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!

How I love reading of the old days in the Tamborine Bulletin! Not only does it inform me; it sometimes takes me back to my childhood at Buccan and my school days at Logan Village. This time, I was transported to the one-teacher school where headmaster Mr Alec Brown reigned supreme. I was terrified of him, although I am sure he was just a kindly old chap who did his best for us.

ENAMELLED PLAQUE

TRUE STORY

It was during the Great Depression, when money was in short supply, that the collector would visit weekly to pick up a small amount of cash toward the sum that was owed. The two young boys who were sitting at the top of the outside stairs glimpsed the gas man approaching. They informed their mother who was nearby on the verandah. Knowing she did not possess even the trivial necessary amount, she flung herself onto one of the handy beds, and in a panic-stricken voice beseeched her sons, ‘Quick! Cover me with the rug! And tell the man I am not at home!’