Strolling back from lunch on Port Road’s broad and grassy median-strip, a black car approached. Familiar shape and model — but surely not. It glided closer. I zoomed in on the numberplate.
In our small city of 1.4 million, few things thrill like stumbling upon you.
Our car. You.
Walking along, in no physical or professional hurry, I’d been wondering about your morning — and somehow, as if conjured, there you were. Like a kid at a parade, I waved wildly.
You pulled over. Right lane. Outraging the fretful and the furious. Horns shouted. Arguing with you, with each other, with their contrary planets. You didn’t care. I love that you don’t care.
I leapt in. We shoved your stuff from the seat — there’s always things — and up and down the Port Road you zipped.
A side street.
You park (no honking this time). A rapid exchange. Mornings, work, lunch, the day ahead. A speedy farewell. A kiss.
I love how secretive forces conspire to let these little joys find me. Small gifts from the day itself. Delightful interruptions from the commonplace.
Resuming our travel: you vehicular; me perambulatory. You go to the hospital at Woodville for an interpreting job. I return to editing the curriculum.
It’d been a gentle ambush.
Taking in the sky’s blue ceiling, I find myself quietly grateful — as though a prayer had arrived before I even knew I’d said one.
Whether it’s a repeated holiday, yearly lunch, or the lame recurring joke I inflict upon Claire, I reckon tradition offers psychological warmth. Do you have your own conventions that you repeat over and over again?
My rituals unfold like this: the deliberate or accidental start, the adhering — however long it endures — and the anticipation for next time, commencing immediately once the event’s done.
I’ve known Claire since we were thirteen so with much to consider and scribble, head to Port Elliot for a few days to immerse myself. At the beginning of my now biannual writing retreat, I conduct an opening ceremony. This is done by arranging a tableau of items on the townhouse deck’s wooden bench, overlooking Knights Beach. As is our modern way I then take and share a photo, mostly for self-amusement. Like the youngsters.
So, what’s in the photo?
I include my Kapunda Cricket Club hat; the Greg Chappell version (c.1982). It’s my oldest piece of apparel and a life-long companion. It represents youthful frivolity and fellowship. Having been on my head during many summers, I hope it inspires a sunny, grateful tone in my writing. Or at least not a golden duck.
It’s well-worn—perhaps even an heirloom. It’s certainly a talisman from another era—something with personal gravy gravity. Just this week, my eldest, Alex, wore my other beloved cricket cap (Kimba CC) while playing an old, broken-down PE teacher in his Year 12 drama performance. It was a star! Upstaged everyone. So maybe I can pass various cricket items down through the generations. Surely, there are more miserable inheritances. I reckon they’d prefer this to a house.
We can all learn lots from a hat.
Also in the photo is Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter. Paired with the cricket memorabilia, it suggests a longing for past versions of masculinity—or the shifting seasons of life. The Sportswriter is the first in a series of five stories I’ve read three times across this past decade. It’s about loss, introspection and hope.
As I’m striving for enlightened forms of myself, I want both hat and novel, as personal texts, to be illuminating. To work like flares in the fog.
This writing retreat is for contemplative isolation —not loneliness. I generally seek no company — not even during my late-afternoon pub visits — but see the time as an opportunity to swim in words. Not drowning, waving. My sentences take shape from memory and its attendant considerations. Being beside the glittering, pounding Southern Ocean and adrift in language and reflection is spiritual.
The horizon line on the glass balustrade is enlightening. Did Frank Lloyd Wright once say this? Though it sits near the top third of the photo’s frame, it suggests both elevation and humility—the viewer just above the sea, but not grandly removed from it. I hope this projects gratitude for the occasion and the painterly environment, and encourages the idea that these are combining together, in serene concert.
This tableau proposes that through the laptop and novel, I’m straddling the border between writer and reader. Additionally, I’m fluctuating between labour and leisure and ultimately, thought and the expression of it. My retreat is simultaneously and indistinguishably all of these.
It’s my idea of fun.
Lastly, this is a portrait of myself in retreat— not from life, but toward something. Maybe a particular reckoning with age, or self, or meaning. The animating idea is that we harvest the past to better command our present.
The Rolling Stones carry metaphorical wallop. Mick may love cricket, but I sometimes drag them—unlikeliest of guests—into footy. After all, sport and music can both be art.
Full forwards are Jagger, midfielders are Keef, and backmen, of course, are Charlie Watts behind his Gretsch set, vacant of expression and caressing his drums almost awkwardly, giving occasion for the melodies and vocals, allowing everybody else to happen.
Charlie’s first love was jazz, but he kept time for the planet’s greatest rock band. Was it his day job? Like SK Warne, the best ever leg-spinner, preferring deep down, to run around on a forward flank for St. Kilda?
Did both choose excellence over longing?
I wonder about Charlie in his Savile Row elegance, offering percussive minimalism to a Wembley crowd while his inner ear yearned for Miles Davis—and the other Charlie (Parker)—in their 1947 version of Out of Nowhere.
Like Charlie’s rearview of the band, football’s defenders monitor proceedings up the ground, eyes vigilant for imminent threat. They bear the dreadful burden of vision. There’s Mick—elastic, swaggering, now self-parodying—and here’s Keef on his 1954 Telecaster, summoning the spirit of Blind Willie Johnson, cloaked in his own phantoming smoke.
Kids love goals and a huge hanger—or specky, as we called them at school. Muddling through middle age and with retirement morphing in the fog, footy’s defensive acts increasingly appeal. I’ve never loved so much the redemption of a spoil or a smother.
Grit has succeeded glamour.
As we age, do we adjust from attack to protection, our crumbling biology shaping a third-act philosophy? Is there any footballing instant with higher psychological value than an intercept mark? Paul Kelly once described sport’s best theatre as danger converting unexpectedly to grace and, as always on matters liturgical, he’s right.
*
Showdown 57 had been pulsating. In the final quarter Port Adelaide was ferocious, generating a fully invasive twenty inside-fifties in as many minutes.
Emboldened and ravenous, they surge again—and from inside a tangle of smearing limbs, Finlayson flicks his leg and conjures a goal. With thirty-one minutes gone, the margin dwindled to a fraught four points.
Centre bounce. Jason Horne-Francis snatches the ball and rolls to the outside. He is heir-apparent to the Dangerfield accolade: explosive. But he is also volatile—and this amplifies his peril.
Like a reddish comet, his drop punt slices across the night sky, then begins its return to earth in the forward arc.
Five games in two years at Collingwood. Five games in his first year at Adelaide. Mark Keane is from County Cork and was skilled at both Gaelic football and hurling— a game featuring amended jousting sticks— with the latter requiring substantial pluck.
He takes six marks tonight, and all attention lands on the last. Maybe moments late in a match acquire falsely enhanced acclaim, but sometimes in life and football, context subverts the text.
Keane’s eyes fixate on the ball with a purity of commitment. He crabs backward and across, almost akin to a country hall line-dancer—I can hear Far Away Eyes chugging along—but the Irishman is more slippery of hip.
His tenure as a backman requires obliviousness to ominous traffic, which can arrive like a freight train—fundamental to the mythic bluesmen so adored by Jagger and Richards. Up go his periscopic arms and—clunk—the Sherrin’s path is truncated. It might have been an uncontested interception, but the preceding imagination and gallantry offer Keane instant cult status.
With this the remaining 107 seconds unfold in a terse sequence of disposals and turnovers before Sam Berry kicks a behind on the siren.
Did Keane’s grab save the game? Or was it any of a hundred prior events?
*
It was a moment at which to gasp and then smile.
Just like hearing Get Off My Cloud and realising abruptly that while the melody and vocals are frantically urging, and the lyrics are buoyant fun—In the morning the parking tickets were just like flags stuck on my windscreen—Charlie’s drumming was always the deeper, mostly unheralded magic in the song.
Ultimately, whether it’s music or footy, some of the finest artists are those who don’t take centre stage—but make the centre hold.
In this City of Churches, stained-glass adorns religious buildings but also those devoted to sinful pursuits. Some argue that pubs and places of worship offer the same functions, but the former attracts a better standard of employee.
The Arab Steed on Hutt Street is in the bohemian quarter of Adelaide and upon arrival I note the dreamy autumnal light refracting through the bar and am instantly gladdened. Announcing the pub was established in 1849 and depicting a galloping horse, the glass above the doors and windows elevates my hospitality expectations to stylish and sophisticated.
Claire and I then enjoy a Catholic hour of sorts—communal, confessional, and consisting partly of (holy) wine.
Late Saturday afternoon can be fraught in a boozer. It’s not our preferred Mystery Pub day and time, as it’s often a twilight when the lunchtime lunchers and piddled punters have departed, and the evening’s effervescence remains remote.
It can be a bleak, betwixt period of sludgy purposeless and ennui.
But inside’s a big table encircled by animated diners. They’re female, of a certain age, and generate a heartening front bar context. Strolling through on a quick Cook’s tour, I reach the TAB section.
The screens cycle from Randwick to Flemington and over to Ascot. A handful of rumpled blokes is cheerfully strategising their next bets while bemoaning their losses. Punting’s a narrative pursuit where the protagonist scripts their own saga of triumph and ruin, all dictated by huge horses and the tiny people perilously astride them.
Barkeep is young, beardy and kind. He asks what Claire’d like. ‘Just a glass of sauvignon blanc, thanks,’ comes her bright reply. I’ve scanned and evaluated the taps and say, ‘Tell me about the Ocean Alley Ale.’ He explains that it’s a new ‘collab’ between the Sydney psych rock band and Coopers that recently ‘dropped’. The lingo of yoof! I later read the beer’s, ‘a sessionable tropical pale ale that will set you and your best mates up for sunny afternoons that roll into balmy nights.’
For mid-April, it’s troublingly hot out (and in) and feels like January. However, the pub ceiling, veranda, and alfresco section by Hutt Street are garlanded with atmospheric strings of warmly glowing globes. This is an inviting setting, so we claim a footpath table. Adelaide pubs are notoriously indifferent regarding this, and all the guilty mine hosts should undertake a compulsory study tour of Fitzroy hotels in Melbourne to research evocative lighting design.
My heart’s then further a-flutter at the sight of an old-fashioned wooden refrigerated cabinet, fitted with chrome hinges and latches, giving it a vintage, almost maritime aesthetic. The top section glows with a striking blue light through glass-fronted doors, illuminating a neat arrangement of beer glasses inside. Beneath this, a row of solid wooden doors with metal fittings suggests older refrigeration units—reminiscent of the iceboxes of earlier decades.
I recall how all the pubs in Kapunda’s main street had these—the Clare Castle, Sir John Franklin, North Kapunda (recently kaput) and the Prince of Wales. I can still hear the affable closing and opening clangs as frosty glasses were retrieved following cricket on those now hazy Saturdays.
To the right, a rack is filled with classic Aussie snack options, including Smith’s chips and Twisties, adding a colourful contrast and casual charm. The whole scene is nostalgic and cinematic with Australiana, blending functional hospitality with retro ambiance.
Meanwhile, I get Claire an espresso martini and myself another Ocean Alley Ale. How is my beer? A zesty, fruity, summery cup although it’s of concern that Coopers now need to so nakedly chase the kids. The old world’s racing away—maybe in a canter, maybe flat out.
We chat of work, play, loved ones and (checks notes) make mandatory mention of The Pina Colada Song. Today included an Auslan job for Claire at Gather Round, preceded by an earlier session interpreting for a beekeeper down at Pennington. How uniquely clever!
Me? I mowed the lawn (badly).
With the stained-glass light suspended gently like the final note of a hymn, we head home from the Arab Steed for hot chips, our Saturday evening lounge, and The White Lotus.
Saturday afternoon and I’m home alone. Chores are in hand. Nothing on TV and the book I’m reading, the collected stories of cult American author, HP Lovecraft, is more medicinal than recreational, so it sits untouched by our bed.
On Record Store Day (globally recognised on April 19th) I swung by Mr. V’s on Semaphore Road, and because one of the very best ways to invest half an hour is by listening to a Beatles’ album, I bought this. The music transports me to my childhood. It remains thrilling and urgent and while Paul is my favourite, I can understand why George Martin, their producer, commented that of all the great things he got to do with the Beatles, his absolute preference was mixing the vocals of John. As I type, the album’s on and it’s utterly joyous and innocent and compelling.
I love our backyard. And the time of peak admiration is, of course, in those first minutes after it’s been mowed on an autumnal afternoon. The breeze is coaxing the trees and shrubs towards folksy dance and there’s bursts of birdsong. I’m in debt to Claire who, with her artistic eye, designed and brought our garden to painterly life. Later, I may sit out here with a quiet ale and admire the view.
I purchased Glenelg Footy Club’s 2023 premiership jumper at Adelaide Oval during last year’s finals for tuppence and my appreciation of this simple item is twofold. Yes, the dual flags (nice win yesterday over Norwood in the Anzac Day grand final rematch with Lachie Hosie kicking eight goals) but the guernsey is my default running top. It’s frequently a conversation starter and when I’m on the beach in the morning a passerby will sometimes say, ‘Go Tigers’ as we puff by each other. I had it on this morning at the Patawalonga parkrun (my 110th, the 200th such local event and day number 729 of my current streak) and it was a fun 5k (24.49 which is decent for me). I’m grateful for footy and running.
Dinner is slowly cooking in the slow cooker. Which is what the label promised, Mr Spock. It’s a beef casserole and I look forward to it. I assembled it late morning with the help of a Ball Park Music playlist. Can you remind me to throw in the beans around six o’clock? Thanks.
It’s a bit of a narrative but Claire has been in receipt of red wine. Needing some for the aforementioned dinner, I opened a bottle of the 2005, McLaren Vale. This was done with nervousness for I anticipated it might have aged as well as the K-Pop song, Gangnam Style.
How is it? It was a little cantankerous during those early minutes, but I commented to Claire that if I’d been trapped in a bottle for twenty years I would be too. I slopped a few generous glugs into the cooker and popping into the kitchen across the afternoon, both casserole and plonk are doing well.
You wear an elegant, off-the-shoulder sequined dress—sparkling, even in monochrome. In your left hand is a small bouquet of white roses. Your right hand rests gently on mine.
We are gazing at each other with affection, both smiling softly—it’s a candid and heartfelt demonstration of connection.
The setting is outdoors, beside Kapunda’s duck pond. In the background gum trees contemplate while the island’s soft, weeping branches add to the serene, almost dreamlike atmosphere. Late afternoon light filtering through bathes everything in tranquil reverence.
As kids, how many times had you and I walked, rode or driven here? It was always evocative but I dared not imagine it as a setting for such a photograph.
You exude warmth, elegance, and joy. Even in the black-and-white image, you are catching the autumnal light. Your hair is styled in soft waves, loosely pinned back with a natural, graceful finish that frames your face with an artful, effortless beauty. As you look up at me, beside you, you have a luminous smile and your expression is one of affection and contentment. Your face, as well-known to me as my own thoughts, is wholly familiar but somehow brand-new.
With this, my world is remade.
Your posture—relaxed, leaning slightly into our embrace—conveys ease and deep correlation to this instant. The sparkle of the dress, paired with the tenderness in your eyes, contributes an almost cinematic glow. There’s an attractive balance of glamour and surrender in your appearance, making the scene striking.
We had a timeless and profound minute—the photo’s composition accentuates love and natural beauty.
Your face is turned slightly toward me, and you’re looking with a warm, affectionate smile. There’s a calm confidence in your gaze—you look truly content and immersed. You are muse and memory, myth and moment.
For this moment, my life had been a faltering, often uncertain rehearsal.
On this day of orchestration and meticulous planning and staging it is an improvised tableau. A reverential moment at a childhood location. Late afternoon you and I drove past and were drawn to this poignant place. An intermezzo between the ceremony and the reception. It is a place that catches the magical narrative of our wedding.
And here, in this quiet place, is where the light found us.
Well, the South side of Chicago is the baddest part of town And if you go down there, you better just beware Of a man named Leroy Brown Now, Leroy, more than trouble You see, he stands, about, six foot four All the downtown ladies call him ‘Treetop Lover’ All the men just call him ‘Sir’
We were beneficiaries of Kapunda High being a progressive school with teachers who were innovative. When I was in Year 11, vertical homegroups became part of the ongoing reform and this meant students from Years 8, 9 and 10 joined us in the Home Economics Centre under Mrs. Trinne’s watchful and occasionally fierce eye. This arrangement was representative of our bold education.
Mr. Schell was influential in setting up a daily fitness programme. Every day we’d have a different activity and the entire school would rotate through these, including all the staff. Most of this happened on the oval. But one memorable— if haunting session— was scheduled weekly in the former stables.
It’s called the Health Hustle, comprised three or four songs and each tune had a set workout routine. Our class members would claim their space on the rough concrete floor of the Stables and Schelly played the songs on a boombox. For some in our class this was fun and for others like me, it marked the beginning of my descent into dancephobia!
Technically, it’s known as chorophobia and yes, I’ve been attending the Monday meetings for many, many years. No, not really but to describe my dancing as uncoordinated would be a gigantic underrepresentation.
The mere mention today of Health Hustle prompts Claire and Trish to leap up from their otherwise comfy chairs and give a hilarious recreation of me feebly trying to dance in the stables all those years ago. All done with uncontrollable laughter. Look! There they go mimicking me and my tangle of disobedient, droopy limbs. Arrythmia not of the heart but of the body. Still, our friendship, if not my choreography, flourished.
Catching the opening notes of ‘Mickey’ or ‘Teach Your Children’ nowadays I’m sure many of the class of ‘83 also have a Pavlovian response that causes them to break into those deeply embedded routines. But I somehow retain affection for the Chicago gangster jaunt of ‘Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.’ The marriage of the Scorsese lyrics and the wide-eyed piano stomp is terrific.
He got a custom Continental He got an El Dorado too He got a 32 gun in his pocket full a fun He got a razor in his shoe
*
Resuming our drone flight over Kapunda, we’re now on the Main Street and peer under the veranda of Rawady’s Deli. Pausing at the front window we see sporting team sheets sticky-taped to the glass. Handwritten names on a paper footy oval or for cricket, a list of eleven boys along with details of when and where. If it was a summer’s Saturday morning, there’d be a white huddle on the veranda, ready to head to Eudunda or Angaston or maybe Truro.
Gazing further into the shop we witness a constant flurry of activity behind and in front of the long counter. Reg is moving about, helping people with his baritone that always seemed too large for his tiny frame while out the back Brian’s endlessly cooking chips in the deep fryer. Rawady’s Deli was the town’s heartbeat and epicentre for much communal good.
On any given day, my Mum or sister, Jill could be working or it might be Claire making me a post-cricket milkshake. If I was in there with Greggy Higgins getting mixed lollies before Thursday afternoon RE with Mrs. Schultz at the former convent then we’d see this transaction-
‘Yes, thanks. Can I have ten cobbers?’
‘Sure.’ Ten cobbers would then be shoved into the white paper bag by someone like Eli. ‘Okay. What’s next?’
‘How about some of those red ones?’
‘Which ones?’ This question would emerge from deep in the lolly cabinet. A headless voice.
Greggy would sometimes say, ‘See where your hand is? Not there. Over to your left.’ We’d then both giggle.
‘Okay. These?’ An impatient finger would point at a box of bananas or teeth or red snakes.
‘No. Not my left. Your left.’
We then fly down the street to the outskirts of town and the Esso service station. A man of relentless motion like the Rawady brothers, the owner, Rex Draper was also a Musical Society devotee. Like Rawady’s Deli many locals worked there. The girl fourth from the left (here too), Damian Trotta (still there) Nevvy Ellis, Grantley Dodman— who called himself a petroleum transfer engineer—and for about six years, me.
Most Sundays around six my cousin Paul ‘Boogly’ Ryan would drive in, piloting his HQ Holden Kingswood. Hearing him before I saw his car, he’d cruise past Trotta’s Hardware and swing up the volume on his Kenwood stereo and it blasted across the dusty, otherwise tranquil townscape. This ritual always made me laugh.
We were massive fans of the Rolling Stones and knew how cool they were. From their last great album, Tattoo You, ‘Slave’ was a blues jam and part of our shared vernacular. It was always greeted with nodding heads and wry smiles.
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it Do it, do it, do it, do it
Don’t wanna be your slave Don’t wanna be your slave Don’t wanna be your slave
Let’s zoom in now as a sinister black motorbike has rumbled onto the forecourt of Rex’s servo and shuddered noisily to a stop. In 1983 full driveway service was expected. Fill her up, check the oil and tyres, clean the windshield. I recall my utter terror when a bikie—always fat and gruff and menacing—would scowl before murmuring instructions to me. This was scarier. Their lifeless eyes always hidden by impenetrably black sunglasses.
He’d order, ‘Fill it up.’ I’d gulp, knowing what was next. My hands shaking as I eased the now unwittingly weaponised nozzle into the tank of the Harley. Brain surgery would’ve been less intimidating. They’d often be returning from a day trip to Cadell Prison. He’d then whisper in a barely disguised death-threat. ‘Don’t spill any on the tank. I’ve just had it repainted.’
Of course. These feckers had always just repainted their tank. They lived only for their Harleys. They didn’t have lives or hobbies or volunteer to goal umpire the junior colts. Just repainting the fecking tank on their fecking murder machines.
*
Late in 1983 we had our final school social. These were terrific fun and the last dance was always ‘Hotel California.’ With the duelling guitar solo still ringing out as the lights came up in the Parish Hall, Davo, Chrisso, and I pointed my sky-blue HR Holden towards our friend Stephen’s unit in Plympton where we spent the night.
The next day was Friday and our last at Kapunda High. Some like Chrisso didn’t appear fussed and Paul Hansberry was already working at the silos for the summer. I remembered my first day in year 8 when I was scared at what high school would hold. Now, on our concluding day I was scared at what life beyond school might hold as the world opened up in vast and uncertain ways.
I’m quite sure I didn’t thank my teachers—Mrs. Schultz, Miss Searle, Ali Bogle (she was young so didn’t have an honorific, sorry), Mr Krips and Mr. McCarthy. Macca—who would speak at the footy club wedding reception Claire and I would have many years into the future. So, I thank them now.
Trish and Claire and Belly and Lisa and Davo and Penny and Chrisso and Crackshot and I would’ve said things like this to each other-
‘Well, we’re done. See you round.’
‘Bye, you.’ Accompanied by a friendly punch and a grin.
‘I’ll see you soon, probably before Christmas.’
And that was it.
I didn’t realise it then but Kapunda High—indeed the entire town—had prepared me well. They had accomplished that most miraculous feat, the very thing that every day drives our teachers, parents and coaches. Despite our frequent resistance, they persevered. They had helped create our lives.
1983 was soon replaced and off we all went. Uni, the air force, nursing, work. The world was waiting. Kapunda High had been great.
Gundry’s Hill is the natural place for it to commence with its views across our undulating town. There’s St Roses’ spire, a patchwork of roofs, and the silos standing quietly down near the road to Freeling. The vista is smeared green from the trees lining Clare Road, Mildred Street, and Hill Street which is home to the ancient playground and its old black steam train.
We’re now above Dutton Park and its fetching oval protected by those silent eucalypts. If we listen carefully, we can hear the Mickans chuckling and telling stories. It’s a short flight then to the Duck Pond and if it’s a weekend evening there might be half a dozen cars parked haphazardly on the southern bank, near Dermody Petroleum. There are teenagers draped all across the lawns. My friends. From the tape deck of a car, possibly a Gemini or a Kingswood, you hear this soulful song
Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon You come and go You come and go Loving would be easy if your colours were like my dreams Red, gold, and green Red, gold, and green
We then zip over to the swimming pool. On this hot afternoon we see dotted on the grass untidy groups of kids. Zoom in and they’re munching on Bush Biscuits or a Zooper Dooper before running to the diving board. From this they leap off aiming desperately and adolescently at the canteen, run long-sufferingly by Mrs. Chappell. They try to splash her by doing a storkie, arsey or a coffin. They’re tiresome but determined. The supervisor—an elderly Englishman—yells to the skinny boys, ‘Pack it in!’ They ignore him but he yells again. ‘Pack it in or you’ll have a rest for five minutes!’
A short journey and we pause over the Pizza Bar on the Main Street. Johnny Guzzo is the boss. Again, inside there’s some of the town’s youth and they’re huddled about the Formica tables. Some spill onto the footpath, weighted by black duffle coats and ripple boots. With P plates blutacked to their windows, assorted cars lined up outside. There’s a knot of motorbikes too.
Inside by the windows and next to the pinball machines, a mate’s trying for his best ever score on Frogger. He’s trying to cross the river on logs and—be careful—skip over on the backs of hopefully drowsy crocodiles. But he gets munched and the game’s over. He thumps the glass top of the arcade machine. Johnny’s throwing pizza dough up into ever widening circles and hears the racket. ‘Hey! Do that again and I kicka you out!’
It’s 1983 and for one group of kids, they’re in year 12. Seventeen is an age when much happens but you’re no longer a child and not yet an adult. It’s a fraught, fantastic time. Let’s zoom in and see who they are.
*
Here’s Kapunda High’s class of 1983. There’s only thirteen of us although this was boosted by the subsequent return of one Paul Masters, and arrival of Eriko, our Japanese exchange student. Then, of course, most of the fifty-odd who began with us in year 8 had left school for a job. Year 12 was matriculation which meant qualifying for university. It an innocent and wonderous time.
This photo was taken on the croquet lawn at the front of the school. I never saw any croquet but sitting on its grass under the autumn sun was calming and peaceable. And it’s such a picturesque setting that a few short decades later it was where the girl fourth from the left and I would be married. No other location presented itself.
There were only fifteen of us, but I thought us an unruly collective. All day long we laughed and yelled and interrupted each other. Thirty years on, talking in the footy club with Macca—our beloved History teacher Paul McCarthy—he told me we were, ‘bright and well-behaved. A really great group.’ In 1983 I sat in a corner next to Chrisso and Davo and we did much together.
Claire and Trish and I had long enjoyed our triangular friendship, and this continued. There were a couple of classmates with whom I barely exchanged words. I didn’t dislike them; we just had little in common and I hope they’re happy and well.
*
Our matric centre was at the front of the school just near the croquet lawn. It was down the cement steps and in Kidman’s bequeathed mansion, Eringa, it had been a servant’s bedroom. A tiny room, it could only fit ten or a dozen of us around the little student tables.
A blackboard hung to the side and an old gas heater sat above the mantle and we’d use it to toast sandwiches until we weren’t permitted. A corridor ran around two of the walls and our individual carrells were lined up there. How lucky that we had our own private desks? Much of our year was spent at these.
In that little classroom we’d conversations which influenced us. Mrs. Schultz, our gentle and wise English teacher, chaperoned us through The Grapes of Wrath with the Joads as they made their emblematic and weighty way from Oklahoma to California through the Mojave Desert.
I recall my terror as she and Trish talked at length about the novel’s symbolism, focusing upon the turtle crossing a highway and how it represented struggle, determination, and hope. Committed to making my own life difficult, I read many Steinbeck novels over the summer and loved them. But, of course, I didn’t finish the compulsory Grapes of Wrath, and generally only saw the turtle as a turtle.
Our Australian History teacher, Mr. Krips, escorted us through a study of our national identity and the apotheosis of the nomad tribe. I’d not encountered the word apotheosis before. It wasn’t used on the cricket, even by Richie Benaud or by Graham Kennedy on Blankety Blanks. It impressed me and I vowed to keep it in my vocabulary as I thought it could have future value. I swiftly forgot it.
Of equal value was the extra-curricular stuff we learnt from our teachers. The girl fourth from the left and Trish always had enthusiasm for curating our experiences and so set up communal diaries in big scrap books. Quickly becoming known as the Crap Books, these enjoyed daily entries, with some contributing more than others. Occasionally Kripsy did too. How great was he? Early in the year he noted the discovery of a musical gem.
Last night I saw Marvin Gaye on TV singing, ‘Sexual Healing’ which was terrific. What a voice! What a performance!
It is a great tune and now when I hear it I instantly think of Kripsy and that tiny, windowless classroom. I hear it with fondness for my classmates and teachers and that fleeting, singular time and place.
Get up, get up, get up, get up Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up
Oh, baby now let’s get down tonight!
*
The Coorong is a distance from Kapunda, south of the mouth of the Murray. Until our matric year, school camps had been breezy and amusing affairs. More like holidays than educational experiences. As we had to study both a science and a humanities subject, I found myself in Biology and had to undertake a special personal project. For reasons which over time have only become more bleakly absurd, I was about to immerse myself in the heady, sparkling world of Banksias.
Yes, my teenaged fantasies were all becoming real. I would undertake a vegetation transect. It’s not, however, as glamorous as it sounds.
We stayed in rustic accommodation with Mr. Zanker and Miss Searle. Curiously, I would work with Mr. Zanker decades later at Marryatville High where I taught his daughter in year 12. In 1983, there were about eight of us in Biology and we drove down on Sunday. I recollect none of the journey.
It was cold and grey but one night by a shared metal sink I had a novel experience. One of my classmates, the girl fourth from the left, leant towards me, giggling, and announced, ‘Hey you. Listen to this!’ A brief subterranean rumble followed. We both collapsed into laughter. It was the first time I’d heard a girl fart.
This remains the clear highlight of that camp.
Monday morning was grim and wretched, and it began to rain. I was utterly alone in the middle of a forest of banksias. My task was to measure all sorts of variables like tree height, number of banksia flowers, distance between trees, and other things too hideously dull to itemise for you now.
Until then I think I was a kid who just got on with stuff. But this was new for it was an obligation in which I had zero interest. It was a necessity and there was no escape. I sat on the wet ground and my bum became damp. Three more days of this! I reckon it was the first time in my life I was truly bored. Even now I twitch if I see a Banksia. They’re for life, not just the Coorong.
It gave me a glimpse into the dark world of adulthood responsibility. I didn’t like it.
It’s of significant joy to me that you’re teaching yourself the guitar. I love your discipline in playing each night and how fully you immerse yourself in it. You practice with patience and skill, clearly striving to be the best guitarist you can be.
I really enjoy hearing Jeff Buckley’s ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ and then some chunky blues riffs filling up the house. Your insight into the technical aspects is mightily impressive too. Arpeggio. Capo. Chromatic. This shows me just how deeply invested you are.
I’m completely confident that you’re transferring these skills and successes to other areas of your life. Music is of tremendous benefit to us when we listen, discuss, and in your case, actually make it too. You are living this positive behaviour, Max.
I hoped that going to the Led Zeppelin documentary would be interesting but also inspirational. I hope it has been for you! I anticipate eagerly the next steps for you as a musician which might include forming a band with friends like Levi. I know you’re looking for a bassist and a singer. You could be the vocalist yourself! I would love to be at your first gig!
What about the tremendous learning that’s come from your job? Pasta Go Go has been excellent for you and I can see multiple benefits regarding responsibility, teamwork, hard labour, managing your money, self-assurance, and thinking about your future. I also like that this is a connection between you and Alex.
You also seem to have strong self-awareness about this and understand both your strengths and areas for improvement as an employee. Well done! I was especially impressed that you took a shift at Henley Beach when you didn’t know the venue or any of the other workers. I’m sure this made your boss rapt too. These are the kinds of choices that build character and confidence—ones that will serve you well in life.
Like the guitar, this job experience is a positive indicator for your future as well. It makes me both proud of and excited for you.
I said to you a few weeks ago how compared to last year you are now in many ways unrecognisable. Your growth and advancing maturity are hugely pleasing, and this is also evident at school. Attendance, application, and achievement are all vastly improved with B grades thus far in 2025 across all subjects!
Wednesday mornings are a symbol of the new Max. Now, you get up at 7am, ride to the gym and then meet friends before school actually starts. You are harnessing the late start as an opportunity for fitness and fun. I’m delighted in your approach to this.
It was well over a decade ago that you gave us the immortal line, ‘I’m cooler than a robot, older than the wolf.’ One of the highlights of our Sydney trip was the ferry ride across the harbour to Manly. As we rode up and down the towering waves and you saw the small leisure craft bouncing around on the massive swell you remarked to Alex and me how you, ‘Hope on that boat they didn’t leave any eggs out on the bench.’
Is there a more fetching architectural feature than a bull-nosed veranda? it’s wholly inviting how it curves down to the approaching guest and beckons you inside for a cuppa and a Monte Carlo (goodness, what a biscuit). Does the sloping iron suggest submissiveness? Or on this early afternoon, a very attractively priced sausage roll? The Willunga Bakery veranda is at once confident but also modest and I wonder if this is reflective of Australia’s idealised self-image. After being overseas, a bull-nosed veranda can welcome you home with a hug just like the song Flame Trees and then being cussed at spectacularly in a nasal twang by a dear friend.
At $3.90 I was stunned and wondered bleakly if I wasn’t still in Sco-Mo’s Australia. A quick slap to my own face and I was returned to 2025. How was the sausage roll? Pretty good. Decent size and flaky pastry. The taste was initially uncertain but finished with a pleasant zing. And which Wednesday isn’t improved by a pleasant zing? Like a member of the Barmy Army attacking a late-night kebab, I woofed it down pronto. I then remarked to myself, not unlike an English cricket tourist that my sausage roll was, ‘dead good.’ I stood proudly, allowing the flakes to fall onto the ground. Small marsupials would enjoy these tonight.
Sitting on a bench out the front of the bakery is a visual feast. The handsome pub’s across the road, promising cold Pale Ale, and clots of tourists wobble up and down the hilly street. Like a diminutive Smithsonian Institute, there’s a random but artistic assortment of objects on the bakery footpath, festooned across the walls, and dangling from the iron ceiling. I found it diverting, just like a Test match crowd after tea when the full theatrics unfold. I would never wish to use one but there’s deep aesthetic comfort in an old (are there new ones?) typewriter. Do these and Betamax video players weep together in lonely old church halls and console each other?
I love a community notice board. These are often rich texts laden with intrigue and narrative clout. Willunga’s bakery adheres to this. When was the last time you saw a sheep pose for a photo with such grace and composure? For a recently lost livestock the unflinching way it’s staring down the camera seems uncharacteristically calm and accepting of its bleating circumstances. A Current Affair could do worse than to interview this lamb. Found: Lost Dorper Lamb could be an animated Wes Anderson film, 70’s agrarian concept album or minor Roald Dahl short story. Our sheep contact and agricultural hero, ‘Margret’ has a curious name. This rare variant of ‘Margaret’ sounds Welsh and is therefore entirely appropriate for one collecting and saving stray sheep like a Fleurieu shepherdess.
In 500 words (or fewer) discuss how this image is emblematic of a small town, nostalgic Australia. Ken Done should put this on a tea-towel. Blue and white fly strips fluttering in the warm breeze. A daggy Open sign that’s rusty and worn. A bright yellow chair that’s cheerful and retro, promising no nonsense, 1950’s values inside. It’s charming and unpretentious. Stick Bill Hunter on it. If this doesn’t already exist, the photo could feature in a calendar called, ‘No Bullshit Bakeries of the Bush.’
And as we’d driven to work in Claire’s RAV4 it made complete sense to go home in this instead of inexplicably abandoning the vehicle in the pub’s undercroft carpark like an orphaned hatchback and take the tram.[5]
[1] Until recently it was known as the Bombay Bicycle Club, a nod to the hotel’s little-known popularity as a setting for many Bollywood musicals. None, however, with Brett Lee.
[2] Claire enjoyed a sparkling white (champagne) and an espresso martini while your limerickeer had two Pirate Life South Coast Pale Ales which can be quicker to drink than to type with two fingers.
[3] The pub offers no official Happy Hour(s) but does have really good prices, all day, every day.
[4] Notable conversation topics include Adelaide’s Fringe Festival, Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) – A UNESCO World Heritage Site; a stunning railway station built in 1887, blending Victorian Gothic and traditional Indian architecture, and the surprising joys of porridge.
[5] May not adhere to traditional limerick final line metre.
Jogging along the ribbon of blonde sand, he was grateful for the gulf and majestic sky.
There were only vague, soundless characters scattered on the coast.
In the softened distance a lone figure was smudged on the scenery. He could make out her muted pink dress. She was at the water’s edge, moving north towards West Beach.
Arriving at her side he slowed and bent towards her. Then he reached for the closest shoulder. He kissed her cheek—exquisite, familiar—and was moved in a profound, unspoken way.
She murmured that the morning suited her, that she should come here more often.
He reminded her of the unseasonal winter’s day, a few years’ back, when they did this before work.
She smiled, a kind nod to their memory.
Yes, he said, August—just before the Josh Pyke concert.
He returned to his jog and stretched away from her. The water receded some more with the moon’s fading gravity.
It was the briefest of exchanges, a sliver of chat. But it was connective and affectionate. As he pushed away, she offered tender encouragement after him, before laughing too.
Squaring his shoulders to make erect his carriage, he stared towards the usual turn-around point. It was just beyond a jutting ramp, bordered with rocks.
With the delighted sun vaulting into the incalculable blue, he’d soon return and ease to a walk alongside her.
As I stop the car in the national park, wistfulness arrives. I’m in the Adelaide Hills for the park run event at the old Belair golf course.
The landscape’s changed. I’ve changed too.
On my previous visit around the change of millennium it was a lush and brilliant sea green and rightly respected as a golfing postcard. That day my leisure buddies were chaps I went to school with from our hometown of Kapunda.
Crackshot. Puggy. Bobby.
I love the pre-run buzz as clusters of runners collect and dissolve, collect and dissolve. Much anticipatory and animated chatter. At the bottom of a brown hill two hundred of us congregate on the parched apron.
Belair golf course was closed about a decade back. The clubhouse is also gone—replaced by the bumps and swooping curves of a BMX track. I recall post-round beers on its balcony overlooking the final hole and watching other groups approaching the green. We’d admire the parabola of a successful shot but also feel solidarity with those spraying into the foliage. Our conversation might’ve gone thus:
‘That’s a nice shot into the green. Just like yours, Puggy,’
‘Let’s hope he doesn’t three putt as well.’
‘Harsh. How many balls did you hit out of bounds today, Mickey?’
‘Careful. Whose buy?’
‘Crackshot’s.’
I remember playing the Friday after my graduation; a mild winter’s day in 1988. These were good times. My world was necessarily opening up, but the Belair golf course remained a comforting, occasional alcove.
*
Our 5k run begins with an alarmingly steep climb up the 18th. The track’s loose with sandy rubble so I watch my feet. The Run Director had cautioned the throng: ‘It’s a trail and most weeks someone comes to grief.’ Despite this his briefing was generous and encouraged a cuddly sense of togetherness.
We then cut across half a dozen holes and it’s frequently 4WD terrain. Among the inclines and undulating gum forest we’re sheltered from the wind but it’s nonetheless demanding.
At the teardrop turn, we swivel and retrace our steps. As always, there’s a broken stream of elite runners who skate ahead and illuminate the way.
It was nostalgic and my old affection for the course surged. The golf holes remain and some of the greens are now home to frisbee golf buckets and nets. So, it’s still golf Jim, but not as I know it.
Kangaroos hop here and there or lounge about indifferently like (muscular) bogans in Bali. They still own the place.
Scampering across the ex-fairways, I was teleported back decades and considered The Great Gatsby. I appreciated those, ‘riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart’ and could almost hear the ghostly rifle crack of an errant Hot Dot clunking onto a gum tree trunk— accompanied by a groan and paddock language.
Pushing along beneath the trees and through the balmy shade, I wondered about the lost world of my youth. Where had it and the verdant fairways gone? Here I was in my new (parkrun) life but was there loss and also emergent reward?
Is the past really a distant, gaseous planet and we’re forever marooned on Earth? TS Eliot once wrote:
Time and the bell have buried the day, the black cloud carries the sun away.
Perhaps he was right. Or perhaps the past never fully leaves us. No to all that, for my life (now) is radiant, kaleidoscopic, and rich.
I’d enjoyed peering into my youth on this parkrun which had masqueraded as a museum tour. Was I sad the old golf course was gone? Yes, but I was happy for the fun of playing there with childhood friends when a lazy afternoon could be gladly lost on the fairways.
Tumbling back down the final hole, I collapse through the finish gate. Hands on hips, I pull in some air and gaze about Saturday’s temperate, misty morning.
On my way back to the car I hear (I think) a percussive burst of spectral golf club on ball.
I message Claire with a brevity I hope conjures a sense of espionage. I enjoy these conspiratorial moments.
5.37pm in the TAFE car park.
We meet at precisely this time.
Success! Claire thinks we’re walking. It’s only 750 metres or a ten-minute stroll on this warm afternoon.
So, to continue the mystery, I decide to drive us.
This month’s Mystery Pub is the Crafty Robot, a brewery on Grote Street with a sprawling beer garden and cavernous, concrete interior. Come early evening we’ll all be in another interior of a more cosy nature.
Making her (overdue) Mystery Pub debut, my sister Jill breezes through the gate, and we assemble about an outside table.
Claire volunteers to procure the drinks. Returning, she clasps a white wine, a (0.0%) beer for Jill, and a Blonde Ale (4.5%) for the only non-blonde in our party, me. With sips and nods and brief individual analysis, all are deemed satisfactory.
We chat and eat a shared dinner of deep-dish margherita pizza which has recently transitioned from being a (dysfunctional) quiche. There’s also a plate of indeterminate potato stuff. Inside a Quiz Night rumbles into animated life. Peering through the glass I see the MC moving about with insistent evangelism. I imagine him asking, ‘On which Beatles’ album does Ringo not play a cowbell?’
We speak of the Fringe and our aspirations. Claire enquires. ‘What are you doing, Jill?’
‘Got a few shows booked. 27 Club (about the musicians like Hendrix and Cobain who all shuffled off at this tender age). One in Stepney too.’
Claire recalls last Saturday’s play in the library. ‘Prometheus was hard work. Youth theatre. After a few minutes I was waiting for it to end.’
I agree. ‘It asked the audience to work too hard.’
Conversation then moves to the immediate for we’re going to the Fringe’s premiere comedy club, the Rhino Room and specifically its subterranean venue, Hell’s Kitchen.
The fifty-first edition of Mystery Pub concludes. We’ve had a splendid hour.
*
Until Claire was appointed as the Auslan interpreter for Brett Blake’s stand-up show we’d not heard of him. Ambling in, Jill and I have no real expectations but present ourselves with open minds.
Hell’s Kitchen is tiny, the size of a modest suburban lounge room. It’s close and hot down there (as befits a venue called Hell) and the stage is only elevated a few inches. It does the trick. Claire’s on a chair to the left of Brett.
You might know BB from his recent appearance in a betting ad with Shaq O’Neill. He clicks up a photo in which he’s standing next to the seven-foot basketballer and is about half his height. Upon shaking his hand he describes, ‘My hand got lost in his palm and I didn’t touch one of his fingers.’ This is all context for his main story about being arrested when he was seventeen.
As the show progressed, I formed a view. Blake’s a brilliant writer and storyteller: observant, skilled with language, assured.
His routine’s about growing up in an outer suburb of Perth (tough) and his homelife (loving), school life (challenging for all) and escapades at large (hilarious and harrowing).
I roared like a drain (what does this actually mean?) across the sixty minutes. The highlight was BB talking about cars and youth and motoring perils. Mid-anecdote he said,
‘Jayden? Jayden? Silence. No reply. The nursing home was quiet.’
He continued. ‘This is because in the future there’ll be no Jaydens in nursing homes. Why? Because they’ll all have met their untimely ends. Every Jayden will perish by accident in a shitty old Commodore. No Jayden will live to fifty.’
The room erupts. The truth in it—absurd, yet undeniable—hits us all and there’s bellowing aplenty.
Later, I wonder how many ways the mandatory forearm tattoo can be spelled.
I’m about seven. We—Mum and Dad and my sister, Jill— were visiting people at their Yorke Peninsula shack. I don’t recall the afternoon’s crabbing but gathering later about a table in the childhood-hot evening. On it were long necks of Southwark while a black and white tele flickered against the fibro. The adults bashed the crimson crabs and busted open the tepid claws.
I could smell vinegar.
This table was Formica and from the 60’s—today doubtless worth a minor fortune with its chrome trim and retro mint top.
Just like the elegantly vintage tables now out the back of The Wheaty, Adelaide’s finest music pub. A large floor lamp’s on the side of the stage—turned off and quiet. Bulbous, orange lightshades dangle from the ceiling, evoking Disco Inferno and its eleven-minute polyester frenzy. Galvanised iron clads the northern wall. The space represents as a twilight Sunday backyard crossed with a 70’s lounge room.
I can almost smell fondue.
Pizza (pepperoni) from the food van and craft beers are our prelude. Their website boasts there’s, ‘no skinny lagers or low-carb blands.’
We’re here for Dave Graney and Clare Moore.
*
The funniest nominal group in music is at the end of this verse. Using the head noun: cowboy it employs pre-modifiers in an amusing string of adjectives. It’s central to Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Where I Hide—a narrative song that’s part stand-up routine, part wish fulfilment.
Anyway People started to talk Started to talk about this Legendary mysterious loudmouth invisible rock singer cowboy
*
I’m rereading Catcher in the Rye and tonight’s music conjures Salinger. Short stories in sonic form. Graney loves intertextuality—his song Warren Oates nods to Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia—and I make my own connections.
Holden Caulfield’s narration comes to mind
He wrote this terrific book of short stories, The Secret Goldfish, in case you never heard of him. The best one in it was “The Secret Goldfish.” It was about this little kid that wouldn’t let anybody look at his goldfish because he’d bought it with his own money. It killed me.
*
Irony works best on Thursdays.
Certainly not Mondays. Fittingly, we are at The Wheaty on a Thursday, Valentine’s Day eve. Our musical host, Dave Graney doesn’t weaponize irony, he seduces us with it.
How does his appearance amplify this? A dinner suit winking to the safari style. Moustache channelling the pencilled elegance of Clark Gable.
Completing the mythic persona, the hat.
Every so often his voice drifts to Sprechgesang— the German term for half-sung, half-spoken delivery. This elevates the irony.
Once, Graney woke up and immediately thought about how the American band Wilco can’t itself wonder vaguely about Wilco when he inescapably does. Is this American cultural hegemony? We then hear Wilco Got No Wilco.
Festival favourites – out of shape guys in denim Happy to be home – happy to be there Romans! Legionnaires! We saw the white sails
Between songs he muses, ‘I have many guitars.’ Dave then turns to his wife Clare, behind her drum kit, and says, ‘Clare’s playing her B drum kit. The A kit’s home in the studio.’
Turning to the bassist, he asks, ‘Is this your A bass?’ Then, pre-emptively, with a flourish that borders the reverential and the sardonic: ‘It’s his John Cougar Mellencamp bass.’
*
Black Statesman ‘73
Caprice.
Leaded.
The thrilling opening of Feelin’ Kinda Sporty is a triumph of nostalgic parochialism. It’s as Australian as Skyhooks. Or Gough. Or begrudging affection for the Gold Coast.
Is Graney applauding that this marque gulped leaded (super) petrol? I hope so. I bet he once drove a lumpen V8.
What a car.
*
Out the back of The Wheaty we have an evening of wry storytelling. But it’s also an invitation—to view our prickly world through Graney’s secluded and exceptional window.
His lyrics suggest imagist poetry which originated a century ago: lean, distilled, potent.
Its famed example is Ezra Pound’s In a Station of the Metro. This two-line couplet captures a scene of bustling commuters waiting on a train platform:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd
Petals on a wet, black bough
*
Tonight, there are no girl meets boy stories. But there’s affection of a different, uncommon kind. Commemorations of the minor and minuscule. We take excursions into Graney’s head and its sometimes lurid, always lush, jungle.
The second song of the encore is Night of the Wolverine, featuring this cinematic pan. Memoir or fiction? It doesn’t matter.
Free beer and chicken man, and hotel rooms Hired cars, alligator boots A scarf over the lampshade Black tape over the window
Graney’s music chaperones us to places humid and strange—where the ceiling fan’s revolving slowly, ice clinks in a frosty tumbler, and irony is a welcome, surprising seductress.
mickeytales 