepparton and get to my sisters place and hope they have arrived back from England or where ever it was they went.
Take off the helmet and the gloves and push the big heavy bike up a farm driveway to the house. Watch as the helmet falls off the bike and lands in a mud puddle. Get to the house and find there’s no one home, so I don’t know whose farm I am leaving my bike at. Leave the bike under a tree and walk back along the driveway. Half way up the drive, remember my glasses, which are back at the bike. I’ll need those glasses to read the name on the letterbox at the gateway. Walk back down the driveway, pick up the glasses and start again. Get to the gateway and there’s no name on the letterbox and no mail in it either. OK it’s the gateway between the dead cat and the sign for the Euroa turn off. Hitch a ride to Shepparton and yes, my sister had come back from England. At last a few thing were going my way.
Better get a message to the mates to let them know I wasn’t coming after all. Rang the local copper who was out directing traffic for a funeral in town that day. Yes, that was the funeral I had intended being at. Rang the local undertaker who was out at a funeral and couldn’t be contacted. Finally rang the local store who knew all about the funeral and the mourners would be coming back to the hall next door for a bite to eat afterwards. Yes, he’d be happy to pass a message on to the bikers who were there. OK, so they wont be worried about me. Now find the bike shop, which fortunately was owned and run by an ex pupil of my brother-in-law. So he would oblige. Get down there and wait till a mechanic had finished a job before we get into the van and drive out to the farm.
The bike was too tall to fit into the back of the van, so the top box had to come off and the handlebars swung down. We loaded up and went to a locksmith in Shepparton, who crawled over, under and through the bike, trying to get a look at the ignition lock. He couldn’t, so it went back to the bike shop and the headlight came out, the ignition was disconnected and the lock withdrawn and returned to the locksmith. He saw the numbers on the side of the barrel and cut the key to that pattern, which would have been fine if the numbers had been the key code, Unfortunately they were the Suzuki part numbers for the ignition lock, so the barrel had to come out and the key code determined by the pins. Eventually this happened and the barrel was returned to the body and the whole lock, now operational, went back to the bike shop. The bike was put back together and I rode back home. Next day I went to fill up and the new key wouldn’t open the petrol cap.Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed

Plains

We leave Deniliquin behind us in a cloud of red dust. It has been a long hot ride through the arid country; no rain for seven years now and even the saltbush looks parched and dusty. Dust is everywhere, finer than talcum, and getting into everything. All our gear is packed in plastic garbage bags that have been sealed, but still the dust gets in, coating everything in fine powder. I feel the pressure of your legs gripping the seat as I taught you and your feet on the pegs. The evening is drawing on and the sun sits low to the west, throwing long shadows off to our right. You watch the shadow as it bounces across the tops of the saltbush, dancing as it keeps up with us.
We ride north, into the cooler part of the evening and the drop in temperature is welcome for the day has been hot around the 105 mark. The dry desert seems to suck the moisture out of us, leaving our mouths sticky, as if we had swallowed a bottle of flour paste.
Pretty Pine comes up to meet us, population is 84 people and several million sheep; for this is sheep country, the land of the grazier where the farms are called stations and they are measured not in acres but in square miles. It comes up, is there for a brief second and then is behind us, a settlement where nothing ever happens and nothing is ever done. A nothing town where the nothing people live. Nobody knows why it’s called Pretty Pine, there are no pine trees there and even if there were, they’d all be dead. The only reason it exists is because it’s a road junction. The road leads of to an even more nothing town, Morago, with it’s population of 22.
On through the evening cool we ride, through Wanganella with its dust, another sheep town, another sleep town. We’re about sixty miles out of Deniliquin now just coming into Booraban and I pull the bike over to the side of the road. We stop and get off, stretching our legs after the long ride. We are not sore, for the bike is meant for cruising, but it has been a long day and our legs are cramped. There’s not much room for movement on a bike. You look around you and see the countryside, the same countryside we have been riding through for the last hundred and twenty miles. Flat, absolutely flat, not as much as a bump anywhere to be seen. And complete silence, a silence that is almost deafening in it’s totality. Not a breath of wind, not a bird, not even a crow going caw caw. There are no trees here for a bird to roost in. No telephone wires to whistle and hum. No evening noises from the houses, for there are no houses. Booraban in a road junction and from this point within three miles live a total of seven people.
I unpack the topbox and the panniers from the bike and get out the cooking gear and a ground sheet. Clearing a space in the saltbush, I set a small cooking fire and soon have the pans hot on the griddle. The fire burns with a crackling sound and the noise of the steaks sizzling and the vegies boiling seems to be too loud in our ears. It seems intrusive and rude to disturb the silence of the place. After a cuppa, we unroll the sleeping bags and we shall need them once the sun goes down. It is very hot during the day, but the nights can be bitterly cold, going down to the minus range quite often
We lay on our backs on the bags, looking at the sky, watching the clouds reflecting the setting sun. Red and gold, with shafts of sunlight piercing the evening. We talk together, but we talk in quiet tones, softly so as not to disturb the spirit of the plains. I explain to you how this used to be part of the great inland sea millions of years ago and when the land rose up, the ocean was landlocked into a huge lake millions of square miles in area. The water evaporated under the sun, but the salt stayed and the only thing that would grow there was the saltbush. Actually a tree, but only a few inches high, maybe 12 inches or so. There were some animals that lived there, but they were nocturnal, the day was too hot for them to come out. There were Biltongs, that looked like large mice, but were actually a type of wallaby, nocturnal mice of course, sometimes a dingo or two might investigate the camp looking for food, perhaps an emu for the same reason. There was also the possibility of a potoroo, a small ground dwelling rodent. But there were no dangerous beasts, the few snakes that lived there were not interested in us.
So we were together, sometimes talking, sometimes silent. Watching the sky darken and the stars come slowly out of hiding. There were no clouds, the sky was completely clear and the waning moon had gone last night. Just our fire and the stars in the heavens. The sky was so huge; the stars so clear, the night so dark that we were made to feel small and insignificant in the presence of such glory. A sky so deep we could drown in it and yet every star shone clear and bright, as if it were a priceless diamond. Yet no jeweller could have invented this setting. And we slept, safe and snug in the warmth of our sleeping bags. I woke next morning, stirred the fire and soon boiled the billy. A good cuppa to start the day and bacon and eggs to follow. Wipe the pan clean with sand, repack the bags and stow them on the bike. Nothing left to show where we had been, two quiet travellers in a quiet land. Even the circle of cleared saltbush would regenerate. We were gone from there and the plains gathered the land to itself once more.

I HAVE A MEMORY

This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do and I am still unsure of why I had to do it. It's a thing John wrote soon after I lost my Dad in February of 1991 and even after this time, it still moves me. Right now I am not seeing to straight.

When my Granpa gave me a hug I almost got lost
in his huge coat.
He was as tall as the roof of our house.
He could build anything from toys and games
to kitchen cupboards and garden sheds.
My Granpa knew everything.

Most of all I remember his smile,
his face would be bursting with happiness
and his eyes sparkled and shone.

When I was born he was there.
He held me in his arms, looked down at me
and for the first time, I saw his smile.

When I learned to walk he was there.
Granpa had to walk slowly because I could
only take little steps.
I always felt safe with Granpa

When I started school he was there.
Every question I could think to ask him
he had the answer

I grew bigger taller and older;
Granpa just grew older.

At Christmas when I was five, he was there.
He made me a huge garage,
it was the most amazing and wonderful present
I can remember getting ever

I still have that garage.

When I started to play music, he was there.
My Granpa could play any instrument
he took in his hands.
Sometimes I still hear him singing
and playing the banjo.

My family went to the country and he was there.
We played games all around the garden.
Sometimes Granpa couldn’t catch us.
He had to go and lie down after we played
because he always felt tired

When we moved house he was there
I played hide and seek with my brother.
Not even Granpa could find us.

Sometimes when I was naughty, he was there.
I always felt bad when he found out, I always wanted to make him happy
He would sit down and talk to me, but I
Never heard him shout, not ever.

I drew lots of pictures and he was there
I would ask and he would tell me
what I needed to do to make them better
colours here, shapes there.
He always knew what to do

I played flute in an orchestra, sometimes he was there.
He would tell me I played very well and
he was proud of me.
Then he’d show me that smile I loved to see.

I was almost as tall as my Granpa now and I could walk much faster than he could
Granpa needed help every day now. He had to rest most of the time

We went to church and sometimes he was there
He was a minister and everybody would watch and listen to everything he said, I did too.
I was proud that everybody listened to
My Granpa

My paintings and drawing improved and sometimes when
people saw them he was there.
He said they were getting better all the time
and he smiled.
That made me happy because I liked
to make my Granpa smile

He showed me some pictures he painted when he was much younger. They were beautiful.
His pictures were older than me. The paper had gone
yellow and faded, but the colours were still
bright and strong

My Granpa lived in the outback and he had a special
coat made out of cows hide. That coat is older than me and my dad!
My Dad had that coat and he gave it to me
I think of my Granpa every time I wear that coat.

Soon my Granpa went into hospital and asked
to see my all family.
I cried, because I knew it would be the
last time I would see him

We buried my Granpa and I was there

Afterwards I often thought about my Granpa;
wondering why he had to leave,
where he had gone,
was he alright.

Sometime I got angry with my Granpa
mostly I missed him.

Time passed and I thought less about my Granpa and more about the other special people around me
I miss my Granpa but

I have a memory and my Granpa is there

Thoughts on my sleeping child

I watch you, sleeping, peaceful. Open and vulnerable and I am charged with your protection. Never have I loved you as I do now, trusting, sure, secure in my arms. I charge myself with your safety, I am bound to serve and defend you as a knight would his lady. You have not laid this charge to me but I have taken it upon myself, it is my burden freely, willingly and even proudly accepted. It is a matter of honour: the code of chivalry demands it.
I know not where your path will lead, what passages shall call you to themselves. The winds of your fate blow not the sails of my barque and you shall steer by a different star to mine. Yet for a while we shall sail in company, thou and I and our ships leave wakes across the oceans of our worlds that are not so far apart. Together for a little while we voyage on.
Yet I must make my port, my journey’s end before I can start again and you must travel on to make your own landfall. What pitfalls and dangers shall beset your wanderings? What traps and snares lie waiting for your tread? Ever shall I guard you, my sleeping child.