Why was it when Dad came back from the Navy we were always sent out side to clean up the yard? this invariably ended in a punchup, mostly me & Bill cause Lissa would have feigned illness & Mum would let her go inside (this did nothing for my jealousies towards Lissa)& Andrea would have curled up for a sleep somewhere but occasionally all 4 of us were in the punch up so Dad in his wisdom would make us go sit in a corner of the yard until he said we could move but the yard was very wide at the front & very narrow at the back..I dont know how many times Bill & I were sent to the narrow back end where we'd continue the punch up or at very least name calling until one to many "you are's" or "stop copying me" or "you're a fat pig" was too much & the punches began again until we realised the dark shadow blocking the light was Dad with another part of a fruit box....
Speaking of fruit boxes what about Mums new vinyl lounge that someone sliced with a razor blade, we all got a hiding for that cause who ever did it wouldn't own up ... all I know is it wasn't me so who was it?
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Bill is obviously deluding himself, I was the innocent being led astray. Im sure Melissa & Andrea can verify the facts fortunately Dani was too young & was spared.
Mind you I laughed as I do recall the go cart down Ormond Rd,while I do recall going down the hill in said go cart,thrilling & scary at same time,other kids were there as well, dont know why we always manged to have an audience when we were about to get a hiding ....
Mind you I laughed as I do recall the go cart down Ormond Rd,while I do recall going down the hill in said go cart,thrilling & scary at same time,other kids were there as well, dont know why we always manged to have an audience when we were about to get a hiding ....
Memories
I do remember that clothesline, vaguely, buried somewhere deep in my subconscious (not the clothesline, just the memory of it) along with all the other things I thought I had blotted from consciousness for reasons like guilt is a terrible burden to carry around so best dump it somewhere ASAP. Deny everything immediately before it's had time to lodge like a cuckoo's egg in the brain only to hatch one day into something unexpected.
I remember the clothesline to be a brown colour, maybe it was rust or primer. Probably primer in this instance because it hadn't been around long enough to rust. That's where my recollection ends. I have no knowledge of any subsequent attempts to test its ability to withstand the weight of two children swinging from it. I believe this to be a thinly disguised attempt by my sister to implicate me in something I had nothing to do with for iniquitous reasons of her own. Probably in retaliation for the time I chased her up the road weilding the first thing that came to hand which in turned out to be one of mum's stilleto heeled shoes.
Back to the clothesline. Things are coming back to me. Yes, it was definitely brown. I can see my sister swinging on it but I am nowhere in sight. She jumps up and down doing her best to test its lateral and vertical stability and yes, there it goes flying over the fence. My sister runs away. I am still nowhere in sight. That's all I remember, I swear!
I do remember a poster of a giant rooster that was in the process of being burned in the wire cage we used for an incinerator. The incinerator was next to the fence (fence being wooden posts with three strands of wire I think) the other side of which was a whole paddock of dry grass just waiting to be set alight by some unforeseen event like me taking the burning poster from the cage and throwing it over the fence. Thankfully, it failed to cooperate and smouldered away before crumbling into a pile of ashes.
The boy down the road, I can't remember his name, wasn't so fortunate. He set alight a whole suburb of bush and we had to help put it out and he got in big trouble.
On the subjects of go-karts, I remember the time Vicki and I (I think it was her idea) took our home-made cart across the neighbouring paddock to the dirt road (what was its name?) that ran in a steep descent to an intersection with Seventeen Mile Rocks Road, a rather busy main road that ran past the front of our house, which included a diabolical corner that was consistently underestimated by numerous drivers as they attempted to negotiate it at ridiculous speeds before discovering it was impossible just before slamming into the telegraph pole, or opposing cliff face, or missing both and sailing into the bush, or sliding out of control and rolling into the ditch at the bottom of the hill. All in all it probably wasn't the safest place to play, which was more than likely the thinking of our father as he yelled out for us to desist in our quest to kill ourselves. Not quite understanding him as he stood there yelling and waving his arms about we continued in our mad pursuit of ever greater thrills which were about to descend in the form of our father jumping the fence brandishing a piece of wooden fruit box of which there was an iniquitous abundance. The rest is history, as they say. Whoever said history never repeats itself was wrong, wrong, wrong.
I remember the clothesline to be a brown colour, maybe it was rust or primer. Probably primer in this instance because it hadn't been around long enough to rust. That's where my recollection ends. I have no knowledge of any subsequent attempts to test its ability to withstand the weight of two children swinging from it. I believe this to be a thinly disguised attempt by my sister to implicate me in something I had nothing to do with for iniquitous reasons of her own. Probably in retaliation for the time I chased her up the road weilding the first thing that came to hand which in turned out to be one of mum's stilleto heeled shoes.
Back to the clothesline. Things are coming back to me. Yes, it was definitely brown. I can see my sister swinging on it but I am nowhere in sight. She jumps up and down doing her best to test its lateral and vertical stability and yes, there it goes flying over the fence. My sister runs away. I am still nowhere in sight. That's all I remember, I swear!
I do remember a poster of a giant rooster that was in the process of being burned in the wire cage we used for an incinerator. The incinerator was next to the fence (fence being wooden posts with three strands of wire I think) the other side of which was a whole paddock of dry grass just waiting to be set alight by some unforeseen event like me taking the burning poster from the cage and throwing it over the fence. Thankfully, it failed to cooperate and smouldered away before crumbling into a pile of ashes.
The boy down the road, I can't remember his name, wasn't so fortunate. He set alight a whole suburb of bush and we had to help put it out and he got in big trouble.
On the subjects of go-karts, I remember the time Vicki and I (I think it was her idea) took our home-made cart across the neighbouring paddock to the dirt road (what was its name?) that ran in a steep descent to an intersection with Seventeen Mile Rocks Road, a rather busy main road that ran past the front of our house, which included a diabolical corner that was consistently underestimated by numerous drivers as they attempted to negotiate it at ridiculous speeds before discovering it was impossible just before slamming into the telegraph pole, or opposing cliff face, or missing both and sailing into the bush, or sliding out of control and rolling into the ditch at the bottom of the hill. All in all it probably wasn't the safest place to play, which was more than likely the thinking of our father as he yelled out for us to desist in our quest to kill ourselves. Not quite understanding him as he stood there yelling and waving his arms about we continued in our mad pursuit of ever greater thrills which were about to descend in the form of our father jumping the fence brandishing a piece of wooden fruit box of which there was an iniquitous abundance. The rest is history, as they say. Whoever said history never repeats itself was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Wanta laugh? Had phone call from some sort of home help from the hospital [ went to visit there yesterday] I think they think the government has a surplus of cash as I now take 11 tabs for breakfast[ another 2 at night] saves a lot on the food bill, Anyway back to the phone call, during the course of it there was a mention of training with weights, I must have had a giggle in my voice as the nurse came back with.... oh not from the floor, we are not trying to train you to Swartsnegger standard, I repeated the Swartsnegger bit and you know who, bless her cotton pickin' little heart, burst out in raucous laughter, and hasn't really stopped since, Think I'll dismantle the Mozzie trap that'll teach her, The Mozzie trap that's another thing, it's getting very close to getting the chop too, been experimenting with various places for about a month now and it has proved very successful at catching bugs, not very many mozzies, perhaps they are not the right breed, changed places again today, so it has another few days grace to demonstrate its capabilities , or I ring the supplier[ who also makes them] and demand my money back ,that's all for now, let you join your mother in raucous laughter
Sunday, March 15, 2009
The Fam-i-ly Car
I remember we had a number of family cars mostly handed down to us from Grandad Graceville the first one, I recall, was a white De luxe Prefect – a small compact car ....with removable roof racks! Seat belts weren’t invented yet, so our large family of six piled into the small family car this usually ended in a number of arguments in the back seat where we four kids were packed in a sort of one forward one back affair the best positions being the window although occasionally Bill or I somehow ended up in the middle, then we would act excited so that the younger ones usually Melissa would think she was missing out & would agree to swap that was a good tactic..... sorry Lissa ...As we got older & bigger we worked out to fit us all in we shouldn’t open both back doors so we had to get in on one side with Mum or Dad slamming the door shut when we were all in, Mum or Dad really should have learnt to pay attention to this manoeuvre because when they became distracted (while still chatting & saying goodbye to whoever we’d been visiting )they would slam the door shut & invariably got someone’s fingers - & without fail they never slammed them once it was always a few times before they realised the reason the door wasn’t staying shut was because someone’s fingers were jammed in it, to add insult to injury we would always get in trouble for that as well because we didn’t say anything ...when in fact the pain was so bad you could only do the silent scream whilst trying to get enough air in your lungs to let out the really loud scream which would end in wracking sobs for the entire trip home, accompanied by chorus of “will you be quiet !”(Shut up was considered a swear word in our house)& "it wasn’t that bad!" "Stop whinging" or "it’s your own fault"....sympathetic lot we were.... it was usually Andrea who was in last so it was usually her fingers , I shouldn’t be surprised if she ends up with arthritis in her fingers when she’s old & decrepit.Although I myself had a particularly nasty experience somehow Dad managed to slam my foot in the car door & he just kept slamming it with all his 6ft force when I finally got a word out & he just said "What the B’ein Hell are you doing with your foot there? Is it broken? & why didn’t I say something instead of just sitting there? But he did take me to the doctor - on a Saturday even.
A few years later we inhereited another family car, also handed down by Grandad this was a two toned green Morris Major another small family car or did we just get bigger? There were five kids by then but Dani got to sit in the baby car seat(that was nothing like they are today it was a canvas affair that hooked over the front seat) lucky her - she wasn’t squished in the back with the rest of us, but I dare say we included her in the usual after school ,back seat melee by copping the odd bash in the back of her head with someone’s elbow or school bag & to make it worse Mum in her magnanimous way somehow offered take 2 neighbourhood boys , Andrew & Craig home from school as well - I mean what was that?? did there look like there was room in the back seat ?? , anyway they were boys & they smelt like boys & then Mum invariably got out & had a chat with Craig’s Mum when she dropped him off & we had to stay in the car she’d only be a minute.......I reckon Mum had a problem with time .so she chatted & we sat there hot ,sweaty, hungry ...elbowing each other calling each other really horrible things like” you stupid fat pig” or “you big fat pig “or “skinny pig” .......
This car was always forever losing bits, i dont know how many times the muffler fell off in front of Oxley high school ...at the bus stop.....how embarrassing!!! & Bill had to get out & pick it up & put it somewhere ...in the boot?? Surely it wasn’t in the back seat?? Was it? I wasn’t looking - I was off in some la la land that didn’t have bombie cars that exhaust pipes fell off of in front of high schools...... well anyway that was Karma for Bill cause he always got to sit in the front seat & being the eldest & only boy – hahaha - oh sorry Bill :)
One time we all piled in to go to school & drop Dad off at the train station on the way – I recall the driveway was on a hill coming out onto a very busy road in the middle of a blind corner that cement trucks frequented ,well anyway off we went, when (as I remember) Dad said rather calmly we have no brakes he may or may not not have said it all that calmly it was just that Mum swore – really ! She said SHHHITTTTTT JOHN!! & at waht felt like a roller coaster speed we screamed out the driveway,which fortunately didn’t have cement truck on its way past ......though I do recall looking & one was close behind us maybe 3 doors down the road ......surprising I think we kids were fairly quite in the back seat maybe we were praying or maybe just amazed that Mum had sworn ........well anyway we got to the bottom of the first hill near the Canossa hospital & Dad somehow managed to slow down enough before the next hill & stopped by pulling the hand brake on – Mum scrambled out with Dani? Andrea? & as the rest of us tried to scramble out as well, but Dad was slready changing gears we werent going anywhere we heard a " Stay where you are its a school day!" Obviously we were more scared of our parents’ wrath then being driven around in a car without brakes.... Mum was yelling at Dad, I might add it was not about our welfare, just about his inept mechanical skills & something about trying to kill her .....oh thats ok then he was only trying to kill Mum not us & if he stopped it must mean he had found the brakes again right ?..... no ... I'd never really noticed how many steep hills were between our house & Oxley station...but there is a few ...... Anycause Dad took off again with the inevitable cement truck appearing close behind us & watched Mum out the back window fading into the distance with whoever the baby at the time stomping off home, did she even look back at those little faces peering out the back window ......I don’t think so..... we turned back to face the front to find ourselves speeding downhill & which eventually ended when we careened around a corner on some flat ground somewhere near the side gate of Oxley High school on top of a hill, Dad stopped by reefing on the handbrake with such force we sat there in silence, the car rocking back & forth for a bit, Dad jumped out (we also took this as our cue to get out) Dad said "I’ll be late for my train youse mob ‘ll have to find you own way to school ... & get yourselves home" & he took off ... we stood there for a bit trying to get our bearings it wasn’t a street we were overly familiar with...but soon figured we’d head off in the direction Dad took & go from there , it’s a bit of a hike from the train station to school & we had to pass the haunted house with the bandaged wrapped mummy in the side window & the old guy that threw poison mud at kids as they walked past (we had this on good authority) but maybe we were probably just glad to be alive, it stopped us bickering for a bit anyway ,well until that afternoon when we had to walk home, that always started us off I think it was the thought of all those hills we came down in the morning we had to walk up in the afternoon & we were hot & tired & hungry & probably missing the good shows on tv you know Skippy, Advenure Island ,Batman, The Flintstones, The Jetsons .........
The were good times in that car as well like going down the big hill in Sherwood? anyway Dad would get a good run up & go down really, really fast & the last little bumpy bit at the bottom that made your stomach somersault & Mum would say "John I’m going to be sick" & that would be the fun part waiting to see if Mum would actually be sick........ but she never was & I think she actually liked it just as much as we did.......
We’d even go on family holidays in that car, got us all the way up to Tin Can Bay to catch the ferry across to Fraser Island for the Family holiday ....but that’s another story
A few years later we inhereited another family car, also handed down by Grandad this was a two toned green Morris Major another small family car or did we just get bigger? There were five kids by then but Dani got to sit in the baby car seat(that was nothing like they are today it was a canvas affair that hooked over the front seat) lucky her - she wasn’t squished in the back with the rest of us, but I dare say we included her in the usual after school ,back seat melee by copping the odd bash in the back of her head with someone’s elbow or school bag & to make it worse Mum in her magnanimous way somehow offered take 2 neighbourhood boys , Andrew & Craig home from school as well - I mean what was that?? did there look like there was room in the back seat ?? , anyway they were boys & they smelt like boys & then Mum invariably got out & had a chat with Craig’s Mum when she dropped him off & we had to stay in the car she’d only be a minute.......I reckon Mum had a problem with time .so she chatted & we sat there hot ,sweaty, hungry ...elbowing each other calling each other really horrible things like” you stupid fat pig” or “you big fat pig “or “skinny pig” .......
This car was always forever losing bits, i dont know how many times the muffler fell off in front of Oxley high school ...at the bus stop.....how embarrassing!!! & Bill had to get out & pick it up & put it somewhere ...in the boot?? Surely it wasn’t in the back seat?? Was it? I wasn’t looking - I was off in some la la land that didn’t have bombie cars that exhaust pipes fell off of in front of high schools...... well anyway that was Karma for Bill cause he always got to sit in the front seat & being the eldest & only boy – hahaha - oh sorry Bill :)
One time we all piled in to go to school & drop Dad off at the train station on the way – I recall the driveway was on a hill coming out onto a very busy road in the middle of a blind corner that cement trucks frequented ,well anyway off we went, when (as I remember) Dad said rather calmly we have no brakes he may or may not not have said it all that calmly it was just that Mum swore – really ! She said SHHHITTTTTT JOHN!! & at waht felt like a roller coaster speed we screamed out the driveway,which fortunately didn’t have cement truck on its way past ......though I do recall looking & one was close behind us maybe 3 doors down the road ......surprising I think we kids were fairly quite in the back seat maybe we were praying or maybe just amazed that Mum had sworn ........well anyway we got to the bottom of the first hill near the Canossa hospital & Dad somehow managed to slow down enough before the next hill & stopped by pulling the hand brake on – Mum scrambled out with Dani? Andrea? & as the rest of us tried to scramble out as well, but Dad was slready changing gears we werent going anywhere we heard a " Stay where you are its a school day!" Obviously we were more scared of our parents’ wrath then being driven around in a car without brakes.... Mum was yelling at Dad, I might add it was not about our welfare, just about his inept mechanical skills & something about trying to kill her .....oh thats ok then he was only trying to kill Mum not us & if he stopped it must mean he had found the brakes again right ?..... no ... I'd never really noticed how many steep hills were between our house & Oxley station...but there is a few ...... Anycause Dad took off again with the inevitable cement truck appearing close behind us & watched Mum out the back window fading into the distance with whoever the baby at the time stomping off home, did she even look back at those little faces peering out the back window ......I don’t think so..... we turned back to face the front to find ourselves speeding downhill & which eventually ended when we careened around a corner on some flat ground somewhere near the side gate of Oxley High school on top of a hill, Dad stopped by reefing on the handbrake with such force we sat there in silence, the car rocking back & forth for a bit, Dad jumped out (we also took this as our cue to get out) Dad said "I’ll be late for my train youse mob ‘ll have to find you own way to school ... & get yourselves home" & he took off ... we stood there for a bit trying to get our bearings it wasn’t a street we were overly familiar with...but soon figured we’d head off in the direction Dad took & go from there , it’s a bit of a hike from the train station to school & we had to pass the haunted house with the bandaged wrapped mummy in the side window & the old guy that threw poison mud at kids as they walked past (we had this on good authority) but maybe we were probably just glad to be alive, it stopped us bickering for a bit anyway ,well until that afternoon when we had to walk home, that always started us off I think it was the thought of all those hills we came down in the morning we had to walk up in the afternoon & we were hot & tired & hungry & probably missing the good shows on tv you know Skippy, Advenure Island ,Batman, The Flintstones, The Jetsons .........
The were good times in that car as well like going down the big hill in Sherwood? anyway Dad would get a good run up & go down really, really fast & the last little bumpy bit at the bottom that made your stomach somersault & Mum would say "John I’m going to be sick" & that would be the fun part waiting to see if Mum would actually be sick........ but she never was & I think she actually liked it just as much as we did.......
We’d even go on family holidays in that car, got us all the way up to Tin Can Bay to catch the ferry across to Fraser Island for the Family holiday ....but that’s another story
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Clotheslines are NOT toys!
Not that I think any of us knew that.
I have just read Vicki's post and have managed to stop laughing.
I too have a clothesline story -two in fact.
One where Andrea tied me to the Hills hoist at Rita Court to 'teach me to ride a bike on two wheels'
Yeah, well, what happened when I couldn't hang on to the bike because of the uneven ground and the bike dropped away? I can still see you standing at the far side, Andrea.
And there was the time that I was swinging on the clothesline, (I too, had the warning of death should I do it. They must have needed more evidence of guilt other than the severe bend in one of the arms to carry out the promises made).
So there I was one afternoon after school, swinging away, after the big run off and launch, around the far side, over the part where you can't reach because of the drop away,I was swinging my legs back and forth, trying to make a bit of momentum, when squeak,squeak, squeak, I slowly swing around to find - gulp - Dad, home from work early, watching me come around. You ever noticed how tall he was? Man, I was so scared, I couldn't even let go of the bar to run away. I can't remember if I got a belting. Maybe the look of fear was enough - or Dad wasn't quite sure he was even seeing what he was seeing.
I have just read Vicki's post and have managed to stop laughing.
I too have a clothesline story -two in fact.
One where Andrea tied me to the Hills hoist at Rita Court to 'teach me to ride a bike on two wheels'
Yeah, well, what happened when I couldn't hang on to the bike because of the uneven ground and the bike dropped away? I can still see you standing at the far side, Andrea.
And there was the time that I was swinging on the clothesline, (I too, had the warning of death should I do it. They must have needed more evidence of guilt other than the severe bend in one of the arms to carry out the promises made).
So there I was one afternoon after school, swinging away, after the big run off and launch, around the far side, over the part where you can't reach because of the drop away,I was swinging my legs back and forth, trying to make a bit of momentum, when squeak,squeak, squeak, I slowly swing around to find - gulp - Dad, home from work early, watching me come around. You ever noticed how tall he was? Man, I was so scared, I couldn't even let go of the bar to run away. I can't remember if I got a belting. Maybe the look of fear was enough - or Dad wasn't quite sure he was even seeing what he was seeing.
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