POPPY-SHOW

Because of a recent foot operation, I was obliged to climb awkwardly onto the surgeon’s examination couch. I was unable to wear my customary slacks because of the bandaged foot, so wore a flared skirt that gaped as I swung my leg into position, thus exposing a view of my undies. This did not bother me at all, as I knew my underwear was clean and well-fitting. But I later said to my daughter. ‘There must have been a poppy-show!’
‘What do you mean, a poppy-show?’ she asked.

HIGH SCHOOL FORMALS

I am hearing about the large sums of money spent on the Senior Formals of some private schools. Perhaps this applies to public schools as well. Or not.
One mother said the dress for her daughter cost almost a thousand dollars, as well as many hundreds for shoes, hair dos, make-up, eyelash tinting, eyebrows and fake fingernails. Tickets to the formal cost a couple of hundred or more for two, plus corsages at over fifty. Then there is the pre-formal reception for parents, relatives and friends.

As she does, my daughter Katy brought me a bunch of seven huge sunflowers. She knows I love their brightness. But more than that, they remind me of my early school days.
Barefoot, we would walk the five ks from the farm at Buccan to the one-roomed school at Logan Village. About once a year, or not even that, the entire school of some twenty students would have a drawing lesson. Out would come the box of chalk ends. And we cleaned our slates. Mr. Brown would draw a circle on the board, bidding us to do the same.

The doorbell woke me from my midday nap. I groggily answered the front door. The pleasant looking young man smiled at me. ‘My wife and I were going past your place,’ he said, ‘and we noticed all the oranges under the tree. I wondered if you could spare a few? They seem to be going to waste.’
‘Of course,’ I replied,’ you can take as many as you like. Do you have a bag?’ He assured me he had one in the car, adding that they had just put in an application to rent a house down the road, and that they were looking forward to living on this mountain.

That’s what my father used to say when he was in his eighties. And now I am at least THINKING it.
Yes, it is true. It sometimes takes a lifetime to really understand some issues...or someone. Perhaps it is because when one gets older, one might have more time to ponder. Maybe life is not so frantic, or is it that we have learned at last to ‘walk in the other fellow’s shoes’...as my father also used to advise.

That’s what my father used to say when he was in his eighties. And now I am at least THINKING it.
Yes, it is true. It sometimes takes a lifetime to really understand some issues...or someone. Perhaps it is because when one gets older, one might have more time to ponder. Maybe life is not so frantic, or is it that we have learned at last to ‘walk in the other fellow’s shoes’...as my father also used to advise.

What a great entertainer! He has enabled us to enjoy such mirth! Such talent! He will be missed.
Years ago, when my daughter Katy was a teenager, we were having a day at the Brisbane Exhibition. We had not long passed through the gates when I almost bumped into this large, rather gaudily, but oddly dressed chap.
‘Having a day out at the Ekka?’ he asked me through awful, protruding teeth, lisping, spitting and dribbling as he did so. He stopped to chat and I could not fail to notice his unkempt appearance, his untidy hair, his food spattered tie and his wild, tatty look.

We were leaving the district. Leaving the farm that had been home to four generations of my father’s family. The Great Depression still raged and times were tough for a small dairy farmer of 1937. They would try their luck in the city.

We walked barefoot to school at Logan Village. The gravel road near the Quinzy Creek bridge was sometimes covered in large meat-ant’s nests. These big red ants packed a powerful sting of which we were most aware. Joan and I skirted round the nests, but one day, Marty felt brave and announced that he was going to walk through the nest. He had a heavy cold and was carrying a much soiled man’s handkerchief. As he heroically marched on, of course he was bitten and ran, yelping, out of the nest. But he dropped his hanky in so doing...we all ran on.

Recent news about crows menacing humans reminded me of my school days when Marty, Joan and I would walk barefoot the five kilometres from our home on Buccan Hill to the Logan Village School.
The first hundred or so metres down the long hill were safe enough, but then we must pass the big gum tree that stood near the entrance to the cow paddock of rich pasture on the Logan River. In this tree nested the crows!