Smiling and waving as you reverse your car. Sunglasses on.
You’re going to an interpreting job. It could be a medical appointment or to watch and learn at a play rehearsal. Or maybe it’s somewhere for yourself like the gym for a yoga class or the beach for an energetic amble.
Of course, you began this ritual and as I hover waiting for its embrace, the arrival is still a sweet surprise. The roller-door descends and moving from the garage to the patio, I feel gratitude for this miracle of everyday punctuation.
A cheery melody. A petite suburban symphony as joyful as the piccolo trumpet solo on ‘Penny Lane.’
There it is. You honk the horn.
Toot-toot!
In your Toyota RAV, you surge down our street. A show of love, the sound’s both a fond farewell but also a promise you’ll keep me close throughout your excursion across our flat, murmuring city.
Now inside, I head to my desk or maybe I’ll wash the large saucepan I’ve rescued from the dishwasher’s clutches. These appliances are theatres of unceasing, marital contest. Ours is a gentle skirmish over a fundamental ideological question: what truly belongs in a dishwasher?
Driving out into the world in your enticing way, you take your warmth and kindness, and the fortunate beneficiaries will be friends and appreciative strangers.
If operated deftly, car horns are versatile instruments. Communicating anger with a single, sustained attack, they can also surprise with a sudden chirp, but your vehicular sonata rises above the ordinary by offering double-noted devotion.
Cascading through the front door, and up the passageway, this amber sound splashes out across the back lawn. Like a bouncing catamaran, it also sails over our home.
In our mostly undisturbed neighbourhood, this rare private and public expression springs over fences and into the sanctuaries of others, a sonorous reminder of the easy joys found in our seaside enclave.
So, as you dash into the realm beyond, leaving behind the fading tones of your affectionate toot, I’m comforted that this aural hug, this little wonder, will linger in the quiet spaces until your homecoming.
Congratulations on your exceptional performance in ‘7 Minutes.’ Your portrayal was a masterclass in comedic energy as you deftly satirized a military stereotype in skillfully exploring abusive power.
The arresting facial expressions you employed provided insight into the complexities of your character, while the physicality of your performance conveyed both intimidation and deep vulnerability—a tribute to the absurdist theatre of the celebrated Irish playwright, Samuel Beckett. It was also reminiscent of Monty Python and John Cleese’s hyper-real antics.
The audience was captivated by the entrance of your character and Judd on the nuclear bomb Daisy. Your choice of the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep til Brooklyn” as the soundtrack for this injected tremendous energy and fun into the scene. It also drew parallels to the political satire of black comedy films like Dr. Strangelove, and paid homage to its iconic figures such as Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake.
The name Daisy itself evokes the Vietnam War bomb known as the Daisy Cutter and resonates with the noted 1964 US presidential campaign advertisement for Lyndon Johnson. Featuring a little girl picking the petals from a daisy and concluding with a nuclear explosion, this became a poignant symbol of how Cold War paranoia instilled fear in the collective consciousness.
The play was rich in intertextuality, drawing inspiration from the Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Planet of the Apes franchise, including the use of the infamous, ‘Doomsday Bomb.’ The narrative, with only a man and woman surviving, harked back to biblical themes of Adam and Eve, and other moments recalled Charlie Chaplin’s anti-Nazi film, The Great Dictator. The recent release, JoJo Rabbit was also conjured in addition to Austin Powers. It was a thought-provoking text, and I also really enjoyed the performances of Judd, Max, and Harriet.
The final dance-off, a delightful and entertaining spectacle, echoed iconic moments from Glee, The Office with David Brent, Grease, and Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ music video. You were great, and at no point was there any similarity to the dancing skills of your father and this is exceptionally good news for you.
As Company Bright ends for you and your classmates, this production serves to express thanks to your teachers, families, and fellow students. You now have an unbreakable bond with these people. The skills and experiences gained throughout Company Bright will undoubtedly be a magical and life-shaping asset. I’m certain you’ll look back on this with significant affection and gratitude.
Well done, Alex. I am deeply proud of the application and dedication you’ve demonstrated throughout your Company Bright career and particularly in ‘7 Minutes’ and keenly anticipate your future theatrical work in senior school and beyond.
Remember the backyard at Stirling Street and that gnarly old lemon tree? Near the swing with the triangular frame? Every now and then you’d pluck one off a branch, halve it, take a bite and urge Jill and I to do the same. I’d screw up my face at a single drop, but you and Jill seemed to enjoy the taste and so keeping a safe distance, and united in our horror, Mum and I could only look on as you’d both munch a lemon like it was a lolly.
Running down the middle of the yard were parallel garden beds. They bisected the lawn and after tea with your quiet patience you’d help me with the hose and teach me to water the vegetables, saying calm, encouraging things like, ‘Make sure you give them a good drink. On a hot day would you only want half a glass of water? Well, it’s the same with the cucumbers and the tomatoes.’ And even now when watering our plants, I contemplate Dad’s wisdom, trusting I’m giving them a decent sip.
Then, there’s the image of you on your hands and knees, methodically making your way around the lawn perimeter as you edged the buffalo with those big, steel clippers. Of course, while you snipped away at the grass, Jill and I jumped on your back as if you were our very own horse. This was true multitasking, and from you I inherited my love of a manicured lawn. Out the back one-day Max gazed at me and said, ‘Dad, do you think of this lawn as your third son?’
After Kapunda Junior Colts footy games, I’d await your assessment of my performance. There was praise when I played well which was very, very often (Ed– we’re looking into this) but if needed you were direct too. One Friday night I went to a friend’s to watch a film on Betamax, possibly American Werewolf in London and the next day had a terrible game. In the changerooms your advice was clear, ‘You looked tired out there. I reckon from now on stay at home on Friday nights.’ So, I did.
Claire, you’ll be happy to know that morning before this game I called into Peter Moyle’s fruit ‘n’ veg shop and bought an apple and an orange which I ate walking along Hill Street and then winding my way down Baker Street. They didn’t help me at all. Obviously, fruit and football don’t mix.
John Schluter was my Year 6 teacher and Dad and I agree, a very smooth footballer. One spring morning JS and I had a chat at school that went like this-
JS: What do you think about your dad making a comeback to tennis?
Me: Yes, I heard. (You’re about 33 then) You don’t think he’s too old?
JS then helped me realise that how you see your parents is sometimes different to everybody else. He said, ‘Your Dad’s capable of very many things. You should remember that.’ I nodded.
You once and only once played in an oldies footy match at Dutton Park. Now, I was too young to have any real images of your playing days but was thrilled that afternoon as you kicked a bag of impressive goals. It was a clinic. Well, at least until half-time when you were injured, and for the following week hobbled around like you’d been kneecapped by the mafia. Or Mum. But I’m glad I witnessed it.
What about that summer holiday to the Berri Caravan Park? If I’m right, we came home early because it didn’t go so well. Now, I know that to this very day Jill’s sorry she caused all those fights with me. Since then, she’s grown up so much. See boys, it’s about learning.
We’ve a Barmera tradition in which every afternoon at 5pm we do a lap of Lake Bonney with a can of lemonade for the boys and for me a massively deserved Coopers Sparkling Ale. Setting off, each guesses the total number of cars we’ll pass on the Lake Lap. For example, Max might say 7, Alex, 5, Claire 3 and me, 9. Closest wins. Such excitement! And people say I don’t show the boys a good time. Thanks Mum and Dad for those Riverland trips as these gave me deep affection for the place and hopefully, I’ve passed this on.
In August, at the Tanunda Club, on the eve of the ’73 grand final reunion, Phil Jarman declared to Chris Hayward and me that for his height, Bob Randall is the best mark he’s ever seen. I was delighted to hear this yet again and Chris and I were so inspired we each had another six beers.
But among my cherished memories of you is another at Dutton Park. However, this occasion was not for footy or cricket, but the day Claire and I were married. Your speech was elegant and heartfelt and affecting. It told our story well and was about devotion and joy and family. Thank you so much for that.
Tonight’s also an occasion of devotion and joy and family so on his eightieth birthday let’s make a toast to Bob, Poppa, Dad. We love you. To lemons, lawns and love!
Escaping today’s guerrilla heat spike (41 degrees at 4.50pm), Claire and I march like North Korean soldiers from the motor and then we’re inside the dead-eyed TAB-tomb and want to steal through to the beer garden but head-butting all the internal walls, we’re thwarted as the Warradale Hotel comprises two separate buildings so it’s actually dual, eerily competing pubs with distinctive demographics, and we reluctantly retreat outside to the hotness; subsequently re-entering through the gaming section during which I’m sure Claire wants to shout, supportively, to the glum zombie faces, ‘Save yourselves from this vampiric psychic awfulness and the free tea and instant coffee and colourless digestive biscuits which aren’t really free’ and arriving in the Garden Bar, despite my studiously booking a spot on Monday and now stepping purposely like mildly enraged librarians, we locate no sign gently announcing in a kindly font, ‘Michael 5 pm,’ and it’s personally deflating and sets a prickly, I suspect, unrecoverable tone for my relationship with this colossal concrete pub, but right now doesn’t matter, as we enclose a dappled table reserved later for the dedicated, undoubtedly oppressed folk of the dastardly Spotlight emporium (fabrics, craft and homewares) who, we collectively decide, are getting their Christmas function done early this year, a celebration certainly to be fraught and hilarious and teary and concluding messily with more unashamed tears and multiple snotty carpark wailings of, “I bloody love you’ and ‘I tell you, Jayden’s not bloody good enough for you, Honestee’; however, as the ceiling aperture is useless, it’s a marginally toxic room, and boxes in the fuggy smoke (both vape and traditional, like so much in our world we now have electronic and organic versions) shrouding us like a Scooby Doo phantom, so we flee inside with our cherished friends Michelle and Trish, who are today’s Mystery Pub special guests like Suzi Quatro when she was on Happy Days as Leather Tuscadero (even becoming a brief love interest for Ralph Malph) and each of us clasps a unique Friday drink: Claire opting for a turbo-charged brandy and coke, Michelle indulging in a zesty and luscious cocktail, Trish choosing an uplifting soda water adorned with mint leaves (an unparalleled scent, methinks) while I foolishly endure my twice-a-year Heineken in retelling myself that it’s not an exotic lager but really just European VB sans the sophistication; spinning our attention to Michelle’s trip to that continent next year, which arrives as ‘I’m going to Eurovision in Malmo’ while my question to her, ‘Are you looking forward to the irony of it?’ receives a positive reply, with Michelle also listing kitsch delight, outrageous music, and ridiculous Swedish fun as key anticipations then our conversation migrates to our vegetated backyards and our sometimes errant offspring, and the bi-weekly quiz nights, and our respective dreamy retirement visions then concluding with goodbyes a-fluttering, and we’re going, ‘to the places you will be from,’ as the band Semisonic sings in the rousing barroom anthem, ‘Closing Time’; nevertheless, the curious future tense of the lyric is true for blessed people in midnight bars sometimes chance across their momentous other, and fashion mutually enriching lives, and I wonder about our table in the Warradale, yes, this very durable table which another sign indicates will later vanish when the floor beneath us enjoys a twilight transmogrification into a space for disco, Nutbush, the military two-step but hopefully not line dancing, and I mention the short story conference I’m currently attending to which Trish says, ‘The Californian creative writing professor (from whom at a provoking but productive workshop I was inspired to attempt this literary technique) is a dancer too and I danced with him Wednesday night at a salsa social,’ but overall it’s been a buoyant hour, and the Mystery Pub excursion into minor pleasure and suburban surprise continues, while in our tandoor car, Claire pulls the seatbelt over her shoulder.
Smiling, Alex returned to the secure fence of the Vines Stage. He’d been backstage meeting one of his adored bands, Bryon Bay’s own, Babe Rainbow. In the mosh-less pit, we’d stood right up the front for their mid-afternoon set and fittingly, the sun had spilled across the parklands for their summery psychedelia.
Inspired by Tame Impala, I loved their songs too and was pleased the bright, swirling music appealed to Alex. His day was already complete although we still had hours ahead of us. And here he was with his shirt signed and photos freshly pinged to his girlfriend Harriet, grinning like a shot fox.
*
An Auslan interpreter, my wife Claire’s working at Harvest Rock, and thanks to her around my neck I had a backstage pass. Walking from the car to the artists’ village I note each portable change room has a name on it by the plain door. Julia Jacklin, Baker Boy, Vera Blue.
I then pass a hunched, shuffling fellow wearing a beige jacket. He nods and I nod back. In the car preparing for the festival, I’d been playing his seminal album Odelay. On CD, of course. How else to return to the glorious, Gen X 90’s? A music icon and perhaps the ultimate Californian. Beck.
Later, I glimpse him alone at a table with a plate of chicken curry.
*
Across the brimming crowd I see Claire on the Auslan stage. American folk rock act The Lemon Twigs is finishing with melodies soaring and guitars blazing. Squeezing through the throng, two girls are pointing at Claire. She’s in black and signing in that remarkable language, expressing lyrics, melody and meaning. One girl says, ‘Isn’t she great?’ Her friend says, ‘Yeah, I love her.’ I smile; an anonymous figure with an undersized Greg Chappell hat atop his oversized head.
*
I’m back in the artist’s village and a big fella paces by. Built like a boxer, he’s familiar and I know his face. In the gathering twilight he gazes at his feet and then I remember him. Rockwiz. It’s Peter ‘Lucky’ Luscombe who drums in Paul Kelly’s band. He’s clenching the drumsticks that will usher in the second verse of Australia’s favourite seasonal song, ‘How to Make Gravy.’ We’ll all sing along to
I guess the brothers are driving down from Queensland
And Stella’s flying in from the coast
I love how the introduction of Luscombe’s drums and their magnificent energy echoes the family travelling home for Christmas. It also foreshadows the pending drama of their tale. I glance over again at his drumsticks, and these are enchanted. He disappears.
*
I’m up the back of the Harvest Stage. I peer up. Encircling us like ancient guardians, gum trees stretch and wave while above is the cityscape, newly impressive now, and emblematic of Adelaide finally being softly buoyant and sure of itself. Between sets, ‘Ego is Not a Dirty Word’ by Skyhooks surges over the blue sky, continuing the day’s uplifting nostalgia. It’s a Sunday BBQ song and my immersion into the world of the festival has arrived.
*
With the dark having risen up from the trampled grass there’s an earthy thrum. On the Vines Stage, Tash Sultana is coaxing all of her instruments to sultry life: guitar, drums, bass, saxophone, keyboard, flute. It all loops about and entangles us with aural warmth. Over on the Auslan stage and all in black among these compelling atmospherics, Claire is now backlit and silhouetted, still providing insight and accessibility.
I have yet another moment.
*
I’m at the back for Paul Kelly’s set and with my eldest son right by the front our generational handover resumes. Alex’s fifteen is more kaleidoscopic and whole-hearted than my fifteen was and this gladdens me. Heading home, I ask his thoughts on Australia’s most treasured minstrel, and he replies, ‘He was excellent.’ Steering down Anzac Highway I beam.
Massive in its fragility, ‘Deeper Water’ is an immaculate distillation of life. Hearing Paul Kelly’s finest composition always forces hot tears, and this festive lawn hosts the latest episode in my story of this song.
Already the unrelenting enthusiast, Alex pushes against the stage in this blue evening’s swiftly chilling air, and at this very moment our lives unfurl together in soaring splendor, and I hope all those optimistic signs I see in him are perfect predictors, and with this isolated, joyful city as a witness, my time tonight has again come too early and too, too late.
Travelling to Hahndorf was a calculated venture, a precious escapade that I guarded with an awareness that our shared holidays are approaching their natural quota, and every moment counted.
One sun-kissed afternoon, Alex, Max, and I ventured to the tourist park’s flickering pool. In our aquatic triangle an American football sailed across the water between us three. This game, as I’d hoped, was just a pretext to indulge in teenaged chatter. They bantered with the bustling spirit of brothers, yakking about everything and nothing, their chat interwoven with pokey jests. When these sometimes targeted me, I was delighted.
Assuming the role of invested observer, my ears were sharply tuned to the cadence of their conversation, picking out words and tones that conveyed encouragement or concern. Pleasingly, all was as expected. My seismograph remained flat.
*
Our mini-golf tournament became the ‘Tronky Cup’. A tronky, should you be unaware, is a maddeningly marketed chocolate bar from the Kinder empire and doubtless a shrieking delight for the offspring of Jayden, Kayden, and Brayden. Home on the couch recently watching these being advertised, Claire and I pondered the accompanying sense of doomed entitlement and twee allure.
While us boys battled the miniature concrete course, I recounted my whimsical and unsuccessful quest to purchase one as a vaguely amusing gift for Claire. Today’s victor, I decreed, would claim the prestigious ‘Tronky Cup.’ It was just silly enough for them to agree.
Max held up a wet finger to the breeze on the 12th before lowering himself over his putt, a tricky nine-footer. This reminded me happily of how golf and droll humour belong together, and they appeared alert to this. Despite an earlier hole-in-one, Alex met with catastrophe on the 18th hole, taking eight shots, and so I was victorious. At the German Arms a dreadful beer was a cruel celebration.
*
After a substantial schnitzel at the Oakbank pub, we went to the local school. Like many built in the 1970’s, its façade projected unwarranted smugness, the campus set back haughtily from the road. Max and I strolled to the half court, for some one-on-one basketball.
He, the young aficionado, offered a constant stream of commentary as he gracefully schooled me on the court. Our conversation spanned the entire spectrum of the sport, from his lunchtime games to his local team, district competitions, the NBL, and his revered NBA.
Max’s roster of basketball heroes is impressive (MJ easily better than Lebron, he argues), though I couldn’t help but think that, at his age, mine was filled with footballers and cricketers. His passion is a globalised, contemporaneous expression, and that’s fine with me.
*
As the sun began its descent, and we were bathed in a muted afternoon light, Alex and I circumnavigated an ornamental lake to the giant chessboard. His moves were calculated, each one deliberate and considered. An Asian boy appeared, offering unsolicited advice, but Alex played a patient, long game, demonstrating impressive self-regulation before emerging as the eventual conqueror. It was an exquisite hour. We shook hands.
The thought crossed my mind that, as parents, we secretly wish for our kids to surpass us in life’s endeavours, and now, chess and what it symbolises, is added to the lengthening list of Alex’s triumphs.
*
Our week’s zenith was a hike from Waterfall Gully to the Mount Lofty Summit, during which we were immersed in nature’s grandeur. I mused to the boys about the psychological benefit of being occasionally dwarfed by colossal creations, whether natural or human. Wise beyond his years, Max summarised with an ironic wisdom I wish I’d possessed at thirteen, ‘So you can know that you’re just one of eight billion people.’
On our taxing ascent, Alex spotted an echidna, and Max sporadically sprinted ahead, his youthful exuberance propelling him up the tough terrain. I lurched along behind. We discussed school, past trips like this one, and the significance of reaching this summit, together. Our knees and ankles were tested on the descent, but I felt gratitude for this challenging, shared excursion, undertaken with a purity of purpose.
*
Throughout our trip, the boys had accepted my itinerary with happily natured grunts and shoulder shrugs, and these became wordless affirmations of the mottled good that just might come from a holiday with their dad.
Travelling back down the freeway, we nattered about where we could go next time.
‘I think they’re Russian mafia,’ I suggest, glancing again over at the table behind us.
Claire disagrees. ‘The accent’s not right. Could be Italian?’
There’s four huddled together in the bistro and the alpha male is lecturing incessantly. The other man nods, as do the two women. They’re youngish and it only encourages him. I say to Claire, ‘If it’s Italian you could probably understand it.’
‘True. No, I can’t. It could be Spanish.’
We agree that it’s likely Español and return to the blustery afternoon outside. White caps push onto the clean sand and the balcony’s blue and red flags are rippling.
Claire’s picked a close venue but a surprising one. The Somerton Bar and Bistro sits atop the surf lifesaving club. It’s happy hour and my James Squire One Fifty Lashes pale ale is decent although I’m not as enthusiastic about it as I was a decade ago. My wife’s white is affable. Both are only $5 each.
Down on the esplanade there’s a trickle of traffic. Some are lone walkers; others have dogs. From the south a woman in black leisure gear bursts into view, moving with pace. Just as suddenly, she stops. I’m unsure if she’s run ten miles, or ten steps.
Surveying the coast with her year 12 Geography lens, Claire considers. ‘There’s less visual pollution here at Somerton Park. No buoys, poles, lights.’
We’re often at Glenelg North and this provides a crowded, messy vista with the groyne running out by the marina and like Venice’s Grand Canal, various channel markers jut out of the ocean. For the purists these human interventions might ruin the aesthetic. I nod agreement at Claire like I probably did in year 12 Geography with Ms. Bogle down in the Matric Centre.
Our Spanish neighbours are still with us, and the alpha male continues to talk at a clip like an Andalusian dancing horse might do in a fever dream. He must be sharing hugely vital information, sensitive data, gripping intelligence. His colleagues constantly nod like they’re committing every word to memory.
I amuse myself by thinking he’s the type of swarthy tourist who gets collared on Border Security for masterminding a massive drug operation. But in truth he’s probably a photocopier technician boring his colleagues rigid with an unbearable address on toner and ink cartridges and paper jams.
And Claire’s back with round dos! And she has chips (crisps for those from Blighty). And as has been my life habit I either eat none or as many as my greedy mitts can grab. Like a good punk rock song, the bag’s done in about a hundred seconds.
A clot of aggrieved, frowning diners suddenly looms over me.
The haggard, dirty blonde barks at me as if I’ve done something unspeakable in her cheap handbag. ‘You’re at our table.’ A foul crime. It’s not the Spaniards but a fresh crowd. I’m startled. Just like a pushy mum volunteering at Brayden and Jayden’s Sport Day as a raker at the long jump pit she continues.
‘This is table number four. We’ve booked it.’ She’s right. I’ve breached her territory and am now in my own hellish episode of Border Security and shit doesn’t appear good. I’ve no plausible story and my passport seems fake. In a back room, someone could be slipping on a glove with my name on it.
Eyes lowered, I scarper shamefully across to our correct table without knocking over chairs or spilling beverages.
Deep breaths taken, we speak of upcoming weekends away, theatre visits and Christmas. Heading to the stairs and the car, I should’ve nodded to the Spanish monologuist and said, ‘Feliz Navidad.’
Running up the main street, noting the folk sat outside various coffee shops, I then veer about by Otto’s Bakery.
An American was explaining something to a passive local sitting and eating toast about four seats away. He seemed confident and had a rich voice like he had, or thought he should have, his own podcast. Aproned people were wiping down the tables outside both pubs leaving glistening trails of cleanliness ready for the lunchtime slop of unwieldy German steins.
The once-drowsy slumber of the evening had vanished, giving way to the bustling dawn of a Tuesday.
Amidst this tumbling tableau a woman passed me going the other way along the footpath. In a whirl of forceful purpose, she was striding fast but reading her book as she went. It was a rare sight, a fusion of worlds, an embodiment of the allure of a solitary journey amidst the written word.
I love early mornings.
Some are taken in nature like Saturday on parkrun dissecting the pine forest by the Myponga Reservoir and mornings like today as a town awakes and smiling hospitality staff scurry about. I run through it all.
Turning by the Otto’s bakery at the top of the street, suddenly a golden, soft light was behind me and bathed the scene with warmth that carried profound love and unornamented joy and you, Claire. It was a welcome alchemy, and a transcendent instant.
In that moment, I was spirited away across continents, to Italy, to a morning much like this one, perhaps in Monterosso on the Cinque Terre. Meandering about with a coffee along narrow lanes we looked at those charming shops and Mediterranean homes and funny little three-wheeled utes for which I found curious affection.
Those unsophisticated amblings during which we spoke of our surroundings and the day ahead and sometimes directed our chat back home. And you were the only person I knew in that entire country, that foreign soaring land, and I wondered how younger me would have been astonished and surprised but grateful beyond expression.
One day soon Claire we’ll be in Hahndorf, and in a minor pilgrimage I’d like to point out the spot by Otto’s Bakery where Italy, you and the remarkable gift that is each day came together in a singular, luminous moment.
Scampering back that bright second metamorphosed to a meditation, and then a prayer offering thanks for all that’s transpired and all that’s to be.
Claire and I are back in the nation of Le Fevre at the accurately labelled Peninsula Hotel. Motoring there proved simple as we accessed the Northern and Port River Expressways with the metaphorical Friday breeze in our hair.
Taking in the hotel visage, I’m smitten as the 2019 renovations have aspired to a Vintage Vegas aesthetic. This evokes iconic buildings such as Circus Circus, the Tropicana, and the Flamingo.
It’s a genuine point of difference as both outside and in are devoid entirely of Port football iconography. It’s brazenly decontextualized and if you wish to drink up homegrown sporting nostalgia, there’s a dozen nearby pubs in which you can do this until you’re silly as a wheel.
This is an architectural delight and midcentury Americana tribute. With a rhetorical front and conventional behind, the Peninsula adopts the Stardust Showroom model of being a ‘decorated shed.’ It presents as a portal to an immersive world.
Most striking are the bright greens, pinks, reds, and blues on the external and internal windows. Lighting and colour are often poorly done by interior designers, so this sets an enticing tone and suggests risk and adventure and ageless excitement.
All in downtown Taperoo.
Vegas motels are styled as pleasure zones like the Alhambra, Disneyland, and Xanadu while the famous gambling strip is also neon in the Atomic Age and uses Miami Moroccan visuals. I mention to Claire that according to my reading, Vegas is situated in an ‘agoraphobic auto-scaled desert.’
But that’s enough psychosexual geography.
*
5pm can be a curious, twilight time to descend upon a pub. The lunch and function crowd have (mostly) long left and omitting Queensland pensioners, it’s too early for those seeking dinner. Office types are still pretending to write outcomes-driven emails. But we’ve arrived and the emptiness aids critical appraisal and having the bar to ourselves is also helpful for conversation.
Like racehorses and heavy metal bands, modern beverages are prone to enchanting names that overpromise and underdeliver.
Claire requisitions a Shy Pig Sauvignon Blanc while I go for a local beer in the Big Shed Peninsula Proud. It’s a hazy pale ale, brewed in the neighbouring province of Royal Park. Both drinks deliver and my pint is hoppy and aromatic and pokes me in a late afternoon kinda way.
The movie set-like Peninsula isn’t an inexpressive cavern or processing plant but rather a place promising veiled and tempting nooks. Taking up residency we examine our week and encouraged by the setting, talk shifts naturally to the Rat Pack and the Chapel of Love and Elvis.
We consider visiting Vegas. Claire says, ‘I’d love to go. You’ve been there, right?’
Queue my Vegas blackjack story. I reply. ‘Yes, you know!’
Claire summarises neatly if a little eagerly. ‘That’s when you went to a casino at midnight and got to bed at 8am? When you were still winning at dawn and then gave all your money back?’
Ouch.
‘Correct,’ I affirm before offering a meek defence. ‘It was such good fun.’ I interrupt with an idea. ‘A trip there would have to include the Grand Canyon. It’s easy the best thing I’ve seen on the planet.’
Claire doesn’t say, ‘Make sure in Vegas we get a steak and Caesar salad.’
Returning barwards for our second and final refreshments, I note that the busiest section of the pub is the gaming room complete with carnivorous pokies.
But a picturesque, serene light streams in across our table and unlike the optical and aural assault of Vegas, it’s quiet and lounge standards from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin drift through the languid interior like smoke.
And now we’re a very long way from Port Adelaide. Maybe that’s the seductive trick of the Peninsula: the escapism, the effortless time travel, the mirage.
From the top deck of the Sir Edwin Smith Stand I see the scoreboard flags dancing in the breeze. It’s a bright Sunday for the season’s climax and I reckon three or four goals would capitalise on Max Proud winning the toss.
My teenaged son Alex and his mates are with me and during the footy enjoy just one meal. It begins before the opening bounce and in Henry the Eighth style, is still going in the car as we drive home along Anzac Highway.
Both sides exhibit what KG might describe as ‘exceptionally ferocious tackling’ and after eight lengthy minutes a shrewd Lachie Hosie snap in the pocket gets the Tigers away. With his deadly ability to pounce and attack he’s the human form of our mascot.
Cole Gerloff begins brightly and his major from just inside fifty makes the boys roar between cheeseburger bites. It’s a balmy afternoon and Oval management has the Big Ass fans (it’s true, look ‘em up) turning in all the stands.
Then a classically laconic kick from the Ken Farmer Medallist adds another goal. Minus the bloodbaths, ironic dialogue and 1970’s soundtrack, it’s a start that Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino could’ve written for Glenelg.
In the second term Sturt menaces and this continues all afternoon. In the eighth minute they goal and I’m reminded of the 2019 decider when former grand final gluttons, Port, took until just before half time to register their opening major. I don’t ponder this as I want to avoid notifying karma.
Luke Reynolds converts an opportunistic snap and then from the Chappell Stand boundary Corey Lyons slots one magnificently. There’s a healthy crowd of 33,000 and some compulsory rowdiness is already gurgling from the Scoreboard bar. The siren concludes the first half with our lead just short of five goals.
With the psychological if not fiscal comfort of a bucket of chips I prepare myself for Sturt’s inevitable surge. The boys take a break from their eating festival to wolf something else. I ask, ‘Did any of you have breakfast?’ In chorus they reply, ‘Nup.’
Beginning quarter number three for the Blues Matthews kicks one from mid-air. Then they get another. I fidget in my chair. Across halfback Glenelg has been terrifically resolute with the captain marshalling his lieutenants in his composed and visionary way. The umpiring has been excellent thus far.
Sturt now gets a third straight and the surge is on. Suddenly it’s quiet in the jungle. Too quiet. I try not to think about the Double Blues one-point victory over Port in the 2017 grand final.
Then Hosie gets his fifth to restore order and faith. And then he kicks number six. The margin is also six goals. How on earth did the Roos not want him? I say a silent prayer of thanks to North Melbourne for sending Hosie home. With a combined nine goals it’s a pulsating quarter that does justice to the notion of the Premiership Quarter but Sturt is unable to erode our lead.
For the final term the arena is characterised by lengthening shadows and lengthening beer queues. It’s a tussle and we hold firm. The Burley footy is misbehaving for Sturt and in the tricky wind they register four consecutive points before a goal to their speedster in Frederick.
But it’s already ten minutes in. Our defence is superb with smothers aplenty and unrelenting pressure acts to thwart the men from Unley. As KG probably never said, ‘The cruel, uncaring clock is now their enemy.’
I see some Blues scarves easing down the stairs of the Sir Edwin Smith Stand. A mate texts to announce that ‘the Tigers have done it!’ I can’t relax. Not yet. The ball spends long, agonising minutes at the wrong end. Like a constipated mathematician without a pencil, we can’t work it out. Then it finally pings forward and Matty Allen seizes the ball, swings onto his left and it’s home.
The siren. ‘Tigerland’ blasts out across the arena. Still hoovering up food, the boys and I stroll out into the jubilant afternoon.
It’s been a joyous, affirming season. We’re premiers!
Support vehicle #2 takes a wide, languid arc and then halts in the Kurralta Park loading bay.
It probably says many grim things about late-capitalism that my six-kilometre leg of Adelaide’s City Bay fun run begins at an unsound cathedral of shallow greed and deep despair, a shopping centre.
Claire takes a photo of me in my safety pinned, microchipped race bib. With a kiss and a wish for good luck, off I trot.
There’s pythonic toilet queues about the car park. ‘Mambo No.5’ booms from the sound system and it’s vague fun although I prefer my breakfast soundtrack with its highlight being the song once described as the most beautiful sung in English, ‘Waterloo Sunset.’
The event announcer, possibly a young baritone derostered from Nova FM, informs us that the first of the 12k runners is approaching so I make my way to Anzac Highway’s median strip. Peering cityward, a cluster of athletes glides past. These are Collingwood six-footers, trim as gazelles, erect of carriage and with eyes set to the middle distance. It’s impressive.
I head to the starting chute and do a few stretches. As a key sponsor the announcer invites the Sunday Mail editor Paul ‘Ralphy’ Ashenden to the mike to say a few words. He’s an old Kimba and Kapunda boy and I strain to hear him but it’s too noisy. I’m sure he was terrific.
A countdown follows before bang! As Bruce often said in his distinctive near growl at the start of an Olympic race, ‘Away.’
As it’s uncluttered, I veer over and slip into the road’s cycling lane and soon we’ve all space to find our rhythms. It’s warm for September and I recall Claire urging me to have fun. But pushing along, I’m convinced this is largely retrospective. Like parenting and eating tofu.
Glenelg seems some distance yet but there’s bunches of brightly yelling spectators. My eye’s taken by a sign. Held by a wide-eyed type, it proclaims with conviction-
King Jesus reigns.
I imagine a runner hollering to our Christian converter every minute, ‘Yes, He might but Port needed Him last night!’ So, I don’t bother to also comment.
To my left I spy some uniformed staff at a long table offering free ice blocks, water and encouragement. Ha! A real estate agency! However, their goodwill could be desolate marketing to the foolish. Ignoring their saccharine enticements, I press on.
Just down the highway’s another man with late 90’s Scott Hicks hair- all lank and grey and desperately arty. He has a megaphone and extends broad and amplified inspiration. I’m touched but wait, I then hear him rambling on. He says, ‘Vote No in the referendum. Don’t be deceived. It’s what Jesus wants.’
Oh.
With a kilometre to go I’m running hard as I turn right onto Jetty Road. A fellow runner gets the wobbles and lurches over to the gutter. Swerving to his aid, a mate puts an arm around him. He’s fine.
I stride through the finish line. Meeting Claire, a kindly stranger takes our photo. Spotting my Singapore Sharks shirt another participant comes over and tells us he ran out for Penang. He then asks if I played footy in Asia to which I should’ve replied like this.
After I was maliciously delisted by The Crows I fled to an Indonesian cave and survived on bitter leaves and surprised insects. Then Buddha appeared and told me to voluntarily reincarnate by joining the Singapore Sharks. Accordingly, I became that most enlightened of earthly creatures, a half-back flanker.
But instead, I said, ‘No, I got this shirt because I helped to coach my boys.’
Strolling about the village on Colley Reserve we eat some fruit and those most wicked, yet life-affirming of delicacies: barbequed sausages on white bread. A giant inflatable beer bottle advertises a major race sponsor in the Hahn brewery. Mercifully, none of their (rancid) product is on offer.
We walk to support vehicle #2.
PS- I finished 121st out of 1791 6k runners (top 7%) and was first for my age. However, I was beaten by three older participants, and each was 73 years old!
BREAKING: Do sausage rolls have inherent meaning, or is their significance a construct of human perception and interpretation?
More to come…
September brings witness to my quest in locating the Fleurieu Peninsula’s finest sausage roll. It’s my higher earthly purpose. Heading to Port Elliot for my annual writing retreat, I call into the Platy Pie Bakery.
Strolling in I announce myself with the chirpily invitational, ‘Hello there. How are you going?’
Behind the counter the woman serving stares through me with the dead eyes of a cyborg and allows my words to hang in the air before they die shamefully, undeservingly, on the scratch-resistant, modestly industrial flooring.
This is not how I wanted our relationship to begin.
I press on. ‘I’m pretty keen on a sausage roll.’
‘Sauce?’
Ahh, she speaks.
As my task-oriented, chit-chat averse comrade digs about in the warmer I wonder. Beyond physical sustenance, what nourishment does a sausage roll offer to the human spirit, if any, and how does it contribute to our overall well-being?
Dodging a delivery man by the door I slip out to the front veranda of the bakery and pop onto a chair. The breeze is pushing the trees about with considerable energy, and I reckon it’ll turn into a typical spring day: windy and warm.
I then unleash the beast and It’s the most colossal sausage roll onto which I’ve ever clapped my blinking eyeballs. Its girth reminds me of the weapons used by the chimps in 2001: A Space Odyssey to cause violence to each other, thus signifying the vital evolutionary leap when our progenitors began to assert control over their world and, tellingly, each other.
As is often the case I was then distracted from my reflections upon Stanley Kubrick’s cinematography by some carrot.
Yes, my mega-sausage roll was happy host to sizable chunks of carrot. This constituted rare, positive, orange-hued news. Despite the pastry being somewhat flaky and on the cusp of oiliness it tasted, as the man once said, good.
Of course, a key thematic omission in 2001: A Space Odyssey is that none of the dramatis personae ask the following question of themselves or the villainous computer HAL 9000: Is a sausage roll more than the sum of its parts, and if so, what metaphysical properties might it possess?
Coming from a small family I’ve never had to tear competitively through my food with any urgency (although my wife Claire enjoyed her childhood tucker with an almost cricket team of nine gathered around the table her meal-time etiquette doesn’t reflect this at all). Today, on this gusty patio I inhale my lunch with primeval, almost disturbing haste.
I next contemplate the thoughts of Aristotle or maybe it’s Jeffrey ‘The Dude’ Lebowski. I can’t never remember which. He might’ve remarked, what role does our appetite play in our enjoyment of a sausage roll, and how does it relate to our broader desires and cravings in life?
My lunch now done, I walk about town before pressing on towards Port Elliot.
The Platy Pie Bakery serves up a mammoth sausage roll and for carrot-lovers it’s a double treat which gives clear rise to this eternal, epicurean conundrum-
How do sausage rolls symbolise cultural identity and heritage, and what can their evolution over time tell us about cultural change?
We’re doing a lap of Kapunda because it’s probably illegal to come home and not.
So, Lukey and I drive up to Gundry’s Hill. We’ll then swing by the Prince of Wales for a brisk beer before heading to the footy.
We hop out and wander around the grassy knoll. The sky is cloudless, and the rolling hills and crops are a reassuring green.
Glancing about I wonder does everywhere look better from a bird’s eye? Does it always provide a heavenly view? Ascending, do our earthly imperfections vanish?
What happened as we grew up in our town, nestled in that mundane, enchanted valley? Everything and nothing. It was hot and dusty, and cold and muddy. Can you be atop even the smallest hill and not become philosophical? Is private awe guaranteed?
Seeing the whole helps me remember the grainy episodes and to time-travel. I locate the spire of St Roses Catholic Church and it’s midnight mass and I’m an altar boy with lads who, for Father Moore, didn’t always behave like altar boys.
My eye finds the tiny primary school oval. I remember lunchtimes and my classmate Grant Dodman kicking what eleven-year-old me regarded as impossibly prodigious torpedo punts.
What do those from flat towns like Freeling do? How do they access a dreamy perspective?
With this elevated silence on Gundry’s Hill comes warming gratitude. I again gaze out across this modest, little town.
It becomes gentler and postcard-pretty.
*
Between the four pubs of the main street and the oval sits the Duck Pond. Although we knew the family well, nobody I know uses the official name, Davidson Reserve.
This ornamental lake was witness to youthful distraction. As with any locality on a map the geographical value is in the personal narratives.
Undertaking our compulsory tour of our hometown’s landmarks, Lukey and I pause and ponder by the water.
It’s suddenly our teenaged 1980’s.
I remember the cars we owned and can see them clustered conspiratorially by the Duck Pond. There’s Trisha’s Hillman Imp, all English and apologetic. Woodsy’s 180B in which one summer we did two ridiculous laps of Bathurst. My wife Claire’s (sadly our nuptials were a way off) little red and white mini, like an extra from Carnaby Street, London. There’s Lukey’s Alfa Romeo which aside from the then new Chinese restaurant in Nuriootpa, was the most exotic thing I knew.
The Saturday night vista is completed by a crowded used car lot of white HQ Holdens.
If I shut my eyes Stephen Trotta’s green Gemini has all the windows down and the Pioneer stereo volume up. A TDK C-90 cassette is playing. ‘US Forces’ by Midnight Oil blasts across the dark water and then we hear Mondo Rock’s moodily suggestive, ‘Come Said the Boy.’
As Dickens wrote, it was the best of times.
*
It’s a glorious late-winter’s day beneath the eucalypts at Dutton Park as the B grade footy concludes.
We’re here to see old friends and recount some well-worn tales. Woodsy, Keggy, Hollis, O’s. Fats and Chipper had called into Puffa’s. Whitey’s elsewhere.
Knots of timeworn faces huddle in front of the changerooms on the new wooden deck. Orange bunting separates us from the reunions of the 1973 B grade (Dad’s a member but can’t be here today) and Senior Colts premiers.
There’s something poetic about the equine term ‘colts’ for footy teams that’s much better than the numerical Under 17’s or Under 14’s. Looking over at the often less than sprightly reunionists someone says, ‘That’ll be us soon boys.’
There are folks I’ve not seen for decades like Kelpie Jarman and Peter Masters but the years melt away because we all lived in the same town.
I see three of the Mickan brothers in Goose, Drew, and Richie and have a quick chat with Macca. There’s much handshaking. By the canteen I bump into Fergy. In the morning he’s again off to Arkaroola and we share our experiences. Claire and I went there and to Hawker and Rawnsley Park on our honeymoon.
Early in the A grade Kapunda leads with three goals to two but then by quarter time it’s 13 majors to Angaston and not nearly enough for the Bombers. Nobody seems to mind for the air’s awash with nostalgia.
The first job, as always, when we congregate, is to organise the next event, so arrangements are made to visit Christmas Higgins’ brewery in Greenock. Before Christmas, of course.
I later learn that Morphettville race 9 is won by number 4. A seven-year-old bay gelding, its name is Angaston. And their team salutes too. By 25 goals.
But on the footy club deck it’s all chortles and familiar stories. Homecomings aren’t universally adored so I’m lucky to love these moments.
After the siren I drive south from this modest, little town.
The Britannia pub is by Adelaide’s most infamous roundabout. It was so unspeakably horrendous that its mere mention caused folks to shudder and shake. The final solution was, bizarrely, to build a second roundabout. This reminds me of the surgeon who says to a patient, ‘I’m sorry but the operation only has a fifty percent success rate.’
The patient replies, ‘Well just do it twice then.’
Twice a day for nearly eight years I drove through the Britannia roundabout.
In those 3,000 journeys I only saw one accident which is odd given back then it averaged a prang per day. There were plenty of near misses and times when motorists in front of me were paralysed by the challenge and didn’t enter the roundabout for what appeared as eternities. That one car headbutted a veranda post of the Britannia. The pub survived but I’m unsure about the vehicle.
When my ridiculous Nissan Exa was stricken with gearbox issues I rode my bike through the roundabout during peak hour on the way to and from Marryatville High. For nearly a week. It was a decent haul from Glenelg. The roundabout was exhilarating if fraught.
Friday nights in a pub should be fizzing with energy and promise and with the extra frisson of Mystery Pub they mostly are. But 5pm on Saturdays can be a lethargic, twilight zone. They’ve saluted in the last at Flemington so the sports bars are barren and it’s too early for dinner and the kids won’t hit the town for hours.
The Britannia is mostly empty on Saturday for our Mystery Pub visit. Inside is stark and functional like a suburban café rather than seductive and intriguing and bursting with secret stories.
We claim a table with a Coopers Pale Ale (me) and a Padthaway white (Claire). I spy a brochure for the Repertory Theatre Company featuring the brilliant farce Noises Off. Unfortunately the performance dates and ours don’t align. Claire says, ‘Poo.’
Otherwise, it’s been a rewarding week as I saw Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, which in its metatextuality includes a documentary about a play within the nested narrative of the film. The sense of mise-en-scène is tremendous. Claire and I enjoyed an episode of Julia Zemiro’s Great Australian Walks and I continue to read Room with a View (upwards of a page a night before sleep) which is partly set in Florence.
Friday night we dined with dear, old Kapunda types (thanks for the soup, Trish and nice to see you Trev and Eleni). We discussed Stanley Tucci and his excellent series, Searching for Italy. Not only does our lovely friend Stephen look like him but their families are from neighbouring Italian villages. As a host Stanley is witty, curious and grateful (so is Stephen).
We also speak of the episode set in Sicily and Palermo. What utter privilege to know Italy and compare travelling tales. As always, Stephen and I chat about the Beach Boys and tonight dissect their wonderful, haunted song, ‘Heroes and Villains.’ I reckon Stanley might also be a fan.
He’s also in the great film Margin Call which explores the origins of the Global Financial Crisis. In it he plays a quantitative analyst who formerly worked as an engineer. Clearly bitter about Wall Street he delivers a monologue about the real, human benefits of a bridge he once built.
“It went from Dilles Bottom, Ohio to Moundsville, West Virginia. It spanned nine hundred and twelve feet above the Ohio River. Twelve thousand people used this thing a day. And it cut out thirty-five miles of driving each way between Wheeling and New Martinsville. That’s a combined 847,000 miles of driving a day. Or 25,410,000 miles a month. And 304,920,000 miles a year. Saved. Now I completed that project in 1986, that’s twenty-two years ago. So, over the life of that one bridge, that’s 6,708,240,000 miles that haven’t had to be driven. At, what, let’s say fifty miles an hour. So that’s, what, 134,165,800 hours, or 559,020 days. So that one little bridge has saved the people of those communities a combined 1,531 years of their lives not wasted in a car. One thousand five hundred and thirty-one years.”
As you can see, the gubmint should’ve phoned Stanley to fix the roundabout. After less than an hour Claire and I leave the Britannia. It’s quiet on the roads.
Easing down Jetty Road in Largs Bay there’s a sign pointing towards a Historic Shopping Village. Historic? If I put on my bowler hat, ring the bell apologetically, and enter will there be rations of corned beef, jam, sugar, and tea? Would each cost me 2 and 6?
As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti the Pier pub appears and from the ghostly stage, I can almost hear Barnesy shrieking, sniff the stale West End Draught, and through the fug, see the frayed denim.
At the parkrun starting area (right near the public toilets) I chat with an English couple. They indicate to the south of the pub where they’ve just moved. They’ve done very nicely.
I ask, ‘Have you done this run before?’
‘No, we’ve been travelling, and this is our first one in eighteen months.’ I wish them well.
The briefing begins. It’s always encouraging, and I’m buoyed by the shared purpose and infectious sense of community. The Run Director explains that in quick succession the course goes over five bridges. Only two more for an Eagles’ song.
A dry fog drapes the city, and this generates an almost Victorian England atmosphere. Gazing ahead, the northern esplanade hides under a white cloak. We’re off and the sailing club is soon in the rear-view mirror as we ribbon out along Lady Gowrie Drive.
A distant siren wails through the mist, and I wonder what strife might’ve befallen folks on a quiet Saturday morning. This is replaced by birdsong, and I push into the brusque wind.
We’re now in Taperoo and over to the right is a geographic festival dedicated to Roy Marten. There’s the Roy Marten Dog Park, the Roy Marten Reserve, and alarmingly, the Roy Marten public toilet. I vow to visit. You can’t have too much Roy, whomever he is/was/might yet be.
This is a popular parkrun with one hundred and seventy-odd participants today. Dan, who I know from the Patawalonga event, reckons it’s a PB course. No pressure then. We’ll see.
We’re right in the heart of the Lefevre Peninsula. I imagine if it could secede from Adelaide, it just might. They’d strike their own currency, and each would feature a Port Magpies footballer. Russell Ebert on the fifty, Fos Williams on the twenty and on the dollar coin Bomber Clifford grinning like a shot fox. Their air force mightn’t be much chop, but they’d assemble a tough navy.
I swing for home and over the rise see the jetty and pub. In their white silence both are majestic and it’s a wintry postcard. Pippi’s coffee caravan remains shut by the footpath and I wonder why. Surely weekend breakfast is peak for the caffeinated.
A large wooden yacht is in a front yard. On a trailer, it’s in poor repair, and I remember it from my student days golfing at North Haven. At least, I think it’s a yacht. Ben Lexcen, if he were still about, could help with my nautical lexicography. I’m sure it’s been there for over three decades, and a better option might’ve been a garden gnome. What’s the owner been thinking all this time?
With the end approaching (today’s run not mortality, I hope) I pass another commercial caravan on the esplanade. It’s a doggie wash van with, as one would expect, a Billy Joel theme.
Puptown Girl.
I’m a slow starter, but usually finish well. A few runs ago in Glenelg, Dan and I did our last kilometre in a decent-for-old-chaps four and a half minutes. The results are emailed mid-morning. My PB remains elusive.
Next week.
Back in my car I strap on my Abraham Lincoln beard and put a shilling in my waistcoat pocket. I’m off to the Historic Shopping Village.
mickeytales 