Poppalina

My First Best Friend

Flashback Friday

1964

1966

  2007

I have neglected my bear very badly, over the years.

I say this with sincere shame. I should have paid more attention to the deplorable, dilapidated state she was moving into. Falling prey, myself, to roughly equivalent levels of decay, is no excuse for inaction.

She has been with me longer than anyone else in the Still Living Universe, and there is precious little about me that she doesn't know.

Not that Bear would ever, ever tell. Not even if you threatened to rip off the other arm.

Teddies are good like that.

Mack Trucks, and Other Things Sheilas Have No Business Talking About

Flashback Friday

I have always loved to travel. Not to go anywhere in particular, just to move. It's in the blood.

My mum fell in love with an interstate truckdriver, just like her father. Robbie could drive forever without falling asleep, and could do a Melbourne-Brisbane return run (2800 km or 1700 miles) in 4 or 5 days, sleep for 12 hours, and then go out and do it again. Caught up with him in the end, of course, as it always does, but mate, could that man drive.

I spent half my life nagging him to take me along. And once in a blue moon, he would.

My favourite was this Mack. I loved it because it was bright yellow, it had a dog on the bonnet, several tons of frozen cheesecake in the fridge and, best of all, it had a sleeper, so that on the rare occasions I actually needed to close my eyes, I had somewhere to lie down.

We'd drive to Sydney, or maybe Port Augusta, it didn't matter where, unload, hook up, and head back. The whole trip would take less than a weekend, and still leave me time to sleep before I started school on the Monday. We'd eat cutlets and chips in roadside diners on the way. Robbie always knew where to eat and what to order. If you need a good place to eat on the road, just watch for places with the trucks parked outside. Truckies have a nose for a Good Feed.

I thought it was the most fabulous thing in the world. But having me along used to slow him up. He'd have to drive more carefully, he was always worried that something bad might happen. In the parlance of the time, a truck was no place for a sheila. Especially a Little Sheila. Who needed to wee a lot. You could lose the best part of an hour in gear changes, stopping for a wee. I used to wonder if Robbie had a catheter hidden somewhere in his flannels, his bladder seemed to be made of cast iron.

I had plans to be a truckdriver when I grew up. I would have been good at it too, except for the fact that I barely know how to hold a spanner. And that I'm a Sheila (see previous paragraph). I can drive for days without falling asleep, and in times of severe stress, I've been known to drive for thousands of miles, just to clear my head.

Like I said, it's in the blood. In fact, Mack trucks are so special to me that I keep a hood ornament on my bedside table. It's the last thing I see when I turn out the light.

Why?

Maybe I'll tell you one day. If my own truckdriver ever rolls on home.

It Don't Mean A Thing...

Flashback Friday

A tyre swing.

Spent a lot of time swinging on this, I did.

You can't see it, but the embankment falls away to bugger all, leaving you swinging out over a drop of about 20 feet.

I remember being simultaneously thrilled and concerned about this, being the sensible little earth sign that I was, but must have decided the risk was worth it, allowing me, as it did, the opportunity to fly off to the most outrageous locations. In my head, anyway.

Provided, of course, that I remembered to aim away from the tree.

Nanna Technology

Flashback Friday

Never mind Lulu Bigfoot, in the photo,

I present, for this week's theme of Nanna Technology,

The World's Most Comprehensive Layette.

I'm ashamed to admit that I don't know which of my grandmothers actually made this ensemble, but it's testament to my crafting heritage that it could have been either of them. Or possibly both.

Maybe this is why I love blackberry stitch so much. And bobbles. And soft, lovely, knitted things, in general.

The freakishly large head, of course, remains a mystery. Perhaps God suspected, Thoughtful Omnipotent Uber-Being that he is, that I was going to need something unusually resilient to bash against a brick wall, when I grew up.

This is not a Barbie Doll

Nope. It most certainly is not.

The plastic Cindy knockoff was not what I asked Father Christmas for at all. The face tells you everything, though I did have the decency to hold my peace, which was big of me, when you consider the large pile of wrapping paper lying about, suggesting the existence of more presents than some kids see in their entire lives.

My poor Mum. She did try. And I dare say gave Serious Consideration to juggling the Christmas budget to somehow afford a Real Barbie, but just couldn't bring herself to do it. It would have undermined every feminist value that she was trying to instill in me. That, and the fact that she just hated Barbie's guts. Mum never was a big fan of the leggy-but-decidedly-common-blonde-tart-type, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that mum herself was dark-haired, swarthy and, not to put too fine a point on it, short.

She did what she believed was right, and I applaud her for it. She also inadvertently raised Barbie, on my Personal Desirometer, to ultra mega gatwillion kryptonite status. Permanently.

I don't think I ever stopped wanting a Barbie. I probably still want a Barbie, and very embarrassed I am to admit it. It creates a most discordant paradox in an otherwise liberated mind that prides itself on it's Right Thinking and All Round Highly Evolved State.

So, the question is, did I grow up to be like my mother and teach my daughter that beauty is not skin deep, that a girl does not need freakishly large tits, a ridiculously small waist, and anatomically impossible legs to be valuable in the world? And that she should define her life by how she lives, rather than what she's wearing and who she's banging?

Or did I shower my daughter with Barbies, and buy her breast implants for her 12th birthday?

mtc.

Midnight Cowpersons

Flashback Friday

Circa 1967. I remember being woken out of a deep sleep and hurriedly dressed in jumpers and coats to go out. My three year old mind was thinking, WTF? Was the house on fire? Had somebody died? Jesus, it must be Something Very Serious. Which I still think was a reasonable thing to think.

We were, in fact, going to a photo shoot at, like, 2 in the morning. Why? I do not know.

Of course, I never did need much of an excuse to party in the middle of the night, so I quickly got into the spirit of things and we smiled at the camera and laughed for hours, with little or no encouragement from the photographer. In fact, we had so much fun that I suspect a mouthful or two of red may have formed part of the equation.

Gotta love those rocknroll childhoods. I seemed to be born knowing that all the fun stuff happened at night. And I love the ballyangusthasana arms, around my beatnik Dad's neck. We were a team in those days, mate.

And We'll Never Be Lonely Any More

Flashback Friday

My maternal grandparents, Mim & Bobby, just married. Exact date unknown, but a wartime wedding, for sure.

There is a third photo in this series, where Bobby kisses Nan, and it's fabulous, but I have turned the house upside down and cannot find it. So you'll just have to imagine that bit.

Nan's parents are on her side, but I'm not sure who's on Bobby's, and there's no one left to ask. Whoever they are, I hope we're related; that man sporting the waistcoat is Decidedly Handsome.

This falls under the heading of A Difficult Marriage. I have the marriage certificate somewhere, which has been ripped clean in half, and then carefully stuck back together, which pretty much says it all. But they look happy and hopeful here, which is why I like this series so much. I love Nan's hyperflexed legs, which have carried on through three generations, as have Bobby's eyes. Not his ears, though, which is probably a Good Thing.

And here is another photo of them from around the same time, also a favourite of mine. Bobby and Nan, walking out on Princes' Bridge, instantly recognisable to any Melbournian. The view is hard north, straight up Swanston Street, showing St Paul's Cathedral and the Nicholas Building.

 

How cool are those cars, 'ey?

Smokin Dem Hotpants! Ha!

Flashback Friday

My eighth birthday, January 1972. The hotpants were my birthday present, and I had been dying for them for weeks, but I had nothing to wear underneath, so was obliged to go topless. I spent the whole day trying so hard to keep the straps from exposing that dream-on-because-it's-never-going-to-happen bosom of mine.

It had been an excruciating, sweltering afternoon, picnicking with the rellies in the Botanical Gardens. They were civil enough, but hated each other's guts, and that's okay, because it was to be the last family gathering ever, anyway. A few weeks later my nanna's heart exploded, my parents' marriage went supernova, and life went to Hell in a Handbasket.

But here, for just a tiny bit longer, we're all still kids, and my sisters, Anna and Justine, are slowly but steadily losing their party clothes, as they always did. My life was largely devoted to chasing these little buggers, rescuing items of clothing as they were peeled off and abandoned without a care in the world, and even less regard for time or place. They were very annoying, and exceptionally cute.

And happy Spring, Southern Hemispherites. Anyone else breathing out? Or are we already struggling to breathe in through the hayfever?

Bec, the daffs are for you. Rejoice, O Buxom One, for Spring hath cometh.

Don't Fence Me In

Flashback Friday

Warrandyte Primary School, Grade Prep, 1969

Well now, wasn't this a long time ago?

 

One of the more unnerving things that happens as you age, is that you find yourself being able to remember the names of people you knew 40 years ago, but not those you've been introduced to in the last half hour.

Scary, that.

I was about to tell you all about these kids, but then realised that they're not my stories to tell. I can tell you that I am bottom row, second from left, trying very hard to look nice (because my mum had threatened me with crucifixion if I didn't), and that my favourite friend is sitting to my left. I don't remember Sasha or me ever being this dressed up in Real Life. We spent most of our time traipsing through a foot of mud in gumboots, our pockets filled with oats, trying to catch ponies.

The beautiful Miss Anderson was like a goddess to me, until the day that she discovered, with alarm, that I could already read, and with horror that I could write equally well with both hands. She made me choose between them, immediately. Shattered by her lowered opinion of me and convinced that my freakish ability was irrefutable evidence that I'd been spawned by demons, I frantically did the eenie-meany-miney-mo-thing, and came up left. To this day, I write with my left hand, but do pretty much everything else with my right, and both, on occasion, and, er, sometimes I'm not sure which hand I'm s'posed to be using. Occasionally, I wonder if things might have been different if I'd been allowed to just remain in my blissfully ignorant state of generic evilness.

It wasn't a bad school, as schools go. It was very old, having been built during the goldrush, rather pretty, and not very big, but it all hit me as a Dreadful Shock. Before school, I had experienced Almost Perfect Freedom, roaming as far and wide through the bush as I saw fit, as long as I was home by nightfall or there would be Hell to Pay. To have to sit in a classroom for hours and hours, doing pretty much the same stuff day in and day out consituted a kind of hell for me that I never entirely recovered from. Even now, walking through the gates of a school, any school, sets my teeth on edge and gives me an attitude that is laughably inappropriate to my age. I am the world's worst PTA Mum, and am completely useless as a nine to fiver.

Of course, it's equally possible that I was born, not made, a confused, left-handed/ambidextrous, undisciplined, reprobate maverick. 

But it's much simpler just to blame Miss Anderson. It's all her fault. I'm sure of it.

Short Hair and Cold Things

Flashback Friday

Women, when they finally emerge from unhappy marriages, sometimes cut off their hair as a gesture, a conscious or unconscious rebellion, liberation, or rejection of a masculine notion of female beauty.

Of course, if said women identify immoderately with their rather beautiful, waist-length hair, they may express this rite of passage by proxy, hacking off the tresses of the eldest daughter, instead.

I was not happy, not one little bit, but self-preserving Good Sense told me not to oppose a woman with such a zealous light in her eyes and sharp scissors in hand, so off the hair came. And I spent the next few years being consistently mistaken for a boy, the inevitable fate of a girl with short hair, whose body won't even consider developing until at least the age of 15.

So. Here we are. Girlboy in the snow. Making snowmen. As you do. Hopelessly under-dressed, as always.

The Holden in the background, with the roofracks, is probably Robbie's. I had one exactly like it about 15 years later, only with extractors and fats. I loved that car, and celebrated my Inner Hoon with gusto, until it was pinched one tragic night, thrashed, trashed, and abandoned in three feet of mud outside Shepparton, sans wheels. I calmed down a bit after that.

And the cardigan I'm wearing was knitted by my mother when she was a child, for her mother, who wore it always. I lost it a few times, and it spent a couple of years in the oily boot of a defunct Jaguar, but came home to me eventually, and I covered the oil stains with crochet patches. It's still my Old Friendly, to this day.