Ramblings from the road
Branco and his offsider, Squarehead, (I called them Yugoslav and Yugoslow) were both heavy gamblers, (sixteen stone if they weighed an ounce). Dogs, gallops square-gaiters and trotters, footy, soccer, tennis the pools, tattslotto and two flies crawling up the wall, you name it they would gamble on it.
Continue reading “Branco, Squarehead & Hotlips”
“Who sang ‘The Stranger’? Emptyhead asked me. He was called that because he had the IQ of a fence post. I mean, I wouldn’t say he was slow but it used to take him an hour and a half to watch ’60 Minutes’. He had been trying to stump me with all these music questions without a great deal of success.
Continue reading “Emptyhead & Wally”I’ll never forget the day I went for the job. I was young, green and bloody petrified. I’d had an interview with some gorilla called Bruce who tried to pass himself off as “the Foreman” of this graphic arts company in Hardware Lane.
My first day at Burwood Technical College began with catching the bus in Box Hill, where we had purchased a home, for the half hour drive into school.
My Dad, Henk, my Mom (sic), Riek, which is short for Henrika or something, both in their earl 50’s, plus their eight children; Agnes 20, Gerda 18, Gerald 16, (he turned 17 during the trip), Joke (pronounced Yoka) 14, myself Tony 12, Greg 10, Alf 8 and Robbie 3, migrated to Australia from Holland in 1955 on the Converted Navy Ship “The Sibajak”. Continue reading “The Family”
Memories are more than recollected experiences.
They are displacements of ourselves in time and space. They are events our younger self witnessed and participated in, recalled by an older self who often wonders if he is truly the same person. They are visions of people we once knew, and bewilderingly we are one of those people.
