The young share-farmer was chatting to my father. In the old days, the depression years of the thirties. They had discussed the drought, the never-ending lack of rain; the rotten...
YOUR OWN TEETH
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General stories
Posts in the General stories category
CONTENTMENT
CONTENTMENT When asked what was the main attribute that contributed to her longevity, my ninety-eight year old grandmother would retort quite defiantly, ‘Contentment!’ This...
TRUE STORY: MUM’S FEET
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...
LIVING WITH A DISABILITY
I have a granddaughter who has ataxia, a form of cerebral palsy. She has a weakness in her hands, her tongue muscle and in the muscles of one leg. This means she cannot run, her...
MY TAP DANCING DAYS
The Hollywood Theatre once stood proudly on the corner of Logan and Chatsworth Roads in Greenslopes. Every Saturday morning in 1938 I would take my sixpence (five cents) to...
MY BREAKFAST COMPANION
If I am engrossed in reading something (perhaps The Bulletin?) he will let me know he is there. Oh yes! He is impatient for me to notice him, for he wants to be fed. Not later,...
MEDICAL ASSISTANCE, NOW AND THEN
What a difference a few decades make! When I was a growing girl in the city, our doctor lived a few streets away. He practiced from home, and would make a lot of house calls;...
POPPY-SHOW
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...
ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER
One thing always leads to another. One of the many interviews that I have done has lead to a learned fellow coming up to do a podcast about ageing, with me, the nonagenarian,...
HIGH SCHOOL FORMALS
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...
TONSILLECTOMY
My little grand-daughter had a tonsillectomy last week. She has recovered well. It reminded me of my own experience when I was five. After contracting the dreaded diphtheria when...
SUNFLOWERS
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,...
TO END… OR NOT TO END…
I cannot quite understand it. Here is this woman, 86 years old, very capable, well educated and articulate, good company and in good health, but who is flying to Switzerland next...
FAIR EXCHANGE
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,...
A CHILD OF THE DEPRESSION
When I say that I am ‘a child of the Depression’, most folk know what I mean. It tells them that I do not waste anything if I can help it; I buy hardly anything if I can do...
YOU ARE JUST STARTING TO LEAN A BIT WHEN YOU HAVE TO BLOODY-WELL DIE!
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...
A COLLECTION OF MUSINGS
AMY COLLINS | sexinyourseventies.com AMY COLLINS Mum was always a good and interesting listener. And I would bring home any newsy anecdotes from my work at the hospital. I was...
VALE BARRY HUMPHRIES
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...
THE SILVER THIMBLE
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...
THE MEAT ANTS ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL
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...
THE CROWS AT BUCCAN
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...
REMEMBERING OLD SCHOOL DAYS
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...
ENAMELLED PLAQUE
During the last war, my parents befriended two American soldiers, brothers from Idaho. We became very fond of them and were devastated when the younger one lost his life in the...