KerrieJean.com

Who observed? 

‘Real life beats satire.’

Dunno but he sure was one hell of a guy………

Story from the last couple of days.

It is a story deserving of great respect…

A story to be told without embellishment.

Here goes:

Old journalist mate rings to inform that colleague ‘from the past’  has died.

[Cr: National Library, Wales: flickr] 

Gives funeral time, date and place.

Am unable to attend but receive further call from old journalist mate on funeral day.

The news?

Old journalist mate [1] and one of his old journalist mates [2] turn up for the funeral.

I should mention that  mourner [2's] car is a secondhand hearse purchased in the interests of colossal boot capacity and leisure motoring.

Our two mourners are in the church.

Eulogies start.

A woman remembers ***** **** as a passionate cook, bon vivant and regular traveller to the Bulgarian alps.

Our mourners exchange glances……

Feeling emotions so sadly common in such situations……..

Why didn’t I take the time to get to know ***** better?

Why didn’t I ask ***** what he did in his spare time?

I didn’t know this man at all!

It is when the poignant overheads of  ***** cooking what appears to be swordfish and truffle souffles for 25 guests at his beachside apartment that things become clear.

One of our mourners to the other:

It’s not him. He’s not dead!

Our mourners quickly and quietly leave the church.

So, what happened?

The wife of one of our mourners read a death notice.

The name, the age and the suburb fitted the profile of a journalist who our loyal mourners had worked with some time ago.

The take home message for all readers:

Yes, journalists sometimes get it wrong……….

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So, there you have it……..

Life – and death – can both be perplexing………

Do you have any stories that demonstrate that yes,  real life is better than satire?

Go on…….report in by:

Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.

*Ed’s note: Readers of kerriejean.com know that I am to say the least,  a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very terrified flyer.  And I am not an advocate of anti-anxiety medications or salad vegetables of any description. However, I do fly Air Valium on the rare occasions when camels, hydrofoils, automobiles, trams, trains, ferries, angel wings or penny farthing bicycles are NOT personal transport options. 

This story is a tribute to the tenacity of the hundreds of thousands of good folk still waiting to mount their flying kangaroos at airports throughout the Free World.

Read on……….

ONE GOOD TRIP: THREE GREAT AIRPORTS

My Trip: 1987:  Sydney to Bangkok, on to New Delhi, into Moscow.

 
[Blast off! Cr: San Diego Air & Space Museum: flickr]

Bangkok Airport:
 
Blood valium level high. Slump on terminal lounge with travelling companion, Dickie.

Suddenly felt need to connect with the real Thailand.

Stumble into the exhilarating humidity.

Feel something of menacing proportions digging into my back………..

Ah, so that’s what’s wrong………

Thai military officer armed with machine gun is pointing to sign in many languages.

English version says:  People Entering This Thai Air Force Facility Will Be Shot On Sight. 

Upshot:  Through the big glass terminal windows, Dickie is surprised to see me being escorted – with a machine gun in my rear - back  to traditional slump position.

[Ed's note:  *Reason for machine gun accessory:  Thai-Laotian border war]

New Delhi Airport:

[Ed's note: vessel of conveyance on the Bangkok -New Delhi leg had been Aeroflot] 

Mid-flight Stress levels had been very, very, very, very, very high because the plane looked like it’d survived a Cold War dogfight over The Bay Of Pigs. 

By the time we banged up and down the runway at New Delhi, both me and my blood valium level were through the canvas roof.

Boy oh boy, those customs folks at New Delhi were really something…..

Could have been the dilated pupils, could have been my demeanour [hanging  off Dickie yelling: 'I don't think I can make to London Dickie, I really don't think I can make it to London Dickie.....'] but it doesn’t really matter because the result was the same……

Ending up in a room wallpapered with posters saying horrible things like People Have Been Killed For Far Less Than Whatever You’ve Done .

And being body searched by public servants in turbans.

They were okay.

And sometimes a gentle laying of hands on and in a person can have a calming effect.

After the public servants were quite sure they were dealing with a victim of legal drugs I got dressed and stumbled back  to Dickie.

I still have the copy of the Karma Sutra he bought me while I was  absent.

Moscow Airport: Pre-Perestroika

Blood valium level:  If printouts existed, they’d be in a Museum Of Benzodiazepine Science.

Stumble towards customs……

Well I never…..in all my valium flying days, I’d never have come across anything like this…. 

What a charming bunch of  border protection officers……

Was it their collective beauty?

Was it their sleek hand guns?

Was it their superdooper uniforms? [Just how many gold hammers and sickles can one Soviet Adonis have hanging from his very person?]

Overwhelmed, but finally breaking through the valium haze, I verbally presented my credentials:

Bad airports are all alike…..

But every beautiful airport is beautiful in its own way……

[Adonis]  Eh?

[Me] Mister Tolstoy, no less!

I stumbled out of Moscow Airport.

Dickie walked.

The temperature was minus 73.

Dickie said I’d need more than a red beanie and tartan mini-skirt.

I said I was just glad to be in one piece.

He said I’d better make the most of this holiday because if I thought he’d ever accompany me on one again, I was sadly mistaken.

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What do you do when friends behave in an unreasonable fashion?

What’s the worst trip you’ve ever had?

Should people terrified of flying just grow up?

Are you stuck at an airport?

Did this story help pass the time?

It would be lovely to hear from you………start the process NOW  by:

Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.

You know the place, you love the place……..

And then, some smart talkin’ guy in a fancy automobile suddenly turns up to do a travel piece for a big city newspaper……..

And then…

Without shame, without any feelins’ for the good folk livin’, lovin’ and learnin’ in my irrigated hometown, Leeton, New South Wales, declares:

‘A personal favourite is the automated carwash on Kurrajong Avenue, a must visit for anyone wishing to remove the coating of red mud/dust that clings to every vehicle that spends a day or two around Leeton. An extended wash and brush up costs $12, including the psychedelic lashings of green, white and purple foam. Red mist might impress the four wheel drivers of Mosman but, as the exit signs says, ‘a clean car is a happy car’.

[Sydney Morning Herald, Traveller: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/activity/great-outdoors/soaking-in-the-wetlands-20111019-1m7i5.html

[Mister Huxley on assignment: Cr: State Library, Archives Florida: flickr]

Well, well, well Mister John Huxley………

No wonder there’re 450 inquiries into the Australian media simultaneously underway with operators like you on the loose……

Descending on law abidin’  towns with big expense accounts, struttin’ down main streets swingin’ big notebooks and pointy biros…..

….Demanding, with menaces, to be taken right now to local attractions.

You only had to ask nicely Mister Huxley……..

I note you went to our World Heritage/UN Swamp Mission listed swamps and popped into the ‘modest’ SunRice Visitors’ Centre.

But Mister Huxley, you gotta understand that highly significant swamps and free sample bags of  ‘Two Second Rice With Three Second Prunes’ do not a town make.

Nor – for that matter – does the zaniest car wash on the Pacific Rim.

Come again to Leeton at Christmas Mr Huxley.

Walk the mysterious laneways at the back of the shops on Pine Avenue.

There you’ll see the most magnificent examples of historic rusted corrugated iron fences outside of India……

…..Tap on the steamed up windows of young lovers parking on irrigation channel banks under the most stunning moonlit skies outside of Uzbekistan……

……..Go crazy during a night of bacchanalian alcopop driven dancing and loose talk in the auditorium of the Leeton Soldiers’ Club ['anyone for the Kokoda Trail?']

And Mister Huxley, we won’t be going anywhere near a car wash.

To leave Leeton with an automobile covered with mud just like a choc top icecream is a long held and very important traditon……

You only had to ask.

* A bonus audio extravaganza: Kerrie Jean visits one of Leeton’s World Heritage/UN Swamp Mission listed swamps: 

Episode 3: A Lovely Day At The Swamp

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Gee, can’t journalists be insensitive?

I ask you: have you ever been to a place only to discover that your trip to the carwash was the highlight? I doubt it, I really do.

What can we do to clean up journalism?

If a journalist was visiting your town, what would you really demand he/she report back on? [and please don't, don't tell me your town has the most exciting car wash anywhere]

I await your news. Report in by:

Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.

Children want to fit in…..

But sometimes it’s not possible.

I’ve just discovered that a lobby group called Rainbow Schoolies will be agitating to make sure students of gay parents don’t feel strange when they make two Mothers Day cards -  or their Fathers Day cards feature sperm banks.

[http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/happy-fathers-day-mum--gender-restriction-a-challenge-for-gay-families-20111016-1lrfi.html]

Call me old fashioned…..but kids have always coped well  – on their own terms  – with parents of  ‘difference’.

Life goes on. No one gets too upset. No one goes beserk.

My father, Hec, was born in 1914.

It’s, of course, now common for fellas to hold off having children at least until they get their vasectomies reversed – whether that be in their forties, fifties or nineties.

But in the small irrigated township of 1950s Leeton, NSW,  Hec was launching his Fecundity Festival at the same time his peers were frantically arranging shotgun marriages or Papal annulments for their grown up children.

When I was born Hec was 45.

['In my dreams..' cr: Keene & Cheshire County photos: flickr]

In what was a stellar late breaking reproductive career,  he produced five lovely girls in a little more than six years.

Then – like so many brilliant late developing actors, singers or AFL footballers - he retired.

It was my difficult entry into the Catholic education system that confirmed My Dad was a freak.

As was family tradition, Hec delivered me into the clutches of angry, sweaty women in heavy black dresses and creepy long veils.

Tonnes of religious bling hanging from their thick leather belts clinked and clanked in the traditional Riverina  ’start of school year’  heatwave.

Was I having a nightmare in which magpies had grown to one hundred times their size?

No.

Looking around, I saw huge magpies hovering over many other kids.

But there was something else.

The fathers.

They were different to mine.

And it wasn’t just the missing teeth…….

They were jaunty with slicked back mullets, tight pants and - my goodness - some were even sidling  into the magpies…….

And the magpies liked it!

The harsh reality?

Me - five, Hec - 50, other dads 23-27, the magpies, indeterminate.

I did for many, many years want A Dad like all The Other Dads.

So much so that when the local Coles store ran a ‘Draw Your Dad’  Fathers Day competition my entry was of a young man with a mullet and missing teeth.

It won.

My interpretation of  Hec Ross writ normal was in the Coles window for two weeks.

Gwennie said the judges obviously had NO idea about anything.

I won a selection of ‘Old Spice’ products.

Hec didn’t want them.

He said no man worth his salt would walk around town smelling.

Even though he was very old, I thought he had a point.

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We all want to fit in, don’t we?

I still do but one thing’s for sure, my new mullet isn’t working very well towards this aim….not at all, not at all……..

Did you have parents that weren’t quite ‘right’ when conformity was the rule?

Isn’t it awful to think how embarrassed they made us?

Still…….fathering a child at age 45 in a country town in the fifties…..well I never!!!!!!

Feel free to report in on these issues – and anything else that takes your fancy. Do it by:

Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.

*For those who’ve never mooned or met a mooner, it’s an act of provocation whereby a non-thinking person bends over pointing their buttocks in the direction of another person or persons.  Read on…..

And so it was that a family was partaking of what had quickly become - in contemporary times - a traditional Christmas luncheon…

…….Compliments of  Delicious.

…..Prawns in prawn jus, goat’s cheese flan with elderflower garnish, lobster kebabs with wasabi crust, rocket with rocket and kumquats with kumquat inspired kumquat sorbet.

This was an extended Australian family which loved each other despite terrible underlying tensions and gross intolerances.

…..Two nihilstic nephews, three swearing sisters, four Catholic jihadists, five antsy atheists, six Labor loonies, seven National nutbags – and not a peacenik in sight.

The conversation was driven by passion and hard liquor. 

The same unbridegable differences in political orientations, opinions about appropriate hem lengths and same sex/different postcode marriages, remained. 

A teenager at the table could take no more.

[Whose side are you on? Cr: National Archives, Netherlands:flickr]

Excusing herself from the kumquat with kumquat inspired kumquat sorbet she – as if on automatic pilot - got up from the table and – as if in a dream - sashayed outside.

Soon after, our warring Yuletiders fell silent.

Their eyes – as if one big eye - bulged.

Their fists – as if one big fist -thumped the air.

Collective shouts went up:

No, no NO!

Yes, yes YES!

There it was in sharp relief.

The teenager had reappeared, pushed against the sliding doors backgrounding our Christmas luncheon.

Mooning……

The Yuletide Mooning Incident saw the family split even more [if that was possible]

The Free Expressionists went head to head against the Moral Anti-Mooning Majority.

There were no winners.

As for The Mooner, she was frozen out of all family talk and activities for what became known as her Decade In The Mooning Wilderness.

I know she learned a lot there.

For The Mooner was me.

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To tell you the truth, I still feel bad about what I did that Christmas.

But watching ‘The Slap’ has eased the pain.

‘I just couldn’t help it’ was my defence back then – and it remains so now.

But, whose side are you on?

Was The Mooner justified?

Can Mooning ever be justified?

One thing’s for sure, every Australian family has a ‘The Slap’ like incident in its history.

And it’s about time you came clean about yours.Be brave.
Do it now by:

Just clicking on the ‘comment’ thingo and following 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.