Ambrose Ambles

 

A Collection of Joe Carli’s Famous Proverbs and Parables…part #1.

Proverb : Knots well tied are easiest undone.

Parable : Richard Hocking gingerly poled the punt off the bank of the Murray River with the butt-end of the oar. The Mid-wife comforted and settled Mrs.Grace Hocking as best as possible in the cramped craft. Considering the advanced state of her labour, this was no easy task for either woman.

Grace groaned with another prolonged contraction.

“There, dear..It’s near now, we’ll soon be over the river and at the hospital”. The mid-wife soothed.

Now, in those days, the government, in its’ kindness, gave a family an endowment of five pounds for every child born. In the years of the great depression, five quid went a long way..with the Hocking family, it went the whole hog!..Fivers weren’t something you came across every day, so it had already been earmarked for some desperately needed items for that family that lived in a wheat bag tent on the” wrong side of the river”.

Richard Hocking was standing in the punt as he rowed across the river, so he hadn’t noticed the mid-wife subtly cajole his wife into signing a document that granted the said five pounds to her ; the mid-wife, for “services rendered”…never mind that she was already in the pay of the government hospital !  Grace hocking was in no state of mind to contend what she had groggily signed her name to.

The mistake the mid-wife made was to hold the freshly signed document away and up to the sun for the ink to dry and in doing so inadvertently displayed the treachery to the curious gaze of Richard Hocking, whose face was only inches away from the paper as he rowed the punt across the river.

“Five quid!” He cried as he snatched the paper.

The mid-wife froze with her arm still outstretched, mouth slightly agape and a sharp gasp sprung to her lips.

“Mr. Hocking!..Now give that back this instant. That is a legal document and it is mine!” She demanded.

Richard looked at the document, then at the mid-wife. An angry smile came to his lips.

“Then swim for it!” and he screwed the paper up and flicked it into the river.

“Ahh! You can’t do that!” the midwife cried and with both hands gripping the gunwale, watched the ball of paper drift away and sink.

“Consider it done!” Richard smiled gleefully.

“Then..then I’ll not attend your wife!”

“Ohhh!..” groaned Gracie.

“

Then we’ll stay right here on the river!” shouted Richard as he flung the oars into the punt.

“Ohhhh….” wailed Gracie again..and at this point nature intervened and a baby girl was born in the punt on the middle of the Murray River.

Five quid went a long way in the great depression.

Proverb :    ” Bread and cheese at home is better than roast meat elsewhere”.

Parable. ;    Nicole detested polenta! So that when he came home from the fields and spotted the polenta on the stove, he started thinking fast.

” I won’t be here for dinner, ” he said as he flung a scarf around his neck ” Giovanni has invited me to his table tonight.” and he rushed out the door before his wife could say anything.

Little did he know that his wife had cooked up enough polenta for all the relatives in the village. all he saw was the little she kept for themselves ! So he rushed over to his son’s house as fast as his little bow-legs could carry him. There, he milled around in front of the fire and chatted small talk while the wife prepared the table.

‘ You’ll stay for dinner, father? she queried “…we’re having polenta.”

He winced at her in horror…”Oh bugger!” he said to himself..then ; “No, no, caro…er..my sister, she has invited me to her table for dinner…speaking of which..I better hurry on..” and he flung his scarf on again and hurried out the door.

‘Hungry, hungry, hungry..” he whispered in time to his quickening steps and his stomach rumbled as he passed through his sister’s front door.

‘Ah…Nicole! ” she greeted him..” just in time for dinner. Sit down, I’ll get you some polenta!”

” Gesu Christo!” he cried as he flung his hands to the heavens..” doesn’t anybody in this town eat anything but bloody polenta!?” and he stormed out leaving them with open mouths and a slammed door. He came home to his own kitchen with a long face and slumped shoulders. He was beaten and resigned to his fate, polenta it would have to be.

His wife (who knew his dislikes by now) glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and smiled. She reached into the oven and pulled out a covered dish which she placed in front of the dejected man at the table and uncovered a bowl of ravioli and cheese….Nicole’s face lit up into an ecstatic smile and he sighed very, very deeply. His wife patted him on top of his head…

“Better, you see, to eat at your own table, rather than run around town for scraps from others.”

Nicole nodded his head gratefully, for his mouth was full of food.

Proverb: Those who need a good ambassador should send themselves.

Parable: Daniel was adopted out at six weeks old to a childless couple who loved him dearly and raised him as best they could. His natural mother and father were separated several months before he was born so that he knew neither true parent. Years later, when he was in his late twenties, he felt the need to contact his natural parents. He could not find his mother, but through one of the special agencies that help adopted people, he obtained the address of his father.

“Well”, the father said as he sat down at the table, “this is a surprise!” and he dropped a spoonful of sugar into his cup of tea, “sugar?…Daniel, … Daniel isn’t it?”the father asked.

“Yes to both questions” Daniel replied.

“Well.. then .. it’s good to see you all growed up and healthy … even without my guidance”. The man nervously laughed.

“I’ve had good …care”. Daniel said as he put the cup to his lips.

“Well then … “the father rubbed his left hand on his thigh uneasily. “Well then … er … tell me; how’s your mother?”

“My mother? Daniel looked puzzled, “I don’t know, I haven’t seen her”.

“What … what do you mean – haven’t seen her”, the father, puzzled too now, queried. “No” Daniel went on “Not for as long as I can remember … I was adopted out at six weeks old!” Daniel blinked at his father.

“The Hell you say!!” The man leapt to his feet upsetting things on the table, “the hell you say!” he cried again as he turned away and raked his fingers through his hair. He turned then and brought his great fist down.. crash!! onto the kitchen table. “Your mother had me paying maintenance for you for sixteen years!” and he stood back from the table and welsh-combed his hair again.

“Well … you could’ve gone around there and you would’ve seen for yourself” said Daniel. The man flicked his hand away angrily.

“Ahh! … me and your old lady didn’t get on, so we “talked”, as you might say, through a mate of mine who … who went … over … oh bloody hell …” The father stopped suddenly and stared as though in a trance. He sat down on the chair slowly.

“Oh bloody hell … a mate of mine …”

Proverb : “What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve.”

Parable : ” I laugh now when I think of it”. The old lady chuckled, “But I was young then, about fourteen..or sixteen..but I was a ‘young’ sixteen….you know?..and I had gone to the millinery store in the town and bought a dress for the fair. The dress was pink floral with a blouse all in one and it had two pieces of material, like braces, with big buttons on the waistline and those two braces went over the shoulders down the back.”

“Ahh..I was young then….anyway at the fair there was the excitement of a merry-go-round and bucking horses and shearing contests and….and tug-of-war..an…an..horse races..you know, that sort of thing and everybody from the district and from beyond the bend of the river..and they’re dressed up to the nines,  oh dear,ha!…the big day of the year for us then, ha!”

“Well, there was this aboriginal girl there the same age as me it turned out, and she had on EXACTLY the same dress that I had..exactly!…and we ran up to each other and laughed and became great friends that day…she worked, like me, at another station on the Murray….cooking, cleaning, looking after the children that sort of thing…..anyway, we were great friends that day an’ we walked all around that fair together arm in arm, laughing and having great fun and we’d tell everyone we met that we were twins!..ha! ha!…TWINS!….you’d laugh now, but we didn’t even think of her being black and me white then..some people smiled and others threw their heads back and laughed and we just thought they were as happy as we were, ha!”

“Oh, a jolly good time we had that day…..I can’t even remember her name now….ha!….Ah well….twins..twins indeed…can you imagine!”

Proverb : “When you’re unlucky, it rains on you’re arse even when you’re sitting down”.

Parable  : Ron’s shopping trolley experience.

While not wanting to tangent away from the header subject on to shopping trolleys and their “weaponisation”, I would still like to relate a most tragic moment that happened to a relative of mine some years ago concerning a shopping trolley, that has affected him up till this day…:

He had just bought himself his first brand spanking new car…a Holden Kingswood..bright lime-green..he was a gregarious chap..and being super cautious to not have it scratched or knocked whilst parked up at the local mega-market, he made it a point to park the car way-away in the bottom corner of the car-park.

This one day, he decided to have an expresso coffee before shopping…Sitting there in the cafe at the big window, he could see his bright lime-green Kingswood parked in splendid isolation at the bottom of the car-park..he sipped his coffee whist admiring his beautiful toy…when movement at the upper end of the park caught his eye…

You know..Lady Fate has a cruel streak in her…in that she will first draw your attention to her intent to do you harm in a most un-nerving way and with awful premonition, she will taunt you with an unease of the certainty of disaster and yet allow you no chance of stopping it…like watching a train-wreck in slow motion, she will gleefully torture you with a cruel certainty of inevitability.

My relative watched a young, frustrated mother wrestling with baby on hip, boot open, loading bags of shopping into her car whilst obviously attending the wrestling infant..slamming the boot-lid down and then angrily shoving the shopping trolley away without care or concern…My relative watched with both mesmerising curiosity and horror as the trolley performed a slow, predictable, parabolic curve of most pure mathematical precision, and , guided by the tyrannical hand of cruel Fate, gathered speed down the gentle slope and made a bee-line to a bright lime-green Kingswood..set there now looking as big as a barn-door just waiting for a projectile….and with all the emotional tempest of a Heathcliff and Catherine moment of rushing toward each other’s open arms from Wuthering Heights..they did indeed find each other…

We can draw the curtain of sympathy down over my relative’s facial expression at that moment…sufficient to say that from that day forward he ceased to contribute to ANY charitable religious collections…concluding, quite correctly, that there is no good God!

Proverb : The young shape the future, The old reshape the past.

Parable..: The contractor stood under the framework of the verandah he was building, complaining to the owner (an old man) about the young apprentices “these days”.

“No responsibility.” he slapped the back of one hand upon the other.

“No, none.” the old man agreed, stabbing his walking stick on the ground.

“No sense of loyalty.” the contractor enlarged.

“No..certainly not!” the old man agreed.

“They expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter…including money!”

“Yes, yes..true , true.” the old man sighed.

“Just look at the lad I got…no sign of him…and here it is past nine o’clock”

“No..not a sign” the old man nodded….”no sense of loyalty”.

“you said it..no sense of responsibility” the contractor agreed.

Just as he finished these words, a black “hoon ute” pulled up with a roar into the old man’s driveway and parked down the end. The driver’s door opened and a young man stepped out, one leg and body out, one hand holding the top of the door  and the other gripping the roof rack. He looked up to the men standing under the verandah staring at him.

The contractor, on seeing his apprentice finally arrive and being in the state he was in, raised his forearm and with his right index finger began stabbing the face of his watch while grimacing menacingly. The young apprentice frowned and lifted his arm up to examine his own timepiece….

“OH!..right….” he called out in acknowledgement, his right arm raised with index finger pointing toward the sky…; “SMOKO!”

The contractor smacked his forehead with the open palm of his hand.