Ambrose Ambles

 

A Collection of Joe Carli’s Famous Proverbs and Parables…#2.

Proverb : “Forgiveness for those that deserve it, crosses for those that can bear them.”

Parable : The “Tank Sisters”.

The Tank Sisters were a couple of voluminous and weighty ladies (not related in any family sense) that hung around the front bar of the Seacliff Hotel..why, was anyone’s guess..as there was little prospect of linking up with any respectable males in that establishment..at least not this side of sobriety..which, of course led to this little tale.

Overheard conversations of lurid desires between the two ladies had been reported at different times, but the reproduction of those intimate details is best left to more scurrilous publications.. sufficient to relate that the general complaint between them was that if they didn’t get some sexual satisfaction soon (they didn’t say it QUITE like that!) , “It would heal up”…whatever the “It” was.

There were rumours that Little Johnny, the SP. (starting price) bookie was running a tote on which of the ladies would anally absorb a bar-stool first…such was the broad beam of their backsides! 

My old mate , Mark..you have heard me mention him in that story of ; “To the Lighthouse”..well, Mark had a Saturday morning routine he would rarely swerve from, and that involved getting to the front-bar of the Seacliff Hotel just at opening time, claiming his favourite spot at the bar with an uninterrupted view of the television set to watch the days footy, open his copy of the Saturday paper at the horse racing page and settle in to a good days exercise.

This morning, rather than being the first to the bar, he had to share his place with Tim the plumber….who, Mark noticed was sitting sombre mood, slouched, arms crossed on the bar encompassing a pint of beer…further, Tim appeared to be in some kind of trance, staring at the rising bubbles in the amber fluid.

“G’day Tim..” Mark greeted “How’s it going?”

“Huruumph!..fuckin’ shithouse!” Tim growled out the corner of his mouth.

“Why..what’s the matter?” Mark inquired as he snapped open his paper.

“Well, I got pissed last night, didn’t I ?” Tim took a long draught of the’hair of the dog’.

“So..” Mark shrugged “You get pissed every Friday night”.

“Yeah, well..” and here, Tim tossed and fiddled with the coins on the bar-mat…he finally confessed ; “..I..I woke up this morning , at about one o’clock , on the beach , with one of the Tank Sisters hanging off my dick !”

Mark lowered the paper down , turned his head slowly toward Tim, wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the seriousness of the situation.

“JeEEzus, mate!…wadidyado ?…”

At this moment of reflection, Tim gave one of those involuntary spasm jerks of the arm..making his beer spill a tad.

“ Fuck it!..waddya think I did ?! ” he angrily spat..

Now, neither Mark , nor anyone else of that front-bar clientele has ever inquired to Tim for the answer to that question….nobody wanted to know…

Proverb : “Those who are full never believe those who are hungry”.

Parable : That “Australia Day” Honours List. So now we got Australia Day coming around again, with, one expects the usual suspects getting all the gongs…..

Look..I’m not jealous, BUT..Why are there never any tradies given the gong for “job well done” when it comes to recognition of one’s efforts..Why is a fast runner, a media queen, a diligent scientist or even a bee-keeper held in higher esteem than your local honest tradie…ok, ok…your local tradie?…

Why are accolades of swooning compliments pasted with wincing obsequiousness icing-like over those selected from elite and popular pastimes while the merits of great..even supreme sacrifice to one’s trade skills overlooked for the glittering prizes…Whyyy, I don’t like to boast or to blow my own trumpet on such sensitive issues, but I have distinct recall of certain customers back in my trade-working days who would heap praise upon my carpentry skills when a solution for a particularly tricky bit of construction was called for..

“Joe..you’re a genius!” was more than once heralded upon my skills with saw and mallet..”How did you think of THAT?” was another fulsome acknowledgement toward my capacity and dedication to my trade..AND..not just me!..there were others…I’m sure…I mean..look at Keith the plumber who worked out the re-routing of the black-water septic under the floor of Jack Androlopolous’s granny-flat secretly into the neighbours sewerage pipe..They toasted a retsina or two to THAT idea..or Ron-th’-brickie, when he suggested it would be a better thing if they plastered over his brick-work for appearances sake..a solution avoided before out of mistaken sensitivity….but where were the accolades for THAT self-sacrifice.. those great achievements?..where the glittering prizes?..not for the tradie the PM handshake…the trophy upon the wall..the embossed certificate or that piccy in the paper..Nothing , save a disgruntled phone call of “So where the hell are you?”…or “WHAT!…more materials?”..and it’s back to the blood sweat and tears on the job without the least thanks..

And don’t even mention the cultural contributions gifted to the nation by the tradie…f’rinstance..I suppose many of you have heard the expression used in surfing mythology of “hanging five”..being, of course the practice of hanging five toes over the nose of the surf-board whilst skeeting down the face of a wave…Well..I bet you don’t know where THAT little icon of surfabillia came from…: Tony Simmioni and the fifth-floor concrete pour of the Waymouth St Telephone exchange back in the  60’s…Yep!..hard to believe, eh?…but there you go.. It happened that Tony Simmioni, the carpenter foreman in charge of the pour there, was standing on a plank on the edge of the concrete pour observing, when the concrete pump hose did a sudden flick, like they do, and knocked the edge of the plank he was standing on and it swung out of a sudden over the edge of the scaffolding and Tony was suspended out over the edge of the building, five floors up, in a crouching position, arms akimbo as he kept his balance and his front left Blunstone boot was hanging over the edge of the end of the plank whilst it pivoted and hovered over the abyss…and for just that short moment, before he was swung back to safety, he held that now well-known classic position of the surfer in juxtaposition with the wilds of nature at his back and his trusty surfboard under his feet, a mile-wide smile upon his face and those five toes hanging over the nose of the board…”hangin’ five”..

One of the labourers there at the time..a shortish blond-haired young bloke named “Farrelly”…was ”Midge” was his nick-name?..I can’t recall, but he was heard to comment upon the sight of Tony Simmioni wobbly-legged hanging over the edge of the plank..

“I reckon I could maybe hang five toes like that upon my “Malibu” surfboard down at Moana …”

Here’s the resulting song!.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgx3p3wlqMc

And so history was born…but did Tony Simmioni get a mention in the song…noooo way..no accolades for the tradie…and another thing..I bet not many of you really know how the discovery of the “X-ray” really happened..but “Smokey” the clumsy, inept electrician could enlighten you…but hey..that’s another story..right now, I gotta go back and listen to ANOTHER boring story of the development of Quantum computer physics or something..

It’s SO unfair!

Proverb: A bitter heart will sour the sweetest soul.

Parable:   Milan’s first wife left him and her baby very early in their marriage. She became ill with a rather common debilitating mental illness, and as the medical treatment in those days in Australia was hopelessly inadequate, she was left to carry on by her own . She couldn’t cope and simply left home, left the baby girl, left her husband and finally left the country and went back to Europe where she disappeared from Milan’s life.

In due course after several years, Milan met another woman, a single woman who helped him raise the child. She lived with him for ten years and then they married and she had a baby also, a son. The girl had grown up and was cared for (if maybe a bit too sternly) as the new wife’s own daughter.

Now, every birthday from seven years on, the girl would receive a letter and a parcel from France, from her estranged mother. Sometimes there would be a few notes of currency enclosed. Janice, Milan’s second wife was at first not perturbed at these little gifts. But over the years, and particularly when the girl reached teenage years, she seemed to become a little offended at the daughter’s glee upon receiving these gifts.

“Oh”, the girl would exclaim in happiness, “My mother has sent me something!” and she would take the parcel off to her room to open it.

Janice would look scornful and sorrowful at the same time and would complain to Milan.

“See, see, off to her room with the precious gift, ha! and it wasn’t that woman who raised her, no … it was me who worried when she was sick! So what does she care for me? … no … (and here she would sometimes have tears come to her eyes) not for me the respect she saves for her mother that deserted her” Milan would drop the corners of his mouth and sigh.

One day a letter arrived saying that Milan’s first wife was coming out to Australia for a visit, to see her daughter. Janice was caught between her love of the daughter and the bitter-ness of a feeling of betrayal of the girl’s love for her mother.

Not long after the visit by the mother, one evening, they were visiting a friend, and as they sat in the darkened lounge lit only by the open fire, Janice talked off-handedly of the mother’s recent visit.

“Oh yes, she came over one night last week … hrumph! the way she talked, hrumph! as if I was an interloper, as if I was the one who broke up her family … I soon put her in her place!”

“Well, she didn’t really infer that you …” Milan spoke up.

“Oh no! not to you, no you wouldn’t see, you’re not a woman … but I know that tone of voice … you men are blind … and … and she brought over a dress for Corina (the daughter) .. ha! what a dress … it was terrible eh Corina? eh? … the colour ugh! the cut, the style … what a laugh … ha ha..” and she laughed a forced bitter laugh without looking at the daughter sitting there alone, slump shouldered in the corner, her tear-filled eyes shining sadly and looking to the floor. “Obviously she doesn’t know her own daughter” Janice finished huffily.

Proverb : “Every fine shoe becomes a slipper”.

Parable : Pissed in the tea pot.

The best payback I know of personally was confessed to me by a woman tradie..a house painter who was bullied by this misogynist builder who didn’t believe building sites were a place for “girlies” as he called her..He would bump the step-ladder when she was on it, kick her long-handled roller as he walked past and generally be a real bastard.

On her last day, just before she left the job, she took his tea-pot from the smoko bench (he liked his tea made in a pot and poured into a mug)…and went and urinated in it…swirled it around a few times, emptied it out and replaced it…just as she was getting into her van, she told the apprentice of what she had done( knowing full well the mischievous intentions of the lad).

At smoko, the builder prepared his usual pot of tea, poured himself his mug and proceeded to drink it down…the apprentice, being an apprentice, let him get a few good gulps down and then with an air of innocence blurted out:

“Oh..I meant to tell you..that painter woman..she pissed in your tea pot..”

At this point we can, as Mark Twain wrote..; “Draw the curtain of charity down over the following proceedings.”

Proverb:     The dog runs a little, the hare runs a little.

Parable:      Angelo Pescari “had a woman on the sly”. His wife knew that, but he didn’t know she knew. Till one evening she sent the kids over to her sisters and sat down with her husband for a “talk”.

“A what!!” Angelo jumped up in mock surprise.

“Sit down and stop the theatrics,” she spoke calmly.

“Who told you that?” he continued to bluff “The things you think”. he continued in vain seeking to regain his ground. But she knew and now he was sprung.

“Settle down…I’m not going to leave or divorce you or go into hysterics over it, see, I’m perfectly calm.. all I’m asking is that you finish the affair and we go back to normal,…husband and wife…agreed?”

After some more talking and seeing the futility of trying to proclaim his innocence, Angelo Pescari sighingly agreed to his wifes request;…

“Yes”, he said, he would terminate the affair immediately.

But he didn’t! He continued seeing the woman after work sometimes and of course his wife found out again.

He arrived home from “work” one evening as his wife was setting the dinner. She glanced wickedly at him.

“So,..a hard day at work..eh?” She smiled.

“Why…yes…yes.” he hesitatingly answered.

“And a hard ride on the mistress?” She smiled wickedly again, he just stood there in dumbness.

“Well” she continued “You can have your little coquette…but then so will I have mine…but the difference is…I don’t even have to leave the house!”

Angelo stood there dumbfounded, with a slowly, creeping awareness of his vulnerability . His wife served the dinner.

Proverb: It costs a lot of money to die comfortably.

Parable:     Nickolai Petrov was moderately wealthy. He was also so cautious with his money, that many times his friends would chastise him with the old adage; “You can’t take it with you, you know!”..Now he was old and was dying of cancer. The surgeon told him this at his bedside in the hospital.

Nockolai’s wife sat at his bedside consoling him, holding and stroking his hand. A tear fell from her eye on to the bed cover.

“Ah Nicky…my dear Nicky…what can I do for you?” She sang in sympathy.

Nickolai thought about this for a while…then said

“Trishka, my dear…one thing you can do…”

“Yes, my dearest…just say it.”

“A…a cushion…an embroided, red velvet cushion..like they have in the old country…to lay my head on when I…pass on…to put in the coffin for me to rest my head on…” He turned his eyes to her.

She wept a little at his request “So like the man” she thought,

“Yes, Yes my sweet…I’d love to.”

And she made him a soft velvet cushion of the dimensions he wished  , embroided with also a tasselled edging. She brought it to him in the hospital the day he was to be sent home.

The doctor had given him a couple of months to live and he spent these finalizing his accounts and business and even arranging the funeral services. He insisted on doing this work himself and said:

“While I have the strength, let me have the dignity.”

And so he died and was buried with the red velvet embroided cushion under his head. His wife mourned for weeks in sadness, but, life goes on and the bills keep coming in.

One day she went to the bank to take some money out,  there was none there! – the account had been closed. She went to the building society…that too, closed!…No money? Where had it gone? She asked all the relatives if Nickolai had given them proxy after death to handle the money? No, no one knew…Had he hidden it in the house? She turned it upside down in the search…No…gone… lost!

At last she went to the grave of her husband.

“Nickolai, I know you’ve hidden it…but where?” She glared at the tombstone through slit eyes. “You old devil.” She hissed “Where did you hide it?”

Then she looked to the photograph of Nickolai Petrov fixed in the left side of the tombstone. He had a certain “Mona-Lisa” smile fixed on his face. “Damn it Nicky, I need ” She stopped short as a niggling, nasty realization crept over her mind. She flung her hand-bag to the ground. “You swine!…0h you, you bastard!…the cushion, the cushion… you did take it with you after all! You little pig!” She shook her fist at the grave.

It cost Trishka five thousand dollars and a lot of affidavits to exhume the coffin and redeem the money from the cushion. She replaced the cushion under his head when they reburied him… but this time she filled it with rocks!