She hath such eyes.

She hath such eyes that I do despise,

Given my soul they see into and compromise,

Because how can I ever now turn away,

Captured, corralled, and held in hypnotic sway,

Oh..she hath such eyes that I do, do despise!

She hath such curves of hips and waist,

Curves that mesmerise, tease, I do so detest!

Softly stealing my glances, I can but weakly resist.

How I hate her fulsome, soft, red, red lips,

Tempting me so sinfully to desire to kiss,

My self-control pleads guilty to delinquent remiss,

Oh..she hath such eyes that I do, do , do despise!

But it is her vampish nature that I do most curse,

For the animal within me is given rein fit to burst,

And drive on in wanton, reckless, rushing disaster,

To turn a man into such a poetic fool ever after…

Penning sweet verses to appease her mocking laughter..

Oh, she hath such eyes..such eyes that I could never, ever despise. . .

 

Bedtime Stories #9.

Those Roman Women!

(From “History of Rome” ; Theodore Mommsen)

An equally characteristic feature of this period was the emancipation of women.  In an economic point of view the women had long since made themselves independent; in the present epoch we even meet with solicitors acting specially for women, who officiously lend their aid to solitary rich ladies in the management of their property and their lawsuits, make an impression on them by their knowledge of business and law, and thereby procure for themselves ampler perquisites and legacies than other loungers on the exchange.

Ode to Women’s beauty.

Speechless and numb, I gazed on her beauty there,

Her limbs, her hands, her soft flowing hair.

Her voice the whisper of an angel’s prayer..

SHE..roamed her eyes over the banquet fair,

The roasts, the salads, the fruits so rare,

And of my adoration, just so….au contraire.

“There is so much beauty before us here ,

It is so hard to decide….you tell me, my dear,”..

She said..

”What to you is the most desirous fare?”

But it was not merely from the economic guardianship of father or husband that women felt themselves emancipated.  Love-intrigues of all sorts were constantly in progress.  The ballet-dancers (-mimae-) were quite a match for those of the present day in the variety of their pursuits and the skill with which they followed them out; their primadonnas, Cytheris (Volumnia Cytheris was an Ancient Roman actress and mimae dancer). and the like, populate even the pages of history.

But their, as it were, licensed trade was very materially injured by the free art of the ladies of aristocratic circles.  Liaisons in the first houses had become so frequent, that only a scandal altogether exceptional could make them the subject of special talk; a judicial interference seemed now almost ridiculous. An unparalleled scandal, such as Publius Clodius produced in 693 at the women’s festival in the house of the Pontifex Maximus (Julius Caesar at that time..hence his divorce from his wife, claiming that now famous line ; “Ceasar’s wife must be above even suspicion”), although a thousand times worse than the occurrences which fifty years before had led to a series of capital sentences, passed almost without investigation and wholly without punishment.

The twist of the knife.

“ ‘Twas the cruel hand of fate”, some will attest,

“Plain bad luck..had to give it best”.

No plot nor plan nor Nemesis,

That loss of life, fortune..no redress.

There was that time for just the smile,

Luck, sweet mistress, walk a mile,

Friends, well wishes, oh wilful guile,

Was jealous intent? or blunt revile!

Chance will intervene yet awhile,

To arm the hand, repay the slight,

Fate; cruel mistress will plunge the knife,

Yes..Fate’s deft hand..would repay it best,

But truly I say ; ” ‘tis the twisting of the blade,

Gives most pleasure…

Above ALL the rest ”

The watering-place season–in April, when political business was suspended and the world of quality congregated in Baiae and Puteoli (Naples)–derived its chief charm from the relations licit and illicit which, along with music and song and elegant breakfasts on board or on shore, enlivened the gondola voyages.  There the ladies held absolute sway; but they were by no means content with this domain which rightfully belonged to them; they also acted as politicians, appeared in party conferences, and took part with their money and their intrigues in the wild coterie-doings of the time.

Any one who beheld these female statesmen performing on the stage of Scipio and Cato and saw at their side the young fop–as with smooth chin, delicate voice, and mincing gait, with headdress and neckerchiefs, frilled robe, and women’s sandals he copied the loose courtesan– might well have a horror of the unnatural world, in which the sexes seemed as though they wished to change parts.

A Cold, Cruel Dream.

I dreamt she’d died, unsatisfied..

And our children asked me to attend the rite.

And though divorced these many years,

Would I please to view her in state?

Now that, is not something I’d normally do,

The plastic presentation of death I eschew.

But curiosity urged me abide ,

To view that woman I’ve many years evade.

As I gazed on the broad, Irish face,

That had lied and cheated from my embrace,

I blanched at the look of innocence there,

Rose blossoms dappling her now grey hair.

As if to deny to me by this final sight ,

The justice for many years that was my right.

Forgiveness not what I sought,

But rather admission for the damage wrought.

Upon marriage, relationship and our children begot.

But now, in the silence of this final place,

No word from those lips so bitter she’d trace,

No reason, no ’scuse, no thought of disgrace.

Just an emptiness , as per her usual escape.

Nothing..save one long-stemmed rose strategically placed,

HER request, no doubt….sensitive to an image she’d like embraced,

Always keen to leave an impression entranced…

Enough!

I turned to go…then..in a moment inspired ,

I took that rose there so astutely attired,

Broke off part of the stem.. and did place

The thorny stalk, it’s vicious spikes,

Across those tight, pressed lips now forever chaste.

What ideas as to divorce prevailed in the circles of the aristocracy may be discernedin the conduct of their best and most moral hero Marcus Cato, who did not hesitate to separate from his wife at the request of a friend desirous to marry her, and as little scrupled on the death of this friend to marry the same wife a second time. Celibacy and childlessness became more and more common, especially among the upper classes.  While among these marriage had for long been regarded as a burden which people took upon them at the best in the public interest, we now encounter even in Cato and those who shared Cato’s sentiments the maxim to which Polybius a century before traced the decay of Hellas, that it is the duty of a citizen to keep great wealth together and therefore not to beget too many children.  Where were the times, when the designation “children-producer” (-proletarius-) had been a term of honour for the Roman?

Loss.

Into the fire she did cast,

Letter by letter until the last.

Her stern face, flame-lit aglow,

No pity nor sentiment did it show.

No regret, nor heartfelt loss,

As letter by letter she did toss.

Until the last in hesitant hold,

One short sentence writ in bold,

One final line that caught her eye,

And though the rest she did despise,

That one broken promise with love’s death,

Gave pause for memory’s catch of breath,

Forgotten above this, all the rest;

“Forever my Love, my love, to you,

I do bequeath”.

 

Time now, my little chickadees to sign off on both Roman Women and the day…night-night my little ones…

Joni Mitchell… “The Circle Game”.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9VoLCO-d6U

 

The Language of Class Control.

Back in my first marriage, when I was “encouraged” to attend many spiritual “workshops” in that miasma of “new age” enlightenment, run, in the most part by self-proclaimed wanker gurus from the legion of reformed middle-class hippie escapees of the “Leafy Suburbs”, The formula for discussion was to take one’s turn of holding the “Talking Stick” and then and only then quietly and serenely make your point or tell your story to the group…I don’t think I need tell you the actual jargon-stacked sentences that preceded and followed each “talker” as they held that sacred icon of conversation : “The Stick”…..I think the series ; “Kath and Kim” demonstrated such contrived jargon with fair and considered accuracy.

In short, we can differentiate between the social classes by the methodology of conversation practice used. There seems to be a bias toward what the middle-class calls “polite manners”..”polite conversation”..where one waits one’s turn while the incumbent “converser” talks their talk to the very end of what THEY wish to talk about…no matter the length, tediousness or delusion of their conversation…: “THEY have the right to be heard”…Whereas, in my experience in the building trade, any conversation of passionate expression held on site and carried over by habit to the front bar, has to be called out in a loud, firm voice, somewhat peppered with colourful expletives and colloqualisims..whilst in the action of doing work, that echoes between rooms and perhaps between floors of an empty building…the many conversations competing with other machinery sounds or even different conversations…so a regular cacophony of shouted points and counterpoints..layer upon layer..is the methodology of debate and this gets carried…as I said..over by force of habit and location into the front bar or back-yard BBQ where the surrounding noise of the other patrons/family groups or the several televisions playing different sports at the one time in a bar has to be competed with….THAT is the natural order of working class rhetoric and political debate..the pointed finger, the half eaten sausage on bread..between sips of wine or stubby..a kind of chaotic logic, where the most vitriolic voiced opinion will sometimes win the day, depending heavily on the passionate belief of the speaker…No nice manners here..and the proving of the point you wanted to make was encased in the solid belief in what you wanted to say…if you didn’t have the strength of voice to carry your convictions, you lost the conversation…simple as that!

And this is where the domination of the middle-class in matters of opinion and politics controls the MSMedia and the Parliamentary debate…it is no more than a continuity of that “well-mannered talking stick” holding the floor and delivering a one-sided, bias toward that class that has drawn up the rules-of-discussion, the conditions of loquatial  intercourse, where the short-patience, the tumbling-out of thoughts in a sudden envision of idea and schematic implementation with an unruly manner, the speaking over another less enthralling speaker to get one’s point across while it is fresh in the mind, like a spring zephyr…and not to have it suffocated under the oppressive boredom of another’s sermon of mind-numbing middle-class impotent drudgery.

Now with social media, we hear those same middle-class voices calling for censorship on the more rudely expressors of political contradiction to satisfy that pompous, pontificating, self-righteous endless rambling to nowhere conversations of the middle-classes…F#CK ‘EM I say!…I had a gut-full back in that first marriage of waiting for the “talking stick” that had to do the rounds of pontificating and patronising jargon before it got to you, and I won’t now, as an experienced adult stand in some f#ckin’ middle-class mannerism queue waiting till they have finished their waffling chatter…a seemingly endless stream of obfuscation and fillerbustering…one might as well wait for the blowing of Gabriel’s Trumpet sounding the end of the world!…And don’t they manipulate the “taking of turn” to have their say, using every methodology and trickery learned in debating class or from their cadgy mentors to hold on to that “right to be heard” until time or the subject matter is talked into oblivion…and so having succeeded by default in exhausting the subject where they had no capacity to actually do the job in the first place.

If we look back to the time of Barnaby Joyce’s faux pas with his paramour, we heard so many “finishing-school pontificators” demanding we “rude and noisy” people not criticise the minister on his degenerate behaviour, because : “It’s the rorting, not the rooting…you see?”…when all the time it was the betrayal of moral and ethical standards of the family and community that he represented..all the time!..and yet so much momentum was wasted of those flatulating commentators demanding we :”Don’t call her/him names..it’s not fair..” or wtte and now we see just how “fair” it was with that bastard colluding to run the Murray-Darling basin into the ground…literally!…Barnaby would’ve been castigated if not castrated if we had pinned him on the moral issue instead of the stupid pursuit of the rorting issue…a commonplace action amongst so many in his position..useless waffling middle-classes..a bunch of chatterers!

And really..it is no more than those medieval overlords forbidding the Irish to speak their Gaelic language, the forbidding by the mediaeval bishops of the translation of the Bible from Latin to English to stop any commons understanding of the religion, the attempts to squash the indigenous languages by stopping the spread or talking of such languages..by any other name..a tyranny!…WE..will speak in the language WE best know, WE best communicate with and which WE best understand!…The working classes don’t need middle-class lessons in debate or eloqution, for what eloquence we have lacked in the past, we will make up with our own vernacular…and believe me..we have more than enough colourful colloqualisms to describe bastardry behaviour than the proverbial Inuit has to describe snow!

Time for the working classes, vulgar as we can be, with our shouty rhetoric, our noisy demands to be heard, our earned moment on the dias and deserved voices to call in united yell to those bastards who THINK they hold both the Right to rule and the Floor of the Parliament to have their pathetic whinge hold pride of place in the vocal annals of humankind.

Social media IS the “common voice”…IS the crude instrument, IS the majority voice of those who have the lungs to shout from social “room to room”, from “house to house” and from “floor to floor” the message that will not be heard if we have to wait our turn for that strangely elusive “talking stick” so gratuitously and patronisingly “gifted” to us from the middle-classes.

NO!!….Here we are and we now take the floor…and by the living Christ..you will hear what we have to say..and YOU’LL..take your turn to remain silent till WE say it

 

The Flight of Icarus.

(The Lament for Icarus ; Herbert Draper).

The fall of Icarus has a legion of metaphorical interpretations...so I will add mine in that I believe those ancient Greeks were a bit more basic in their meanings and I too will go for the basic instinct in man and interpret the myth as a desire for the erotic and in delving too deep into the pleasures of female erotica, the young man...indeed ANY man will risk falling from grace and drowning in a despair of sorrowful loss..

The Flight of Icarus.

Wash over me balm of my soul,

Wash over me as sea-waves over shoal,

While I lay me here in my nights alone,

In refuge from waging a long war done,

The burns and wounds that you see,

Are remnants of a battle so, so weary.

What make of man does this man become,

Who has flown much too close to the Sun,

A fool, a jester, maybe a warrior undone?

Like Icarus whose vanity drew him too,

Seeking joys and elation calling him also.

Songs and arising cries from Siren’s Isles,

The warnings given by his father and elder men,

On deaf ears they fell for thrill of such flight

Of fancy, hungering toward erotic nights,

Flew him likewise too close to that Sun,

Too close to the heat of a woman in cheongsam .

Whose warmth and comforts coaxed him on,

To forsake all wisdom, all reason abandoned,

Flattered his manhood, melted all caution,

So to lose free flight, tumble, fall and drown.

Such is the fate avowed men so disdained,

Rejected, betrayed, or perhaps disowned.

Icarus, thou foolish youth indeed,

Were you not warned, why not heed,

Caution your desire, temper your needs,

Lest such sad fortune comfort thine enemies?

But alas such promises of sensual delight,

Lure greater by far than wisdom’s pale enlight’,

And the enticements of such wonderous flesh,

In wanton display will never redress,

What drives a man toward her state of undress,

So yes….

What becomes a man as a man so scorned,

Who has traded home, heart and hearth,

For the desires of a woman would be him done,

Recklessly, foolishly, again, and again…

Flying too close.. MUCH too close to that Sun?

 

Bedtime Stories.

I stare into time’s eyes…She stares back at me. Actually, it isn’t time as in measurement, it’s my cat..she has that stare of eternity..like cats seem to have..like she has been born into forever. I stare into her eyes sometimes as she sits on my lap..we exchange knowledge..I have to admit to her that I do not like raw, gutted mouse and she draws the line at chilli con carne…..lose the chilli, she says and she’ll give it a go…but she is partial to a nibble of smoked salmon…then she curls up on my lap and we both go to sleep.

I like bedtime stories….I like the night.

I am the night.

Beware the people of the day,

Their plans, their tools, the schemes they lay.

Beware the people of the light,

They have no feelings for the night.

I am a person of the night,

I bask and wallow in its quiet delight.

I stand drenched in the light of a million stars,

I wash my soul in Celest’s sweet baths.

Night..soft as scented smoke,

Velvet smoothed draping cloak.

Comes, caresses me gentle all around,

Sweet as complexion rain on a Derry Down.

I stand under the sight of a million stars,

Starlight pouring down on me,

Each a whisper in this night,

Each star a story delight.

I am a person of the night,

I bask and wallow in its quiet delight.

I stand drenched in the light of a million stars,

My soul washed clean in Celest’s sweet baths.

My mother used to read me “Lassie Come Home” when I was very young. My mother wanted to be a writer..she did write some short stories and sold a couple too. But in growing up in extreme poverty like so many of that generation from the great depression and the wars, she held her own self and her privacy closely guarded, so she couldn’t be hurt..so her stories didn’t go deeper than a recalling of anecdote or observation..for to tell stories of a person’s situation, you have to reveal some of yourself…you have to cut out a piece of yourself every time you draw that picture.

But I do have a scratch of a poem of hers she wrote when a teenager in love…it is only a section, but it says a lot..I think..

“Now at last I am free!

Off through the scrub I run

Where sheep tracks only are seen

Nothing but bush and sun

Till all of a sudden I come

Out where an axe swings free.

Cutting, for love and money

The axe bites deep in a tree…”

My mother married that axeman…an Italian interned as an “enemy alien” during the war.. They made a sort of life in the fringe suburbs of the capital city..on the southern hills near the sea…far from the bush and Mallee, far from the Dolomites…two strangers in strange country..but the irony must be admitted in the revelation in the correspondence and account books of my parents after their passing, that while my father sent a not small amount of money back to his parents in Italy, my mother, likewise, invested regular amounts in the Brighton Parish of the Catholic Church…and we kids went around dressed in hand-me-downs…But the Rosary figured central to our meals every night after eating.

The Tide.

Like a sailor old, who watches the tide,

Life’s many moods I do abide…and still I watch,

For there comes a wash of the river flow,

That carries the ebb, what comes and goes.

That “tide in men’s lives” that carries their thoughts,

Like flotsam swept before a wave wild wrought

By wind and storm or by deceiving calm they be brought,

To wreck upon Charybdis rocks or wash up on rugged tor.

Fortune for that sailor who with astute eye,

Will risk the temper of mood and tide,

And call the exact moment makes best to ride.

He casts the ropes that hold him belay,

All wind and storm be no delay.

Yet I and thee, chained to life’s fickle destiny,

Can but watch as the vessel sails away from we,

While idly biding…

Like empty shells scattered on a wide, broad shore,

Awaiting tide and waves also, to move us ever-more…

Anyway, we grew up in spite of our parents…even though they tried to stall that inevitability by sending us to Saint Theresa’s Primary School, to be harangued and psychologically tortured by some sexually frustrated nuns…the “Sisters of Mercy”…I think they lost their “by name” calling somewhere along the line…for merciful they were not!…I still remember one of them..Sister Mary Lawrence..who stalked the playgrounds looking for victims (most prevalently amongst the boys) with a chastising length of jarrah in her hands…growing up as a carpenter, I can perfectly record the measurement of that flitch as around 18 inches long, by 2 inches wide and ¾ of an inch thick…it was marked by having a bevel down each side along the full length…presumably done on Sisters instruction so as to get a better grip when inflicting pain onto a child’s hide!..I can recall one particular moment when Brian Hurley and myself were playing marbles in a “verboten” area of the schoolyard and Sister Lawrence bearing down upon us at great haste with that piece of jarrah held high like a missionary’s crucifix and her nuns habit flowing about her in a voluminous black terror…and to this day, whenever I hear a rendition of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”, I am instantly thrown back to that moment of descending doom!  It’s a pity those nuns couldn’t find sexual satisfaction with the priests in the presbytery next door…as I’m certain THEY TOO could have done with some release of tension!

When a catholic priest goes to a convent to hear the confessions of the nuns there, it is said he goes to ;”Dust the Lilies”….the lilies, of course, being the ;”Lilies of the fields”…: The nuns.

“Dusting the Lilies”.

Wither goest thou, Father John,

On such a splendid day?

Do you follow whimsy’s course,

A carefree wanderer…say?

A laugh, a smile, pause a while..

Then, cautious answer, yea..

“I go toward yonder gate,

Under stately blue-gum tree.

There, (with blessings of God)..

I go to ‘dust the lilies’.

To dust the lilies gently,

Lest such petals fade and die.

I’ll embrace their hips,

Kiss their lips,

And whisper a little white lie!”

I blame our grandmother for the almost fanatical adherence to Catholic doctrine…SHE was a fervent believer that converted from Protestantism when she arrived in Australia…why..heaven knows..but I have my own suspicions and in any case, it caused the catastrophe of her meeting and marrying one Richard Hocking…Theirs was to be a tormented, impoverished existence that burned a sense of shame and frugality into the very souls of their children…I believe parents ought to consider very carefully their own state of existence before inflicting any such example upon their offspring.

I awoke in a startled fright

From a dream I dreamt last night.

From a memory so long ago,

I’ll recall the moment as it did go..:

A child, from the pusher,I broke free,

As my mother walked me by the sea.

I broke free to chase a rabbit fast,

Fled a shrub by the sea-cliff path.

I ran as does a child; sudden, swift,

As the rabbit fled over the cliff.

I too stumbled toward the edge,

But my mothers call of fright,

Drew me to a stop just right.

I could see the waves crash below,

She gathered me frightened in her arms…

But now, in this dream I did fall,

Tumbling over with rabbit and all.

As we fell in that slow dreamy way,

Each to each, eye to eye..knowing .

The creature looked to me to calmly say;

“Do not worry, you will not drown”.

But I kept falling, falling, falling down…

Just then I woke in chilling fright

And in that gasping, grasping struggle for sight

I stared and stared into the depths of night.

 

The stroking of a cat’s fur is so much more relaxing that that of a dog's…the cat is a more tranquil beast..it hunts, yes..just like a dog..but it hunts by silent stealth, whereas a dog will in most cases run down its prey and tear into it with force and brutality..and they hunt also in packs..I remember when I was in Rome for the first time around 1980 and the dog-packs were getting so dangerous that the authorities had to organize squads of police to mass shoot so many dogs to cull their numbers.

I like dogs too, mind..I like all animals…but I’ll be buggered if I will ever stoop to eating crickets and bugs for protein!…nah…fuck that!

Anyway, peeps..that’s all for tonight…I’ll read you some more tomorrow…goodnight.

The Beatles : “Goodnight”.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp_djIuQ2Cw

Why I live where I live.

Here’s several “cameos” of my personal interpretation of the place where I live. They are a personal slant and you can take it or leave it as you please….and of course : all names and references to persons are purely accidental and non-litigious…

#1..

A short announcement.

As well aware as we are these days of those “Great Moments in History” where an event is celebrated on canvas…like, say ; George Washington crossing the Delaware…or Captain James Cook bearing up proudly on the bow of the Endeavour’s whaler boat as he broaches the sandy shore of Botany Bay…or even our own Col’ Light on Montefiore Hill, with his determined arm outstretched pointing to the possible location of the future precinct of Adelaide….and how right he was!…. I’d like to draw your attention to those little moments in history…enacted in those little places way off the beaten track that, one must acknowledge, do deliver their own great moments within their own little worlds….less perhaps, “momentous” than “of the moment”!

Such an event happened on the evening of the 2^nd of June 1953…..on The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth 2^nd .. at the Sedan Hotel front bar, where was gathered a regular small group of loyal local blokes…many bearing the Germanic names of that peoples that had been enemies in two wars of recent memory….but wishing to scotch any rumours of disloyalty to The Crown, the publican of the hotel called for silence with the ringing of a spoon on the rim of a schooner glass and proposed a toast to;

“ Her Majesty…The Queen!”…..

THAT is the orthodox version of events…..I have it on good authority, though I will not vouch for it’s exactness of detail, that another short announcement accompanied that toast that created a certain amount of “discussion” within that small community….

it went like this..

I doubt it goes without some knowledge in these small country towns, that certain individuals practice ..habits..that are ..shall we say..of a different complexion to the mainstream. Most accomplish these little peccadilloes in the secrecy and privacy of their own homes…by themselves…of course there is a price to pay for all that secrecy…there is the paranoia that if discovered, the general consensus of “the mob” will excoriate and damn the individual in question to exile or worse….such “difference” is a heavy burden to carry..particularly if one is working every day, shoulder to shoulder with his fellows in the fields…it wears on a chap!

Such a burden had for several years weighed heavily upon one such chap amongst that gathering that evening in the front bar of The Sedan Hotel…(we shall not name names!)…He had come to the decision a week or so before that he would share this burden with his fellows and take the consequences ..whatever…he would “own” his idiosyncrasy.

He had chosen that particular evening and he had steeled himself for the occasion with rehearsed lines and solemn mood to deliver to best advantage that which he wished to say….the fact that the publican had chosen, with his unfortunate royal toast to the newly coroneted queen, the very apex of that moment, the very inhale of breath so to speak, was inconvenient, but not a deterrence…he decided to press ahead.

The silence was heeded, the glasses were charged, the toast was made..:

“To the Queen!”..”Hear, Hear!”

…the schooners were just touched to wetted lips when he made his own small announcement to the gathered circle …:

“I like wearing women’s clothes…..I always have .”

Several members of the party had to be revived after choking and spluttering on the amber fluid just then in the act of consumption.

I would not like to claim that he said it “gaily”…but rather, in a quiet, solemn voice…soft, but determined…his chin “steeled” to suit the gravitas of the moment.

You know, there are some hesitations in the general hubbub of public gatherings where a void of silence can follow momentous announcements…I’m thinking of Julius Caesar about to cross the Rubicon and he says quietly to the troops..;

“Jacta alia est” (the die is cast)..the legions, I suspect, fell respectfully silent…

..or Horatio Nelson with his famous telescope to the blind eye..:“I really do not see the signal”….

There are others…there are others…such a silence followed this announcement in the front bar of The Sedan Hotel….a full ten seconds silence…an eyewitness noted the ticking of a clock (two rooms away) for a full ten tocks…that record, I hasten to add, still stands!…I suspect the shock of this fellow navvy, this rough-handed roustabout, whom they were more used to see in moleskins and blucher-boots, informing them of his preference for women’s petticoats and finery threw some small confused images into their male minds…..it wasn’t long, however, “till the boat rightened itself”, the wave of confusion subsided and he was confronted with wide-eyed “enthusiasm”…..needless to say, his first suspicions of the possibility of estrangement, alienation and blind anger were quite sufficiently full-filled!

#2..

Sedan aspirations and goals.

Now, anyone here who has lived in a small country town will recognize the situation I am about to describe. There is a familiarity with both the pettiness of complaint and the seriousness of the minutiae of desire for redress that runs like “Orteses Thread” through the fabric of the community..and like all these little communities, a heady mix of “rumour, envy and shadenfreude” sustains all it’s members!

Into this community, there came the new CEO. of the local council to address the citizens in a “Community Aspirations and Goals meeting at the Sedan Memorial Hall, all invited w/ coffee and cake provided”. Now right there, from the start, any local could’ve told him that he could’a doubled his attendance if’n he’d offered ‘mini-savs’ on the menu! As it was , a goodly group turned up to ‘sus out’ the new CEO. I was one of that group…I had a couple of ‘goals’ of my own to suggest at that meeting!….

It went like this.

The new CEO came from the Sth East…Mt Gambier , to be precise..There is a lot of water down that end of the state..and maybe they are more used to partaking of THAT liquid rather that the Sedan locals..to whom beer and the like are no strangers! So it was as no surprise that several “known” members of the local public came to the meeting straight from the front bar of the Sedan Hotel..and I did notice that one such, with the nickname ; “Pull-through” (I won’t go into the reasons for these designations, it could be too tedious and convoluted…some though, give a hint!), skinny as he is, found the doorway a tad too narrow as he ricocheted off the jambs!

“ Now I don’t want to be sitting back in my office in Mannum dictating to the community what it will have”..the CEO began. “I want YOU..the community to tell me what are YOUR aspirations and  goals for Sedan…” and here he paused for effect to thrust his pointer at several headings written on a large piece of butchers paper blu-tacked on the wall…he swept his black-rimmed bespectacled and wide-eyed gaze accusatively around the room….feet shuffled..a sign of expected comment.

“How about a ramp in the gutter there outside the pub..there on the footpath” ‘Banger’ was first off the rank…the CEO raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, so ..a ‘disabled ramp’ in the kerbing?” he suggested.

“Well…” ‘Banger’ drawled “Not so much ‘disabled’…well not going IN..coming out maybe!..” this got a few laughs..” But you can make a miss-step there and do your self some damage on a Friday night”..a good deal of nodding and cross-chatter affirmed this point..

“…broke six bottles the other week!…”was heard in one camp.

“Yes, yes..I see…mark that down Mr. Parker. “ the CEO addressed his clerk. “Some more please”.

Of course, Banger’s first foray into the pond unleashed a tirade of ideas…from the problem with puddles outside the post-office (when it DID rain), painted house numbers on the kerbs (only a small portion of the town has kerbing) to a scenic car-park on the top of Sedan Hill for the visitors to the district (this last drew a muffled gasp from the crowd for it’s audaciousness…a pet project of Mrs. Auricht) ..several more trite complaints followed. The poor CEO, expecting more in the line of aspirations than desperations was becoming impatient at the somewhat pettiness of the requests..

“Yes, yes..but I was hoping for…for…” his eyes swept the room..he saw not the least sympathy….he understood..”…NO!..put those down, Mr. Parker..put those..those ideas in that ledger of yours….ok..any more?”

I was waiting for my moment..After a short silence and the turning of heads toward each-other negatively, I put up my hand.

“ I have an idea “ I volunteered. A disapproving murmur pulsated through the crowd..my reputation had preceded me!..

” A fountain!” I exclaimed boldly..” In the centre of the ‘square’ there…we move that cement obelisk..after all it is only a street sign, not a memorial..and we put a fountain in the centre of the town..as a mark of beauty and a testament to the resilience of this community living in a dry country…I envisage (yes..I spoke like that!..I had rehearsed)  a low, brimming bowl with the water lapping over a polished, curved lip..within this bowl is a tryptich sculpture of panels..three sandstone panels carved in relief with representations of (in the centre) ; The Ubiquitous Mallee Tree..flanked by on one side representations of the Indigenous peoples and on the other ; the Pioneers of the district..(There was silence in the room as I spoke..more now, I realise , from shock than from politeness!)…the entire fountain surrounded by beds of native flora….so that visitors driving into the town from any direction, will immediately see this amazing display in the middle of dryness and say ; “WOW!”…” I finished my little spiel with a flourish of my arms.

There was silence in the room..a full seven seconds silence…the record for Sedan is ten seconds!..then , like bursting through the surface of water after a deep dive, the cacophony of the world around came crashing in…a veritable HOWL of derision and outrage was flung in my direction…everybody moved away from me..of the dissenters, “Slammer” was most red-faced ..on his feet straight up..

“ Move the obelisk!?..” he raged,  “..move the fuckin’ obelisk !!?..my dad helped build that fuckin’ obelisk…it’s..it’s a treasure..almost sacred!…no!..no !…we don’t move the fuckin’ obelisk!..no, ferget it!” nodding heads and cries of support for ‘Slammer’ were thick on the ground , so that the CEO. gave a shake of his head to his clerk and then decided to wrap up the meeting. I quickly made my escape.

It was about a month before some folk would talk to me in the street after such blasphemy. But I do hold second place (I believe) in the ‘Sound of  Silence’ record in the community..There are some small moments to treasure with the experience of living in small country towns…I’ll tell you about them someday!

#3

Ziedel’s secret carburetor.

There’s a lot of ; “Eee bah guumly” in this district..or there would be if they were Yorkshiremen.. as it is there’s the equivalent!…in Germanic brogue…if there is such a thing..

Was asking for a bit of background knowledge on a long deceased relative of mine from the local aged mechanic…Peter….He and his offsider ; Vern, run the only workshop in the district..have done for near on fifty or sixty years!…I don’t know…neither does anyone else…not even them!

“He was a very inventive sort of chap” ..I assisted.

“Ooo, there were a lot of them about in them days” Peter opined “There was Pastor Ziedel…he was a sort of genius…Do you know, he invented this carburetor that could halve petrol consumption in a motor..but he was dammed clever how he done it.” and here Peter tapped the side of his nose.

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, you know he didn’t want anybody to find out how he done it, so he got those little jets and seats and whatnot made in many different places so no-one person could put them all together…Ooo..he was cunning alright”

“So did you get to see how it looked?” I pushed on. Peter stopped, pulled up and looked at me in wide-eyed wonder.

“No!..of course not, it was a secret…hell, he wouldn’t let anyone see how he done it…why, if he went to any motor event, he’d take that special carburetor off and put the old one on so nobody could pinch his design..Ooo, he was cunning , ; old Pastor Ziedel.”

“But if no one saw it, how do you know it worked?”

There was a pause in the response, which told me that this line of reasoning had rarely before been broached…then ;…

“Whhyy…of course it worked…you ask anybody who knew of it…he had it on his old Holden for years…of course it worked…and dammed good too!”

“Well, I imagine some one saw it after he passed away…was it in his estate when they went through his effects?”

“No..not that I ever heard..I suppose his son threw it out with a lot of other stuff.”

“What!” I exclaimed “I would have thought it would be a very valuable item.”

“Maybe…but because the old man was so secretive about it, I don’t suppose the sons would have know what it was if’n they came across it.”

And THAT is the wonderful way mythology is created!….eee bah guum !