10am, July 1998, sitting at Sydney Airport. Waiting for Qantas departure for Hawaii and LAX at 10.30am. Been there since 6am. Done duty-free, done immigration, done passenger tax etc. Sitting at Sydney Airport.

Announcement: Sorry passengers (yes, nice old-fashioned greeting we used to get before ‘client’ came in vogue . . .) there’s a mechanical fault in our 747 for Honolulu. There will be a delay.

Shuffles all round. Some queuing at departure lounge has already started. American high school basketball team start getting agitated, mumbling . . . (US airplanes obviously don’t experience technical difficulties . . .)

10.30am: Announcement that a door catch indicator light that won’t turn off is the reason for the delay. Sitting at Sydney Airport

11am: Announcement from Qantas apologising for delay; freebie coffee and muffins available for morning tea. Apologies all round. Still sitting . . .

11.30am: Door light still not cooperating. Caffeinated groans, shuffling, still sitting . . .

Noon: A technician seems to have solved the problem at last – boarding will commence in half an hour. Still sitting . . .

1pm: Boarded at last . . . still sitting but at least in our designated seats and about to leave!

Lots of Qantas apologies over the intercom, extra water served!

Plane lands in Hawaii, 9.5 hours later, at 4.30am local time; originally due at midnight. One hundred of us are booked on Air Canada’s connecting flight to Vancouver that left two hours previously!

Minor panic amongst airport staff who are keen to get home to their own families rather than look after all of us in a transit lounge . . .

A Qantas representative arrives. Takes all our details. We’re given an overnight and day, at Qantas expense, in Honolulu and, hopefully, a connecting flight to Vancouver.

Lovely hotel, awesome meals (US style, huge, questionable dietary value . . . but who’s arguing . . .) a quick free phone call to Canada to tell the waiting relatives not to go to the airport.

Next morning, out to Pearl Harbour, tour and museum, then to Ala Moana shopping centre for retail therapy, a stroll along Maui beach, getting lost on a Hawaiian bus and back to the airport later that evening.

We then learn that the Air Canada flight is now filled to the gunnels and would some of us like to take tomorrow’s flight in return for an upgrade /$1000/ extra day in Honolulu so people can be bumped off?

A few take up the offer, thankfully, and we’re into the air, again.

In contrast to the experiences of many on the flying kangaroo over the last few days, our experience went well, in hindsight. Qantas did all they could to ensure we were looked after (at their expense) and, in most cases, only minor inconvenience was caused.

Dear Palm Avenue,

KJ.

Though their boots squelch, their hair is damp and they have a car fresh odour.

Dear Mr Dude,

KJ.

Dear Exposed,

KJ.

Not helpful The Dude, NOT helpful!
KJ.

The last time I read a travel story on Leeton in a major paper, it contained the highly questionable assertion that the Roxy Theatre is known by locals as “Big Red”.

Maybe I mixed in the wrong circles, but I had never hitherto heard the Roxy referred to as “Big Red” up until that point in my life, and I never have since, and neither had any of the long-time residents of the town whom I straw-polled on the subject.

This bloke seems to be obsessed with the car-caking, Alice Springs-style red dust, which is a strange thing to by obsessed by, given that it does not exist.

Dear Roma Street,

KJ.

And I was quite surprised by his aside about Mosman drivers . . . some who I know would love to visit Paul’s place for a freshen-up for their vehicle.

Nevertheless, I suspect you, Kerrie Jean, are being a little reticent in your references to your own gala visit to the area a number of months ago.

While Mr Huxley only looked at Leeton, I feel he missed the true ‘underbelly’ of life in Leeton and the MIA.

You were courageous enough to reveal the sizzling truth behind life in Leeton, from a former participant’s involvement, and that was a far more valuable study of our town!

That Mr Huxley seemingly chose to ignore all your sparkling groundwork speaks volumes about his lack of preparation for the ‘holiday trip’.

Dear Mister Palm Avenue,

KJ.

He once walked nonchalantly stark naked through a gathering of approx 12 beer drinking teenage boys on our verandah, on his way to and from answering a call of nature.

The only words he uttered were “G’day boys” and “See ya boys”.

Also, he once performed an all-the-way striptease to music at a cricket club function.

Dear daughter of Leeton libertine,

Excuse me, I’ll just take my tumbler of lemonade onto your verandah…….
KJ.

Nevertheless, age certainly didn’t cramp his style. He was the last child born in his family – five children had, in fact, arrived over some twenty years, previously.

This led to my grandfather clinging on to dear life well into his 90s, just to be sure he’d eventually get a grandson!

This situation had been forced on the old guy because, although he’d had three sons, son #1 had married and deliberately decided he didn’t want kids, and son#2 thoughtlessly choked to death on some food at the age of just a couple of months! This left Dad in an invidious reproductive position as you can appreciate.

As for the Old Spice caper – I suspect it’s generational. Dad would never condescend to wear deodorant etc as he considered it a sign of suspect sexuality!

Sunlight soap was all a bloke really needed to stay clean.

Dear Mister Palm Avenue,

KJ.

Dear Exposed,

KJ.

Of course, by ancient, I mean by the standard of the times, because looking back, his mum (who loomed as a grandmotherly presence to us) must have been all of 50-odd when we finished primary school. These days being 50-odd with a late-primary-school age kid is par for the course.

Everyone I know whose kids are about to hit high school is 50-odd (unless they are 60-odd).

I once heard one of the prep mums at our school say: ‘When I had Max I was only 32′, as though she was some sort of prodigy of early-onset fecundity.

Only 32 indeed – my grandmother had 3 under her belt at 22.

I can’t begin to list the ways in which my own dad was not quite right in re conformity to the accepted norms of south-western NSW country town life. I might have to go away and make some notes. I could possibly get one of those Quarterly Essays out of it.

Dear Roma Street,

KJ.