Email to:Leeton Style: Farenheit 45.1 And Rising!
Henry Lawson arrived in Leeton in January, 1916. By August 1917, he’d had a gutful and was gone…..
So, to this day, Leeton has a difficult relationship with Henry. Nice that a celebrity spent time there writing about the progress of the dream that was The Murrumbigee Irrigation Area: preposterous that he hated the place.
My position on Henry is complex. Of course, I’m disgusted that a man with a famous imagination found no solace in my hometown - but then again, he did arrive in JANUARY.
Leeton in January is Hell On Earth. Let me take you to our place when I was a kid. Please note: Everything described below happened in the absence of air-conditioning, UV potions, melanin or overhead fans.
cr: Alfred T. PalmerLibrary Of Congress: flickr
There is a fibro palace (pictured) with three bedrooms, five kids and the temperature is soaring – 40 degrees is good. Anything over, handable if it doesn’t last longer than three days……anything longer, trouble, big, BIG trouble.
We have an immediate problem. Our hot water comes from a wood stove. To bathe and cook and wash up – and assure people that yes, we do have hot water - that stove has to be lit – 44 degrees outside or not.
Subsequently, our house is breaking all the World Health Organisation’s guidelines on ‘habitable’ temperatures.
All day, we’re hanging out of our beds in disillusional states, disorientated family members are saying unforgivable things to each other and a fitful Hec is playing a dangerous game. Doctors have warned him NOT to drink beer inside The Furnace (Beer & Heat Induced Brain Atrophy almost assured) but he will NOT desist.
Instead, he tries to stay alive by disporting himself around The Furnace dressed only in big Y-Fronts.
And neighbours are shocked when he broadens his ‘Y-Front only’ horizons. Fleeing The Furnace and the madness – A Man Can’t Take It Anymore – a semi-naked Hec stumbles out the backdoor, pulling our tiny, dangerously dehydrated Australian Silkie Terrier, Bindi-Boo-Major, around the block – again and again.
Meanwhile, back at The Furnace Gwennie is adding to the atmospheric mix of heat and smoke from the slow combustion stove – with ample squirts of defoliant from her pump driven fly spray can. Very modern tartan pattern.
Gotcha, gotcha GOTCHA…….if ya don’t like it close your mouths or go outside…….gotcha, GOTCHA!!!!
Exhausted after her latest fly eradication programme, Gwennie collapses on the yellow vinyl divan on the back verandah, only to yell 20 minutes later:
Come and help. Come and HELP. I’m stuck to it, I’m stuck to the couch, I’M STUCK!!
It happens that at that moment, Mr Y-Front returns, reporting that because A Man Has Had Enough he’s nearly killed Bindi Boo Major by yanking his lead too hard.
How many times does A Man have to say it? Stay off the vinyl Gwennie. Stay off it. It’s too hot. Too bloody hot. You know you always get stuck. Wonder you’ve still got a bum….!
When night falls, but the temperature doesn’t, Gwennie refills her tartan killing machine in preparation for the mosquito invasion.
But she is powerless. By now, her children are unrecognisable. They are seas of mozzie bites, indispersed with flashes of young skin. Her once beautiful, now heatstroke-afflicted offspring, are spent – sprawled out on five beds, five pairs of vacant eyes gazing at the ceiling, praying that tomorrow God will have mercy and ‘bring it in’ under 40 degrees.
So Henry….come to think of it, I not only forgive you for thinking ill of my beloved Leeton but salute you for doing two Januarys.
And if you’d been around in our time we’d have invited you around for a big roast tea. Even asked you to read a bit – perhaps from Up The Country?
`Sunny plains’! Great Scott! — those burning
wastes of barren soil and sand
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land!
Desolation where the crow is! Desert where the eagle flies,
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes;
Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep
Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep.
Stunted peak of granite gleaming, glaring like a molten mass
Turned from some infernal furnace on a plain devoid of grass.
* Meanwhile, good news. The renovation of of Henry Lawson’s Leeton residence has been completed. First Occupant? A DOCTOR…
http://www.irrigator.com.au/news/local/news/general/cottage-work-completed/1572626.aspx
cr: NHA Library:flickr
*Alright then - IT’S coming and there’s nothing I can do about it – but I still hate Summer. Our trigger words – compliments of The Macquarie: Australia’s National Dictionary: Furnace, families, hot, hot, hot, unbearable, hot, hot, mozzies, flies, Y-Fronts, Henry Lawson.
And please report in on how you’re coping – or, for that matter, NOT at all.
******ALL commenters go for it!! Just click on the ‘comment’ thingo and follow the simple instructions. The place to write your gems is at the bottom of the last published comment. *A little bit of counsel for people new to this caper. Your email (just called ‘mail’ in this case) address does NOT come up on site. And just ignore the URL thingo – just ignore it.
Prawn Cutlet Award
September 13th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I feel for Hec.
An unfortunate feature of the male body is that the human testes must always remain at a temperature lower than that of the body. That’s why the testes are external.
To compensate, the testes are lowered by the scrotum.
In extreme temperatures, the testes may extend to about the length of a pair of jockey shorts.
I have the impression that in Leeton the testes may extend to knee level, if not lower.
If there’s one thing Leeton needs, it’s a good ice works.
Dear The Dude,
Are you a doctor? KJ.
September 13th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Dear KJ,
I’m skipping to February……but what about when you’d be walking home from school and get stuck in the melting bitumen?
I was in danger of becoming a road sign.
Dear Ex-Leetonite,
I’m having terrible flashbacks here…..getting stuck in the bitumen with school shoes on was one thing but if you happened to be wearing throngs, it was DANGEROUS with a capital ‘D’.
My approach? I did NOT stay with my thongs. Reasoning? Gwennie could replace thongs but not me.
Strategy? Launch out of thongs and attempt a hot dirt landing. Reasoning? I MIGHT SURVIVE if I just keep moving fast….KJ.
September 14th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Memories of great bitumen from times past!
When I was a boy, we used to scrape up melted bitumen in Summer – and use it to make canoes.
How so?
We put the melted bitumen between sheets of old corrugated iron to reinforce it.
Then we fashioned the canoes.
Using our home made paddles, off we went up the river.
HOWEVER, when the bitumen set it became brittle.
Our canoes fell apart.
That is how I learnt to swim.
Dear Mr Chaddleberry,
Write it, WRITE it!
*What river do you speak of? KJ.
September 14th, 2009 at 9:31 am
I’ve mentioned this before, but my favourite Lawson bit on Leeton was his observation that you could wash your trousers, put them on, exit the front of your house, walk once round your dwelling, and by the time you got back to the front door, your strides would be dry.
To his credit, Lawson did speak highly of the citizenry of Leeton, whilst vigorously deploring the heat and the dust storms.
My abiding image is of cars being parked outside of short-stay destinations like the TAB and butcher shops with the engines running, so the air conditioning could be left on while the drivers were gone.
Dear Roma Street,
This I must ask – what’s the WORST episode of Leeton ultra, ULTRA violet ray induced sunburn you’ve ever endured?
School swimming carnivals always left me delirious, throwing up and fit for a burns unit. Zinc cream liberally applied around my nasal region was, in retrospect, a laughable strategy.
And what about when the sunburn turned into big blisters which eventually popped – ‘waters breaking’ Leeton style?
I’ve had so many skin cancers cut out, lasered or frozen off – it’s now very dangerous for me to go anywhere near water. Too many holes – I sink.
Please note: My foundation tone is described as: ‘Anaemic, tending towards the freckly’.
KJ.
September 14th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
KJ – Like many Leetonians (I imagine) I can’t recall a specific out-of-the-box bad sunburn, because sunburn was just a constant fact of summer life…..
All summer long a pattern – burn, sting, peel, burn, sting, peel. Spend every third or fourth night tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable sleeping position.
My own kids are incredulous when I tell them that we didn’t have to wear a hat to school, we didn’t have to wear sunscreen, we played outside every recess and lunchtime even when it was 40 in the shade – and so on and so forth….
If they forget to take their hats to school any time from September to March, they aren’t even allowed outside.
I do remember a flame-haired girl in our form making a gigantic error of judgement one weekend and going topless on a girls’-day-out river excursion. She flopped them out unprotected for a whole afternoon, and lived to rue it.
I didn’t get a first-hand gander at the results but it did result in a couple of days off school and bralessness for a fortnight.
Dear Roma Street,
My goodness! Any young woman intent on going topless in the Riverina blazing sun is either stark-raving mad, has NO self-protective instincts or is a certified Exhibitionist.
Thank God I never turned up to school with a sick certificate along these lines: Reason For Absence – Fried Breasts.
KJ.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Dear KJ,
I applaud Mr Lawson. Not only a brilliant poet but a man of forethought.
Dear Tidy Town – Welcome!
……’ a man of forethought…..’ Now, that’s enough!
The Ginger Man once took it upon himself to comment that the MIA is ‘an irrigation area without water…’
He hurt me and he hurt Leeton. KJ.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Came downstairs as An Act Of Courage.
Saw what The Dude said about testes.
Feeling very vulnerable.
Back to the man eatin’ doona.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Ja, Herr Dude.
Das ist ein interesting phenomenon as dieser Paper enumerates……
(Full text: http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/15/6/1355)
Several recent studies have reported a gradual decline in sperm production in men. Endocrine disrupters as well as lifestyle have been suggested as risk factors. One lifestyle factor that may affect human fertility is driving a vehicle for a prolonged period.
Several authors have suggested that driving position may increase the scrotal temperature.
In order to validate this hypothesis, we conducted continuous monitoring of scrotal temperature in real conditions, i.e. in men driving a car for a prolonged period. Nine volunteer men were asked to walk outside for 40 min and then to drive a car for 160 min. Scrotal temperatures were measured from thermocouples and values recorded every two minutes on a portable data recorder.
Very few experimental studies have evaluated the consequences of various postures, supine, sitting and standing, on scrotal temperature.
The main conclusions are that scrotal temperature is lower when walking as compared to the sitting position (Rock and Robinson, 1965, Brindley, Jockenhövel et al, 1990).
Dr Schwarzenheim – thank you.
I have just signed on in a volunteering capacity to help with the next field experiments – I will be operating the portable scrotal temperature data recorder. KJ.
September 14th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Got home 6.30 pm.
The dogs have eaten half a bag of blood and bone fertiliser.
Boys not eaten.
Husband leaves home and goes back to work.
Not expected home till 9pm.
Have to ring the dog poison hotline.
Somehow get through to the Children’s Hospital instead – they give me advice nevertheless.
Take the dogs for a walk to see whether they are normal. Seem okay but hard to tell as they are not my dogs but my sisters who’s at a funeral interstate.
Listen to a speech to be given in grade three class tomorrow by my eight year old consisting of a series of long descriptions of pre-flight waiting periods at several international airports.
And you want to talk about is scrotums.
Dear Greek and loving it,
There is no such thing as ’scrotums’. As in: Your husband has a scrotum (singular). But all your girlfriends’ husbands have scrota (plural).
Enjoy the rest of your evening. KJ.
September 14th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Greetings from Del Boca Vista……
Summer is cocktail time here in the retirement home on Australia’s answer to Florida, the Gold Coast. And I love it.
We’re never allowed to venture outside (of course). I got so bored last year, I stripped down to my smalls and went for a run outside on the evergreen croquet lawn to great applause from my fellow retirees.
However, I passed out because of the heat and woke up two days later on a drip in hospital.
This year I’m going to sit by the indoor pool with my Margheurita and get Jose the pool cleaner to strip down to his boxers and run over the croquet lawn (visible from the pool room).
I’m having a whip around with the other ladies here to raise money for it.
Dear Martha,
Community, community, COMMUNITY……If there were more people in Australia like you – with a real sense of COMMUNITY – it’d be a very different place.
*If Jose won’t do the boxer run for under $50, have him sacked. KJ.
September 15th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Dear KJ,
I was about to phone the RSPCA after I read that Hec applied unreasonable force to to Bindi Boo Major’s collar.
However, I’m sure – from what I have read of this man – that he, just like Henry, INDEED had had a gutful as you reported.
But Yogi demanded I answer this question: Boo Boo, you will never yank my Y-fronts too hard?
No Darling Yogi, but I confess I often feel like doing so…..
All’s forgiven Hec.
Love,
Boo Boo and Yogi.
Dear Boo Boo,
In these pragmatic times, what a wonderful world you and Yogi have created for yourselves…..
Now, on the matter of calling the RSPCA about Bindy Boo Major – you would have been 33 years too late. That’s how long we’ve been learning to live without him. As far as cold cases go, Bindi Boo Major’s is freezing. KJ.
September 15th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Dear KJ,
Carnt help thinkin’ something very odd is going on.
I’ve been studying photos of Della’s other woman (recently published in Fairfax Press) – and she bears a remarkable resemblance to… Belinda Neal.
As a dear friend from Ipswich once said to me: Please explain.
Confusedly Yours,
The Old Carnt.
Dear The Old Carnt,
Yes, the resemblance is striking and others have commented on it.
From a psychosexual perspective (my all-time favourite way of seeing things) the situation is NOT unusual.
Men indulging in illict affairs often are subconsciously drawn to women who look very much like their ’socially sanctioned other’.
And this makes perfect sense.
For example, some men have even been able to take their paramours to extended FAMILY dinners and no-one has been able to detect anything unusual.
Then there is the potentially vexed issue of The Bedroom. Studies indicate that the vast majority of men – if given the choice – would prefer a ‘business as usual’ approach in this regard. Continuity in physicalities is one way to ensure this.
Human beings are indeed endlessly fascinating. KJ.
September 15th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Dear KJ,
Y-Fronts????
Fanny.
September 15th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
The design of scrota
Is peculiar indeed,
For they need low temps
To groweth the seed.
You can read all about them
In the medical textbooks,
Which however say nought….
About their appalling bad looks.
September 15th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Dear KJ and Martha,
MY Jose – MY pool guy – is predicting an especially hot summer.
(I think he’s concerned about keeping his job)
Really, he should have NO worries in that department – however hot it gets.
In fact, I think if The Rev Kev was doing his stimulatin’ job properly – every girl would have a Jose this summer.
I remain ever hopeful,
(Mrs) Libby Pearls.
Dear Mrs Pearls,
I agree, I agree! Under The Rev Kev’s Highly Stimulatin’ package, Joses should have been dispatched to every corner of this wide, brown land.
The nit-picking Opposition would have, no doubt, made a meal of it.
Turnbull: Is it true Julia that a woman leading a quiet life in Deniliquin has been allocated THREE Joses……..is it ALSO true that a Jose failed to materialise in Burnie last week, breaking a lonely widow’s heart….?
Aaaah…..isn’t it always the same with great ideas?
KJ.
September 15th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Carnt help thinking Libby Pearl’s is right about a very long, very hot summer.
In fact I’m already hearing rumours circulating in Canberra that the Government is thinking of some kind of Jose ban…or at least restrictions – you can only turn your Jose on before 8am and after 7pm……that kind of caper.
Dear God, what’s this country coming to?
The Old Carnt.
The Old Carnt,
I know, I know…..
In Leeton during summer, Jose restrictions have been in place for years.
It’s Draconian….
When I’m home, I’m only allowed to ‘hand hold’ Jose every second day, between 6pm and 8pm.
I get very upset. KJ.
September 15th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Strike! Strike! Strike!
Dear The Lonely Scholar,
I know! I know! I know!
Academics throughout Australia are striking – but – if I read it correctly – not all on the same day……
Is that Super Dean of yours a scab?
KJ.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
No the Dean is UNDER my skin not ON it.
September 16th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I ain’t drunk..I’m just drinking!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjVfc8-Y7sQ
Dear Greek and loving it,
There’s NOT a person in here who isn’t worried about you……..
Thank you for the song. NOW, we all know that you spent time in the Riverina (down Wagga way) with a truck driver.
So…..here’s a present just for you. Hope it brings back good memories:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OFo6w0RFk8&feature=PlayList&p=2376CBE13DE7AB54&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=27
September 16th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Dear Greek and loving it,
I once had a dog, a beautiful and very silly German Short-Haired Pointer. He would visit the local shops and rarely fail to bring home a special gift for me.
Once he brought a 5kg bag of blood and bone the two blocks home. Smartened up the garden somewhat.
His favourite haunt was the general store. No doors – just multicoloured plastic strips to keep the flies out.
The bread display was just inside. With his gentle mouth (good duck dogs are pointers), he would carry home a loaf or two making not a hole in the bags.
The game was eventually up and I was obliged to reimburse local traders.
My dog also had his freedom curtailed.
Dear Megsy,
I had no idea until Greek and loving it reported in that dogs were keen on blood and bone – MAKING THEM CANNIBALS! KJ.
September 16th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I know the Big Lebowski is rightfully our poet in residence BUT…..
one for Henry L.
A bloke’s got be a fool,
To think the ‘Bidgee’s a swimmin’ pool.
Mossies big as 747’s,
Maaate, this ain’t no heaven.
Nineteen months, no place to drown,
Be back when Leeton’s Tidy Town.
Dear The Comer,
So you are aware that Leeton is in the Tidy Towns Hall Of Fame? Among its accolades – Best Industrial Area, Best Landscaped Sewage Works and Best Waterless Gardens. It’s even been the declared the BEST Tidy Town in Australia. Beat that! KJ.
September 17th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Came downstairs as an Act Of Courage….
What’s public transport coming to?
If I ever went out, I would NOT go on trains (as an act of courage) in peak or after school hours.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/17/2688355.htm
The doona awaits…..
September 17th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Dear KJ,
It’s a beautiful time of the year, so much so that recently T and I have been taking walks in the woods,
& you know what?
Good, healthy exercise never hurt anyone.
But you have to be careful in the woods, it can be quite scary.
The other evening at dusk I heard a noise behind a bush – and caught just a glimpse of a dark shadow – somehow familiar – I cried out: RICHO!
No reply – just a bulky frame crashing through the undergrowth.
And you know what?
Sometimes it feels like you’re out of the woods, but really you’re not.
Having said that, it’s pretty clear to me that Australia has the safest woods in the world.
God Bless,
The Rev Kev.
Dear The Rev Kev,
The image of our first couple strolling in the woods will forever stay with me……
Only the other day T was telling ‘The Women’s Weekly’ that you were her Mr Darcy…
NOW, you have morphed into gamekeeper Oliver, T into Constance, the back lawn of The Lodge is Wragby Wood and ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ is bursting forth in Canberra….
That WASN’T Richo – it was Alvin Purple dropping by to sharpen his romantic instincts.
KJ.
September 17th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
The Rev Kev,
I’m with you…….
That dark shadow lurking in the bush could VERY well have been the Abominable Richo…..
September 18th, 2009 at 10:11 am
The Rev Kev and Chadwick,
With respect, I think it was NOT a Yowie, it was woodstalker HOWIE.
HOWIE still haunts The Lodge with Mrs J HOWIE…..
September 18th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I am poised.
Dear Chadwick,
Whoopy Do!!!!! KJ.
September 19th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
KJ,
Indeed Henry Lawson was gifted, legendary.
Why is it that Australians are often given to slagging off their very best?
Frank Hardy in The Great Australian Legends gave us some propositions, including:
1.That Australians would complain in heaven.
2.That Australian men are great lovers.
3.That vomiting is an art.
4.That every battler could be a virtuoso – given the chance.
5. That Australians always want to be somewhere else.
6.That the Jolly Swagman was the most Australian Australian.
7. That the lame and the dead vote early and often in Australian politics.
Waddya think?
Dear The Comer,
I think this all looks fine EXCEPT for point two. KJ.
September 19th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
I detect an air of masculine tension in here of late.
My recommended reading?
Father Anthony Percy’s ‘The Theology Of The Body Made Simple’.
September 20th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Speaking of Tidy Towns and tidiness, get a load of this little bit of snidery from the Leeton Wikipedia page:
Leeton Shire Council prides itself on keeping the town neat and tidy. The town’s appearance is comparable to that of coastal communities rather than one found in central New South Wales.
Take that, Junee! Get this into ya, Lockhart! Feast on this, Tullibigeal!
Dear Roma Street,
The Wikipedia entry is CORRECT. Leeton does share many features of coastal towns – namely dust storm-generated sand dunes, sand flies and a very high per capita usage of UV Cream. KJ.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Dear The Ginger Man,
WHERE are you….?
I’ll be looking for your face in the crowd at The Emmys – on the red carpet with Toni Collette – promoting ‘The United States Of Lord Ginge’.
Or perhaps you’ll be at the Bronlow Medal presentation tomorrow night…?
Please, PLEASE report in……