Part A
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Email; tasmania@mail.com
Number 18
August 31st
I had a dream. A very ordinary dream. I don’t normally suffer from dreams. Exceptions seem to be when I am sick or sickening. That is unless you are talking about that one big dream. Reality is supposed to be that which is not part of a dream. That doesn’t leave much room for reality. But I digress. I do that a lot.My dream didn’t last long. It’s a design fault of dreams that they can’t be told when to stop, when it would be really really good if they kept going or being able to tweak them in an expectantly pleasureable direction.
Anyhow my dream was unrelated to anything much. I was in a very ordinary situation with a few subsistence Hippy type existers. For some reason I was fixing a wooden gate-sized door. There were no hinges, no latches not much paint left and very few vestiges of purpose. A dream hardly worth the bother. Me, a weathered too small door, some functionless people and a weary attitude lazing behind a barn on a run-down un-productive farm.
Something kept tugging at me demanding "a bit of objectivity here". Now why would objectivity be needed when there were no problems, no myths, no legends, in fact, nothing of anything really. This was a good place for the dream to stop and it did.
The small door was a part apart or a part of nothing much. Perhaps a mundane meaningless object acheing for connection. Funny how we have to separate things into sorted objects to be able to group them together with objectivity.
Well there I was squatted behind an old barn in a run-down country dry-grass scene, contemplating shortish weathered boards joined together by a three planked ‘z’ shape making an essentially useless door. Meandering pseudo-philosophic Hippies added tasteless scatterings of nothingness. How could anyone opt to philosophy when by definition Philosophers searched for knowings of the unknowable. Crikey! Enough to make you believe in infinity or at least to pinch you to give up and get on with doing. And doing is what I do best.
Number 17
June 9th 02
The olds have no need to fumble with words. They can say it all with attitude. I have waffled on before how I mistrust words. I also distrust them. Consider the meanings you can give to "Why not". Sometimes you can go on and on and still get no nearer to saying exactly what you want to.
Some of my old mates may seem slow and mentally sluggish but don't be deceived. The preoccupied demeanour does not mean that written and spoken assertions by others is not fully understood.
Proffered philosophical solutions to testing situations are careingly absorbed, contemplated and decisively selected. There may be little or no exuding signs or outward signals of the changes in thinking except for an altered attitude. So often we mistake an older persons indifference as a lack of intelligence compared to our own. All so often they have already considered, decided and melded that decision into their tacit attitudes.
All sorts of fascinating minds are in old heads. It often takes a lot of jig-saw solving to get a handle on predicting how the elderly think. A friend once said to me that he appreciated my problem solving because I thought "like an old man". I wasn't sure how to take that.
The charm of trying to predict an older mind lies in the mysterious effects of accumulated experiences and how the person has transferred them into attitudes. Some have taught themselves, to the point of instinction, what is dreary intellectual baggage and what might be useful to their considerations.
They' decided that some things are best ignored and some things need a bit of skitchum.
Pesty memories bug me occasionally. For some reason I was thinking about tinned food. If you couldn't get it fresh at the grocers, it would turn up in a sometimes rusty Golden Circle tin. I think I learned to hate tinned beetroot and pineapple before I had ever seen one. Lime jelly in a crinkled fish mould was a favourite. Boomerang or Rainbow jelly crystals were the go.
Many years ago while serving time in Sydney, my Mum and Dad visited and we took them to Willey Fennell's restaurant overhanging the river in Lane Cove Park. Aeroplane jelly, unknown in Tasmania, was advertised to the point of nausea. More kids knew the "I like Aeroplane Jelly" song than knew the Vegemite one. At Willey's restaurant my Mum was coaxed into singing the Aeroplane Jelly song in a competition. She won. The prize was a giant upturned half raspberry jelly. About three foot across. Raspberry flavoured of course. Well what could have been more useless after a huge meal than a giant jelly. We didn't want to eat it and she couldn't take it away. Certainly not back to Tasmania.
My wife, a normally sedate sophisticated sort, decided to despatch it with gusto. Grabbing a carving knife, she slashed and splattered until the giant jelly was a forlorn red pile of sharp shivering shimmering splats of usedtobe jelly. I suppose that tells you something about my wife. I'm not sure what. My parents didn't know what to say or where to look. Dad eagerly paid the restaurant bill and quickly led the way to the carpark. Suddenly the night sky seemed very rational.
My parents are gone now. I'm not sure whether they've departed, deceased or passed on but they're not here.
Being the Queen's Birthday Weekend 2002, I shouldn't let this moment pass without mentioning my elder sister receiving the Order of Australia Medal. A gong from the Queen. Her first reaction when receiving the news was - "Mum and Dad would have been pleased". I suggest that says a lot about her.
Number 16
May 14th.It is expected of normal scribes (which I suppose means scribblers) that their discources and I presume their courses, are structured associations with a plan. Writings that have a beginning and end. Where good triumphs over evil and people having made a contribution, fade into distant time. All a bit Ho-Hum really.
Now that I am clustered with a group called the elderly, I am allowed a portion of erratic thinking. It is almost respectable to be stupid. Accepted as 'getting on a bit'. So be it and I intend to milk it for all its worth. Because I don't consider myself to be particularly knowledgeable or socially very aware, I am able to write my thoughts into a grand spider-web extensions where the only form is the resultant whole. Each thread does not have to go in any particular direction but helps to hold the whole together just by being there.
For me erratic writing is fun. How it affects others, I would whisper to you that I don't really care. There must be a formal structured classification of this detached attitude. Don't bother to inform me as it has no part in my motivation.
All things are only dignified with a name by perception. The word sex can have many pop-up connotations but the word copulation gives specific meaning. We must copulate to populate. Indeed sex conjured by a sober reasoning people person would at best be considered unsanitary. Something to take your napkin off for. I seem to be getting on a lot less now that I am getting on a bit.
It's good to have an opinion, however vague. If you don't have an expressed opinion, people will presume one for you. Humans are like that. They call it civilization.
I believe in the percentage principle, the more ideas you have, the greater the chance of a good one. In order to discard the rubbish, a process called thinking must be used. The elderly would seem to have a responsibility to pass on their thoughts before they pass on themselves. Instead of giving a condensed version of things that has been winnowed in the winds of time, we make them go through it all again. I have made most of life's mistakes and it seems such a waste that the next generations have to make them all again. We seem to have lost the common sense out of freedom and living. There is nothing "free" in freedom and no "up" in growing-up.
I have been patiently waiting for years for the first Japanese astronaut. So I could say - "There's a nip in the air". Alas.
TopNumber 15
I'm not real sure about this cloning business. I suppose its something like survival of the fittest really. If it works take it, if its a dud shoot it. That's one of the laws of the outback. Putting animals down is known as doing them a favour. One favour I don't need. I think my dad was trying to talk about sex but he disguised the attitude to mis-spent opportunities as - 'Each one you miss out on is one you won't catch up on.' I reckon cloning is just another attempt at improvement. In my day it was simply called breeding. Arranging things for the best result dispassionately. My mum used to compare uselessicity by saying something was either a rooster or a feather duster. If it was totally useless it was just a bit of fluff. So to clone or not to clone, that is the vexion.I suppose its not all positive progress. Gay and lesbians have formed a Collingwood supporters club. A branch really. They call themselves the Pink Magpies. Now what self respecting magpie would want to be cloned pink? Hitler wanted to clone breed a whole army but they would have all been blonde and you know what that means.
Sheep are the most wanted for experiments. This I suppose is because they are either successful or shot. Probably dissected more likely. The taste could be cloned. Strawberry flavoured lamb with garlic pepper-mint sauce. The options would be endless. Funny word endless. A bit like infinity. There is meaning until the word is defined and then it becomes a puff of fluff. Sheep could be cloned to look like a kangaroo - two big legs and not much else. Might be a ramaroo or a rooewe. Twin roasts.
Then there is the moral dilemma. You remember morals. Morals have always been a dilemma or else we wouldn't have needed them. Somehow cloning has been thought of as artificial.
If someone was to give you a cloned sheep, you'd take it. Sheep don't have identities. Seen one sheep you've pretty much seen them all. Unless some randy New Zealander claimed it, you could easily find its destination destiny.
The problem with human cloning is that firstly you wouldn't want it and secondly it would be a beggar of a thing to get rid of. Unless of course you could eat it or make pet food out of it. A cloned human would be about the worst of all animals to have cloned. It is completely dependant on others of its kind. It will only work for about one third of each day. Suffers from every disease known to man. It comes in two distinct types. One that is only used occasionally when it is in the right place at the right time. The other is an incubator that by design fault is portable. They both start to deteriorate as soon as they become useful. They need to be constantly fueled, maintained, cajoled and pampered. Even on holiday or in retirement, they still have to be catered for. Indeed, any reasonable being would not accept the gift of a cloned human. The most clever and the most unreliably inefficient of all animals. They can experiment with human cloning all they like, I'm sure it will never take off.
Cloning may well be an integral part of evolution, like pollution absorption, demanding to fit into the bigger scheme of things. Perhaps we should just let it happen. The trouble with mucking around with Nature is we have no control over the butterfly effect or the dominoe effect. A case of 'horses for courses'. Which reminds me. I once had a friend who knew exactly when to stop with words. Thus -' The difference between a cavalry horse and a cart horse? A cavalry horse darts into the fray. A cart horse ...............'
Remember you heard it here first from the 'olcodger up the road.
Top
Number 14
Given my distrust of the written word and its ability to convey reliable meaning, I pity the poor new-chum trying to grapple with it. I was going to say to ‘fathom it out’ but that seemed non-sensical. Nor even to ‘fathom its depths. The irk jerked me because I had cause to wish my daughter happy birthday. This proposition became insignificant because she is with child. Joined even. In the process of presenting a baby. Her adult successive birthday faded to blandness when compared with the onset of a real birth day. Almost embarrassingly apologetic.Then I quandried about different pronunciations in different States. A school is a skool in Tassie and a skooool in NSW. A swimming pool becomes a pyool. If you are from another country (pronounced ‘cun’) or a county (pronounced ‘cown’), then I apologize profusely. You will have to learn that there are big differences between how to sound – boot, foot, loot and soot. Tough, fought, rough, bough and bought. Add to this the differences by generation generation and you’ve got problems. When I was a young tin lid, ‘fella me lad’ or whipper snipper, Bellerive was bell er reeve.
Good luck and Ziperdedoodar. We used to all sing a song something like – Chickerychick chellarchellar checkeralomie innerbananiker bollickerwollicker can’t you see, Chickerychick is me. Lord help you if you go to New Zealand (pronounced........)
Number 13
Well, it’s been a while I have been a bit slack and it’s good to have that option. These days, what I want I can do without and what I need is in the lap of the Gods, wherever that is. When did God become plural? I suppose we’ve got to believe in something. Some believers say that a person has passed on while uncertain non-believers say they have passed away. Being Australian gives us the chance to start again without the dingle dangling of the chains of convention. Australia’s growth has been by first trying all the alternatives and moving on with methods best suited to the situations. Not a choice but an acceptance. We established codes of behaviour by concerned necessity.Australians are squatters by definition. When we are all squatted out, we can move on. Everyone on the Earth is a squatter of some sort. Nobody really owns anything, it is more ownership by stealth. I am happy to share anything, it’s not really mine anyway.
Australians are born without the encumbrances of religion. The official don’t even ask any more. I don’t even get the chance to declare a guilty ‘C of E’. Churches are places for weddings, funerals and disappearing Sunday schools - that were only invented as an excuse for families to get dressed up and clean and to gregare if close enough, with the rest of the community. Churches like schools were dotted around the countryside at a reasonable horse and cart distance apart. Sundays were invented for women to feel needed and worthwhile. Sundays were women’s work and a time to be nice. The men tried to give the impression of being in control reminded of rigidity by stiff starched collars with brass studs at front and back. The smooth cutting edge of the detachable collar only served to accentuate the character of the much lived-in heads. Squeaky clean Sundays were signified by the sweet smell of scented soap. As kids, we enjoyed the certainty of uncertainty conglommed with reality.
Ziperdedoodar.
Number 12
Well here I go again. Warts ‘n all. That jangles the spell-checker. I’ve got through the Christmas New Year and am having mixed feelings about the year ahead. I must try to promote that Tassie has more summer daylight hours than anywhere else in Australia. I’ve missed a few weeks writing here but don’t feel I have been slack – doing a fair bit elsewhere. Sometimes its good to be old or disabled or both, because we can do what and when we want and by choice. Nobody much cares anyway. Tombstones don’t carry much information. I have said here before that once you realize that life is essentially ridiculous, that’s when you can enjoy it.I liked that idea by the Queenslander to do away with Government and start again. To divide us up into units of ten who voted for one representative. These are grouped into ten and they vote for one. This goes on until you get down to just a last ten who select one person to run the whole shebang. Apparently the multiplier effect would only require seven tiers to Govern Australia.
This week the Pollies and Notables had a big back-scratching gathering in the Woolnorth Club corner to celebrate wind farms and the new road. As long as the energy used to whizz the propellers doesn’t slow the Earth down, it’ll be alright. The ‘dignitaries’ and invited guests celebrated the millions spent on the new road that we are not allowed to drive on. An expensive wallaby track. Another road to nowhere? The Tasmanian Pollies may not have two heads but they sure have two hats. Circular heads keep going round.
Tenny-rate that’s my lot again. Liked the story of a modern little Miss saying to a friend that she wasn’t going to have any babies. They ‘take nine months to download’.
Number11 Dec 30th.
The missus and I, funny how they prefer their own name to a ‘the’. One town we lived in, the blokes referred to their wives as ‘the bride’. Anyhow, she and I , about a month ago, went to stay with our son, his bride and the new baby. They have a new home recently built on their Olive Grove and overlooking the beach. It’s a bit of a rub that we worked hard all our lives to have something to give them and they have within a couple of years become better off than we are. I suppose I should be grateful really.Well they have this new-fangled house with all the bells and whistles and silk Manchester. There are digital clocks all over the place each showing a different time. Good job I was brought up in the bush and have a ‘feel’ for such things. My wife started to fill the automatic washing machine and set off to meander her way to the kitchen to make some toast. The young parents had gone off and left us in charge of the baby and all the rest of the menagerie.
When the toast was cooked, a whole cacophony of smoke alarms sliced through the sweet smelling air like an exploding kerosene tin bucket of twanging razor blades. I lost all sense of direction but found respite in the bathroom next to the laundry. By now the dogs were barking and chasing the chooks, the baby was screaming in time with the alarm and would you believe, the phone started to ring.
My wife grabbed the baby and took her outside, letting the dogs chase the chooks inside and up the stairs. The rooster called Doris gawked and supervised the chaos perched on the corner post of the banister. The smoke alarms pinged with annoying unbearable insistence. I had gathered my composure by sitting on the toilet and decided to be masterly and approach the problem. I reached out for the arms of my wheel-chair and even with the brakes on, it started to slide across the bathroom. The washing machine was overflowing, flooding the floor with disinterested froth. I found my part-disabled body suspended between the toilet and the wheel-chair. I would have yelled except it would have been impossible to be heard above the din.
My wife remained outside feeling helpless until a neighbour arrived , water- knapsack tank on his back, to investigate the noise. I was left hanging with trousers around my socks. This, I swore, is where my son calls home.
Eventually it sorted itself out and we hurried home to be where we could cook toast under the griller or on a wire fork in front of the fire.
Number 10 December 15th
It occurred to me and lots of things seem to occur to me these days. I’m a real occurerer. Anyhow it occurred to me that writing is like colouring in. You can even leave it and come back later to touch it up a bit – if you’ll excuse the expression.I somehow got to thinking about newspapers. This is a good opportunity to flaunt my knowledge of the difference between two descriptions – I thought about newspapers objectively rather than subjectively. I wish I could think of something to say that used sporadic versus spasmodic.
Newspapers. They keep reappearing out of nowhere. There seems to be a Johnny Appleseed with a bottomless bag of newspapers. In the early days at Butlers Gorge, they came in once a week with each household getting 5-6 papers. The Saturday Mercury was the most valued – mainly for its size. There was always a stack in the porch near the back door. A place to take your boots of where mud, slush, snow and water were shaken off and the paper rolled up and put in the fireplace. Any draughty cracks in walls were stuffed with paper. When cleaning the fireplace, paper was placed on the floor and hearth and the cold ashes wrapped to be taken outside to an excuse for a garden or put in a box for the cat. Newspaper made the best underwear against the cold. They were worn against the skin until it either warmed up enough to make the ink blotch or the smell became intolerable. All kitchen refuse was wrapped and allowed to rot down on the compost heap that actually was just a heap, to be found just outside the chook-yard. What the chooks didn’t eat, the native cats or tiger-cats cleaned up. Sometimes they even cleaned up the chooks.
Newspaper splashed with metho was used to clean windows. A layer was placed anywhere there was a chance that the floor might get wet.
Newspaper in the absence of brown paper, was used to make kites even though they were a bit flimsy. At night cars and trucks had newspaper on their windscreens and on the bonnet above the radiators. It stopped ice-up but sometimes a bucket of water was needed to remove the iced up stiff paper.
In very extreme impatient circumstances, the men stood up on the bonnet and piddled. New chums like cosmopolitan brides sometimes used scrunched up newspaper laid on the floor at night to fore-warn of any wandering snakes. One husband tried to put his wife at ease by getting a terrier dog. She still persisted with the paper and the husband had the canine for extra nocturnal company.
Newspapers made bedding for the animals and hole pluggers for their wooden boxes. Good paper was used for wrapping presents with an outer layer of newspaper for more protection and to bulk it up. On the HEC construction site, paper was used instead of rags to wipe oily hands or after washing. Newspaper was universally valued for lighting fires or to encourage them instead of bellows. Extra flames were excited with added newspaper which we called skitchem.
Wet leather shoes or boots were stuffed with paper not only to help them dry but also to keep their shape. When not in use gloves and hats were stuffed with newspaper. The kids used rolled up newspapers as swords in their games. An errant dog might receive a belt across the nose with a loosely rolled newspaper. It was more the sound than the pain that hopefully became the deterrent. Triangular "Nelson" hats were made as well as folded airoplanes and rockets.
At school heaps of paper was torn up into small pieces and stuck around a plastecine bowl or puppet head, stuck on with Clag until dry and the innards removed. When brown paper was scarce, newspaper was used to cover books. On Saturday night in the hall, there was a very sexy dance for the teenagers. Each boy and girl couple had a sheet of newspaper. When the music was stopped by lifting the needle off the 78, the couple had to stand together not touching the polished wooden floor. Before the music started again, the paper had to be torn in half. Dreary old news was suddenly the cause of frolicking hormones. Sexual excitement was in reverse proportion to the size of the bit of paper. Looking at the assortment of bodies clinging to each other while standing on tippy-toes, brought home the advantages of not being fat. Some of the bigger girls tried to cheat by grappling and lifting smaller boys off their feet. There was much hooting and hollering at this foul play.
We made small paper wads in our mouths and used in spud guns. When rabbit trapping – a square of newspaper slightly larger than the trap plate was sprinkled with dirt to hide the jaws. Every trapper had a small stack of squares threadled with a piece of string. They even came in handy for other emergencies too if you were caught short.
Every home had a newspaper scrap-book with cuttings. Newspaper was used when Nugget polishing shoes or whitening sandshoes. (Dunlop ripple-soled with a little green patch were the best. Strips were wrapped around candle bottoms to make them fit better. Newspapers were dampened with Metho to clean windows and clean typewriter keys. Windows that rattled had bits stuck in the gaps. They were used to make dress patterns, paper dolls, paper chains, party hats, megaphones, paper funnels, to wrap around ice-cream containers, as blotters and many other things.
We used newspapers in the garden to discourage weeds and encourage worms (book-worms?). We used newspapers to cut out letters to make pretend ransom notes and we even gave them the occasional read when it occurred to us.
Number9 November 25th
As usual, I don’t have a clue what I am going to write about. It’s one of the pleasures of being an older person that writing and thinking can be a surprise. Thus what may be considered boring becomes creative.
With all that is going on in the big world, I am forced to ponder the future. I have always been interested in community as opposed to people. I watch you drive by and feel very little interest in who or what you are. I suppose you feel the same about me. We all go about our lives accepting the peripherals and clinging to compliance. That’s the boring stuff. All the wishy washy things we deem to be important will all be meaningless in the big wash-up.
As Tasmanians, the things we value most are the tried and tested ones that have reliably been with us for years, quietly framing the structure of our community for as long as we can remember. Undefined standards that we never miss until they are threatened or taken away. It is probably why we enjoy Sunday roasts, Test cricket, old cars and an occasional trip to the beach.
Most of the media treats us like passive hick country bumpkins. Just because we tend towards acceptance and the dreaded compliance, it does not mean we are without standards. Too often even the beloved ABC sullenly kicks us where it hurts. So many of the personalities learn what real people values and pleasures are all about by training here. When we have taught them about reality, they are forced to move on. Tasmanians teach them what loyalty is and then have it thrown back in our faces.
Someone like Ann Fitzgerald is here learning and contributing magnificently. We are tentative about really enjoying her talents, wary that they will be poofed out. In recent times we have felt this with Chris Wisbey and Kerry Finch. True Tasmanians are steadfastly loyal but are becoming tentatively trusting and wary of pleasant open enjoyment. We allow people into our lives, homes and communities without question, we wish they would return our trust. We could easily become interactively enraptured with the entertaining sincerity of Ms Fitzgerald but have learned to hold a little back in case of severence.
In the olden days social structure was cemented by Russ Tyson. He and the Hospital hour came to be expected just as the sun rises. He never let us down. So we say to the ABC that if someone is happy, very talented, sincere and valuable to the community cultural evolution, then - leave them alone.
Number8. October 28th.
Time on your hands. What a strange concept. It’s as if time was something you could grab hold of. For me the more I grab, the more it squishes through my fingers. Time is something that I wish was more animate so that I could control it. To beat it when times were bad and cherish it when times were good. I wonder why old father time is depicted as being old and a father. Somehow the two don’t go together. I wonder why there is no old mother time, unless she is too droopy to behold.All the memories that I choose to remember are good ones. I was prompted to recall my times at high school in Launceston, by the proposal to charge entry to the Museum. I spent many many hours indulging in the displays either in a school group or while waiting for a bus to take me home.
Launceston closed at five o’clock every week-day and all week-end, re-opening on Monday. On Saturday the sporting creatures came out to play and on Sunday the religious groups had their quiet times. The only exception was on Saturday Night at St Ailbies. That was the place to be. On thinking about it, it was the only place to be.
I had many hours to fill in waiting for my buses. These were spent at the museum or the library where the Post Office clock told me when to go to the bus stop. Other times were spent roaming lower Royal Park if the tide was in. It was a bit on the nose if not.
The emotion that I felt most as a child was the one of security and reliability. The stability of things always being there and remaining exactly the same. The fountain in Princess Square, City Park and Windmill Hill. The three picture theatres and Brisbane street. Window shopping, tv sets and test patterns. Glass displays everywhere and occasional cars going along Patterson Street past my Launceston Tech , Launceston High and over the bridge to either Marrawaylee or Corminston. We were contented then.
But what I was talking about. On the way I often passed an old bloke that looked like old father time. Long grey hair and beard, clinging tattered clothes and sandals. He was travelling on his daily walk to or from the Hydro dam-site out the back of Trevallyn where he was a billy-boy. The Hydro supplied endless sandwiches for lunch which became his sole food supply. He refused to spend any money and spent the nights under the Charles Street bridge. Many times the police were called to arrest him on vagrancy charges but he just produced his Commonwealth bank-book showing he had heaps of money. He had a set programme where time and simplicity could be relied upon and were all he needed.
Tasmanians as a whole were very much like that. We could handle anything because they were reliably consistent or reliably inconsistent.
Number7 October 17th
Things past are memories fond. Memories stick like pink fairy floss to a bulky brown jumper. Good and bad melt together into fondness. All parts of a life that is me. I believe that the earth reclaims animate piles of atomic forces as well as inanimate thoughts. It churns them all together and splutters them around again. I have lived believing that there were two sides to every boundary. Life demands us in spurts of activity or lazy leisure.The last few weeks have squeezed many contemplations from within me. I was a child when the Second World War ended. People around the world rejoiced in the celebration that it was the war to end all wars. How wrong we had been. We relied on our clever academics to plan for an Utopic future.
We would have been better advised to have allowed the children to plan the new beginning to the future. Unbiased simplicity forms the strongest links.
For years superfluous supercilious people have considered Tasmanians to be a bit ‘slow’. It has never been anything to do with intelligence, but more a reactive form of open child-like honesty. If a Tasmanian were to look you in the eye, you could believe every word he said.
Words were always simple, unconsidered and above all, true. A man of his word was a true Tasmanian. This simplicity became envied and sought after by the beginnings of tourism of the modern era.
He was vexillogicaliy naiive. Words have changed these days. I remember when feasible was plausible sporadic was erratic, pivotal could go either way, contingency plans were doing what had to be done, criteria were qualifications or reasons and no probs was yes. Not to mention that seminal meant something else. Words don’t have formal meanings anymore, they have popular usage. I remember when discrimination on the down side was elitism on the up. I am getting off the wallaby so will quit here.
Oo-roo ‘til next time as I contemplate whatever happened to the Multi-Function Polis.
Number 6 Sept 15th.
I have been out of it because of the New York disasters this week. I must admit to a lot of soul searching while being numb with disbelief. I didn’t know whether I should be contemplating the bigger picture or turn inwards on myself. I wallowed in thoughts that were taking me nowhere. It was not until I was shocked out of being in shock by an idiot playing the bagpipes at the rubble. That was enough to make my placid self angry. My anger was diverted from the disaster to a droning bag of thistled air. I came to conclude that the only way to fight vulnerability was with appreciation.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m wise because I’m old or old because I am wise. Or just plain old. I don’t have any secrets from anybody. The only secrets I do have, belong to other people. There is nothing to be gained by blabbing. Those secrets will eventually be buried with me. People tend to offload their secrets to people who don’t talk very much. Makes sense really. Then I have always thought that big people know when to shut-up.
I must confess that I grew up surrounded by people who did things in fairly predictable ways. So predictable that they seemed to lose their individualisms. I tended to think of persons as semi-objects. There was me and there was those other things called people. Life was busy enough without burdening myself with thoughts of others.
It wasn’t until I was well into my mature years that I allowed myself to recognise that inside their bodies, was a person just like me.
A bit of the live and let live. Pretty dreary when you think about it. Whatever happened to the sparkle of enthusiasm. There is a very fine line, if any, between creative enthusiasm and delusions of grandeur. Walter Mitty should have been a role model where achievements were a game of percentages and anything is better than nothing. But life goes on. Our kids will probably look back on these times as the good old days.
My historical fact for the week. The Americans spent millions on developing a pen that would write in space. The Russians use pencils.
No 5 Sept.5th
If you’re a fair dinkum Tasmanian you will know what I mean when I say we don’t like change. The early settlers had unwritten rules to live by. They came about out of necessity and the conquering of the environment. The rules were simple. Firstly to live and secondly to live and let live. Add to this – a fair go for everyone – and you had the making of the Australian culture. This contented way of life came about gradually as each challenge was met. A fair go was all the country needed. Everyone made sure their mates had a fair go. Politicians were rarely seen and had little effect on real life. Honesty and manners controlled daily living. These rules were simple and easily understood by everyone.
Over the years, there have been many changes. Changes that almost always caused hurt to somebody. So it was that any change was treated with suspicion and very wary trial. Tasmanian have always been known to be a bit slow but this slowness might also be called caution. Traditions had been forged by time and were not easily parted with. Any scheme or successful idea, always got up and went to the mainland. This always left us exactly back where we were. Bemused but reasonably contented. So if you think we are slow, it is that we are cautious and careful. Many have tried to change us, but we have remained steadfast and resolute in our resistance to change.
Not only do we appreciate any thing that has served us well over the years, but we remain totally loyal.
No 4 Aug 25th
Sorry if I am a bit late this week. I had a death in the family. It’s sad to lose things that have been dear to you and which you have put an inordinate amount of time into. Whatever inordinate means.Fair dinkum it was enough to burst my boiler. There it was, just sitting there. Dead. Death by virus. I wish I’d never gotten the thing in the first place. Just a silent sullen and even contemptuous death. My computer had karked it.
I am a great believer in progress by stealth. I like to know how a thing works before it is forced on me. Not so with computers. There is no warning of impending failure. Just cop that and stick it. It then becomes even more elitist as to being able to get it fixed. For the average bloke it is impossible to even attempt to fix it. I took it to the shed but I know the only use I will find for it is something to stand on. I consider myself to have average nouse, but I know we can’t all be average. Indeed there is no such thing as average. A bit like infinity really. Just a word.
My gripe this week has been with the pollies. I battled for a long time demanding that about half of them were there illegally because they held dual citizenship. The Aussie constitution says you can’t be a member if you have any other allegiances. I kept getting quashed on that one.
I have been waddling along getting tangled in the internet. The Australian Government saw heaps of tax money being avoided by the dot com traders. It fixed this by making it that when you get a dot com au address, you must have an abn number. Problem solved?
Now I notice my local member has a dot com address sponsored by the Gov and his web-site is constructed by the Gov Online Access Centre. It makes you wonder.
Number3 12 August, 2001
Another week has passed and I haven’t really changed the world too much. I have a couple of bees in my bonnet, but first a joke I heard.
The difference between Pixie Skase and Steve Waugh? Steve brings home the ashes.
The footy season is revving up for the finals. It seems they’ve all lost the plot somewhere. I thought the game was there for young bucks to enjoy themselves before the girls either fealt sorry for them or celebrated with them on Saturday night. Not so the super-stars who ponce around avoiding inevitable injuries. They display their allegiances to the hungry dollar on huge footy grounds and even under cover. They really need a few seasons in the bush to toughen them up. They run around deftly serving the ball to each other. It’s whoever gets there first. They should have learnt how to play in the country getting in for the ball themselves, dodging rabbit holes and rocks while avoiding slurping through mud. If you got a kick, you earned it all by yourself. They’ve even changed the rules so the umpy is just a traffic cop. The grounds are so big and the rules changed so that you can run around all day looking busy and not get a kick. In my day, if things weren’t going too good, we flattened someone just to prove some sort of a point. They ought to try some of the fairy princesses out in some bush games, man to man. I suppose what I am really trying to say is that the elite blokes are playing on huge wide open grounds where if you run around enough someone will kick it to you. Getting possessions wasn’t important, it was how hard you played. Anyway, it will all go on without me I suppose.
The real dinger I have is to do with the local councils, loosely called local government. They are an elusive condescending mob busily spending funds they haven’t got, safe in the knowledge that if they are a bit short, they can always increase the rates. Any ideas they may concoct will always be paid for. If they ever feel they are on dicey ground, there is always their perfect solution. Call a public meeting. It doesn’t matter if only a few turn up. Say six people turn up. Four of them vote to the proposal. It is then written in stone that two thirds of the community voted in favour. This sort of thing happens every time an important (expensive) issue arises. It is smug politics indeed. Approval by referendum regardless of how many vote. A public meeting does not have a minimum number. (Wait till I look it up.) Quorum. Talk about power without glory. This is people’s power without people.
Ah, but not to worry. Just another case of the insidious Tasmanian condition – cultural cringe compliance.
Number 2 Mon 6th Aug 01.:
I see the tourists streaming past. Most don’t seem to know where they are going and are certainly unsure as to why. New cars from the Garden State (they’re joking?) or from the Premier State and who trusts Premiers unless they have a reliable greasy breakfast name like Bacon. There are hardly any good old Kingswoods and none cluttered with Japanese camera persons. I haven’t seen a Ford Prefect or a Zephyr for years. My dad never felt safe unless there were other cars on the road just like his. My mum wasn’t much of a tourist. Her idea of a good trip was to see some waratah or wattle in bloom. I suppose the tourists are a necessary distraction. My old Uncle says he used to make a quid out of tourists. They could afford it.
What I meant to tell you about was that people from anywhere else have left their run a bit late, but even so, are welcome to visit here. If people are what they eat and breathe then we must be perfect. A fact that I have always been aware of. When we were kids we rhymed about being made of snakes and snails and puppy dog's tails.
This area of the real North West coast now produces mainly cattle. Easier to count I suppose. I remember, before there were ice-boxes or fridges that what we mostly ate was mutton. We once counted the ways that mum could cook and serve mutton. It was more than thirty ways. Before giving it to the dog, we kept meat as long as possible in an old green meat safe hanging from a tree. I had a superbly clever use for a rusted meat safe. It sat between two basins of water, a sugar bag draped over the top with the ends soaking in the water. The evapouration made it cooler. I wonder if wet cows are cooler than dry ones? Mum was always telling us we would grow up to be what we ate and what we ate was made from the land and the air around us. Now this thought left itself wide open to speculation. How eating crusts made your hair curl, I’ll never know. The air here is as pure as it can possibly be. I worked out that if the bottom of South America wasn’t in the way, the Sun could go down in the West, travel right around the Earth and come up in the East without passing over another country. It had to be clean air.
So I say to the tourists – Welcome. Eat with us and come share the air.
I've seen you drive past many times and often wondered what you might be thinking about. Certainly not me. You've never given a look or a wave in my direction. It may never have occurred to you that I have had a life. Whether or not it was an interesting one is for you to find out. You may even learn something. I am about to put my thoughts into cyber-space. They may tickle some-one's fancy, if you'll excuse the expression.
I have an opinion on everything, just like you. Nobody has bothered to ask, so I am going to give them regardless.
I am probably more Tasmanian than anyone I know. Dragged soaking wet through a childhood at a Hydro village in the Central Highlands. I don't propose to say much in this my first instalment, except to inform you of what this site is all about. The thoughts initially belong to me and there's nothing you can do about it.
Philosophically, I am an Evolutionist and devoted to tolerance although I don't presume to be able to influence anybody. Religion to me is moribund and about as reliable as a definition of infinity. Some things I know like the back of my hand and I haven't seriously looked at that for years. Why do we use old sayings that are irrelevant?
Life has taken me to many places and has also left me behind a few times. If I have learnt anything it is that life is essentially ridiculous and the sooner we realize this, the sooner we can get on and enjoy it.
E-mail your opinions to - tasmania@mail.com, or ask someone else to do it.
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