A Belt, A Bra And A Harpy

 This is a true, but short tale about an incident that happened at Woollies, yesterday.

First of all, a little bit of information that will make sense later. When I wear jeans, I hold them up with braces (suspenders), This just stops the jeans ending up around my ankles, while walking around in public. I also wear a belt, which is just just for appearances, because I think jeans without a belt looks wrong.

Yesterday, my wife and I were doing a bit of food shopping in Woollies and were waiting at the fairly crowded Deli counter, when I was approached by an elderly woman and her female friend. I think they were in their late sixties. I didn't ask their ages because it would have been rude and I didn't care.

In a voice, just loud enough to carry to all the other shoppers at the counter, she said, "Why are you waring a belt AND braces together? A bit un-neccesary, don't you think?"All went very quiet and I thought, "What the f***?". I then noticed that she had quite a large bust, so I replied, "I may not need to wear a belt and you certainly don't need to wear a bra. I'm pretty certain that you could tuck them into your panty hose, without too much effort".

Some of the guys, standing at the counter started to laugh. One even clapped. The elderly lady was visibly angry and stormed off, saying that she was going to write a letter to the Woollies' manager. She was probably going to ask him if he wore a belt and braces at the same time, too,

A few minutes later, while still walking around the store and shopping, my wife had had time to mentally process what had just happened and she started to giggle. Loudly. For about ten minutes. Attracting a fair bit of unwelcome and embarrassing attention.

This incident helped support a theory that I've had for some time, That is that many elderly people can't help talking crap, at any time, loudly and without fear, myself included. It's an endearing trait which all younger people will get to experience, later in life.

Drums, Dope and a Dunny.

 Whoa! I bet that's got you intrigued. This is another sad, but true, story. 

I've been playing drums, since I was 12. After WW2, in Adelaide, the children of ex servicemen could get free music lessons at The Adelaide College of Music. My mother loved the trumpet, so she enrolled me for twice weekly lessons. 

There were two problems. First of all, I could never get any noise of a trumpet, probably because I didn't like the instrument. Secondly, I loved the noise coming out of the drum studio next door, so I transferred there, without telling my mother. Imagine her reaction, when, three years later, she came to a concert at the college, expecting to see me out front, on the trumpet, but finding me happily sat at the back, belting the hell out of a kit of drums. 

Not a pretty aftermath at home, but the damage was permanently done. I was drummer and, over the years, played in several rock and metal bands of no repute 

So, what has any of that got to do with this story? Pretty much nothing apart from padding out the story. also, of no real importance, my favourite drummers are Ginger Baker (Cream et al), Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones) and Michael Shrieve (Santana '69-'71). Santana still remains the best band in the world. That's just my opinion. As you probably already know, opinions are like bums. We all have one and they are often both full of crap.

                                Carlos Santana (R) and Michael Shrieve (Drums) Woodstock 1969

To the story.

Way back, in the 1990s, I was living in Cairns and helped create a band with three other, very interesting characters who were a decade or so younger than me. We decided to only play our own original songs. The lead guitarist was a talented singer and guitarist. The rhythm and bass guitarists were adequate and I was the drummer and lyricist. We practiced for a couple of years and had over 40 original songs, From experience, I thought we were well and truly ready to gig, but the lead guitarist never felt confident, so out of sheer frustration, I left the band, which continued with a new drummer but, even after another 2 years, still never gigged and folded.

                                                          Not my drums, but very similar.

Now to the Dope and Dunny bit.

I have never done drugs, in spite of growing up and playing in bands during the 60s and 70s. My main vice was, and still is, a fondness for single malt Scotch whiskey. However, the other three band members were absolute pot heads so, as you can image, after about 30 minutes, what was great music turned into a wailing cacophony of sound.

To protect myself from the stinking smell of marijuana, I strategically placed my drums under an open window, with a fan behind me. It worked. Except for one day that it didn't. That day, we were experiencing the tail end of a cyclone, with strong winds and pouring rain, so the open window wasn't an option. 

I kept the fan on, in the forlorn hope that it would keep the smoke away from me, but it had the opposite effect. It just made sure that I got a super dose of it. I have a bad reaction to marijuana and it makes me violently ill. Hence the dunny bit.

I was so ill that I got the other guys to phone my, lovely but long suffering, wife to come and pick me up, which she duly did, only to find me hunched over the toilet, loudly singing "Europe" The problem was that she thought I was drunk, which was a huge no-no in my house, so I copped a whole lot of grief from her, on the way home and for some time afterwards. I was too ill to explain what had actually happened until the next day, so the gief was long lasting, although undeserved, or so I thought, in my misery.

Strangely, I refused to attend band practice on future wet and windy days. I still feel ill, just thinking about it.

I continued playing my drums until about a year ago when arthritis made it difficult to hold the sticks and diabetes made the bass and hi-hat pedals too painful to operate. I still love good drum music and always will. Watching the ever changing drummers in Santana (all excellent) is a passion.

                                                                          Santana 2016

 

1950's Kids, a Bonfire and a Sack of Snakes.

 Yep, this is a true story. It's based around a few kids in the 1950's, aged around 7 or 8, living in a poor neighbourhood, on the edge of bush, just north of Adelaide. A kid's life was a lot different than today. 

It was just after the end of WW2. There was not much money, so very few toys. There was no TV, just a radio, which the adults huddled around in the evening, listening to the news or serials. Very boring for kids. So we made our own entertainment, which more often than not, got us into a lot of trouble with our parents, neighbours teachers and, on occasion, with the police. 

The police weren't too bad. If you were caught doing something evil or illegal, the local cop would give you a firm clip around the ear and took you home and toid your parents why. Then, all hell broke loose. I lost count of the times I felt my fatherther's belt buckle across my back and legs. I think that's when I learned to hate him, also because he was usually drunk at the time. 

Despite that, I had an amazing time with my mates, running around in the bush, hunting for rabbits, lizards and snakes. Yep, snakes. Usually very poisonous brown snakes, which we used kill and cook on a small campfire and eat. Surprisingly, none of us ever got bitten by a snake or poisoned from eating them. The only danger was the belting my mother would give me with her wooden spoon, when she found out.

                                                      Typical kids from the 50's (not us).

One of our favourite days was Guy Fawkes Day. This was always celebrated on November 5th. and celebrated a failed attempt by the aforementioned Mr. Fawkes to blow up the British Houses of Parliament, way back when. A worthwhile cause, I always thought.

Every neighbourhood used to get together and build a huge bonfire, let off some fireworks and drink beer. It was a great night, even if we kids didn't get any beer.

                                                      A typical Guy Fawkes Day bonfire.

This particular year, one of my more adventurous mates and I, decided to spice things up a bit. As I mentioned, we used to hunt snakes. It was November, which is quite warm, and meant snakes were easy to find. We decided that a sack full of live brown snakes thrown onto the bonfire would be an exciting distraction that everyone could enjoy, so we went hunting, with a large burlap sack in tow.

                                                                      A burlap sack

I took us almost all day to catch enough snakes to half fill the dack. I think we had around 20. That was heavy enough to easily and safely carry that many squiming, hissing, bad tempered brown snakes to an area near home, where we carefully hid them until the bonfire. I know what we were about to do was wrong and, today, anyone, who is a conservationist, myself included, will be horrified at our intentions. Bear in mind, we were two eight year old, semi wild, definitely feral kids of the 1950s.

                                                         About a sackful of brown snakes,

Later that night, the bonfire had burnt down, all the fireworks were finished and, most of the adults were drunk or working on it. It seemed like a perfect time for our little surprise, so we snuck off and  retrieved the bag full of snakes, undid the rope holding the sack closed, and chucked it on the fire. The snakes were less than happy and burst out of the sack at what seemed like 100 miles per her hour and took off in all directions, as did all the drunk or almost drunk adults.

Only us kids ,most of whom were in on the prank, were rolling around on the ground, pissing ourselves laughing. 

The bruises on my back and legs, from my father's belt buckle, took longer than usual to fade. This was because his dinking mates blamed him for not keeping his kid under control and almost causing a mass snake bite event.

It was seriously worth every bruise!!

 

Mapies, Boxthorns and a Ladder

 

It’s that season again!

                                 

Yep, it’s almost magpie swooping season again. Some people hate them, others love them. Either way, they are just protecting their nests. I’m in “love them” category. Why? It goes back to my childhood.

In my early school years (1950s), my family lived in a, somewhat less than salubrious, town called Salisbury North, just north of Adelaide. It was, however, a young kids’ paradise, being on the edge of the bush.

We spent every spare moment in the bush, hunting rabbits, lizards and snakes. Yep, snakes. That leads me to another story about a sack full of snakes and a community Guy Fawkes Day bonfire. I’ll tell that one later. We also went hunting for fledgling baby magpies to steal from their nest, to keep and raise as pets. They make great pets. We never cut their wings and they were free to fly away at anytime, which they usually did, after about a year.

As you may imagine, pinching baby magpies from their nests was fraught with a smidge of danger, due to their parents being slightly more than a little pissed off.

Jmagine this. Two 8 year old boys, bare footed and wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts, with no head coverings, riding their rickety old bicycles down a dirt country road while each holding the end of an old, wooden ladder. “Why would we do that?”, you ask, or not.

Along side that dirt road, grew large boxthorn bushes, upon which the maggies built their nests. Hence the ladder. One of us would scoot up the ladder as fast a we could, grab a couple of baby magpies, almost ready to leave the nest, gently put them inside our shirts and escaping, with parents in hot pursuit, swooping the hell out of us, almost all the way home. We always abandoned the ladder for a few months for safety’s sake, while whizzing a long piece of bamboo above our heads and riding like hell.

The downside was multiple chunks of skin missing, due to successful swoops from angry magpies and deep scratches from the bloody boxthorn bushes. The upside was we each had a beautiful pet magpie that, almost instantly became part of the family for the next year, until they flew away.

I always called my pet magpie Foster Williams, who was a player/coach of the Magpies (Port Adelaide Football Club). 

That’s why I love magpies.

                                              

Fos Williams