KerrieJean.com

Would seeing a farmer deliver a calf by yanking it out with a couple of ropes make you aware of where YOU come from?

I certainly hope not!

Still, the cliches abound about how country folk with sex urges allegedly the size and unruliness of Texas learn and put into glorious practice the facts of life.

Simply put, ’we’re’ pig ignorant about the finer points of arousal (gettin’ off), respect with novel approaches (get real!) and general boudoir etiquette (I’d really, really like ya outta here before Warren gets back).

Apparently, ‘we’ witnessed that dramatic calf-with-pulley nativity scene and away we went…..

The truth is much more complex.

It is well-documented that when, at the 1984 Winter Olympics, Torvill and Dean turned Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ into a filthy (albeit artistic) meditation on contemporary lovemaking,  the bedrooms of Australia erupted into seething sites of contortionary hi-jinks.

Injuries sustained during what orthopaedic surgeons -  in hundreds of conference papers - term ’The Bolero Madness’ continue to add to already unsustainable waiting lists.

(One documented case of 1984 Riverina ‘ The Bolero Madness’: cr: laverrue: flickr)

And ‘The Bolero Madness’ was most pronounced in country areas. For in Leeton 25 years ago, regional eroticists had long grown tired of watching livestock in their most intimate of moments. For couples anxious to expand their boudoir repertoire – desperate to have one last go at home before seeking excitement in Ardlethan or Grong Grong -  Torvill and Dean, Mr Ravel and ‘Bolero’ were the Perfect Sensual Storm.

Local record sales of  ‘that bloke Ravel’ went through the roof.

What followed was sexploits of a most surprising nature…..

Long time previously modest marrieds proudly turned up to work in ‘The Bolero Madness’ inspired neck braces. Local football identities disrupted training sessions by lifting team mates high in the air, gazing longingly into their eyes. And in sweaty confessional boxes all over the Riverina, priests sat goggle- eyed while breathless, righteous citizens took great pleasure in relating stories of ‘ The Bolero Madness’ taking them all the way to the Gates Of Hell:

‘And you know what Father, it was bloody good, bloody FANTASTIC!’

So - not to be crass mind but perhaps you’d like to know - did I ever dare taste ‘The Bolero Madness’?

Just once.

First of all - for a pratical country gal - Mr Ravel did go on a bit…..

 ’Bolero’ is FAR too long, coming in at just under five minutes. For someone prone to Sheridan Sheet ‘Seconds’ Stastis, that’s a big ask. 

Another problem….

 ’Bolero’ is deceptive. You think it’s coming to an end only to have it take off again. Disconcerting to say the least, particularly if you’ve got one ear on the stereo and the other on 2RG’s sports round up.

Still, I’m in a minority…..

The 2010 Winter Olympics saw Leeton GP’s again exhausted – and again perplexed.

Hundreds of cases of  ‘The Bolero Madness’ induced trauma were again coming through their waiting rooms.

Nigh impossible to treat…….

Because the Riverina’s ‘The Bolero Madness’ relapse rate is the highest in the developed world.

* For those wishing to re-live your ‘The Bolero Madness’ just click ‘ere.  Please report back with a detailed injury list. *Be extra careful  or extra adventurous - depending on your arousal threshold - around 2:05 and 4:20.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru6qjbRghyU

* So, looking forward to hearing all about your latest brush with ’ The Bolero Madness’.  And, of course, anything else unfolding in your cabbage patch.

*Congratulations to our new posters who’ve joined in of late. To say we all feel privileged is an understatement if ever there was one……

*The Ginger Man: The Riverina Hep Cat Capers.

(cr: Mick O: flickr)

Great news!

Our resident tri polar adventurer with ’ The Bolero Madness’ inspired double pikes, The Ginger Man, is out of the Loaded Dog Henry Lawson Detox Community Cottage and hangin’ real loose……on the streets and in the dance halls of the Riverina.

Follow his ‘Hep Cat Capers’ all this week in our comments section.

For those new to The Ginger Man (in here via Trinity College, Dublin, and Bletchley Park) thumb your nose at that turgid reality that’s passing for a life - and thrill to a swell new vibe.

I know I do!

All posters take a deep breath…..and 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.

Hec and Gwennie produced five lovely girls – and then they proceeded to produce nothing much at all……

cr: jonlarge: flickr

A dismal fecundity scorecard.

Five comely country girls. Three marriages, one childless (nothing wrong with the works mind!) + two maiden sisters  = a grand total of four offspring.  Boys to boot…..

I daren’t speak for my two maiden sisters but this I can tell you.  At age seven, I looked around Leeton and quickly identified the Murrumbidgee Maidens, the spinsters.

They were the ones with long plaits twisted up in hair nets.

Then I observed how they went about their daily business, concluding:  I like the cut of a spinster’s crimplene!

Leeton spinsters were always busy.

They could be seen zipping around town in 20 year old pristine Holdens. Young men lusted after spinster vehicles. Sadly, the battles to secure a recently deceased spinster’s V8 were always unseemly…..

‘I’m havin’ Miss Rachett’s Holden if it’s the last thing I do. Twenty years old, 890 clicks on the clock….goes like a rocket, unlike Miss Rachett. Eh, eh, eh……’

Leeton spinsters were interesting people to chat with.

They had the time. I had the bulging eyes……

No matter that spinsters tended to get things terribly mixed up. Enthusiastic but bad reporters: purveyors of unsourced, strange information.

‘Your great, great, great, great uncle KJ was, of course, the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Tragically KJ, if Hec’s great, great, great, great grandfather hadn’t signed THAT piece of paper, all you Rosses would be living in a castle in Latvia……’

Occasionally, just occasionally, spinsters would drop in spinster snippets of a personal spinster nature.

In the main, these proved disappointing. Not half as good as what had always been THE story around town.

Most spinsters didn’t lose airmen beaus with matinee idol looks over the Pacific. There were no posthumously awarded VCs hanging  by single gold chains from Ponds cream protected necks.

Rather, IT  ’just never happened’.

And then again - mind you, in retrospect - for some lucky spinsters IT did happen but definitely NOT in Leeton. More a case of once a year on faraway Strokeback Island with a ’special’  friend, girl or otherwise.

So, decades on, what to report about my contemporary spinsterly existence?

It’s a full life, punctuated by good works.

*Like when five years ago I made a *Hummingbird cake and took it to work – in my pristine spinster plastic container – to brighten up the day of stressed colleagues. * Tip: Add extra tinned crushed pineapple for a more ‘velvety’ Hummingbird. 

*Like when I taught my nephew (don’t worry, his name will come to me soon) to drive  for a very reasonable fee…..

*Like when I wanted to be a role model for other not so self-assured spinsters by aiming to be on the cover of ‘New Idea’ as the Pacific Rim’s most sexually active spinster….

Get ready, authentic Spinsterspeak coming your way…….

WHAT A HOOT!

 * Honestly, I’m far too busy to be lonely but I’d  still love to hear from you – whatever your status! Divorced men without bitter bones in their bodies and hidden superannuation  funds - SHE’S not gonna get a cent of it -  most welcome…..

As always, everything valid. We all know the truth. If I was married with obnoxious kids and a great career you’d take notice of my prompts. But, I learnt long ago not to get upset about your unruly postings. Just quietly, I love ‘em!

The Ginger Man Is Back!

*The Detox Diaries.

All this week, follow The Ginger Man’s ‘Detox Diaries’.

Unfortunately ‘things recent’ for our resident tri polar with double pike adventurer haven’t been so dandy.

His trip to Leeton to complete the doco drama The Irrigation Area Without Water has ended at the Henry Lawson Loaded Dog Detox Community Cottage, Daalbata Road.  

(cr: Pip_Wilson: flickr)

For those new to The Ginger Man – ex Bletchley Park, ex Trinity College – be very careful….

He’s addicted and addictive!

All posters take a deep breath…..and 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.

 

My legs are very skinny and they come complete with nobbly knees that just can’t help ‘emselves. Particularly when their favorite song comes on the radio: Crack. Time Is A Crack, Saddler, Crack, Tenterfield Saddler…. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK!!

I also have to be extra careful when shaving: there’s only half a dermis between me and raw bone. One wrong move and it’s a splatter movie……

(cr: Nikonastik: flickr)

From the ages of 12 until, well, last month, my skinny legs were not so much vessels of conveyance, but sources of great pyschosexual angst.

To display them was to die.

Even happy events could turn sour at a moment’s notice.

*Demonstration skinny legs driven phobic episode.  

Stinking hot Assembly. St Francis College, Leeton, 1971. Fundraising raffle in pursuit of new mosquito nets for missionaries being eaten alive in Papua New Guinea.

Prize: Two donated Onkaparinga Satin Trimmed Pure Wool double bed blankets.

Oh Yeah (I think) as Mr Manchester Emporium ( ’Nine Confessions A Week’) gets thanked for his largesse. The truth? These are blankets that no-one not under the influence of psychotropic substances would ever buy: the brightest of brightest oranges. Great for a jumpsuit (I think) but definitely NOT playing well in the bedrooms of Leeton.

Sister Mary McKillya – the meanest operator on the meanest block in the Riverina – with loud hailer pointing to the sky, draws the raffle.

Looks like (I think) those fat cheeked cherubs blowing horns in holy pictures….

And the winner is:

Gwennie Ross, well done Gwennie….(All the time thinking: Gwennie Ross, Non Catholic. RE-draw, RE-DRAW, RE-DRAW!)

Kerrie Jean Ross, please come up and collect these wonderful Onkaparinga Satin Trimmed Pure Wool double-bed blankets.

From the back stalls:  NO!

Everyone turns to look.  My white, skinny legs cannot go ’out there’. Particularly on a designated sports uniform day: White top underpinned by a bra doubling as a straight jacket, all-over elasticised blue shorts overlayed by a blue skirt which Gwennie has made a ‘bit longer’ so the Dunlop volleys hanging off  ‘those skinny, binny legs’  won’t  ‘come as such a shock…’

Kerrie Jean Ross, I am asking you to come and get these blankets….

NO!

To give everyone their due, this is an unprecedented raffle situation.

Come and get the blankets Kerrie Jean!

NO!

The quadrangle has become the site of The Great Riverina Blanket Stand Off.

Sister Mary McKillya, who’s now clutching the stiff plastic blanket package close to her heaving bosom, knows now that the Onkaparingas will not be claimed without an ugly physical encounter.

And (I think, she thinks) ‘we’ don’t want that, do we?

Sister Mary McKillya makes her way through rows of boys and girls who thought they’d turned out for a raffle only to have something equally exciting and perplexing unravel.

Here Kerrie Jean, take the Onkarparinga Satin Trimmed Pure Wool double-bed blankets. TAKE THEM HOME…..

I did. As fast as my skinning legs could carry me….

* Some context. Visitors in here would know that my rented digs (compliments of a burst water heater) have morphed into a floodplain. I inherited the famous bright orange Onkaparinga Satin Trimmed Pure Wool double-bed blankets years back when Hec and Gwennie went doona crazy.  Post flood, they’re now stuck in my glory box which I cannot prise open because of something called wood warp. So, while I write, the condition of my favourite bourdoir accoutrements remains unknown.

* It’s be great to hear from you - even if you’ve got the best set of pins on the Pacific Rim. Exactly WHO says so anyway? Perhaps you have some gems centring on the poignant – and perturbing – ability of teenagers to feel, smell and touch life-threatening humiliation on an hour to hour basis. And anything else of course……..what’s going on in your universe? Stars or bloody meteors ALL round? (Did I really write that!) Your turn now……

All posters take a deep breath…..and 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.

I cannot believe it……one of Hec’s five lovely girls (specifically, my eldest sister) will shortly turn 60….

Which brings me to this: I must be fast turning into an Old Cootess (albeit with most of my teeth and a reasonable decolletage) but cootess-like enough to employ cootess-driven statements like: 

‘You try burning bras, it’s expensive….. ‘

‘Before The Temple of Woolies, Leeton, it was (can you believe it!) the site of the Cannery Carpark….’

Or:

‘Thirty years ago – in the Pre-Hydroponicassic Period - that house was rented by Leeton’s first hippies…….’

I’d like to say: ‘Where did all the years go?’ (a cootesque statement or what!) but the problem is, I know because I was there for most of them.

(cr: Creativity + Timothy K Hamilton: flickr: ‘How Red Was My Sunset?’)

For when it comes to the development of Old Cootessdom, I have the extra risk factor: Glorious, pre-Cootess, Cootina years Livin’, Lovin’, Learnin’  in a country town. 

This is what happened last time I had the pleasure of sitting around a table with young Leeton folk who (God bless ‘em) initially had no idea they were in the company of a woman in the early to middle stages of the development of Old Cootessdom.

Our topic?

The rigors of the contemporary workplace….draconian bans on full-body piercings, dress codes prohibiting semi-nudity, handling the unreasonable requests of Old Cootessess and Coots – ‘Please Die Soon BUT Not In This Shop…….’

And then the Old Cootess weighed in….

With tales of my first employ at the now defunct Leetona Canning Factory.

Blank stares (no doubt) underpinned by sophisticated thoughts:

Next thing she’ll be engaged in an ugly Coot-faction-fight to take over the Leeton Historical Society…

Soon, I was proudly pushing home my Cootess credentials with – God forgive me – this: 

‘You don’t know this but our Cannery, the biggest in the whole of the Southern Hemisphere, provided the bulk of two fruits, peaches, apricots and pears for our brave boys on the front during the Second World War…’

Blank stares……

But the Old Cootess is just warming up……

‘And when I was sweating it out in 110 degree heat on the peach line, I thought of the young, brave soldiers in The Middle East opening a tin of ‘my’ fruit  all those years ago….

AND I knew that my aching back and gorgeous hair getting ruined under a safety net amounted to nought in the scheme of things….’

More blank stares and murmurings of preparations for what I fear will be an unseemly night of excess at local night spots. 

‘And I tell you, I learnt a lot at The Cannery namely: DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF….’

My God! I have catapulted myself into the worst category of Old Cootesses: Ennui on a stick and Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff – up there with ‘No Drama’ as sure signs that Cootessdom is fully blown….

The adjective of the blank stare suddenly turns into an urgent collective verb:

We gotta a live Old Cootess and we’re gettin’ outta here….

No drama….

I now accept that the burgeoning ranks of Old Cootesses and Coots IS the downside of the growth of modern antibiotics……

*So, The Old Cootess Moderator awaits your correspondence….

Strange: I feel so much better that I’ve outed myself.  You just watch me veer headlong into the rest of my life, armed with a scintillating treasure of reminiscences – and the biggest botox syringe in the Southern Hemisphere!

All posters take a deep breath…..and 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.

What to make of it…?

I go into Julia’s MySchool site – and the news is substantially not good: Leeton High School is substantially in the red or pink, substantially below  – or just below  -  substantially similar schools for book learnin’.

*In a journalistic capacity, I’ll be ringing one of the substantially similar but better performing institutions, Bethel Christian School in Albany, WA, later today. I’m anxious to put this one to the principal: is sea air conducive to better brain functioning? 

(cr: lumaxaet: flickr)

Nonetheless, I’m sad about the fortunes of my old alumni.

Things were better when I was there in ‘73, ‘74……….

Messy and better for a very simple reason.

Because EVERYONE was there……

I lobbed at Leeton High in 1973. St Francis College only went up to Year 10 so in a  (then) still relatively recent trend Catholic teenagers having a go at the HSC, struck a blow for non-sectarianism.

Traditional ‘Leeton Highers’ were surprised to discover Catholics didn’t carry emergency stocks of Communion. Quite the opposite. Some of the best tongue kissers in the Riverina were suddenly on site. Praise The Lord!

In 1973, Leeton High Year 11 was an exciting place to be because (it’s true!) everyone was there……

….Nerds with acne consuming their faces and confidence like wildfire, up ‘emselves types whose fathers held important possies at the Rice Growers’ or banks, smart but shy girls from strict families, fast-talkin’ razor sharp ne’er-do-wells, loners from troubled families, Mensa candidates, definite Mensa non-starters, goers from troubled families, goers from posh families… seething teenage Riverina humanity writ large.

And in 1973, the teachers at Leeton High were also an interesting bunch.

Of special interest, those who’d got scholarships to go to Teachers’ College and, three years later, frantically pulled apart envelopes and prompty collapsed. On coming to, re-confirmation of a harsh reality. Yes, it WAS  ‘that Letona tinned fruit place’.

They turned up – looking sad, if not clinically depressed – with small sedans fitted with snow ski or surfboard racks.

In rural Australia in the seventies, another ‘introduced’ species consisted of adventurous young Americans, part of the solution to solve the deperate teachers’ shortage. They were enjoying living on prairies at Wamoon and stunning pupils of Australian history with great backgrounders on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And generally confounding female students with Nebraskan or Idaho drawls pushed into real Levis.     

So, at Leeton High, there were good teachers and yes, a smattering of time servers amassing retirement fortunes… spending decades whingeing about heat and hicks, obsessing about an exciting future playing bowls in a place ON THE COAST (with easy access to Australia’s best hernia surgeons).

But the good teachers were very good.  Many grew to like Leeton. They were playing to its strengths - gradually replacing ski and surfboard racks with kangaroo shooters’ spotlights and discovering the thrills of exteme water skiing at Turkey Flat. They were working hard in the classroom and (as the word was always around town) throwing wild parties that were challenging the formidable reputations of those hosted by nurses.

So, can Julia’s spreadsheets tell me anything about what’s happening at Leeton High now.

Lots……

Enrolment at Leeton High is right down –  to a measly 495. However, over at Catholic Secondary Headquarters, St Francis De Sales College (which now does Year 11 and 12, boarding included) business is booming with a whooping 709 students.

Either Leeton has the highest ‘convert to Catholism’ rate in the Western world or (just like everywhere else) the new breed of cross-class-hyper-vigilant- manic- education-obsessive parents has decided they don’t like it ‘messy’ – they like it neat. 

And even if that means their kids going to a school where they’re not eligible to partake of  the sacred tenet of the faith that is the stated basis of the educative project, Holy Communion, that’s fine and groovy.

Meanwhile, at Leeton High a declining some students will continue to do well.

It’s messier than ever…….

* Check out Julia’s old High School. Click ‘ere  http://www.myschool.edu.au/ and then type in Unley High School. Will its Principal be getting a ‘can do better’ call from the Minister?

* So, it’d be lovely to hear from you. Where is that messy Leeton High class of  ’73 or for that matter,  ’74, ‘75, ‘76, ‘77….?

Another thing: Nit-picking expected! One thing I know – every time I do a story on education there’s a certain type who just loves going over it – ah, error watch. Go to it!

Everybody else, just report in (with typos) on what’s happening on your patch.

All posters take a deep breath…..and 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.