I grew up in the 1950's and early '60's. On TV I watched the The Happy Hammond Show which was sponsored I think by Tarax soft drinks. Happy always had a bottle of Tarax in hand or close by. Another show featured Peter's Ice Cream with clowns Zig and Zag. The catchphrase "Peter's Ice Cream, The Health Food of a Nation", was forefront.
In later life I was to learn that one of the clowns Zig was convicted of molesting his granddaughter, and Happy Hammond was not always so happy. Nonetheless my childhood included big quantities of soft drink and ice cream.
Later, in my adolescence, the Marlboro man was prominent on TV. Also memorable was the sophistication of Peter Stuyvesant and Benson and Hedges, not to mention Hoges and "Anyway Have a Winfield" and "Matter of Fact I've got it Now". I took up smoking and alcohol as did most of my peers, this despite the advice and insistence of my parents who were abstainers and bible thumpers. It could be said that I over indulged. I was, in my tender youth, a nicotine addict and alcohol abuser, as were most of my mates.
My parents in 1971 made a life change and sold the family home in Mt Waverley and bought 6 and a half acres in Emerald. They did this (thankfully) because as self employed business people they found the ever increasing traffic stifling and saw a tree change an escape. Emerald was a quiet little country town, a village or hamlet if you like, far removed from the husltle and bustle of choked down by traffic Melbourne which at that time had about 5km of freeway in total. They took the brave decision to "escape the rat race".
They moved to Emerald in 1972. I wasn't with them, I was at Puckapunyal being marched around the parade ground and the bush as a conscript for National Service, where I found myself before I really knew what was what, in the aftermath of some political expedient decision that joining the Vietnam war was a good idea. Yeah, good one that.
There was a Federal election in December 1972 and a change of government, which saw my Army career, which was always going to be short, come to an even shorter conclusion not far into 1973 as the wheels turned. The lesson was how amazingly one's life can be changed by politics, but it was a lesson I really did not absorb till a couple of decades later.
Let's move ahead to the 1980's. I had spent 5 years in the Department of Agriculture as an apiary inspector based in Wangaratta before returning to work in the now thriving family business at Emerald after I married in 1981. We bought a couple of acres in Gembrook, a quiet rural town where land was still reasonably affordable. Mid 1980's my father had a heart attack, a shock to us all as he was a tee totaller and a fit active man. He had 5X bypass surgery and lived another twenty years.
In the 1990's I was concerned about my genetic history and visited a GP to assess my health and risk of heart disease. I was promptly put on a statin drug to reduce cholesterol. There was, after some time, a minor complication with liver function impairment so I wavered, and for some years was on and off the statin drug as my fears either of heart attack or liver damage plagued my mind.
In the meantime the Marlboro Man died of lung cancer, Zig's indescretions were exposed, and the Vietnam War was exposed as a political farce. It came to light, that my father (who died in 2007), suffered kidney damage after a lifetime of high sugar intake.
One day more than a decade ago I was in a car park behind the shops in Emerald when I saw my doctor in her brand new gold Mercedes trying to negotiate the narrow lane way. I decide then that I'd had enough of regular trips to the GP for blood tests and prescriptions and forever putting my hand in my wallet. I went off the statins. At age 64 I have not succumbed to a heart attack, and am thankful for the money I have saved, and the comfort from less worry and living a healthy lifestyle.
Speaking of doctors, I saw this year that a man who grew up in Gembrook applied to council to set up a medical clinic in a house he owned in the Gembrook main street, a house he bought for his mother to live in in her old age. She was a well known and respected lady and after she died her son thought it would be nice if the house could be used to bring a doctor to Gembrook, a basic service denied the town for nearly all the 35 years I have lived here. He was knocked back a planning permit as it was claimed the property did not have sufficient parking spaces.
Here we are now, and Puffing Billy Railway has shifted to Gembrook as it's Event Hub. As many as 400 cars are expected each day for 18 extra days of Puffing Billy Events. The town will be choked down by traffic. My quiet rural retreat of Gembrook is being destroyed. The rat race that my family fled is brought to my doorstep. I cannot believe this is to be allowed.
I extend a message to Jason Wood, our Federal Member for LaTrobe, and to Brad Battin, our State Member for Gembrook (interesingly they are former policemen as they love to remind us). I also include prospective councillors in the upcoming council elections, with apology to the lady candidates.
"PLEASE gentlemen. Grow some balls. Stop cowtowing and sniffing around Puffing Billy for the opportunity of grinning photo shots with the the train, to feather your nest by re election. For the sake of the community please come up with some real ideas to benefit the town and district and not the easy way of trying to look good with the same old unsustainable bulldust."
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Monday, September 12, 2016
Eleven Days of September
My last post was on the morning of August 31. That same day Lib and I left for Lakes Entrance for some R+R primarily, notwithstanding that my motive in the main was to work on the house, painting and whatever else was needed.
We arrived about 5pm to a cold but familiar house. I can't remember what we did for dinner and it is obviously not important. I do know it was Abatacept injection day and I had taken one with me and I performed the jab and we had an early night.
The next morning we slept in, although as usual I was up about seven to feed Pip and let her out for a pee, after which I went back to bed in blissful awareness that I had no usual work routine and could please myself. About 10am after doing the breakfast routine I was still in my PJ's when a bloke pulled up out front and made his way up the stairs. He was tall and lean and wore a hat and looked all the world like something from 'Old Australia', which those of my vintage would recognize as 1960's or before. A Chips Rafferty resemblance. He introduced himself politely and said he was a handyman doing a job soon on a house above ours and needed to get an excavator in from the road above our block. Could he get the excavator in by going through the bush at the top of our block, through the fence at the top, so that he could get it across our next door neighbour's place and into the yard where he needed to work?
"No objection from me," I said,"but I'm not an owner, my wife and her two sisters own it. They'll need to give the OK. My wife is in the shower and sisters could be anywhere, but I'll contact them and let you know. My main concern would be that we don't want anything that will increase the flow of water in storms from the road above into our property as we have serious problems with storm water in the past." He gave me his card with the contact details.
Lib had no objection but couldn't understand what the guy was talking about so I said "Let's go up and have a look." The scrub was thick and we had to push through it to get to the road above and examine what we thought 'Chips' was talking about. I rang 'Chips' and he offered to come back and show us, and arranged a time, an hour ahead. So i had an hour to kill and started sanding down the back wall in prep for painting. The back of my head was itchy and I had to struggle to get my hands free while up the ladder to scratch it. It kept up itching, I repeatedly scratched, then found a scab on the back of my head. I picked at it and managed to lift a corner. It would not come. I picked and picked, carefully, in the knowledge common to us all if you go too hard at a scab it hurts. This didn't hurt, but I picked and picked and it would not come, till I made a decision to go hard on it, hurt or no.
It didn't hurt but it came away, and as I brought it around on my finger to observe it I could see that it had legs, and was in fact a scrub tick. Now this gave me some concern because I had heard the horror stories of Limes disease from tick bites, an immune system thing, and my immune system had been giving me trouble with the RA business for two years, and that after a trip to Qld and northern NSW when I was attacked by sand flies and suffered severe allergic reaction which to this day I suspect was a trigger to my troubles.
Lib looked closely at my head and said it didn't look like the head of the tick was left behind in my scalp but without cutting and digging she couldn't be sure. There was swelling almost instantaneously. 'Chips' came back and we sorted that, all that was left was to get Pat and Marg's approval, which we subsequently did. I got the back wall sanded down.
The next day the weather was not good but I did a bit of painting in the morning and at Lib's suggestion as rain threatened we went for a drive. We had lunch at Metung, a delicious pumpkin soup and bread and I made calls to P and M re the excavator guy, leaving messages for them to call me back. We drove out to Sarsfield and visited Shirley Hughes's daughter Debbie's place which is now a B+B named Rural Retreats. Graeme Blakewell, Deb's hub, showed us around the amazing property which is in effect an underground house on top of a hill with wonderful views of the Gippsland Lakes.
We made it back to the house in time for me to give the rest of the back a coat of paint before dark. An hour or so later it started to rain and it rained all night, fortunately the paint had just enough drying time and did not wash off.
The next day I went to Bairnsdale and watched the prelim final between Orbost and Lindenow, a lacklustre game really easily won by Lindenow. I met Phil there and watched the game with him, having learned on the phone the day before that he and Marg had had a blue and he didn't know where she was and he hadn't seen her or heard from her in three and half weeks.There's not much I can say about that situation except that it seems almost unbelievable that people who have been married about 40 years can have a blue a few days before they are going on a planned holiday to Qld and a month before they expect their first grandchild. And this in their comfortable retirement. Weird.
Sunday I sanded and painted the side wall. Monday I painted other stuff, rails and beams, and cut the grass at the back and pruned back encroaching trees on the east side. Monday arvo Lib started the big house clean. She had been crook for a couple of days with nausea. Tuesday we did a final clean and packed and left at 9.45 and were home shortly after 1pm. i went picking bay foliage for wednesday's orders. Wednesday Thursday and Fri were flat out. Friday night I was exhausted and knocked off a bottle of red quick time and fell asleep and missed the the second half of GEE/Haw. So glad with Gee winning result. Hope like hell the Bulldogs can finish the job next Friday and get rid of the bastards.
It has taken all of ten days, but the swelling and soreness from the tick bite has eased right off so I think I'm in the clear.
We arrived about 5pm to a cold but familiar house. I can't remember what we did for dinner and it is obviously not important. I do know it was Abatacept injection day and I had taken one with me and I performed the jab and we had an early night.
The next morning we slept in, although as usual I was up about seven to feed Pip and let her out for a pee, after which I went back to bed in blissful awareness that I had no usual work routine and could please myself. About 10am after doing the breakfast routine I was still in my PJ's when a bloke pulled up out front and made his way up the stairs. He was tall and lean and wore a hat and looked all the world like something from 'Old Australia', which those of my vintage would recognize as 1960's or before. A Chips Rafferty resemblance. He introduced himself politely and said he was a handyman doing a job soon on a house above ours and needed to get an excavator in from the road above our block. Could he get the excavator in by going through the bush at the top of our block, through the fence at the top, so that he could get it across our next door neighbour's place and into the yard where he needed to work?
"No objection from me," I said,"but I'm not an owner, my wife and her two sisters own it. They'll need to give the OK. My wife is in the shower and sisters could be anywhere, but I'll contact them and let you know. My main concern would be that we don't want anything that will increase the flow of water in storms from the road above into our property as we have serious problems with storm water in the past." He gave me his card with the contact details.
Lib had no objection but couldn't understand what the guy was talking about so I said "Let's go up and have a look." The scrub was thick and we had to push through it to get to the road above and examine what we thought 'Chips' was talking about. I rang 'Chips' and he offered to come back and show us, and arranged a time, an hour ahead. So i had an hour to kill and started sanding down the back wall in prep for painting. The back of my head was itchy and I had to struggle to get my hands free while up the ladder to scratch it. It kept up itching, I repeatedly scratched, then found a scab on the back of my head. I picked at it and managed to lift a corner. It would not come. I picked and picked, carefully, in the knowledge common to us all if you go too hard at a scab it hurts. This didn't hurt, but I picked and picked and it would not come, till I made a decision to go hard on it, hurt or no.
It didn't hurt but it came away, and as I brought it around on my finger to observe it I could see that it had legs, and was in fact a scrub tick. Now this gave me some concern because I had heard the horror stories of Limes disease from tick bites, an immune system thing, and my immune system had been giving me trouble with the RA business for two years, and that after a trip to Qld and northern NSW when I was attacked by sand flies and suffered severe allergic reaction which to this day I suspect was a trigger to my troubles.
Lib looked closely at my head and said it didn't look like the head of the tick was left behind in my scalp but without cutting and digging she couldn't be sure. There was swelling almost instantaneously. 'Chips' came back and we sorted that, all that was left was to get Pat and Marg's approval, which we subsequently did. I got the back wall sanded down.
The next day the weather was not good but I did a bit of painting in the morning and at Lib's suggestion as rain threatened we went for a drive. We had lunch at Metung, a delicious pumpkin soup and bread and I made calls to P and M re the excavator guy, leaving messages for them to call me back. We drove out to Sarsfield and visited Shirley Hughes's daughter Debbie's place which is now a B+B named Rural Retreats. Graeme Blakewell, Deb's hub, showed us around the amazing property which is in effect an underground house on top of a hill with wonderful views of the Gippsland Lakes.
We made it back to the house in time for me to give the rest of the back a coat of paint before dark. An hour or so later it started to rain and it rained all night, fortunately the paint had just enough drying time and did not wash off.
The next day I went to Bairnsdale and watched the prelim final between Orbost and Lindenow, a lacklustre game really easily won by Lindenow. I met Phil there and watched the game with him, having learned on the phone the day before that he and Marg had had a blue and he didn't know where she was and he hadn't seen her or heard from her in three and half weeks.There's not much I can say about that situation except that it seems almost unbelievable that people who have been married about 40 years can have a blue a few days before they are going on a planned holiday to Qld and a month before they expect their first grandchild. And this in their comfortable retirement. Weird.
Sunday I sanded and painted the side wall. Monday I painted other stuff, rails and beams, and cut the grass at the back and pruned back encroaching trees on the east side. Monday arvo Lib started the big house clean. She had been crook for a couple of days with nausea. Tuesday we did a final clean and packed and left at 9.45 and were home shortly after 1pm. i went picking bay foliage for wednesday's orders. Wednesday Thursday and Fri were flat out. Friday night I was exhausted and knocked off a bottle of red quick time and fell asleep and missed the the second half of GEE/Haw. So glad with Gee winning result. Hope like hell the Bulldogs can finish the job next Friday and get rid of the bastards.
It has taken all of ten days, but the swelling and soreness from the tick bite has eased right off so I think I'm in the clear.
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