Think of the children

Dear reader, there are few absolutes in life. Certainly we are born, live our lives and eventually die. In between birth and death, we do things like grow up, form relationships, work and pay taxes, breed and watch our children grow up and live their lives.

All of this, of course, happens in an ideal world. Unfortunately, we live in reality where the only real absolutes are being born and dying. What happens in between these two events is left up to genetics and fate and sometimes neither of these situations works out to be a good deal.

Generally, when someone dies they have had a pretty full life. They are adults who have lived long enough to have enjoyed a life full of experiences that we would look at as normal - the simple things like dating, courting, marrying, having children and getting grandkids. These are the big events in the average persons life. Of course, there are those who walk a different path and achieve their greatness through sporting, political or artistic achievements.

I am always saddened when I hear that a  young person has died. I am 46 years old. If I were to die tomorrow, people would be sad, but at least they would know that I achieved something in the time I was alive. It may be insignificant, but at least I would have had the opportunity to gain some life experience. I would hope that my friends would be sad for a couple of weeks but then get on with their lives.

I have one strong belief in my life - no parent should outlive their child - ever.

I think that there are a lot of people in mourning at the moment over the passing of Matthew Barclay, a 14 year old boy in Queensland a couple of days ago. People who didn't even know Matthew, but are parents themselves, understand the pain that this boys family is going through. I'm not a parent and I am saddened by it myself.

The reason that I am saddened by this meaningless death is because Matthew was only 14. Unless he was an exceptional teen, he had little opportunity to gain any life experience beyond being a child. There is no way of knowing what his life would become. Whether it be a sporting star or some kind of academic, the potential that was locked inside of him is gone. This really does go for any young person who dies prematurely. Whatever potential they have is lost.

Words and hollow platitudes will never fully give closure to Matthew Barclays family, but they will always have those 14 years to look back on and remember him. They may take some small comfort in the fact that he died doing something that he loved but their lives are now changed forever. As for the rest of us, well we will probably forget about Matthew in a week as more important things happen in our lives.

I have many friends who have children at various ages. My message to them is to love them more every day, listen to what they have to say, accept that they may not live up to your expectations or plans for their futures and to love them unconditionally. They will always be your little boys or girls.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 220:- Blackbird, who was the chief of Omaha Indians, was buried sitting on his favourite horse.

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For our underestimated friends

The rusted iron lady

It's Australias day

Dear reader, on the eve of Australia Day (that's the day that we descendants of white Europeans officially celebrate the colonization of the great land of Oz and those who like to think of  themselves as representatives of the original inhabitants of the great land of Oz think of themselves as being invaded), I thought I would turn my thoughts to the concept of patriotism. I do this because the other day, I was accused of being "un-Australian" because I have never played the game of Two-Up. In response, I assured my accuser that I also did not like Vegemite, support Rugby League or fly the Australian flag from my car.

My personal belief is that I don't need to go out of my way to prove that I am patriotic. I was born in Australia, grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney and have only ever left the shores of this great southern island once - certainly many less times than a lot of my peers.

I don't think there is any defined definition of what makes an Australian an Aussie. If you take a random sampling of us, you'll find every one of those questioned would have a different idea of what it means to be Australian. The one thing that they would all agree on is that we are an easy going and tolerant people in general. The term "she'll be right mate" is one that really should be considered the countries motto. It fits so well in all situations - been bitten by a funnel web spider?

She'll be right mate.

For most of the 20th Century, defining the culture of Australia was pretty easy. We were a prime example  of everything British in the first half and then things started to change when those strange foreign people started to arrive. For the most part, since these new comers were from Europe, they were happily accepted into our communities and as a result, their skills contributed to some of the major infrastructure improvements that we take for granted today.

The Greeks, for instance, integrated themselves into Australian society so well that you couldn't go to a milk bar without being served by one of them PLUS they didn't really care that their business establishments were referred to as "wog bars" by us when we were kids. At that stage, multiculturalism was in  its infancy and wasn't the wussy girl it is now.

Australia is a haven for people wanting to start a new life. It always has been and I hope it always will be. The world today is a different one to when i was a kid. We had "boat people" then but they were Vietnamese people escaping from a regime that was quite happy to kill anyone who disagreed with them.

Nowdays, the "boat people" come from a different place and we're unsure what to do with them. However, that's one of the great things about being Australian - it doesn't matter where you come from, you're going to be welcomed with open arms by most people because Australia is a place where we aren't that worried about who you are or where you come from. We just want  you to enjoy the better life that you came looking for.

We Aussies only ask one thing of you when you come here to stay - leave all your excess baggage behind. You made the decision to leave your crappy country for a better life so we'd prefer it if you didn't try to turn this place into your crappy country. Embrace the new freedoms you have found here and take time to relax.

After all, at the end of the day, she'll be right mate.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 218: Ethelred the Unready, King of England in the Tenth-century, spent his wedding night in bed with his wife and his mother-in-law.

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Thank you Mrs. Nibbs

Dear Mrs. Nibbs,

I can't believe that it has really been just over 30 years and one month since we last sat together and talked about my future. It really doesn't seem that long ago to me but time has this strange way of screwing our memories around as we get older - the good times are fleeting and  meetings seem to last for days.

Anyways, enough of worrying about the way time flies. Recently, thanks to the mystery of life that is six degrees of separation, our mutual friend, Jule Hankin, told me that you had decided to retire from teaching at the end of last year. I was quite shocked because I didn't think that you would be old enough to be giving the game away. I always thought you were only about 10 years older than me which would give you at least another 5 or so years or so chipping away at the impenetrable walls that are teenage minds.

When I heard the news, I felt that I had to at least wish you well in your new life of ease but I also wanted to let you know what effect you had on my life. You may never have known that your efforts to teach me had any kind of effect on me, but hindsight is a most wonderful creature and when I look back over this past 30 years, you definitely had a  positive influence on me.

I had the privilege of being taught English by you in 1980 & 1981. My initial thoughts on meeting you were that you were too thin and could really do with a bit of a feed, although if you were like that now, you would probably be classed as a super-model and be living the high life somewhere exotic. The other little thing that I found odd about you was that you wore a gold mens watch, analogue and wind-up. I asked you about that and you told me that for some reason, your body tended to suck the life out of ladies watches. Was I impressed by that?

Yeah.

I don't think that you saw your role as one to teach us English in the traditional meaning. As year 9 &10 students, we really should have been beyond all of that before getting to high school anyway and, most of us knew how to read (albeit excruciatingly slowly in some cases) and write (in my case, there were at least 2 letters in each line of writing that was legible).

You will be happy to know that the advice you gave me about never ever using Cursive again has stuck with me all this time and I have been printing everything that I physically write.

Rather, you were there to teach us how to appreciate the English language in its various forms from poetry to plays to novels. Even pop music came into play one term when you had us analyzing songs. I may have actually done well on that assignment so one out of a years worth isn't really that bad is it?

The things that I realised that I had gotten from you was that love of literature and the English language. There is nothing I enjoy more than to being able to make time to devour a book. I am currently reading the collected works of Kurt Vonnegut but my real love is Stephen King but I will read anything given to me good, bad or indifferent. I have still not read anything of Shakespeare.

I also took from you a small passion for putting words down on paper (or on a computer screen nowdays). When you consider the "essays" that I produced for assignments, you would probably think that writing anything would be the last thing that I would be interested in doing but I have discovered the beauty and power of words that you obviously saw and tried to pass onto me all those years ago. This is why I took up writing my various blogs.

The last conversation we had was on December 4, 1980 just after I had been handed my school certificate. Unfortunately, you had been forced by me through my general apathy of that year to give me the final grade that I got but when I confronted you about it, you told me that you felt I had the potential to do better and that I should continue onto year 11. I guess you realised that I had sabotaged my own future and were willing to throw me a lifeline.

Had I been able to return the next year, I would not have progressed to year 11 - I would have repeated year 10 and developed the potential you saw in me. I realised a number of years ago, if I had, I probably would have been more likely to go into teaching than where I am now. What would I have taught? Ironically, English (although that's probably the incorrect use of irony).

I don't know if I have said what I wanted to say properly. It always sounds better in my head but once I start typing it and having to put it into some coherent order, things get lost somewhere. I just wanted to thank you for being one of the important people in my life who probably would not have known how much of a positive influence in it you were.

So to you Mrs. Nibbs.... well I guess now that I am an adult, I can call you Jo-Anne. So to  you Jo-Anne, I say thank you for giving me that insight into what the English language could be and the joy of reading. It means that you did good.

Happy retirement.

Kevin Wilson