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.

Good Luck

Lib was helping me pick bunches of forget me not flowers in Gembrook Bushland Park the other day as she is on holidays.There was a crimson rosella chatting away and feeding happily on the flowers of a pittosporum bicolor as I worked underneath. Then the unmistakable splat on my head came and Lib said "What's up," in answer to my muffled expletive.

"A rosella dropped a big one on my head."

"Oh," Lib replied, That means good luck."

A little while later I heard a cry of anguish from Lib, and an expletive."What happened," I courteously inquired.

"I walked into a branch while bending over picking, it went straight into the sore on my head."

"That means good luck," I said.

I thought of this today while I was picking there, on my own this time as Lib has gone to Lakes for a few days. On the way back I called at the PO to collect our mail and there was a lovely card from a friend in Melbourne for whom Gord and I did a gardening favour a few weeks ago. As well as some kind words of gratitude there was a couple of Tattslotto tickets for next Saturday's superdraw so I hope there is some good luck in the wind.

Vale Snowie

Our little Snowie was killed on Sat 6 Sep by one of a neighbour's great danes/cross? She was thirteen and a half years old and had a wonderful life. She's the third dog we have buried in our garden over the 33 years we have lived here, and another, Pip Mk2, a blue heeler German pointer cross, simply disappeared one night at 14 years old and was never seen again. She must have gone off to die, knowing her time was up. She was arthritic and incontinent and I was almost to the point of taking her to the vet for our final goodbye, instead waiting as she was still enjoying her food and basking in the unseasonable sunny August days. But the nights were cold with heavy frosts and it was on the third of these in a row that she took off.

That would have been 2003 which I know because we got Snow in October in 2001, on Robbie's 14th birthday. We did this because Pip was twelve tears old and looking like she was nearing the end of her life and we were concerned that losing her would be a body blow to the boys who had grown up with her as a rock solid reliable companion. I saw an ad for JR /Japanese Spitz cross pups in the supermarket window and she was six months old when we picked chose Snow, the runt of the litter, and brought her home.

Snow settled in instantly and got on great guns with old Pip, who became rejuvenated. It added some valuable time to Pip's life I'm sure. After Pip disappeared we were a one dog family until Lib brought Pip Mk3 home as an eight week old pup on the 2nd August 2007 ( That's a good thing about blogging, you can go back and check things like I just did).

The two little dogs have been very much a part of our lives since. Snowie was never any trouble other than going AWOL a couple of times during severe thunderstorms when we weren't home, both times she was taken in by kind hearted people who cared for her till they could locate us. She was an outside dog, she didn't ever really want to be inside (except during thunder storms or on fire cracker nights or when shooters were discharging shotguns fairly close to our house).

She was a free spirit who stayed close to the house but did take a little walk in the street most days, harmlessly. In later years she took to visiting our friends Steve and Ann across the road regularly, a habit which contributed to her demise. Steve and Ann moved out last January and the new owners have two massive dogs which are usually confined in their back yard. On the fateful day last Saturday week these dogs were with their owner in the front yard when Snowie wandered in. The large dog grabbed her before the owner had realized what was happening. I was out. When I came home there was a note on my front door to ring my neighbour's mobile. They had had to go out but he told me the bad news and I went and collected Snow who was in a cardboard box at the top of their drive. We gave her a ceremonial burial in a beautiful place in our garden and I'm forever grateful that we were blessed with Snow as a family member for 13 years.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

My GP, not happy with my blood test results after many months of treatment with prednisilone for the polymyalgia, referred me to a specialist some weeks ago. I fronted a few weeks ago and he increased my medication which gave me some relief and new energy and I returned for a second appt yesterday afternoon, after having more blood tests on Monday in preparation.

He had no hesitation telling me yesterday that the tests show I have rheumatoid arthritis. He prescribed another drug, methotrexate, which takes 6 weeks to kick in so he left me on the prednisilone also for the time being. Apparently the methotrexate has less side effects long term than the prednisilone, and may not have any if I'm lucky. It can damage the liver and I'm advised to have only light alcohol intake.

I have not yet had time to research all this properly yet and so I don't know how I will be affected into the future. RA can be aggressive with rapid degeneration of joints and muscle tissue causing severe cripplecreek, or it can be mild and go into remission and flare up here and there. I don't think I have much choice but to follow the medical advise and hope that early intervention will prevent serious deterioration, as I'm told can be so. Nobody can be sure where we end up from here, especially in the longer term. I'm on the way down it seems but aren't we all really, it's just a case of when.

I'm not complaining, there are people given terminal diagnosis every day for all manner of cancers, I'm fit and well except for some pain and some lack of agility which is manageable.

My next appt with specialist is in six weeks - I promise not to talk of this till then, it bores me witless so it must you too and I would like to write about other things. I have been very busy as usual but have managed to gather enough firewood for next winter already as well as catch up on some pruning and tidy up. So much more yet to do and no doubt I'll always be very busy until I have a radical change of circumstances which could happen within months or may not for a few years. We just have to see how we go, there are many considerations.

Awesome

A famous golfer once said of his day's work at the British Open, something like,

"I was in awe of myself today."

I can't say that I have ever been in awe of myself, but I have been in awe of nature and the beauty around me as the sun comes out and the birds sing lately. It's great to hear bees humming in the blossom and see buds swelling and bursting with flower and new growth. There's colour on the ground and on trees and shrubs and the blue sky is exquisite, and so was this evening's sunset.

Awesome beauty indeed.

AS WINTER BECOMES SPRING

The days grow longer, there’s more birdsong, lawnmowers come out, and many footballers put away the boots till next autumn, while others prepare for last games in finals in a frantic bid for the premiership.

Due to Gordon’s involvement I had occasion to see several local games this season, the first being an away game for Gembrook/Cockatoo at Powelltown a couple of months ago. We left home early in misty light rain to reach the venue by the time requested by the coach, 10.30am, a tad early I thought given the 12.10 start for the reserves. The oval, behind a huge sawmill with mountains of sawn stacked timber, was easy to find.

An U18’s game was in progress, between Mt. Evelyn and Powelltown, as Gembrook/Cockatoo did not field an U18 team. Intermittent rain and sleet fell as I watched the lads from Mt Evelyn give the locals a good touch up by about thirty goals to two. I could not help but be impressed by the endeavour of both teams which continued right through the final quarter despite the freezing muddy conditions. I asked myself, who would do it? But then I’m over sixty.

The Ressies warmed up on a patch of grass outside the ground as the U18s kept it up till the final siren. It was raining steadily and they were all getting thoroughly wet before the game even started. The rain eased then stopped and the game got underway with great enthusiasm and yelling and calling. Soon it was obvious that the Powelltown Demons had the upper hand and they slowly mounted a winning lead that continued to a one sided win. Again, I could not but be impressed by the Brookers who kept trying to the very end despite the lopsided score line, and the camaraderie and good sportsmanship evident between the teams at the end of the match.

We stayed for the senior game, the rain holding off for a while. Both teams showed good skills in another spirited contest. As the game wore on Powelltown got the upper hand, the rain came back, and the skill level dropped off as it became a muddy slog.

Over the next weeks there were games at King Lake with snow around the ground and kids throwing snowballs, more rain and blizzard winds, and games when the Ressies did not score at all. Through all of this the players continued trying their hearts out, and shared moments of joy and celebration, at scores or good efforts, and always congratulated their victorious opponents. Fittingly, they won the last game at Thornton with only 17 men on the field and no interchange.

In one of the coldest and wettest winters I can recall, I am full of admiration for the young and not so young men who braved the elements and showed their obvious love of footy, which plays an important role in our society.

It's a Dog's Life

This little one is about the luckiest dog in the world I reckon. A great mate. I sing to her,

"I love how you love me"

She gives a wag of the tail.

Coughing Up

We, that is Lib, Gord and me, all have head and chest colds. Gord's is the worst, he's had it for many weeks and his cough that must be driving him crazy. Lib and I aren't so bad and have only been overcome this past week or so but the cough is irritating and detracting from good sleep.

I heard on the radio that it's been the best snow season since 1981. I remember 1981 well; we came to Gembrook in July from Wangaratta to a house without carpets and curtains and indeed no electricity for two weeks. It was freezing and I would say this winter has been the worst since for prolonged cold and wet. We've had lower temperatures and more thick frosts in other years but this winter has been cold and wet for a long period. Hard on man and beast. I was fortunate to have a good stock of firewood including some really old dry stuff.

The days are stretching out a little now and birdsong in the mornings is building. The temperature was a little warmer yesterday and today with some sunshine, even a few blowflies down the chimney to buzz and bang on the windows. it'll  be 4- 6 weeks till I close the chimney vent and finish with the open fire till into next autumn when the cold returns. I'm gathering some wood for next year as I prune and remove some trees at the farm and tidy up here.

Cough and splutter we may well and suffer aching muscles and crook backs, but the work goes on. As does the paper work. I've spent late nights catching up on three months book work to do the BAS and end of year collation.

I'm not complaining. To use a popular saying going round at the moment, it is what it is. I picked wild violets today and some daphne and geranium. It was total pleasure. I'm proud of my work and my family's work, especially Lib.

PS. I heard today that Tony Abbott said any Australians going overseas to fight in conflicts would be punished.
Surely he doesn't mean ADF people, so he means, I suppose, depending on his endorsement or condemnation of the conflict, Australians are lauded or punished accordingly.

Violence is violence, it is what it is. Murder is murder. 

Heritage Walk

Emerald's Heritage Walk was launched on Wednesday this week. A joint venture between the Emerald Community House and the Emerald Museum it came about through the energy of the ECH who applied for a small grant in the Museum's name and did the planning, while our museum committee provided the information and worked with the graphic designer to produce the brochure and signs.

The end result was excellent. I had little to do with the nuts and bolts of it but as president of the committee I was required to make a small speech at the launch, one of four speakers the last of whom was the Mayor of Cardinia who then cut the ribbon.

In my talk I thanked the attending MPs and councillors and all who contributed, using a list of dot points prepared for me by our wonderful part time museum officer employed by council (for six months only, probably one off). I had been away at Lakes Entrance in the two days prior, building a post and rail fence on top of the new big retaining wall for safety reason, and would have struggled preparing a talk in those circumstance as my mind was fully engaged with friend carpenter Willy from Phillip Island who met me down there. It was a small job only but by the time you get down there and organize and buy the timber, do the job and tidy up it was a two night stay. Men off the leash, fun, but I returned Tuesday night exhausted. Gord came and I needed him to share the driving on the way home, I was falling asleep.

I added a personal experience to my talk. In 1999 (I think) We were on holiday at Lakes Entrance and to cut a long story short Gord had a burst appendix and peritonitis after ill health for two weeks and visits to doctor and then hospital which was not picked up by the varoius medicos till I took him to the clinic in LE after his condition was worsening not improving. He had to go to Sale hospital where he had emergency surgery that saved his life. We stayed in Sale for a week, and got to know the town quite well, having previously only ever driven through it.

Because of this, we stopped in Sale on future trips for meals or shopping and a bit of nostalgia. Some years ago I came across a Heritage Walk there, and took the brochure back to our committee, who were impressed but already had plans to do this in Emerald. Finally it has happened which is rewarding. When I saw the Heritage Walk in Sale my thoughts were immediate - the people of Sale are proud of their town, their community and the history. This is an important thing to demonstrate to visitors and the new generation coming through.

The other speakers on Wednesday talked of how this heritage walk is stage one. The RSL and the Village Committee are working on an ANZAC Walk to be completed for next year's centenary. The RSL has a grant from the federal government of many $thousand.

Since my talk I have done more thinking. I remember being in the Sale hospital waiting anxiously while Gord was in surgery and seeing a plaque on a donation board for a wing of the hospital built in I think the 1920's or 30's, something like, Donation by Margaret Lyon in memory of her only son Leonard who was killed at Albertville France in 1916. I was moved by this, that this lady in commemoration of her son had made a donation to a hospital that was at that moment saving the life of my son.

We already have Avenues of Honour, the shrine of remembrance and a War Memorial in Canberra. I would prefer to see the large amount of public money spent on a better purpose such as a hospital. God knows how many millions are being spent on centenary ANZAC Day and I think the example of Margaret Lyons would be a good way to go.

Wet and Cold

I hear rain on the roof. A familiar sound commonly heard over the past four weeks since I last posted. It has been an extended wet and cold period, broken only by the odd day or two when there has been no rain or drizzle. At these times the wind has cranked up ripping through like a scythe of cold chilling man and beast.

Suffer I have with the polymyalgia not abated. I have had awful days, and nights, interspersed with some good ones, usually after treatment of one sort or another including five sessions of acupuncture, the latest today, and more chiropractic. The lady who gave me the Shiatsu massage four weeks ago has not been available in July and my booking for a soft tissue massage after hot sauna in Emerald was aborted due to power failure during a blizzard with gale force winds.

The rain tumbles still, heavier now. Through all this I have continued to work to the my best capabilities, slowly and carefully of course. Mornings are painful till the panadeine and prednisilone kicks in making afternoons easier.

With this tale of woe you will see why I haven't blogged. It's not any fun at all to talk about it and it robs you of the interest and desire to share thoughts. I know I am a pain in the arse and the whole event bores me to tears.

So let me tell you about my acupuncture man as he has become a friend to me. He lives in Berwick and works from his house.  He's university qualified and has worked learning also in China. He is of Chinese father and Maltese mother. At some point his father met his mother in India. He is married to an East Timorese lady and he has two daughters. His wife was a refugee. He was born in 1977 and he barracks for Nth Melbourne. He has an interest in the punt. We discuss all these things and more while I lie on a table in my underpants as he sticks 18 needles into me, in my arms and legs and chest and shoulders, before he leaves me in quiet dozing and dreaming. It's most pleasant. He comes back and heats up some of the needles with some sort of burning stick, although he did not do this today, he left me for twice as long as usual.

When I first rang him I asked him did he think he could help with polymyalgia.

"I think I can help with anything," he replied.

How many visits will I need to make?

" Three to six," he said.

"I'll give you three for starters," I told him.

I have booked in for a sixth next week. I want to trial this right through. Nothing has cured this weird affliction but I am coping and working and fulfilling nearly all my commitments if falling behind on work at the farm which doesn't really matter when I consider the stage my career is at - nearly at the end.

I am disgusted with politics and many things outside my sphere of influence so I choose not to waste one minute of  my time on them.

Rickyralph is five ahead of me in the footy tipping. There's still enough rounds for me to catch him, remembering last year I swooped in the last round from 3 behind to do him on the post. Extraordinarily, Lib is leading and twelve ahead of me and I concede that is an unassailable margin.  

Massage

I had a Shiatsu massage today by a local practitioner ( my friend Hanna's daughter). It was wonderful. I fell asleep and dreamed but was fully aware of every touch. Amazing!

I cancelled my scheduled chiropractor appt to do this and I have to say that I have not felt so pain free for six months. Pain free is not right perhaps, there is still discomfort /pain but my whole being seems to have loosened up. It is a great feeling and I hope it lasts.

Off to bed now, hopeful that I will have a good sleep undisturbed, and wake up feeling as good as I do now. Mornings are usually pretty crappy and I'm tired of it. I was going to try acupuncture but bumped into Sue while I was digging over some ground at Hanna's to plant garlic, the discussion about my polymyalgia leading to the appt today.

I have not had the time or energy to blog much lately, i have many things to attend to all the time and my condition slows me, so that I cannot do all that I wish.

But let me assure my friends that read that right now I feel FANTASTIC, and have renewed belief that I will soon, or a little later, be shod of this thing that has dragged me down.

Robert Flower

I just now watched a highlight reel of Robert Flower.

There have been many great footballers I have seen. There has been none better than Robert Flower.

Thought for the Day

I came across this quote on 'Daily Reckoning Australia', which somehow or other sends me daily emails.

"Australia is already completely over-invested in housing. It’s ruining the economy and destroying the quality of life for millions of people.  It’s creating a ‘rentier’ economy where the only way to get ahead is collect the rent on a property. Nobody produces anything. But more importantly, a whole country can’t get rich and stay rich by selling houses to each other."

Food for thought.

And more, from a make believe address to US college grads from the same source-

"Memorial Day and higher education have a lot in common: You have to ignore the particulars to appreciate them. Take out the inconvenient details. Remove the embarrassing facts. Often what is left is sterile nonsense.

Every Memorial Day editorial tells us our veterans fought for ‘freedom’. Yet in not a single one of America's wars was an enemy preparing to reduce our freedom.

The huns wanted Alsace, not Pennsylvania. The Philippines intended no subjugation of Indiana. And what about the Nicaraguans? Nobody even remembers the shackles they were meant to clamp onto American wrists. But after every victory, we know what happened next: The doughboys and grunts came home to higher taxes and more prohibitions.

What you learn in college is the way things are ‘supposed’ to work. But few things in real life are as simple as they're ‘supposed’ to be. Our government is not run by the people for the people. Government is merely a way one group of people — the insiders — take advantage of other people — the outsiders.

You can call it democracy or dictatorship; it hardly matters. It can be gentle and broadly tolerable...or brutal and widely detested. What makes it a government is it has a monopoly on the use of violence; ultimately, the insiders use it to get what they want.

As for the economy, you have learned about our capitalist system. You have been told that it needs regulation by the SEC, the Fed, the Department of Justice, the FDA, the FTC and other agencies to keep the capitalists honest. You have been lied to.

It's not a capitalist system; the feds took the capital out 40 years ago. Now, it depends on cronies and credit. It's a corrupt system — the product of collusion between industry and the agencies meant to regulate them. Its real purpose is to transfer more wealth and power to the insiders.

Economist William Baumol understood.

He noticed that goods-producing businesses — such as an automaker or a maker of a widget — could achieve high productivity growth, thanks to labor-saving automation and supply-chain efficiencies. He also noticed that productivity stayed more or less static in service-sector jobs, such as nursing and teaching. (Basically, a nurse needed to spend just as much time with a sick patient...and a teacher needed to spend as much time with a student.)

Despite this, wage increases in service-sector industries — education, healthcare and government — tended to keep pace with wage increases in industries where rising wage growth was justified by growing productivity.

That's part of the reason your TVs are cheap...but your healthcare has become so expensive. Not only is healthcare largely protected from competition and distorted by third parties who pay the bills, including the government and insurance companies, but also wages for healthcare workers rise, even though productivity stays more or less static.

This also helps explain why a university education is eight times more costly than it was in 1978...even though you're still getting more or less the same education. Also, as I explained on Friday, college was optional to a decent income in the 1970s. Now, it's almost obligatory.

When everything is rigged, the riggers have the money and the power. Lobbyists, lawyers, accountants, administrators: Whether you want to take a business public...or just build a house...you come face to face with someone who can stop you, with paperwork, legal razzmatazz and nauseating administration. You need to play the game, too."

Footy Comment

I get annoyed watching AFL games because of the deplorable inconsistency of the umpiring, and the blatant errors umpires make.

I saw a shocker in the round 9 game between Fremantle and Geelong, first quarter I think, before I fell asleep, or maybe I woke and saw it later in the game. The footy was kicked across to a Geelong defender who was not far out from the goal Geelong were defending. It wasn't a good kick in that it was given too much air by the the kicker, giving a Freo player a chance to intercept. He ran straight at the Geelong player who was looking at the ball in flight, interfering with him in the contest and causing him to spill the mark.

An obvious free kick to Geelong, so obvious in all the five decades plus that I have followed the sport. You can't spoil a bloke going for a mark by running at him front on and into him without having eyes on the ball and attempting to mark. In any level of the game, a basic no brainer.

I can't understand how any umpire could have not payed the free kick. To make matters worse, the Geelong player went down and the Freo spoiler picked up the ball and ran in and kicked a goal. I could not believe what my eyes saw. It was so bad. No umpire could have missed that unless he wanted to for some reason or motive unknown to me.

So many people, commentators and fans, rave on about AFL being the best game in the world. I always think well, no it's not. The rules and umpiring buggers it up. It's not the greatest game in the world. I have followed it all my life and I can't make head nor tail of the umpiring. 'Push in the back', 'prior opportunity', 'pulling the ball in while on the ground', 'chopping arms', 'shepherding in the ruck', 'he ducked his head', 'deliberate out of bounds', they all seem to be payed on the whim of an umpire sometimes, and not others a few minutes apart, let alone from game to game.

I still watch, but really, I can't follow the umpiring. It's crap.

PS  AFL attendances are down, people are complaining about many things, as well as the umpiring, including the extra charges for reserved seat ticketing, and the ridiculous food and beverage prices. These things were evident many years ago and the paying public has been gouged for so long, I can't understand why there is suddenly noise about it now. It was manifest decades ago when the chairman of the AFL was also owner of Spotless Catering, the firm with the catering rights at the MCG then, and now. The rot really set in on the reserved seating with the building of the Telstradome now Etihad stadium and seems to have spread like cancer. I don't go to the footy anymore. Maybe I'll stop watching it on TV too one of these days. It's really only the night games I watch, till I fall asleep.

Growing Up

It is time Australia grew up as a nation.

I heard it today from radical ex PM Malcolm Fraser in an interview. I think I came across it on Grist.

He has written a book soon to be published. He says Australia has never made its own foreign policy, being firstly a puppet of Britain from Federation up to after WW2, then the US since.

I agree entirely. He goes further, saying over the last 20 years the US has taken our sovereignty and we need to take it back and distance ourselves from US foreign policy, including kicking them out of Pine Gap and the Darwin base.

It is time we grew up. Make our own decisions. Become a citizen of the world, not a US sycophant.

Talking about growing up,  ANZAC DAY 2015 should be our last.

Move on, grow up. It's myth and a nonsense from a bygone time.

Grow up Australia.

"I'm sure that someday children in schools will study the history of the men who made war as you study an absurdity. They'll be shocked, just as today we are shocked with cannibalism." Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister (1898- 1978)

Cousin Bruce

Cousin Bruce rang me last Friday night. He's going on a six week holiday to Russia. Moscow and a trip on the river to St Petersburg, I think he said. Good luck to him. I have very little desire to go anywhere as a tourist but yes Russia, I would like to go there.

One of the good things about blogging, for me, over the years I have been doing this, is the contacts I have had from people from my past who I think, unless I blogged, I never would have heard from again. Somehow Bruce came across my blog. We have exchanged a few communiques by way of email and Facebook, and now, tired as I am, I bring myself to desk to tell  my friends of Bruce my cousin who is the son of my mother's oldest brother Ted (of two), who is 65 this year, in fact I believe his birthday is in three days and I must remember to give him my best wishes for that on Facebook where I heard of it.

We have a strong connection, Bruce and I. We share the same grandparents, Edgar and Annie Wilson. Edgar was born in 1893 and Annie, nee Pitt, in 1897. Edgar, if I'm correct, died in 1957 or 58. I have vague memory of him sitting in a chair in his house in Ashburton. I was scared of him, he was huge and old. He smiled and tried to befriend me, but I had none of it. As he died when I wsa young I have always regretted this. I wish he had lived longer and I had got to know him. From what I have learned of him, he was a great man. Nanna Wilson i knew so very well. We spent a lot of time with her as children and she came to our house in Mt Waverley every Tuesday, by train 4 stations from Darling station to Mt waverley when we were kids and did our family's ironing. When we were young she was there when we came home from school and later she left before we got home and always left a packet of fruit tingles for each of us on top of the fridge which we as kids looked forward to enormously when we came home from school. This went on for years as Elvie worked in her florist shop and was not at home when we came home. Later Nanna Wilson came to live with Elvie at Chamomomile Farm in 1973 so we knew her very well till she died in 1996 aged 99.

Elvie's brother Ted was married to Alma and they had two boys, Bruce and Colin, and later a daughter Rhonda a few years younger than me. Colin I think is is one year older than me. They lived in East Malvern, about ten minutes away from us at Mt Waverley by car, but the families had little to do with each other growing up in the 1950's and 60's. I think the boys were quite academic, Melbourne High school ? and Colin became a teacher. Bruce was called up for National Service in 1969 and did a term in Vietnam with the Transport Corps.

As cousins we have never had a close affinity nor much to do with each other. I may have seen them once or twice in forty years, perhaps at Ted or/ and Almas funeral some ten or more years ago. Ted and Alma visited us regularly at Chamomile Farm through the 80's and 90's and I got to know them better and liked them a lot. Ted was a tall man as was his father, as is Bruce. I missed that gene, which would have made me a ruckman.

I am pleased that Bruce has contacted. He has purchased a memorial tile from the RSL for our grandfather Edgar as a returned soldier of WW1, to commemorate the centenary of ANZAC next year, and wants us all to together at Edgar's grave in Box Hill to put the tile on Edgar's headstone. What a wonderful idea, and a graet way for the family to get together and restore ties after so many years of disassociation.

Well done Bruce, who didn't know my father Lyle had died 7 years ago till he read my blog. I apologized that I had not told him.

Photo Enquiry

An email came yesterday from Signpost Editor Jean saying a lady contacted her asking if she could have the photo of Keith and Barb Thomas that accompanied my article in the April edition. This lady is a long standing friend of Keith and Barb and she now lives in Ballarat but was sent the magazine by K+B's daughter.

Of course I was happy to oblige. I enjoy feed back from my Signpost writing most of which is positive but not always and one comment about my April Gembrook column was that it was "obviously done in a hurry and it didn't flow at all."

I'll post them here; I'm struggling to blog lately for one reason or another so this a way to do it despite my tiredness.

A Horse Tale With Twists

Keith Thomas went to Dandenong Market one Friday in 1975.

“I’d never owned a horse but always wanted to, so I bought one. We had a good back yard and there was a vacant block across the road, and paddocks nearby where we lived in Mt.Waverley, but buying the horse led to buying 32 acres at Avonsleigh.”

“I rode horses as a boy. They wandered around the Hartwell and Burwood Reserves, which were not far apart. I don’t know who owned them, if anybody. They were easy to catch and ride.”

Born in 1938 Keith attended Hartwell Primary School before Box Hill Tech. His first paid work was after school with a boot maker when he was ten years old. His job was to blacken the soles and shoes. His grandfather worked in a timber yard in South Melbourne and Keith worked there in school holidays.

“It was hard work. I was 12 years old but was expected to keep up with the men. I left school at 14 and started as an apprentice joiner at Burwood Timber Mills. I finished my apprenticeship with a staircase and shopfitter, and then I was self-employed doing mainly renovations.”

Keith did National Service in this period, and met his wife Barb at a church dance and they married in 1961. He joined Barb’s family’s business, Campbell and Heaps, which manufactured blinds and had a timber yard and hardware and steel interests. Keith started on the factory floor and finished up 15 years later as Production Operations Manager.

Keith and Barb moved to Avonsleigh with their girls Kerryn, Lisa and Joanne, along with the horse, ‘Carn’, short for ‘Come on’, and ten head of cattle. “As it turned out, Carn had crook legs and wasn’t much good so I sold him and bought other horses, the girls all had a horse. We were active members of the Macclesfield Pony Club and had happy times at working bees and events. We bred a few horses and broke them in.”

Keith commuted to a sign making firm in Melbourne for twelve months then became Victorian sales manager for a concrete underlay and plaster company before concentrating on breeding squab, eating pigeons, for Chinese restaurants in the main. The business grew to 1000 pairs till disaster struck in one swoop.

“We were wiped out overnight by poisoned birdfeed. It was a devastating loss. We won legal action, but finished up broke.”

They sold their Avonsleigh farm and bought 340 acres of bush at the end of Ure Rd at Gembrook in 1981, and rented a house in Emerald for a couple of years till they built. Keith was now a contractor tractor slashing for Melbourne Water around Melbourne, which he did for 6 or 7 years.

Before leaving Avonsleigh Barb had gone to the Newmarket Stock Sales and bought two semi-trailer loads of sheep from drought areas for 20 cents a head.

These were slowly transported to Gembrook where there was feed, but the flock was decimated by wild dogs which were numerous. Keith and Barb’s interest turned to cattle, firstly Hereford then Angus. Many years of hard work followed, fencing, clearing and improving pasture, always with problems of samba and fallow deer, wild dogs, wombats and feral humans.

Keith explains, “A 3km stretch of fence along the Bunyip State Park Boundary, five strands and electrified, I built three times. After the second time it was cut to small pieces and totally ruined I sat in the paddock and cried. We had equipment stolen from the tractor and dozer and dirt tipped in fuel tanks. Someone resented our work. The police did annual aerial searches of the property and the surrounding bush over the years and found a number of marijuana plantations, including a very large one of hundreds of mature plants.”

Keith was lucky to survive a heart attack in 2001, after which followed bypass surgery.

In 2002 while rounding up cattle, Barb was dragged under a rolling Land Cruiser tray truck. She was caught in the wheel rut lengthwise and it went right over her, including her head. It went up a rise and came back down, she got her head out of the way but it went across her this time. She suffered cracked ribs, punctured lungs, a fractured sternum, hip and collarbone, and spinal damage. Keith, finding her 15 minutes later, ran 300 metres to the house to phone the ambulance. He was so out of breath and when he took the phone from the wall and rang 000 he couldn’t speak. When he could the ambulance took 40 minutes to come.

“I had to dig Barb’s hearing aids from her ears with a pen knife. She was conscious, in agony. It was a terrible 40 minutes. The ambos called in the helicopter which took her to St Vincent’s.”

Keith and Barb sold their Gembrook property in 2008 and now live in Emerald where Keith keeps budgies, parrots and finches as a hobby and Barb is active at the Emerald Art Society. They have 8 grandchildren, and many memories to reflect on.

Keith and Barb Thomas

Gembrook Column - Written Word Works Wonders

The Signpost February edition included my profile of Emerald resident Stuart Mills who migrated from the UK in 1983. Editor Jean contacted me to say she’d had phone call from a lady at Caroline Springs who was excited to have located Stuart and left her phone number.

I rang the lady who explained that her father and mother had been in Australia staying with her for a month or so and her father attempted to find Stuart with whom he went to school. He knew Stuart lived in Emerald but had no contact details. Stuart wasn’t listed in the phone directory but he rang another ‘Mills’ thinking they might know him. They didn’t, but said they’d keep eyes and ears open, and took the Caroline Springs phone number in case.

The lady from the ‘Mills’ house in Emerald was reading Signpost soon after and there was the article on Stuart. Stuart and his old school friend had not seen each other for 55 years. Neither knew each other’s wife but on the day Stuart’s friend with his wife knocked on Stuart’s door, the wife said to Stuart’s wife Marlene, “My goodness, I know you.” The two ladies also, like their husbands, had not seen each other since childhood.

This feel good story on the power of print prompts me to ask readers of Signpost if they can give me information on Doug Twaits. Doug was an Emerald resident in the 1950’s after marrying Dot Fisher, sister of Dr Bottomley’s wife. Doug lived in Middle Park as a child, was Australasian featherweight champion wrestler before WW11 and served in Nth Africa, Greece and on Crete with the 2^nd 7^th AIF. He was three years in Stalag 383 as a POW. After moving from Emerald in the 1950's he returned in the 1980’s. He wrote a bird column for the Trader newspaper. He died in 2001 in a car accident aged 86.

I’m researching to produce a book on Doug’s life. Please leave your phone number with Signpost if you have information or anecdote.

I've had a lot of feedback re Doug Twaits and must get cracking on the biography that his widow Lynne has asked me to write. While looking for the above photo I came across one of me and Pip with her 'bucket' on recently so I conclude with that.

     

Meeses

I was doing some work on the computer a little while ago and I looked down at something near my feet which must have caught my eye by its movement.  A beautiful black mouse it was, close enough for me to grab if I was quick enough. Of course I didn't try and the mouse disappeared into thin air at my slightest move.

There's a fridge in the shed not connected to electricity where I store food for my bird friends and a big rat jumped out the door I leave slightly ajar so as it doesn't go mouldy inside. Frightened the BJ out of me.

The cold had come in quickly and i'll need to do some vermin control. I can't find the mouse and rat traps I had in the laundry. They were always in my way so I put them somewhere else and now I can't remember where I put them. Lib hates me using poison as if I do there seems to always be a stinking rotting carcas somewhere that is hard to locate.

We have lit the fire this past two evenings, weeks earlier than usual.

Some compensation

A Tough Week

Tiredness creeps over me, vine like. I saw the doc on Tuesday. He wants me to stay on the same dose of cortisone for another three weeks, then reduce from 5mg daily to 4 for three weeks then see him in six from now. I had a couple of good days during the week but yesterday and today have not been good.

It was quite a busy week work wise and I had to speak out on Wednesday night, a guest speaker to the Camellia Society, the subject bees. My friend Keith who asked me to do it ages ago, and his wife Jenny, picked me up and drove me to Melbourne. I had a bit of a power point thing done but I didn't do very well, losing the thread of my talk quite badly. I didn't get home till nearly midnight after a very busy day, a day that tested my normally good nature. Frustrated that I was made so busy and unable to take time to prepare during the day, I savaged a couple of people verbally who didn't deserve it, which was not good preparation, and counter productive to all else.

That's it, no more speaking for me. No more more many things for me. I'll fulfill my obligations as president at the Emerald Museum which does involve some extra effort outside the comfort zone. That runs till July 2015. I have been so tired this last couple of days, the warnings are there for me.

I was stiff and sore this morning. Lib and Gordon went to Seville to watch Gembrook play in the first round but I stayed home. The good thing was that the sun came out after 3 days of rain and overcast, so I went out onto the deck in shorts only and did my yoga exercises and basked in the lovely sunshine. It really did free me up and I was much better in the afternoon.

My dreams are still rampant every night. People from all periods of my life turn up in them in the most bizarre circumstances, some of which should be so horribly frightening but it doesn't leave me affected much. In one I was with the first fleet that settled in Australia and there was not enough food and starvation happening, and I was given the job of killing the newborn. Maybe I'm going nuts.

A Dog's Life

Lib has gone to work just now, not that it's a working day for her, nor will she be paid, but there is something she wants to do out of hours or something she wants to talk to the weekend staff about whom she does not normally see. She left quietly perhaps not finding me very communicative as I was trying to do some basic yoga exercises that her sister Pat sent me on facebook in the hope it may help my stiffness and soreness which has returned steadily as I have reduced the cortisone, now down to one 5mg tablet a day this past week. Activity is again painful and I am not in the best of humour much of the time. I see the quack again next Tuesday and it will be interesting whether he recommends I continue at 5mg for a while, further reduce to 2.5, half a tablet, or increase to give me some better relief again. He may send me for blood tests again and probably it depends on how much pain I tell him I'm in. Pain is pain and difficult to quantify verbally. I am in less pain than I was before the cortisone started but putting my trousers and socks and boots on is not an easy thing nor working at anything but slow pace measuring movements and work goals accordingly. I loathe being unwell.

Back to 'A Dog's Life', Lib took 'Pip' with her to the nursing home. She loves going with Lib to see the oldies and performs with all the excitement and tail wagging happiness that Jack Russells can. The oldies love to touch and pat her and Lib says even the crazies who are for the most part aggressive to staff and other residents just melt and are so gentle to the little dog. It must soothe their soul with some long gone happy connection with pets back in their childhood.

Pip is seven years old this year. She's had a number of narrow escapes. She ate snail bait from a tin in my van once, and has had a couple of close calls from traffic. This year she disappeared into some scrub at the back of a shed at Hanna's where I grow things, in pursuit of a rabbit. She had not reappeared when I was ready to go and I could not find her. Earlier I had heard muffled barks from underground from the direction of the shed but now nothing. Going around the shed whistling I thought I heard faint whimpering from under the shed so tried digging here and there but I had no idea where she might be. Rather than dig for hours fruitlessly I whistled and whistled, thought I heard more faint whimpering, but if I had heard it it stopped and there was no Pip and no noise at all, just deathly quiet.

It seemed I had lost my wonderful Pip. I slowly resigned myself that she'd been bitten by a snake or crushed by a wombat as there are numerous wombat holes at Hanna's and she is always down them. I had been warned that wombats were well known to crush small dogs to death against the burrow wall after they becoming tired of intrusions. The snake scenario seemed more likely, it was during all that hot weather, and I had always been a little ready for Pip to go that way as she is so adventurous and always fossicking about in the scrub for rabbits or under rubble or wood heaps. And JRs being totally fearless I always thought she would go a snake if she came across one. And there are snakes around there and a few dogs have been lost around Gembrook this year to snakes.

So I was trying to build up my resolve to leave and go home with Snowy only, imagining Lib and Gordon's grief at the news. I knocked on Hannah's door and told her that I it looks like I'd lost Pip as she was out helping earlier with all my whistling and calling and listening and looking. We were looking down the grass path to the scrub and the shed when out came an exhausted Pip completely covered in red dirt coming towards us. You can imagine my huge relief.

When I washed all the dirt from her later I saw she had lost fur from the top of one front paw and the same from a few toes on a back leg and i assumed this had scraped off in getting out or her predicament backwards somehow. A couple of weeks later this was not growing back and the dog was licking there much of the time and it looked inflamed and sore so I took her to the vet. The vet gave us anti inflammatory medication and antibiotics but there was no improvement so I went back and Tom vet put one of those buckets on her head to stop her licking, gave her stronger medication and an injection to kill mites that cause wombat mange. The bucket lasted four days before Pip managed to make it tear to pieces on her never ceasing hunting cavorts, but the licking cycle was broken and the hair has grown back.

Snow had a serious and persistent ulcer on an eye in Jan/ Feb before Pip's drama so we were up and down to the vet for months it seemed but all is well and both dogs are fit and healthy.

We are luckier than our next door neighbours. Week before last they lost there Rhodesian Ridgeback hit by a car in the main street. They returned from work to find the dog gone. Neighbour Tom had hit a wombat in his car on the way home and the car was severely damaged and had lost its water as Tom drove home and the engine was damaged, so Tom couldn't go looking for the dog. The vet rang him next morning as the dead dog in the vacant block opposite his clinic was reported to him and the dog was microchipped so he found the owner.

Tom and kath had no idea why their dog had escaped but I knew. About 2pm that day someone started firing a shotgun in the farm behind our street. I happened to be home and suddenly Pip and Snow were scratching at the door to get in. At this stage I had not heard shots and thought there must be a thunderstorm brewing in the distance that I could not yet hear. Soon it was obvious and the firearm which must be an automatic shotgun was booming for about half an hour intermittently with multiple shots then a break then more. I know not why whoever it was was shooting at this time of day and in this manner as every rabbit for miles would have been well in hiding. It was, in my opinion, irresponsible hooning with a shotgun that would have terrified every dog in every yard for kms.

I have voiced my annoyance to the police and landowner. The police was a dead end, apparently I should have reported it when it was happening so they could come out and see the person doing the shooting. As if they'd still be there. My suggestion that the police contact the land owner by phone to discuss the pros cons of vermin control and discharging firearms close to residential area was met with the response that they'd rather go to the scene when it was happening and talk to the shooter in person, in case it was an illegal shooter. Whatever suggestion I made to this guy in the new $8 million police station in Emerald he had a negative attitude in response.

The landowner, via office staff, said that someone had permission to shoot and destroy vermin on their property and it was entirely legal.

Nothing can help my neighbours who loved their dog and had put in two years raising and training it. We were lucky it wasn't ours.

Where is common sense gone?