Being Human

My old mate, Ian Sinclair, Punjab, turned up earlier this month. We had much to talk about. He's been in Oz a couple of months having picked up his camper-van from where he leaves it in Australia. I not sure where. He flew into Sydney and after getting his van he headed to Queensland, visiting a mate, Col Stone, in northern NSW, on the way. He called at another mate's place, Bob Cooper, in Cairns, then he was off to Cooktown.

 

I mention Col and Bob by name because we all lived in Mt Waverley in the 1960's. Ian stayed with us from Sat 8 Nov till Monday 17 Nov. He rang a few times on his travels, his intention was to go across to Darwin and travel down to SA but the rego was due on his van and being NSW registered he needed a roadworthy certificate and this was more easily obtained for some reason in NSW so he headed south without the leg across the top.

 

He rang on 7 Nov from where he was camped in western NSW to say he wasn't far away, maybe he could do it in a day's drive. I told him that was fine he was welcome whenever. I told him briefly about my family's property at Emerald being for sale and the difficulties of that with all the paperwork with agent and solicitor back and forth and family complications. He said he was having hassles with his family here in Oz and he was keen to tell me about it  when he came. He was very interested in my family situation given that he was a frequent visitor in the early days when my family moved to Emerald. He was involved with the initial tree plantings and has visited the farm multiple times over the last 55 years, as recently as last summer.

 

Ian's family drama revolved around money. Assets of Reg Cantillon, Ian's step father. The Cantillons lived a few doors up from us in Virginia St. Mt Waverley. After Mrs Cantillon died and Ian's father died, Reg and Ian's mum, Beryl, married. Beryl died four years before Reg. He died in 2011. There were assets belonging to Reg that the executors, State Trustees, did not locate at the time the will was executed. These assets were unknown to the 6 beneficiaries, Ian, his brother and sisters and the Cantillon twins. A solicitor who specializes in this sort of thing, locating and processing lost assets found them somehow. He contacted Ian's family saying he knew where some of them were and that they amounted to in excess of $100k at the time the will was executed and had accrued to be worth over $500k now. This solicitor said he could find all the assets and organize their release to the executors for distribution to the beneficiaries. He would do this if the beneficiaries signed an agreement which would pay him 30pc of the total. Everyone else was willing to sign but not Ian, who thought 30pc too high a sum for some patient legwork.

 

One of Ian's sisters died in the interim so her bequeath would be split to her 2 children. Of the 7 needed to sign off Ian is the only one unwilling, so he's unpopular with the others. What a mess! Ian has found some of the assets are Commonwealth Bank Shares but knows not how many or what others there are or maybe, nor the total amount. He's trying to get the lady at the State Trustees who handles this to work with him to find them but she's unavailable, then on leave, then still not back when she said she would be. Nobody else there seems willing to work on it and say it will take weeks or months to find details never mind gaining authority.

 

Ian is understandably suspicious that there's some form of legal collusion at work. He's in no hurry to get his share. Others want it now or as quick as they can get it, never mind losing $160k plus to the solicitor. For much of the time he was here Ian was consumed by all this and spending countless hours on the phone to family and others discussing it and bringing me up to date following that. 

 

While this was going on I was consumed with matters to do with our property sale at Emerald. On that note I can say it has been sold, part deposit was paid 14 Nov with balance on 5 Dec. My fingers are still crossed nothing goes wrong. Settlement is set for 16 Jan. Then my involvement spanning over 5 decades will be over. Meredith and Roger are so busy getting rid of stuff and cleaning up, they have my sympathy. Jod thinks the new people will let him stay in his bungalow. I don't know how that will end. 

 

There's more I could write about for November but it will wait. I've worn myself out mentally going over all the legal stuff. Ian and I talked of so many things that have happened in our lives over the 60 plus years we have known each other. He and Gord came with me to Adelaide where we stayed overnight so I could attend (they came too) a SA chapter reunion of Old Camberwell Grammarians. A wine and cheese night. There was only one other bloke there from my final year, 1970, but we had an enjoyable time talking to mostly old guys. We then had dinner at a Greek cafe. We visited my Aunt Hatsu in Adelaide on the Saturday on the way home. She's 92 and managing quite well with home care. To think, she first met me when she came to Australia in 1961 having married my uncle.  I was nine years old. She was a girl during WW11 when Japan was heavily bombed. She ate sparrows and mice to stave of severe hunger.

 

Ian and I agreed that being a human being is a wild adventure. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kitchen Duty

 I washed dishes this morning, as I do every morning. And evening. I quite enjoy it. I find simple, mundane tasks calming. 

 

But it was a bit different today. I looked closely at items as I dried them and placed them squeaky clean in orderly sequence on the bench, ready to put away when I'm finishing the exercise. There were spoons from Indonesia and China and a knife from Sheffield England. There plates from China and USA. I picked up a little bottle of ghee on the bench. Packed in Australia but "Product of India." There was fruit on the bench, Kiwi from NZ, and I recalled seeing fresh food in the supermarket from USA the day previous.

 

It struck me what an amazing life we live. There's stuff from all over the world in my house, right at mt fingertips, all combining to give me a pleasant affluent lifestyle compared to so many people in the world who grub out existence the hard way. Historically, before electricity and the internal combustion engine inventions, it was so for most people. I think this way also driving around in traffic with just about every body driving around in their mechanized ton and half of steel, plastic, aluminum, vinyl, rubber personal transport - without an iota of concern really for where it or the fuel comes from.

 

Our car is a Skoda built in Czechoslovakia.  I can't even spell it  without auto correct!

 

I find it all.....bloody weird.  

 

 

It Cometh, To All

On our recent trip back to Victoria (August) we visited numerous family and friends, particularly in the Emerald /Cockatoo / Gembrook area where we lived for forty years until March 2021. There were many more people I'd have liked to visit but it was impossible, given our hectic schedule, to see all. 

 

My friend Vilma lives close to where we did in Gembrook and I called there without notice after we visited our old house. Lib wasn't with me at this stage, she went back with Rob to Emerald where we were staying after we checked out Agnes St. We were moved to see our our old garden, most trees still thriving but generally the surrounds were unkempt compared to how it was when we left. Vilma is 90 years old and a dear friend who always was warm and welcoming to me over a couple of decades. I picked in her garden and helped her with various gardening work extending to cleaning her spouting when her partner Josef was not well enough to climb up ladders. Josef is also a friend of mine, he was a neighbour of Vilma's and after his wife died he and Vilma hit it off and Joseph moved in and rented his house out. Josef is several years, maybe 10-15 younger than Vilma but who cares about that if it works.

 

When I called Josef was not home. He was at medical appointment and is waiting for a new hip operation. I was sorry to have missed him but Vilma was so obviously happily surprised to see me that any flatness I felt seeing our old abode disappeared. Despite her 90 years Vilma is as sharp as a tack with the same positive outlook that always lifted me no matter the weather or what foul circumstances may have been my lot at the time. Some people have that effect on you. During our discussion I told Vilma that I had befriended her daughter Julienne on Facebook after she popped up on my feed one day and I recognized the surname as the same as Vilma's. Julienne lived in Perth. On her FB I saw after a year or so she moved to Wangaratta, so I had a couple of messages with her over that, as I had lived and worked there for 5 years 1976-1981.

 

Then Julienne stopped posting. Months went by and I wondered why she wasn't posting. I PM'd her saying I hoped she was alright. No response. I did again a couple of months later with again no response. I told Vilma while we were catching up on things that I was friends with her daughter on FB but she'd stopped posting. Vilma's reply gave me a start.

 

"Oh. July died." Totally surprised, I asked what did she die from.

 

"She just died, in her house." I asked again what killed her.

 

"They don't know. She just died. It was her time to die. Her heart stopped. They found her on the floor." 

 

Vilma seemed quite composed about it although obviously sad. She said a policeman came to her door and sat in that chair there (pointing to it, next to hers) and told her. She said she asked the policeman could she ring one of her other daughters and tell her. He sat listening while Vilma told her July was dead and the daughter said, "I knew she was dead. I dreamed she was lying dead on the floor with blood coming from her head." The phone was on speaker so the policeman heard the conversation. Before leaving he wanted the other daughter's details, Vilma guessed because he found it a little strange. Nothing further came of it and it would seem likely it's possible people can dream things like that. That daughter did not live close to Julienne and there was no other way she could have known.

 

At least my mystery on why Julienne had gone quiet was answered. Another incident relating to Facebook comes to mind from earlier this year. A notification from a friend appeared in my feed.

 

"If you read this I'm dead." 

 

There was more by way of explanation but I can't recall it without hunting back. Ann Bolch had suffered from breast cancer and undergone chemo etc but she succumbed. She wrote her own last post on paper and asked her husband Tim to post it after she left us. That one shocked me, I had seen mention of her cancer earlier but only in a positive way approaching treatment.

 

When I look at my FB friends there are quite a number who are no longer with us, but I don't remove them as somehow them being there keeps them in my life and reminds me that it comes to us all sooner or later. No exceptions.   

 

 

 

Gaslighting

 The modern definition of gaslighting is a psychological manipulation technique in which a person tries to convince someone that their reality is untrue. It is a tactic often used by narcissists to gain control of their intended target.

I found that on Google, after looking up the word in my desk dictionary, The Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary 1992 edition, which has no listing for the word at all. I concluded the Google definition is a recent interpretation of the word.

I looked it up because it's a word that's been frequently used over a few years now in interviews and discussion, often of a political nature, usually I think in the context of someone being harmed or betrayed in some way, but I never really knew how that was. I haven't heard it for a while, but now that I've learned the modern meaning of it, I suppose it'll mean the gaslighter is possibly a narcissist trying to manipulate the gaslit person's beliefs as a means to dominate them.

I confess that's still a bit difficult for me. I prefer by far my previous accepted version of the word, which coincides with the old dictionary I have, Websters Modern 20th century 1947 edition. It's a huge book that came from my grandmother Nanna Wilson originally to the farm when she came to live there in 1973, and somehow now sits in our "library". The pages are yellowed and the writing so small I could hardly read it.

It states Gaslighting - "The light produced by the combustion of coal gas."

June Update

 I noticed that my last post was 23 May. My how time flies. I'm happy to report that my back and hip issues have been resolved. My remedial massage went well (Natalia-excellent) but hip pain persisted so I brought my chiropractor maintenance appointment forward. Louis listened closely while I explained that lying in bed was the worst, there was aching quite severe in the hip and down the leg. Also getting in and out of bed or a car. He was immediate in answer and said I had a hip bursa (he may have used a more fancy name too). He was confident that was exactly what it was and exactly how to rectify it. He did the usual back manipulations and said he'd send me a video on how to fix it with an exercise roller that I could buy at KMart or BigW. The video came while he worked on his computer, my phone pinged with an SMS while I was in his room. The whole thing took about 15-20 minutes.

 

I bought a roller at KMart (I could only get a hard one whereas the video said use a soft roller as it's painful). I went home and did the exercises. Yes painful, but it worked. I bought a medium roller next day at BigW and repeated the exercises for a couple of days. Just as Louis said I would, I came good, not completely out of all discomfort but well enough to not do the painful exercises with the disruption to daily routine.

 

I have been weeding down the river and attending planting working bees there and at the Bluff. Very satisfying. While doing some of this my left hand became very painful, especially in the thumb base and wrist. A friend in the FoHRE said he uses a product he buys at Woolworths, Zea Relief - Kunzea Pain Relief Cream. I bought a tube (not cheap $35) and applied it night and morning with excellent result. I've been using it for a week and the hand is now better than the right one. My problem would I think be normal arthritis common to people my age. As they say, "Getting old is not for sissies." I'm always a bit worried when I have these pain issues that the rheumatoid arthritis is back but so far so good, that monster is well and truly behind me I hope.

 

Since I last posted the drought has broken in this area, with good rain I think totaling more than 150 ml for the last part of May and June to date. Wonderful for all the trees, shrubs and grasses we've planted, many hundreds on the river and the big community planting day on the Bluff saw 2500 planted.

 

I read that book I mentioned last month 'What Alice Forgot'. She lost her ten year memory and knew nothing of what changes had occurred in her life. It slowly came back. I found it food for thought. Our lives do change greatly over a ten year period, our preferences, prejudices, opinions, changes driven by circumstance and fate and experience. Mine did/has anyway.

 

I'm reading 'Lola's Secret' now by Monica McInerney. I'm enjoying it, I'm about halfway in. She tells a good entertaining yarn about family interaction. I read one of hers some years ago set in Hobart. This one is set in Clare SA where author Monica grew up in a family of seven children. Thank goodness for books, I love reading.

 

 

Vietnam {2}

 My overriding conclusion, having read this book on and off over a few months, is that it was completely crazy for so many people to have died needlessly over such a long period. So many more maimed physically and scarred psychologically and enormous destruction and pollution of property and landscape.

Probably millions of Vietnamese died over decades of conflict through active participation in war, collateral damage, friendly fire, execution, torture, starvation. A horror story. Fifty-five thousand Americans died. Billions of dollars wasted. Planes, helicopters, tanks, trucks, APC's, bombs, missiles, it's mind boggling. The suppliers of all this to the war machine on both sides, right down to small arms and uniforms and medical equipment were those that profited, as were those who benefitted by corruption and misappropriation.

That it went on for so long is hard for this reader to fathom. From memory the Americans knew they were to withdraw as early as 1968. President Nixon could well be accountable for more than 20,000 American lives lost after that year, as he prolonged the war to save face and make the withdrawal of America at a time when the inevitable victory of the North would look like a failure of the South Vietnamese Government. The peace talks dragged on and on in a political farce. Huge bombing raids were undertaken on the North and in Laos and Cambodia on the supply lines when it was known defeat of the South was certain, but political public image took precedence over any rationale.

As I recall these bombing raids were initiated from aircraft carriers off the coast, or from Guam, several hours away by flight before they got to drop their bombs on the target area. Dozens of planes a day, thousands of tons of explosives, most of it dropped with little accuracy in regard to civilian destruction. More tonnage of explosives than used in the entirety of WW11. The missiles and anti-aircraft systems of the North including MIG fighter jets were Russian supplied and vehicles, tanks, trucks and light arms were Chinese or Russian.

As I said the other day, I sent the book to Rickyralph so I can't check stats. One incident that I recall was on a US aircraft carrier, I can't remember its name. There were several of these huge ships off the coast of Vietnam, from which dozens of fighter bombers took off each day on their deadly missions. Many more, bigger bombers, flew from the US base in Guam, several hours flying time from their targets. In this accident a returning plane when taxiing to its hangar storage collided with a parked plane and a fire started which quickly escalated into a major emergency. Before it was extinguished 172 crewmen had been killed, many incinerated in their quarters where they were trapped. Millions of $ damage to the ship and planes. Mind boggling. These ships housed thousands of people and carried dozens of planes. Imagine the cost of such a thing.

I don't know how many of the 55,000 American deaths were by accident or friendly fire, but it was a substantial proportion. Not only that there were also numerous homicides committed in the American forces. In the later stage of the American involvement there was a serious drug problem involving drug running on an organized scale. Some soldiers went nuts while stoned and fired on innocent civilians and disliked officers of their own creed. Take out the drugs, there were still murders of officers who tried restoring discipline and punished misdemeanors harshly by withdrawing privilege. There was one instance of a young Australian female singer entertaining troops who was shot dead on stage while performing. It was said an American marine aiming at an officer in the background missed his target. 

Australian involvement was minimal compared to that of the US but just as horrendous on small scale. More than 500 Australians lost their lives. I recall reading somewhere once where half of these deaths were the result of accident. I recall also seeing somewhere that the first National Serviceman killed had only been in Vietnam a short time, maybe a week, and was shot by another Australian patrol who mistook his for enemy. It was his first day out on patrol. Recently I learned of a National Serviceman who was Killed in Action near Nui Dat on the 17th of February 1967. Vic Pomeroy went to the same school as me (before I was there), Camberwell Grammar. His birthdate was on a marble pulled out of a barrel. He played footy for Camberwell seconds before he left for Vietnam and was a clerk for a fashion warehouse in Flinders Lane. He was 21 when he died. He never got to be a father or grandfather.

The book Vietnam concluded in its final paragraph with a question for the US. What did it learn from Vietnam? 

It answered, " Not much it seems, or we wouldn't have invaded Iraq."

I'm reading an antidote book (novel fiction) now that Lib's sister Pat sent her for Xmas, "What Alice Forgot" by Lian Moriarty. Alice fell off an exercise bike at the gym in 2008 in Sydney and woke up thinking it was 1998 with no recollection of the ten years between, nor of the three children she was now the mother of, knowing nothing of their birth or personalities or changes to herself/lifestyle. Interesting.

I did go down the river and get those blackberries on Tuesday after my post here. I felt good that night, the exercise seemed to have freed up the back. But I have relapsed, very sore now. I have a remedial massage booked for this arvo, maybe need more chiro too next week. 

    

A Good Rain at Last

There was a significant rainstorm last weekend, much needed by our plantations in the River Reserve. It came in the early hours of the morning following some showers during the previous afternoon and evening. The warm weather of early May that caused me to delay sending the package that included chocolate to Elvie for Mother's Day*, has left after the rainstorm. Yesterday morning was frosty. Nights are now cold.

I was caught out by the storm, I had intended to clean the spouts before the weather broke, it was on my list last week, but last Wednesday evening I hurt my back pulling a big African daisy down the river. I didn't have my handsaw and dabber bottle of herbicide as I went down to that area just to check on Cape Ivy regrowth. I hadn't been in there for some months. Yes, there was quite a bit of Ivy. I enjoyed getting it out, easy before it mats and takes over. I came across some African daisies and they were easy too, until the big old one held on. Stupidly, I keep pulling without adjusting my stance, bending my knees and gripping the stem lower. I knew straight away I'd done damage; it felt like a strain in the side across to my left hip. Walking home was most uncomfortable. I realized I'd put my lower back out.

I drove to Seaford with Gord the next day to attend to some registration payment paperwork for his purchased Mazda that he couldn't do at the PO here. I picked up a Kiwiberry plant I had ordered at Perry's Nursery in McClaren Vale on the same trip. I'd tried to make an appointment with my chiropractor here in Victor Harbor, but the office was unattended. I was put through to an affiliated practice in Bendigo who told me Friday was booked out and made an appointment for me for 3.30 last Monday. I spent 4 painful days and saw Louis Monday. He clunked me around a bit and reckoned I was fixed but would be sore for a while. Well, I'm still sore, not sure I'm "fixed", but I'm taking analgesics and trying to convince myself I'm coming good. 

In this last week I've done little, the discomfort robs you of enthusiasm for any task. The spouts will have to wait, so will any gardening. I am determined though to go down the river later today and 'cut and paint' blackberry regrowth I saw in the same area last Wednesday before I left to come home. They are only small and are easy to get at now following the months of dry weather we've had and the die off of annuals, which will sprout again with wet weather and warm towards spring, making the area hard to get into. It's close to the billabong and is moister than other places, hence the blackberries holding on reshooting after I cut and painted them last year. 

 Excuse me if this is boring to anyone reading. Somehow it reassures me that I'm not totally redundant because of my back, to write about it. Gives me feeling of still having some control and optimism that I won't be useless for long. It can be a bit scary, for all of us, that your life can change in the blink of an eye, a silly act, an accident. No matter who you are, or how old.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I finished the epic book on Vietnam by Max Hastings. I meant to write about that in conclusion but didn't get around to it. I've sent the book to Ricky Ralph so I can't refer to it in detail and comment will be from memory but again I feel a need to write on it. It will be next post, maybe this afternoon before I tackle the blackberries, as Gord wants me to go shopping with him now. Hell of a good fellow is Gord boy. Hell of a good wife is Lib gal too. It's nice to have good people around you when you are crook or suffering pain and discomfort. I had a massage by Julie from the Joyful Path last Saturday. Lib gave me a voucher for my birthday. It was a good time to use it under my circumstances. An hour of bliss. It didn't fix my back but made me feel so much better about life for a while. Then the Demons knocked off Brisbane in Brisbane on Sunday. Loved that.

*Meredith messaged me to say the package got there.