Where Am I?

Waking up in strange surroundings can be unsettling for a few moments till the brain clicks in and you realize that you are in fact on holiday in some location, or away visiting relatives, or even in hospital, as the case may be. I was prompted to think about this by a quote that was given to us at writing class recently -

"If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are."

We were asked to write something using the quote as a starting point. I think the purpose was to examine our sense of place and identity, and consider how our place in the world defines who we are, what motivates us, and how we think and act.

Apart from these brief night time or early morning confusions on waking, I have never really been unaware of my whereabouts in the context of the world, and the good fortune I had to be born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, into a middle class family in the post WW2 baby boomer era.

For the first decade or so of my life I comfortably believed everything fed to me by my parents, at school as I saluted the flag and sang the national anthem, and marched back after assembly on the quadrangle into the classroom to the recorded music of Colonel Bogey.

But front of my mind as I contemplate this quote, is a day I woke up I had no idea where I was, even after thinking about it for a some time in the cold early dawn. Let me explain.

I think it was early 1968, January, so I would have been 15 years old, approaching 16. A couple of weeks earlier my parents were meddling in my bedroom and found a bottle full of cigarette buts sealed tightly with a lid, the aftermath of my late night last fags hanging my head out the window before retiring. This was the second time I had been caught out smoking in a short period, the first causing confrontation with my father, which left me bruised and battered and my father unscathed. My parents were serious wowsers, strongly opposed to tobacco and alcohol.

This second time dad told me I could leave home if didn't want to abide by his rules, saying plenty of young people left home and made good. I packed a bag and caught a train to Footscray station, walked to the Geelong Rd and started hitchhiking. I was headed to Torquay where I had friends camping at the beach town for the school holidays. I had no idea what I'd do after the holiday period, the only thing that mattered was the moment and the next day. 

I was there for some days with these school mates and another turned up, my mate RickyRalph, with whom I've had a close frienship continuing to the present. As it happened one evening we were all going the pictures but not unusually decided to get a bit liquored up first. There was a vacant block next to the timber building that served as a movie theatre, and somehow I didn't make it to the pictures after skulling a bottle of screwdriver, and flaking out in the vacant block. When my mates came back to get me I wasn't there.

In the morning I woke up with a terrible hangover. I was in a room with a timber floor and walls and nothing else that I recall. It was quite dark,there must have been a small window high up, but there was no way out of this small room. I was physically ill and desolate of spirit. Alone. Lost. No idea where I was. 

After sometime in this state of confusion I heard a noise outside, somebody was outside toying with the door, trying to open it.

"Mate, are you in there?" a familiar voice said. RickyRalph.

"Yes, I'm in here, where am I?"

"You're in the lock up, at the cop shop, I can't open the door, it has a lock."

Ralphie explained that the cops had been patrolling the picture theatre and found me paralytic.

Then there was a loud angry voice suddenly yelling.

"What the hell are you doing? Get out of here now or you'll end up in there with him." The resident cop had come out of the station and into the back yard where the lock up was.

"I'm just seeing if my mate's alright". 

"Get the hell out of here," yelled the cop, and he then cursed the the German Shepherd who was supposed to keep anyone out of the yard. "You useless bloody thing." Ralphie had no fear of dogs.

Sometime later I was taken into the police station and processed and released and went back to my mates' tent. Days later a letter came from from my father, addressed to the campground and the appropriate site. He apologized and said he'd like me to come home.

I was required to attend Children's Court in Geelong a month or two later to aswer the charge of Drunk and Disorderly. The cop reading the charge was a middle aged angry looking man who had come up to me outside the court beforehand.

"Don't you ever call a policeman a fucking bastard again."

After he'd finished his evidence the magistrate or JP said, "But what did he do?"

Cop- "When he was woken he was most abusive."

Magistrate- "He was asleep when you found him. I do not consider that disorderly conduct. Case dismissed." 

Thinking back now, it was during my adolescent fog that I began to question things. As years then decades passed I realized much of what I was fed as a youngster was, as the hit song went, "Ain't necessarily so."

Today I question everything. Going back to visit Mt.Waverley where I grew up everything has changed so much it feels like my childhood and youth never really happened, it was in some other realm. Our family home went long ago, replaced by modern apartments, as have been most of the houses.

Geographically I know very well where I am. The changes are rapid at Emerald where I work, and Gembrook where I live. I loathe going to Melbourne because of the traffic and congestion. Australia has changed so much. There are so many things I question and dislike about our nation and our society. Yes I know where I am, and who I am, but I no longer feel comfortable or "at home".