KerrieJean.com

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.

*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.

If this wasn’t the worst way to end my week……

…….Which, quite frankly, already hadn’t been what you’d describe as  ’stellar’……..

The email from kerriejean.com field correspondent, Roma Street, was tagged ‘urgent’ -  its brevity only adding to the drama:

KJ – I read in *’The Irrigator’ that Leeton has just become the proud possessor of its first set of traffic lights.

What do you make of this development?

[*Award-winning bi weekly newspaper of my hometown in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, Murray-Darling Salinity Basin, NSW]
http://www.irrigator.com.au/news/local/news/general/towns-first-traffic-lights-are-installed/2212227.aspx

For all on the Pacific Rim and in the Free World this is what I make of it, this is what I make of it…………..
I am sad, angry, confused, fearful, perplexed, nervy, twitchy, itchy, hollow, all-at-sea and feeling in need of a facelift before my time………….

[Is there no amber in life? cr: US National Archives: flickr]

WHAT NEXT?

A Dan Murphy’s emporium on the site of the historic Temperance Union Hall……..?

…A  soccer ball the size of the Hindenberg flat bang in the middle of the historic Leeton Redlegs Australian Rules Football Club rooms?

……An Aldis superstore on the site of my historic adolescent groping site, the Roxy Theatre….? 

God help me.

God help my hometown.

*And thank you Chadwick for this missive……if there’s one time I need some philosophical ponderings it is now……….

‘The emergence of traffic lights in Leeton is a national disgrace.

Before, we had a fair rule for all: give way to the right or die….

Give way to the right was obeyed, drunk or sober.

Now wankers will say: I was just crossing on the amber.

Amber?

There is no amber  in life.’

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Oh dear, dearie me………

A terrible start to the weekend………

Please tell me: do you feel old too? 

Is there really no amber in life?

Tell me……..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.

Is one just not enough?

Have just returned from my daily unconstitutional with this alarming observation…..

Multiple births are not only de rigueur: they’re the norm…..

And from the number of dual carriageway prams on my main street [being jogged along by 45 kilo 45-year-olds in Olympic cycling team lycra] conception by traditional means, is over.

[........Do you take this man, woman, indeterminate to have and to hold and from this day forth, promise to embark on all the IVF treatments it takes to have at least two children in one go...?]

It wasn’t always like this…..

I am the product of sex and when I was growing up in Leeton, Murray-Darling Basin, the Pacific Rim in the 1960’s, there were many, many children from similar backgrounds.

And everyone knew the couples who ‘could not have children’ because even though they’d been married for more than nine months, they didn’t have any.

People were deeply compassionate towards couples who ‘could not have children’.

And working out just whose fault it was, was very important.

[Cr: Oregon State University Archives: flickr]

….It’s him/it’s a blockage/it’s her/it’s a twisted something/it’s both/it’s a blockage and a twisted something/ it’s God’s will/ there’s no blockage or twisted something……..

No one dared ask the couple who ‘could not have children’ what the problem was…..

That’d be rude……

I liked the couples who ‘could not have children’.

They were always snazzily turned out and could afford to go on P&O Cruises to exotic places on the Pacific Rim.

They were very dignified and even pinched each others’ bums in public.

In restrospect, I wonder how many of them could have children but didn’t want any.

……Perhaps with the prevailing mood, best to let the talk of blockages and twisted things go unchecked.

And for those couples who did want kids but found the quest elusive and did not have access to technologies to change the situation, good on you…..

You moved well through my town……

And try as they will, the Fecundity Police could never catch ya!

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Those of us of a certain age all remember those special couples I speak of, don’t we?

Perhaps you were even part of one of them……

Would love to hear from you…..on this or any other front…….

It’s free, it’s easy……how about you throw caution to the wind – and 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.

The Shroud of Turin, the Eureka Flag, the canopy from the last Spitfire ever made [saw it on the Antiques Roadshow], the Leeton Redlegs jumper worn by the greatest Australian Rules player the Riverina ever produced, Des Lyons…..

Priceless artefacts?

Most certainly.

However, I too have something very superdooper.

My curatorial notes say:

‘On KJ’s alluring bed there is a huge bespoke spread consisting of several hundred squares of winter fabric.

The fabrics are a magnificent pastiche of obscenely bright wools, foxy flannels, titillating tweeds………

….The superb spread consists of offcuts from the hundreds of superb outfits the country artist, Mrs ’Goucho’ Gwennie Ross, made for her five daughters over a period of some 15 years.’

['The quilt dreamer': cr: George Eastman House: flickr]

I’ll let you into a little secret….

I never have dreams or, for that matter, nightmares, in winter……..

No point.

They’d be superfluous for as I snuggle down, the hopes, fears [and dare I mention, occasional sinful behaviour?] of five Catholic girls literally weighs heavily on me…….

****The purple velvet  squares were Merrilee’s outrageous *gauchos. 

So taken was a studious Leeton High School pupil by the outlandish gauchos, he proposed somewhere between the canary yellow wool squares [poncho] and the lime flannel squares [micro mini with pom pom hem].

****The fluoro flannel squares were Julie’s 43-inch-wide flared pants with matching cape. So intrigued was a Leeton High School romantic he spent long days perched on our fence hoping to catch a glimpse of the ’fox in fluoro’. 

When our fox moved into the soft green garbardine squares [modest pinafore with detachable collar] our fence sitter quickly moved on. 

****The restrained mauve wool squares were Kaye’s Catholic Ball gown. It’s a wonder she survived the night so tight and high was its ‘Vatican inspired close-fitting, high-necked’ feature.

But, by the time she’d moved into the hot tangerine twill squares, things had changed. Her impending marriage had given her much needed breathing space and new found zest.

****The sizzling pink merino squares were Frank’s tilt at sophistication, *gouchos with matching bolero.

However, after turning up at a school dance where everyone, on her arrival, shout Ole! Ole!, she quickly moved into the sombre tweed squares. 

Despite this, Gwennie’s obsession with *gouchos went up a notch: ‘It’s all tweed and gouchos now. Ole!’

****The bright red and blue squares were my hotpants overlayed with a full split skirt….. 

A sensational ensemble which never really got off the ground.

When I arrived at the school formal, a nun with a big red, angry [square] face rushed out of the throng with needle and thread and proceeded to sew up the front of my skirt.

By the time I’d catapulted myself  into the vermillion and hot mustard squares, I was out of the Catholic school system – and back into hotpants.

And very pleased.

So, thank you Gwennie.

Seamstress to the starlets…….

And like all great artists…..controversial, single-minded in vision – and, quite frankly, sometimes very strange……

* I have no idea why Gwennie was such a fan of the gaucho.  

But I do know this….

Pleas along the lines of: ‘Look Gwennie it’s a school dance, not a shoot out,’ always fell on deaf ears.’ 

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So, let’s mark the not inconsiderable achievements of our mothers……

I’m not one but I sure as hell am thankful that I’ve got one – and just didn’t turn up out of the blue.

And here’s to all the old style seamstresses – craftswomen of the highest order – even if they did push their singular visions a little too hard on occasions.

There’s a whole hidden history of  ’at home couture’ in Australia – if you’ve got personal experience, please report in…….

Easy to do…….

Just by 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.

I spent a fair few Saturdays hanging around outside St Joseph’s Basilica – Leeton, NSW – waiting for brides to fall out of gleaming Holdens and Fords…….

I was not alone.

And weddings of ‘particular interest’ attracted crowds of onlookers, all women and girls.

‘Of particular interest’ could mean many things….

Heavily pregnant brides always pulled big numbers.

Very dramatic. 

A mix of emotions among  the onlookers: ‘There but by the grace of God go I’,  ‘She’ll go into labour during the bridal waltz’,  ‘There must be at least 56 yards of satin in that dress.  Sad really……darn sad.’

In my town, it was said that snub noses were caused by pregnant brides corsetting themselves in too tightly for the big day.

I saw nothing to make me believe otherwise.

‘Of particular interest’ could also mean the marriage of  a local netball, kangaroo shooting or footy celebrity.

If two celebrities were marrying each other – eg a  beautiful netball champion and a drop dead gorgeous Australian Rules footballer – it could hardly get any better…

Except if…..

Both sets of parents were flashy types who’d made squillons out of gravel or demountable homes……..

And it was a known fact that they’d  got the wedding partys’ imported dresses from a boutique on the Gold Coast.

And the reception wasn’t going to be at the RSL because …….well, just BECAUSE…….

Yes, it was all quite unbelievable……..

Until everyone turned up for ‘a squiz’ .

General non-invitees consensus:  Unflattering dress, unflattering makeup, unflattering foundation and eyeshadow, unflattering shoes, unflattering hairdo, unflattering flowers, unflattering veil, unflattering earrings…….quite nice gloves [bought locally].

You can criticise brides but laugh at them?

NEVER.

I think some of  The Chaser boys are family men…..

How would they feel if I’d turned up outside their wedding – and laughed at their brides?

I don’t think they’d like it.

Fullstop.

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Anzac Day Story

If ever there was the evidence I am no longer a reasonably alluring little babe, this is it……..

I am old enough to have been at Anzac Day marches where there was a big contingent of Gallipoli veterans.

In my hometown – the irrigated, salinity ridden settlement of Leeton, NSW – Anzac Days provided welcome opportunities for bored and belligerent youngsters to go up the main street and explore notions of patriotism and pomp.

The five Ross girls were no exception.

On the Anzac Days of my childhood – in the late sixties/early seventies – flashy townsfolk who could afford to party or go water skiing at a Murrumbidgee River beach called Turkey Flat, did.  

Subsequently, the number of veterans amassing near the Memorial Holden Dealership then marching down Pine Avenue, far surpassed the entertainment-deprived onlookers.

So great were the veteran numbers that even in a small town they were able to march under their own banners – Rats of Tobruk,  Pit Bulls of Passchendael, Grass Spiders of Gallipoli, Killer Whales of Kokoda……..

It was surprising to discover that Barry the Butcher or Pat the Plumber were – in other lives - killer whales or pit bull terriers.

These were the times too that every town with a modicum of self-respect supported more bands than those amassed for the final scenes of  ’Brassed Off’.

It was also surprising to find out that Jack [who I always saw 'jackhammering' the local footpaths] was very multi-skilled.

There he was with a very serious, if not pained, look on his face  – blowing bagpipes but mostly concerned about a kilt malfunction.

There are two Leeton Anzac Day incidents I remember well.

The first involved my ‘middle’ sister.

Five sisters went up to Pine Avenue that Anzac Day.

Only four returned.

Julie went missing in action. 

Hec and Gwennie were besides themselves…….

As the hours went by - and the military police were about to called – in walked Private Julie.

She’d had a lovely day – eating cream cakes and drinking lime cordial – with a kindly woman who, so the gossip went, ran a house of ill repute.  

The second is this.

While I was marvelling at how ‘Jack the Jackhammerer’ could hold it all together, an old veteran ‘went down’ – just near the big War Memorial, near the Leeton Post Office.

He was in big trouble.

From the crowd, a lady was running.

‘I’m a nurse, I’m a nurse!’

[Australian Field Nurse:  Cr: Aus War Memorial, Canberra: flickr]

I could not see our fallen veteran…….

But I could see our field nurse.

A small women, it was as if she was bouncing up and down on our fallen veteran’s chest.

Suddenly, she stood bolt upright, punched her fist in the air and yelled:

‘He’s back, he’s back!’

I knew that our field nurse had done something very special.

*Click ‘ere for a past Anzac Day post about Hec:

http://www.kerriejean.com.au/2009/04/just-a-little-anzac-day-note/

Your Anzac Day memories? Share them with everybody:

Just by 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.