Vale Johnny Boy

John  and Raylene and Lib at Lakes Entrance 2007

Last Thursday was quite a day. A memorial service for John Harkins was held at Dandenong South at 3.30pm. John was married to our friend Raylene, who worked with Lib for twenty odd years at Salisbury House and lived at Emerald until moving to the Peninsula, maybe about five years ago. We shared many happy times and it is hard to believe John is gone. He was 62. He had heart bypass surgery a couple of years ago. John and Raylene broke up some time before that. We kept contact with Raylene but not John which sadly is often the way of it when a marriage splits. No intent on our part, just how it went.

Thursday was also Lib's birthday. I arranged to pick her up at work at 2.30pm or shortly after. Gord and I in Gord's car were a bit late at 2.55. Leaving Berwick I decided not to take the freeway, continuing instead south along the Clyde Rd to pick up Thompsons Rd which would take us across to the Dandy Frankston Rd where the service was to be. I'd had a quick look at the Melways in the morning. I took Glasscocks Rd instead thinking it too went right through. On the Melways 2010 there were two sections of the road marked with broken lines, and I wrongly assumed they'd have been built by now. We became lost in all the new estates where the roads all seem to go around in circles with roundabouts and bollards and fancy light poles everywhere. Not good for the blood pressure.

We arrived at 3.45, 15 minutes late. John's children Nicholas and Emily were giving their tribute and we heard John's sister's eulogy in entirety. The poignant slide show of John's life to the music of Joan Baez and Cat Stevens brought welling tears. John loved music, song and good wine and I don't think any evening in his company passed without him pulling out his guitar and leading a sing along.

The service concluded at about 4.15 and after ten minutes or so afterwards talking to Raylene and family we were on the road at 4.30 as the rain started to fall heavily and the heavy cloud darkened what was left of daylight well before it should. We were entrapped in a massive traffic jam. It took 90 minutes to get from Dandy South to Narre Warren where we had planned to buy Lebonese takeaway for Lib's birthday dinner. Robbie was coming up from Melbourne for the birthday. It was close to 7.30 when we arrived home after picking up Lib's car at Upper Beac.

Almost a five hour round trip from the time Gord and I left home.

Books Read Lately

A writing class colleague, Barbara, whose work I enjoy when she reads it out at class, talked about author Cormac McCarthy when we were asked to bring in sentences we liked. I hadn't heard of him at all but Barbara said she'd bring me a book of his to read which she duly did, three in fact. 'All The Pretty Horses', 'The Crossing', and 'Cities of the Plain'.

I read them over a few months. Barb said to read them in order (as listed above) as they are a trilogy. I returned them to Barb on Friday. I loved them. Reading them was like leaving my world behind and being absorbed in the place and time in which they were set, New Mexico and Mexico largely in the 1940's, the main characters being young men in a rural western working environment very much horse orientated and searching for meaning in a changing world. They are great stories and the writer in simple language describes the natural world that is so powerful and brutal and the actions and movements of people and animals that unfold the narrative. There are no quotation marks in the dialogue and little punctuation but there's no difficulty understanding who's saying what. There's philosphy coming at you from almost every page and some of it is rivetting. There's reverence for the horse as a noble beast and respect for the peasant whose kindness and wisdom is heroic. I almost cried in places. That's how I describe it anyway. It has changed the way I see things. The world is not the same tomorrow as it is today.

I have started a new book, 'The Reprieve' by Jean Paul Satre. I'm only up to page 19 and I'm struggling to get into it after the easy pace of Cormac but a sentence stood out to me on page 14-

"It must be rather grim to hope for nothing except that life might continue indefinitely in its present course."

Not in My Backyard 2

The post I did last week I presented to my writing class last Friday.

It was not appreciated by my colleagues and according to my teacher Maria it lacked focus. Such is the way of it when you put your views forward. It was suggested that I work on it to improve it in terms of getting my point across, that being that I think there are far more important things to be worried about than a McDonald's store being built in Tecoma.

Things like impending cataclysmic climate change consequences and massive inequality in the world. So I have edited my previous post, not changing it greatly but a little structurally. Read it again if you wish.

I don't say it's good writing, or deeply meaningful, but it did provoke at writing class. It was said a stand has to be made somewhere. Fair enough, but I'll draw my own line; where, how and with whom.

As it happens the media dropped off the issue this last week, I didn't see one report on it. The three big issues dropped down to two - the Essendon drugs thing and the Federal election.

If I may comment on those-

Shame, shame, shame on Essendon and those responsible for going down the path they did, and more shame on them not recognizing their culpability. And a staunch Essendon supporter said that to me today.

As for the election, the ALP is $5.50 for $1 today. That's enough for me stake a bit of hard earned in what is realistically a two horse race, despite the overwhelming media support for the Libs and the almost idiotic performance of Rudd courting of the youth vote. Lets rock and roll!

Not in My Backyard

The protesters to McDonald's at Tecoma say that VCAT didn't consider public opinion when they overturned the council decision and allowed McDonald's a permit. I don't know the intricacies of VCAT's decision but I don't think VCAT is there to adjudicate by public opinion poll.

I know it costs money to go there. When I objected to Cardinia Council's proposal to issue itself a permit to remove thousands of sweet pittosporum trees from council roadsides I was told council was proceeding despite my objection and that I could appeal to VCAT if I liked. When I looked into that I found that it would cost me hundreds of dollars to lodge an appeal, I would have to make myself available on the day the case was to be heard in order to present my submission, and should my appeal not be successful I would be liable for the costs of the council. Touche. There was no way I could undertake that at the time. They took out the trees. The trees are growing back fortunately.

In the Tecoma / McDonald's case it seems to be a matter of zoning and the site is zoned commercial. To deny Maccas and allow other fast food and hamburger joints is discriminatory. Unfair. That's why there is such a thing as an appeals tribunal.

The horse bolted long ago. When I lived in Melbourne pre 1972 I don't think McDonald's existed there at all. I bought the best hamburgers ever at Angelo's fish and chip shop. When I went to Wangaratta in 1976 I'd regularly indulge two with the lot from Nick, the Greek guy's take away opposite my office. Now there are Maccas all over Melbourne, in country towns of any size throughout Victoria, and strategically located along freeways. There's even one in Kandahar I read somewhere. McDonald's do their homework, they put franchises where traffic flow or population demographics tell them it will be profitable. And they are.

The protesters may as well throw cream puffs at B Doubles on the freeway.

My parents moved out of the city forty years ago to escape the increasing traffic snarl, choosing the quiet country town of Emerald. Tecoma also was a quiet little place, although much closer to suburbia and inside the electrified train network. Emerald now has a peak hour traffic jam through the main street, not as choking as that in Tecoma but getting there.

The gate was opened years ago. We as a nation embrace automobile culture and its connotations such as fast food and soft drinks, shopping malls, satellite suburbs. We lap it up like the cat with the cream. McDonald's in Tecoma is a tiny pimple on a destructive cultural giant that has been rampaging for decades.

Emerald will be next, as night follows day. Then, down the track, could it be? Gembrook? No thanks, not in my backyard. But I'm.....temporary.....and compared to the millions of refugees being displaced or about to be by climate change I have little to complain about. I'm sure they would not mind a McDonald's close by.

It would mean they have somewhere to live.

I have no beef with a McDonald's franchise opening in Tecoma.