Where Have 45 Years Gone?

I drove back from Lakes Entrance today, by myself, listening to CDs, and sucking on a new Life Saver every thirty km. That's my tactic to stay awake when driving a distance. It gives me some focus on the odometer as I make the Life Saver last as long as I can, so that there's less k's to wait till I can have a new one.

I went down to Lakes on Thursday evening after a busy day working. I was by myself because Lib and Gord went down on Tuesday. I listened to a 'Gordon Lightfoot Live' CD on my way down for starters, followed by Anne Murray, singers who go back to the late sixties and my adolescence, and whose songs evoke such powerful memories when I have some solitude and the time to listen, two blessings that I rarely have in recent memory.

It was 'If You Could Read My Mind' that kicked me off into a weekend of nostalgia and overview of my life. A self indulgence? Yes. But it was like an uncontrollable force that took hold of me and held me captive right till this very moment, and will stay during the coming night I'm sure, alone again as I am. It will take the urgency of Monday work and responsibility to snap me out of it I think.

My mate Rickyralph and I broke the chains of our conservative middle class family and educational institution and sought adventure, driven by adolescent romantic love we did not understand, having fallen in love with the sisters Morton, and rebellion against the nutty constraints, rituals and prejudices of the society of the time. We could not conform to the expectations of us. We sought excitement and experiment, and found trouble without meaning to. It was a turbulent time we were both lucky to survive. Popular music was big at the time and our generation tapped into it as an expression of awakening and freedom. There would be dozens of songs from the time that could spark such feelings in me, but 'If You Could Read My Mind' would be right up there.

Anne Murray had a hit song around the same time, 'Snowbird', which was not a favourite then, but after buying a number of her LP's in the late 1970's and becoming a big fan around the time I met and married Lib, when I hear 'Snowbird' now it takes me right back. And the fact that we lost our little 'Snowie', whom I often referred to as 'Snowbird', recently, no doubt added to the emotions that flooded me. Anne Murray's 'Highly Prized Possession' gives me goosebumps still.

I left home at 4.30pm, and after 3 and a quarter hours driving/think time remembering girls I loved, now ladies I still love, despite not having seen them for decades and probably never again, arrived at Lakes for dinner of lamb and salad wraps. I thought of friends whom I rarely see but will remain friends forever, and several who have passed on, some well into old age, others far too young. My father, Lib's parents, my friends' parents, most of whom have gone. I thought of football teams, teammates, the great fun I had at Ormond Cof C with a special bunch of people, and again at Greta after a break of five years while I pursued beekeeping.

I first went to the Lakes house on Feb 1 1981, the first day of our honeymoon after the wedding the previous day. We went there with our babies, our children, our friends, we have been going there every year since. All of these memories flooded me for three days. We went for a walk to Lake Bunga on Saturday morning. I have never seen the trees and shrubs and birds looking so beautiful... multiple shades of green and flowers of yellow white and pink on wattle, clematis and aristides?, and pea flower and craggy old banksia stumps with amazing bark and shape. We cut the grass and did house maintenance, all joy and pleasure not work. I could hear the sea in the background, a profound sound that did nothing but enhance my mood.

On the drive home I listened Simon and Garfunkel who continued the spell over me. The herds of cattle looked fantastic on the back road. The grass has never seemed so lush. The red gum trees and yellow box warmed my heart and along with the flowering red box and roadside capeweed made me think of my fortunate involvement with beekeeping and the many wonderful people from that part of my life. I cannot recall enjoying driving so much. It's great to be moving through the countryside seeing so much beauty and forgetting all the nutter stuff of politics and war and propaganda and elections.

Forty five years have passed so quickly. When I was 17, I wondered what it'd be like to be old, there's a line in S+G's Bookends.."How strange is to be seventy". I'm not all that far off finding out first hand. I always thought it'd be great to have a whole lifetime to look back over. Let's hope I keep my mental faculties so that I can.