No shoplifters at Vinnies

 

Every man has his price but that price would have to be very low for him to be tempted to shoplift a two-dollar book from Vinnies.

I gladly spent another ten dollars this morning for "A Modern Selection of Johnson's Dictionary", "The Howard Years" edited by Robert Manne, "Worst Words" and "Death Sentences", both by Don Watson, former speech-writer and adviser to Paul Keating, and - oh, what a find! - the third of Yuval Noah Harari's magnum opuses, "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" (yes, I agree, a person would only have one magnum opus, but believe me, he has three: "Sapiens", then "Homo Deus", and now this.

 

Read it online here

 

I already have both Don Watson books, but these are for the bookshelf inside "Melbourne" for me to dip into every time I feel like reading about the sorry state of the English language and what we can do about it.

I also bought a beautifully crafted globe of the world, about the size of a soccer ball, which I quickly paid for and took out to the car before Padma could stop me by saying, "But we already have one in our living-room" which is true, but this one is also for "Melbourne" where I can look back on all the places I've been to before I became stuck at "Riverbend".

And this is it for another two days until Thursday when we go back into town for another aqua-aerobic session in the lovely warm-water pool.

The Midsomer of the Far South Coast

 

There are days when it feels as if I'm in Midsomer, the only difference being that we have better memorial services. I almost didn't attend today's because I'd had an agreement with the deceased that I would only come to his funeral if he came to mine. Clearly, he has reneged on our deal.

Anyway, he had not only chosen the time and place of his own death - even though the taboo word "suicide" was not uttered once during the service - but also the method of his "disposal": a very hands-on body-in-box, box-in-hole, earth-on-top "Beerdigung" instead of cremation which leaves one wondering what happens after the curtain has been drawn.

To dispel the sadness that descends after such a morbid start to the day, we went back into town for a bit of retail therapy. Padma seemed to have got carried away - literally - because I couldn't find her anywhere. Then I remembered the age-old advice "Should you lose your wife start talking to an attractive woman. Your wife will miraculously reappear almost immediately." I did and she did! Now we're home again. Phew!

Mixed feelings and mixed metaphors

I always do a GOOGLE (re-)search on every inquiry I receive
and I know which one of these chaps is the prospective buyer

 

I am interested in seclusion. I am going overseas for two weeks. Will contact on my return" wrote the latest respondent to my 105-day-old real estate advertisement. As I wrote in a previous post, there was a time when I would've wished him a safe journey but I've now become a hardened real estate salesman and didn't even reply. I think it's called "playing hard to get".

Playing hard to get has or has not worked, depending on your point of view, because, not having had any reply from me, he emailed me again to get my phone number as he wanted to talk to me before he left.

Only a few minutes later the phone rang, and we had quite a long conversation which went from the practical (does he have the money? yes, he is a cash buyer!) to the personal (he does consulting work for people such as the World Bank and is off on another trip to Bangladesh).

Reacting to my usual email footnote "I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the British and European elders past and present and emerging, who introduced civil society and prosperity to my adopted country Australia", he had already penned me this reply: "Agree with your sentiments expressed below. My family dates back to the mining and agriculturalists who developed this country in the 1800s the hard way, and two family members died in the Great War protecting our burgeoning civilisation as a country. It's not the same country I was brought up in and my grandkids seem not to care; it’s a tragedy. Australia was once a fantastic country, our stupid politicians should have realised how unique this country was and should have developed policies to keep it that way; instead they went open field and allowed this country to go to the dogs as has America, UK and most of Europe. Such a pity."

With all that out of the way, it became something of a meeting of the minds as we had done similar work, and he wanted "Riverbend" for the same reasons I had chosen it more than thirty years ago, but, using mixed metaphors, I don't want to count my blessings before they hatch but will burn that bridge when I come to it because I have some mixed feelings as we don't even know where we would go if it came to a sale. To unmix my metaphors, I'd be feeling like the dog that caught the bus.

Nur Pferden gibt man den Gnadenschuß

 

 

Der deutsche Titel des 1969 von Sydney Pollack verfilmten Romans "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" ist "Nur Pferden gibt man den Gnadenschuß", und ist ein guter Titel denn alles was folgt ist über den sogenannten Gnadenschuß, die Tötung eines Lebewesens, um sein Leid zu verkürzen.

Letzte Woche hörten wir daß ein österreichischer Bekannter - nicht ganz ein Freund; immer noch ein Bekannter - friedlich in seinem warmen Bett verstorben war. So sollte es in seinem Alter geschehen (er war schon über 85 Jahre alt): friedlich einschlafen und nicht mehr aufwachen.

Der Gedanke an einen guten Tod - falls es so etwas überhaupt gibt - verringerte den Schock dieser Nachricht denn nur ein paar Wochen vorher hatten wir gemeinsam Mittag gegessen im Moruya Bowling Club. Alles schien noch in Ordnung zu sein, obwohl er jede unserer Gehhilfen verweigerte trotz seiner unsicheren Schritte. Wie schnell bergab so etwas gehen kann: als wir uns vor sechs Jahren trafen hatte er sich gerade ein großes 5-Acker Grundstück gekauft und war täglich draussen am Arbeiten: Rasen mähen, Feuerholz hacken, Gemüsebeete bauen.

Wir trafen uns alle paar Wochen denn er unterhielt sich sehr gerne in der deutschen Sprache und ich zwang mich es zu sprechen obwohl es mir unbequem war. Ich hielt nicht viel von der Muttersprache und dem Vaterland denn ich hielt auch nicht viel von der Mutter und dem Vater.

Unsere Gespräche waren meistens oberflächlich und gingen nie weiter zurück als unsere Einwanderung in Australien, seine zwei Jahre vor meiner, und seine mehr gutbürgerlich als meine denn er hatte schon einen Bruder in Australien und hatte daher schneller Fuß gefasst. Und dennoch blieb da vieles ungesagt und so blieben wir nur Bekannte.

Dann hatte er einen Fall und brach sich ein paar Knochen und kam ins Krankenhaus. Danach war er immer wieder beim Arzt der ihm mehr und mehr Medikamente verschrieb. Und es ging mehr und mehr bergab.

Dann kam die Nachricht, und ein paar Tage später rief seine Frau an: nein, er war nicht im Bett friedlich eingeschlafen sondern hatte sich erschossen als sie wie an jedem Mittwoch bei ihrem Kaffeeklatsch war! Als sie nachhause kam konnte sie ihn zuerst gar nicht finden. Dann hörte sie den Hund der draussen neben seiner Leiche stand. Er hatte sich mit seinem Gewehr in den Mund geschossen und sein Gesicht war gar nicht mehr zu erkennen! Blut, Sirenen, Polizeiautos, neugierige Nachbarn ...

Nur Pferden gibt man den Gnadenschuß - oder, wenn man den Mut hat, sich selber!

(Ich schrieb dies auf Deutsch damit es nicht jeder lesen kann, denn man spricht vom Selbstmord doch immer noch hinter vorgehaltenen Händen.)

Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji urodzin, Bozenna, and many, many happy returns!

 

Bozenna and her late husband Ted, seen here at my old "home", the Savoy Hotel, lived in Athens where I met them in the early 'eighties when I worked in Greece.

Bozenna had answered an ad in the English language newspaper "ATHENS NEWS" in which I was looking for a "shipping person" who could do my many complex Laytime Calculations (for all you landlubbers, laytime is the period of time agreed between the parties - ship owners, charterers, cargo shippers and consignees - during which a chartered ship is available for loading / discharging without payment of additional freight.)

 

 

Bozenna did a wonderful job which saved my employer large sums of money and, on a personal side, she and Ted introduced me, a newcomer to Greece (I had just spent a miserable and very "dry" eighteen months in Saudi Arabia), to the many delights of Greek wining and dining. My many fond memories of Greece are entirely due to their wonderful friendship!

Bozenna, just as you start your celebrations at "O Sotiris", I shall open a bottle of Retzina and drink to your very good health! May you live for many more happy years!

 

Rest in Peace, John Burke!

 

John Burke in the centre of the photo and I at the ANZ Banking Group Retired Officers' Club's Christmans lunch at the ANZ Bank Head Office in Martin Place in December 2010

 

Walk a mile in someone else's shoes, they say, but how can you even begin to do that when that someone spends three days a week hooked up to a dialysis machine? How can you even imagine what that feels like unless you've gone through the same agony?

When John Burke wanted to divert himself from his dialysis sessions which he had to undergo three times a week to stay alive, he found in me a willing listener when he phoned me several times, on some days as often as five times. But there were occasions when I was elsewhere on the property, and I would arrive back at the house totally out of breath, only to find John at the other end again, wisecracking or wanting to reminisce about our time together at the ANZ Bank almost sixty years ago. I knew it helped him break up the tedium of removing unwanted waste from his blood, but it got mine boiling at times which is why I asked him to limit his calls to perhaps just two a day. Unwisely, as it turned out, because he took it badly and I never heard from him again.

Until yesterday when I received this email from another retired ANZer:

 

Evening Peter, Not sure if you have currently been in touch with John Bourke, not been well last few years but we have just been advised that he died on 25th June. Don’t know any funeral details yet but should be available shortly. Regards Noel

 

John Burke, as head-ledgerkeeper at the ANZ Bank in Canberra Civic, had been my immediate boss during my first two years as ledgerkeeper from 1965 to 1967 during which we were also "inmates" in the same boarding-house. John was a fun-sort of a boss. He got things done not by cracking a whip but by cracking a joke! Under his tutelage, my compulsory two years in Australia simply flew by. He was again my boss as accountant of the Kingston branch where I worked as a teller for another nine months or so after I had come back from South Africa and before I went to New Guinea.

 

 

We met again after over forty years at the ANZ Banking Group Retired Officers' Club's Christmas lunch in 2010, followed by several meetings at my old watering hole, the Blues Point Hotel in McMahons Point, and the nearby Kirribilli Club, and continued to stay in touch by telephone until that fateful out-of-breath call after which I never heard from him again. How I now wished that I had held my breath instead of being out of it!

 

 

Rest in Peace, John! You have left your mark on my life, and there'll always be a place on the South Coast where you will be remembered!