Wild October

Being the last Sunday of the month, and therefore curry pie day, I bounced out this morning into the warm stillness. It had been the warmest night for many months. I couldn't help but admire two paulownia trees in full bloom near the corner of Le Seouf Rd. Huge masses of pale violet. Beautiful! But I can't recall ever seeing them as such before.

We may well be in the grip of drought and the global environmental crisis has been large in the news during October, but the trees and local gardens are oblivious. I have never seen a better spring in terms of bloom, and new leaf growth. Lilac, viburnum, dogwood, cherry, crabapple, waratah, mintbush, magnolia, azalea, camellia, rhodo, I've gathered armfuls of blossom of all of them. The armfuls became van loads to the farm. From there the harvest left in wholesaler's trucks for shops in Melbourne. It will help keep our heads above water for another financial year.

Five inches of rain in August set it up, and the mild dry weather of September and October meant the blossom was unspoilt. But the dry spring means we are well down on aggegrate rainfall, and, shortly going into summer, if we don't get late spring rain, we'll be in diabolical trouble come February/March. This could be the cruncher for Melbourne's water supply, and businesses which rely on water. It's in the lap of the Gods. The spring at the farm that trickles out of the hillside has ceased flowing.

The curry pie was good. 'Snowie', refreshed by the haircut Lib gave her on the warm day last Thursday, and 'Pip', were tied to the post outside the baker shop where I sat at one of the tables. They looked up at me imploringly, waiting for their sausage roll to cool. I thought of Ricky Ralph on holiday in Bali. He emailed me during the week describing full body massages, lounging by the pool under coconut palms, elephant rides, and feasts of paw paw which he shared with the elephants. The little dogs snaffled up the sausage roll, I looked out toward the Warburton ranges and said to the dogs, "I'll take this any day, I never was one for airports and plane trips."

October's been a big news month. Reports on the global environmental crisis said there were huge ice melts in Antarctica. We've had the global economic melt down, the disappearance of Britt Lapthorne and the finding of her body, and the 'Muck Up Day' biz. The American election was pushed into the back seat. I've been busy with the spring harvest and gardening jobs but I've had one ear on the news on morning radio. Also, I heard the repetitious advertisements for the 'Ron Hotshot' Real Estate Investment Co., cajoling me to attend the seminar on the history of St. Kilda Rd. property values.

Now, you may be thinking that my mind is a bit of a jumble today. How could it not be, after such an eventful month? I'm trying to combine the many thoughts I've had and tie them together with a common thread, after weeks of frustration at not having time to blog.

'Ron Hotshot'(substitute name of course), Ricky Ralph, and me, were, once upon a time, about forty years ago, all at the same school. Fortunately I was expelled from the dreadful institution before I lost all remnant of sanity. Ricky Ralph stayed on for another year or so. He told me a story when he visited one Sunday morning, about 'Ron Hotshot', after I asked him had he heard all the radio ads.

Rick works for one of those companies that cuts vegetation away from power lines. A few years ago his crew was working in Wellington Rd. near a driveway at the entrance to a riding school property. A shiny Mercedes turned into the driveway and pulled to a stop. A man in a suit got out of the car, went to the mail box, collected his mail, returned to the car, then drove to the big house and went inside with other people.

"I know that bloke", Rick said to his mates in the truck. "Matter of fact, I've got a score to settle with him." When smoko came Rick walked to the house and knocked on the door.

Now Rick is a lovable ratbag, and in common with type, has an inbuilt injustice sensor. I recall, a few years after we left school, he settled a score with a sadistic music teacher whom we bumped into in the lobby of the Lorne picture theatre. This teacher had a unique method of punishment which consisted of making an errant student choose between a week's daily detention, a severe penalty indeed, or take the steel ruler. Most chose the ruler. The lad had to bend over far enough so that the trouser material was stretched tight across his buttocks. The sadist, of questionable sexuality we believed, looked at the lad's arse from various angles with great pomp before taking up a postion side on, like a sword wielding executioner about to behead his victim, except at the arse end. With a practised flourish he'd bring the ruler down and clip the buttocks, just connecting with the outside quarter inch or so. Three strokes of the ruler and the pain was unbelievably excruciating.

'Ron Hotshot' came to the door. "How can I help you?"

"Would you be 'Ron Hotshot?' "You may not remember me but I think we went to the same school many tears ago, ABC Grammar."

"Yes, I am Ron Topshot. I did go to ABC, but I can't place you."

"I'm Rick Ralph, we were in the same year."

"Rick Ralph? Oh yes, I have a vague recollection. Were you a star tennis player? Would you like to come in and have a cup of coffee with my friends?"

Rick could see the other people in the living room, within earshot. "No thanks, Ron. I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity that it was you. But now that I know it is, I have to say that I have a bone to pick with you. You were a prefect. You dobbed me in to Kanga Cordon for farting in the library. And it wasn't me. It was Waghorn."

Rick told me Peter Waghorn did this stinking rotten foulest of all foul farts in the library, and when the librarian went nuts he couldn't stop laughing.
Later he was called in to see housemaster Kanga who demanded he confess to the fart, and when he refused, saying it wasn't him, but not dobbing in Waghorn, Kanga suspended him from the school.

Ron Topshot was on the backfoot, embarrassed in front of his collegues. "I have no recollection of any of this. If you have a grievance over something that must have been a total misunderstanding, please let me offer you some compensation in good faith. How could I make this up for you?"

"You got me into a lot of trouble, dobbing me in. I was suspended. It was only Waghorn, to his credit, going to Kanga later and owning up that got me out of it. All because you were a dobber."

Ron Hopshot went to a drawer near the door and came back with a wad of free tickets to the riding school. "Here, take these Rick. Any time your family or friends want to go horse riding, it's on me."

Rick took the tickets, he told me he never used them.

It makes me think of 'Muck Up Day'. All those 16,17 and 18 year old lads at Grammar schools, having endured years of constraint, browbeating, and mind bending spin about success and money, it's no wonder they lose it. Half of them shouldn't be there at all, they should be outside somewhere learning about the natural world and skills to let them live in harmony with it, as humans are meant to.