The West Uncut: garlic

12/5/2007

Is yours in? Mine is. I put it in around dusk, just before the April full moon.

And this year I am growing double the amount of garlic I grew last year. Good crop that last one, but not enough.

Took me a week to prepare the ground, moulding it into the mother-of-all-plots and already you can see handsome green stems rising with pride towards the light.

Those determined individuals from Albany, Manjimup and Baldivis who already supply me with copious quantities of organically grown knobs need not fear, I will not be able to grow enough to satisfy my needs. Even with my harvest in, I will remain an active buyer in the marketplace.

Why then must I grow garlic? Good question and I have answers.

One reason is that I come from a long line of fruit and vegetable growers and when I was a boy during the last ice-age in Bridgetown, we grew everything we needed.

In the beginning there was mum, dad, my older brother and me. This was nowhere near enough folk to work the sprawling orchards, so we grew two more brothers.

Four boys, a man and a hard working country woman who could bake a cake, darn a sock and drive a tractor, now that was a team.

And another reason, an outstanding reason, is that it is our patriotic duty to grow fruit and vegetables on the land surrounding our house.

Those of us nearing the end of our allotted allotment will well remember growing up in a house with a yard heavily laden with grape vines, vegi-patches and fruit trees.

This was before television. This was when boredom was an imaginary world inhabited by rampant drill-crews who roamed the landscape making holes in the ground in an endless search for water, oil and China.

Everyone had plenty to do and even when we didn’t want to do it we still did and all year round we dug, planted, watered and harvested.

Yes, my fellow West Australians, it is our patriotic duty to plant garlic and tell me this, could there be a greater defence of one’s nation that the ability to produce our own food?

Oh yes, there’s been a lot of talk about patriotism in recent years and some seem to think it’s about flying a flag from your front yard, your roof, or your car and driving around like a lunatic with your head out the window yelling “Aussie Aussie Aussie”.

What a lot of cocky poo!

Did you know that over 90% of all garlic sold in Australia comes from overseas? We should be ashamed of ourselves.

You know how hard it is to grow garlic? You move a sod, you add some sheep or chicken poo, bit of blood and bone, rake it in, water it, wait a couple of days, stick cloves all over it, bingo, around November, garlic! It’s a bloody miracle.

All this talk from Federal and local pollies about getting used to importing fruit and vegetables and the boys in Canberra recently deciding to let in New Zealand apples makes me want to get stroppy and picket parliaments.

Do they get out? Do they use the phone, watch the evening news, read a paper, search the internet, or engage in casual conversation?

Haven’t they heard that over here in the West we have a surplus of apples? We can’t sell all our apples. Orchardists are dumping apples. Would it make sense to send apples to the east where the drought has not only left them short of water but also apples?

Is anyone listening?

And anyone who buys land that was once prime fruit and vegi growing country should be required to grow garlic and apples in their back yard and make sensible use of available water and soil.

It’s Saturday morning. This is the first morning of the rest of your life. Make a stand, put the paper down, get of your butt, go outside and choose the best place to plant garlic. It’ll need good soil, sandy will do for now and a sunny spot. Go to it.

You’re a good person, a credit to your country, a true patriot.

The West Uncut: Pemberton

5/5/2007

I’m writing this in Pemberton. This is a town that looks like it gets good rain. I arrived two days ago and it hasn’t stopped.

Has that damped my enthusiasm? No.

Why am I here? Good question.

I am here to finish off the great Australian novel, not to read it, but to complete it. It was mine to write.

Ok, mine along with every other Australian who ever used a stick in sand, lifted a pen, a pencil, a typewriter, a keyboard, or even those old codgers like my grandfather who collected the words in their heads, stored them there and let them out every Christmas for the family.

Why Pemberton? Because it was here.

Back, way back, when my father was a young family man with great legs and he had two strapping boys who could lift things on instruction, he drove us most weekends to Pemberton to collect huge milk cans full of fingerlings, baby trout, and water, not milk, fingerlings can’t live in milk.

Once fully laden we drove all over this great south west tipping trout into creeks, brooks, rivers, dams and tanks. If you fish for trout in the Lower South West, we put them there. Well, not them, their great, great, great grandfathers and grandmothers.

Maybe not all of them because there might well have been others doing the same work in other towns and other streams but dad never mentioned them. It was our work.

Later, laden with the implements of fishing we would haunt those same streams and dad would fish until his fine legs buckled, or he had enough to eat and then we’d cook right there and then in a fire he made before he started, knowing he’d catch something because he put them there.

Years later, when dad was almost gone and many thought I had long gone, a few good friends and I helped Pemberton become the comedy capital of WA.

For a short three years it shone bright on the Australian comedy circuit. Everybody who was anybody, or who wanted to be somebody, came, performed, drank local wines, ate local trout and left.

Some, like the biggest stars, flew in and flew out the night they performed and wondered where the hell they had been.

Years later I worked alongside the long-thin Rod Quantok and reminded him of the night he did just that.

“I wondered about that town,” he said. “The thing that struck me most of all was the smell. It was dark when I arrived and dark when I left but I went with this sweet smell up my nose.”

I have it right now, as I sit in the grand hotel with same name as the town, eating the dish I ordered earlier. I couldn’t help myself.

“The trout,” I asked, “is it local?”

The answer was a natural “yes” and I placed my order and thought of my trout-fishing father and others like him.

Pemberton was the perfect location for a comedy festival, cold, friendly, nestled in a great and timeless forest, surrounded by water, vignerons, fresh produce and built by men and women who cut timber with their bare hands.

It is home to one of the two legendary mill-town football teams in the Lower South West Football League, the mighty Southerners

I once played for the other legendary team, Deanmill, and I once played against Southerners. Only once.

It was a day I expected to line up for the reserves but someone turned up lame and in I went to face eighteen hardened men with jarrah arms and karri legs and it wasn’t too long before a truck-load of lumber fell upon me.

Three days later they found me. I was a tiny splinter in the hand of Big Johnny Turner, man-mountain, Southerners captain coach, ruckman, full-back, full-forward, sweeper and a man who once pushed a wheelbarrow laden with railway sleepers from Pemberton to Bunbury in 45 minutes.

When I woke this morning and looked out over a misty lake backed by massive karris, I thought, just for a second: “All is well with the world.”

Then I went and spoilt it. I turned on the radio and listened to the news. All was not well in the world of radio.

In Pemberton, it’s still raining. I may stay awhile. You may never hear from me again.

Moving on

Betty's favourite family photo: that's me on the left, the one with the muscle.

I went to another funeral yesterday. This time to say goodbye to man called Normal Doust. He was my father's first cousin and a legendary nice bloke.
It is the allotted time for the Baby Boomer, the time to say goodbye to those of their parents who have lived the long life.
Norman was parent to three fine women and husband to one fine woman.
It has been a tough week for Dousts, because on the previous Friday four of us said goodbye to our mother, Betty Glorvina Doust.
Betty was my mother, mother to three others and wife of the deceased Stanley Roy Doust.
Betty's final day with her family was a classic: she was funny, chirpy, cheeky, alive. Most of us had been up all night at her bedside and if she saw someone nodding off she would clap her hands in front of him or her and say: "Come on. come on."
Betty loved the bible and so I read it to her, but made her fill in the gaps:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the ....
She would look up at me, pause, "earth".
And God said let there be ....
"Light."
And so on.
The hospital staff opened up an empty ward for family to sleep in on Betty's final night. Some of us went home to a brother's farm.
The final hour was tough. It's not a pretty sight, watching some you love struggle with the finality, but it is, at the same time, an honourable thing to do, to sit with them, and help them through.
My partner had just been through it all with her mother in Holland and she was ready to do certain things that had to be done to ensure the body was ready for the laying out.
And what a laying out.
My mother was an attractive woman and the morticians did a magnificent job. She looked beautiful and peaceful.
Not everybody wants to take a final look, but it is important for me, because I want the last image to be something other than the pain of the going. Betty looked so lovely and peaceful my face exploded in a smile that I couldn't get rid of.
Luckily for me it was happy funeral, full of laughter and joy at having had such a woman in our lives.
It wasn't always rosy, Betty's life, but bringing all that up is no way to say goodbye.
Thanks, Betty.
You too, Norman.

The West Uncut: car keys

28/4/2007

It’s not likely, but if ever you see me out and about, please ask if I have my car keys.

Chances are I will look shocked, disoriented, confused and then I’ll panic, because I know the stats, that chances are I will not have them on me, they will be somewhere else, anywhere but where they should be, in my pocket.

It’s not just my keys. And it’s not because I’m a Baby Boomer in the latter part of his life with brain cells disappearing faster than Australian flora and fauna. I‘ve done it all my life, leave things in a place they are needed least.

I dream about it, the leaving and forgetting of things, including forgetting to put things on, like pants.

Usually I’m in a shopping mall, wandering about, buying this and that, when suddenly, without warning, my pants are gone.

Once I have accepted I have none, then I remember I forgot to put them on, wonder why and why no-one is looking, pointing, yelling “Look, mummy, the man has no pants.”

It seems I am the only one who knows.

Hang on, I’ve drifted.

Here’s what happened on a week not long gone.

On the Wednesday I flew to Geraldton, or as I prefer to call it, Palm City, and then drove to Northampton to talk to a fine mob of farmers in the middle of the driest period they can remember.

On the Thursday I returned to Perth Airport, refreshed by the humour and generosity of the northerners and made ready to collect my car from its overnight bay.

With baggage held firm in one hand I scrambled about my body with the other for the illusive car-key with attached security device. Not in pocket, not in bag, not in hand luggage, nowhere.

In that instant, when the hand emerged from the last pocket without key, I knew where it would be.

I ran towards the car, to where I thought the car should be after the local car-stealing brigade had made their nightly sweep and plucked it from among the severely locked and disabled.

But no, there it sat, ignored as a model not worth the effort, all doors unlocked, security device with attached key firmly ensconced in ignition.

Knowing what a mob of Northampton farmers would do when they heard my story, I laughed, then I asked the questions I have asked before.

What is it that I have to do to make it easier for your average car thief?

What is it about my car that makes it unworthy of theft?

What is about the modern car thief that makes him or her bypass your wide open, key inserted, ready to go vehicle and make a b-line for the hard task, the locked-up, the security laden, alarm screaming, electronic masterpiece?

Is it the challenge?

As I have made clear, it’s not my marbles I have lost, it’s the marbles I have never had, for it is not the first time I have left my car, ready, waiting, enticing anyone with an eye for a vehicle not their own.

Once I left it in St George’s Terrace, not with the key in the ignition, but, in what I thought was an even more enticing positon, in the front door on the driver’s side.

Three hours later I came out of the luxury hotel to find it there, key glaring into the street, not a thief in sight.

I have left all manner of items in all kinds of places, only to return and find them sitting where I had once sat.

People have run after me in Greece, Spain, Switzerland and Japan, waving wallets, passports, room-keys and small change that was rightfully mine, but that I could have lived without.

There was, however, that once, when a very expensive pair of German sunglasses went missing from a South Perth beer garden and I was so shocked, surprised and confused I forgave the thief instantly and thanked him for not taking my car, which sat idling in the carpark.

As you can imagine, if there is one sentence I have heard more than most in my life it is this one: “You’d lose your head if it wasn’t screwed on.”

It is screwed on, but I think my makers crossed the threads.

The West: first rains

21/4/2007

That smell, the first rain smell, I love it, always have, always will.

When my boy was a boy and chose to live in the hills with his parents we would run outside with the first fall, tearing our clothes off as we ran.

Luckily for us his mother, Hildegard, descended as she is from a sensible line of Europeans, would always manage to convince us that wet nudity in a suburban street was probably a chargeable offense and it was best to run amuck with some covering.

We did our best.

Our best was not always good enough and Hildy, in an earlier year, could be seen running after us waving items of clothing.

Our first autumn rain this year up high in the Kalamunda hills was a beauty, a full 40mm they said in the all the places where they say how much rain we get.

There is nothing quite like sitting in your house safe and sound listening to the rain fall hard and heavy and relentless on your tin roof.

It conjures memories, visions and a kind of peace and quiet bound up in the knowledge that the long wait has ended and outside the parched earth is drinking and won’t stop until heaven has emptied itself.

There is, of course, a sound to dread.

That sound is the one that reminds you that you forgot to clean the gutters and the water has spilled over into your eaves and any second now the overflow will enter your house and drown you where you sit in front of your brand-new digital television set.

This is when I jump, as I have done on many occasions, remove my clothing with haste, don my Speedos and climb up in the drenching rain to work in the gutter where I belonged the week before and if I don’t clear the leaves, twigs and gumnuts Hildegard will make me live for the week after.

When I re-enter the house I bring water and blood and aching hands from thrusting into pathetically narrow gutters, stiffening knees from crouching low and a sore head from the inevitable bang on the solar hot water tank that has more peripheral piping than an aluminium smelter.

I am told by some of my neighbours that television no longer holds any wonders for them and they long for that first rain and the sight of me clambering up a ladder, soaked, shivering and near naked, stumbling, slipping and sliding on a roof they would not be seen dead on and they hope I won’t be either.

Hildegard often yelled and screamed but in both directions at the same time: Get on the roof and clean those gutters! Don’t you dare go on that roof dressed like that!

Hansl, the boy, would laugh and laugh and I’m surprised he didn’t drive up here that last good rain just for the sport and to watch his skinny father naked and wet and his mother yell and howl.

And it’s not just the roof. There is also the driveway.

The driveway drain is an ancient and unfortunate construction, built by a man who knew nothing of drains or water, or liquid flow, but everything about human drama.

This man built a drain that floods in seconds, allows water to run into the garage, my office, anywhere and everywhere but down the hill where it would logically flow if there was not a drain to block it.

This drain is, in fact, two drains.

Once again, almost naked, but full of the excitement of the chase, I follow the water from the driveway all the way down the hill, unblocking as I go and not resting until its body rests in the small gully we call Sleepy Hollow.

But not for long, because water waits for no man and in that one restful second I know the other drain has blocked, the driveway is again full and flooding and the neighbours on the other side of the house have not yet had their full of me ghostly white, shivering and splashed with mud and leaves.

But when the rain and I are exhausted and Hildy has forgiven me, we sit quietly with a window open, a cup of hot chocolate and smell that smell that rejuvenates, replenishes and turns prose into poetry.

The West: lawn and water

14/4/2007

I’m confused. But I’m certain.

That’s the way it is with me, I am able to live with contradictions no matter how loud they scream.

Here’s where I’m at: My current confusion centres on research into Yarragadee, because one lot says this and another lot says something else.

Clearly one lot is on one side and the other lot is on the other side. That’s makes two sides and I’m sure there/s another I have missed.

Of one thing I am certain: we need water to survive. And another: we don’t need this much lawn.

Ok, lawn is nice, it’s green, you can roll on it, run on it, drop a glass of red wine on it without breaking the glass and when the dog does his thing you can find it quickly and remove it.

But lawn is not necessary for the maintenance of life as we know it, unless you are a species that eats grass, like sheep, cows, kangaroos, ducks, or a nasty little thing called lawn armyworm.

So, unless those of you with lawn are prepared to put cattle, sheep and ducks on your grass and flog them off to neighbours when they are plump and ripe, then lawn is a luxury.

Not only does lawn cost water to keep, add to that the cost of the fertilizer, both as lawn feed and long-term pollutant, the armyworm killer-spray and the greenhouse gasses required to cut and groom the patch, then we are talking considerable savings for the household budget, the planet and a drop in income for local nursery and fresh meat retailers.

Right here, in keeping with the proposed new lobby laws, I must declare an interest, or rather, lack of interest, in lawn.

I hate lawn.

In Bridgetown, when I was a mere morsel, my family and other animals lived in an average sized house surround by an acre of lawn, plus a tennis court.

Tennis was big in those days and I was often trounced on that court by my father, all my brothers and even the sister I never had. The only person the in the vicinity I could beat was mum and only because she fudged the scores.

My family were orchardists, retailers and lawnmowers. Every weekend we worked in the shop, the orchard, or on the lawn. My memories of orchard are fine and without blemish, as are recollections of the shop, but my psyche was deeply scared by lawn.

As an adult I vowed that when I found the courage to form my own family unit there would be no lawn, none, not even a suggestion.

My first house had lawn front and back. We ripped out the front and let the back die.

This house I live in now, up high in the hills, once had a hint of lawn but we hid it quickly under an extension and now it is dead from lack of sunlight, fertilizer and water.

Water, good old H₂O, I love the stuff, can’t get enough of it. I drink it, wash in it, cook with it, I even swim in it.

But it never leaves my taps and touches lawn.

There is no doubting the water guzzling qualities of lawn and what have we done in the north of the city, right under the Gnangara water mound? Why, plant lawn of course. And what’s the new plan? Remove water guzzling pine trees and sell the land off to more lawn-growers?

Which brings me back to the Yarragadee and here again I must declare an interest.

This massive pool of pristine liquid-gold sits under my country, the Lower South West, inhabited for centuries by Noongars, for 160 years by Dousts and still farmed by my youngest brother and his wife on land drying up and without a trickle from the famed Hester Brook.

Those of us who have lived in and loved the big timber country can see its pain, its wilting limbs and its drying leaves.

The scientific research might confuse me, but I can hear my heart, soul and grandfather, the legendary bushman Roy Doust, whisper words of wisdom, don’t tap it, let it be.

The West, Saturday: Dullsville

7/4/2007

This is not a good idea, but I’m going to do it anyway, apologise, to the people of Perth.

In many ways, although I have lived in this city for over 20 years, I have never really been at one with it, its lifestyle, its vibe, its inner core. The boy from Bridgetown has always kept his distance, his separateness and has remained an amused observer.

This, hopefully, will allow you to forgive my seeming indiscretion.

When the big news broke, when it became a major news item for eastern states newspapers and national TV stations, I was one of the first quoted.

From memory, unreliable as it is, I seem to recall I was quoted on the front page of this very newspaper.

I certainly remember appearing on a daily TV breakfast show hosted by Steve Lieberman, or a man who was sitting in his chair.

In fact, it was not Steve who interviewed me but rather his offsider, a woman who’s name is no longer with me and who is no longer with the daily TV show or with any show I watch.

What occurred, of course, in typical media fashion, was that my comments were taken out of context.

Not only was the context re-contextualised, but what I said was also isolated from what I did not say and left unsaid.

Ok, I did say Perth was dull and that the bon mot, Dullsville, was well deserved, but nowhere was it pointed out that I continued to live in the place.

Many of you, especially those of you involved in the communication arts, know that what is unsaid often carries the most important message.

What I implied by offering comments from Perth, about Perth, was that although I would admit to a strong dullsville strain in Digger and Dealer City, it was only superficial, that the shallow dullness above, hid a deep, seething, vibrant underbelly beneath.

And in one particular bit of the under-belly, I and my friends lived a culturally rich and eventful life.

I could have added, as does Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, James Dean and Al Pacino.

Or, if this is your first time in this column, Brian Burke, Julian Grill, Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr.

Oh yes, these past few months have certainly made a few of those Easterners sit up and read their papers.

Not all that long ago, their columnists and street-mockers took great delight in having fun at our perceived parochialism and, indeed, many of them refused to visit, claiming that the five-hour flight was the most exciting part of the journey and there was no point in it because all you had to look forward to at the and was the return and they had no interest in going over old ground.

Perhaps that’s why so many of them are still with us now, not used to the distances, they can’t face the long trek back.

But back to the underbelly that hangs beneath this great state of ours. And I’m not talking Yarragadee.

Let’s face it, it’s put us on the map, it’s a mark of our maturity, of our continued rise up the ladder of high-profile cities.

Who wants to visit a town where the major attractions are a couple of bells stuck up a tower, a mob of kangaroos just down the road from the CBD, lovely white sandy beaches with no surf, or an adolescent clogged island with nowhere to sleep.

What we have always needed is human drama, scandal, on a scale to match Profumo and Keeler, Stalin and Trotsky, Kennedy and Monroe, Starksy and Hutch.

And now we have it: Sydney (Brian Burke) Greenstreet versus Humphrey (Alan Carpenter) Bogart, James (Ben Cousins) Dean up against Clint (John Worsfold) Eastwood and Rupert (Hancock) Murdoch up against Conrad (Wright) Black.

Such reckless, self-indulgence by our high profile citizens can only enhance our image in the east, full as it is of your educated and sophisticated modern tourists, who shun base natural beauty and seek the glamour of cultural contrivance, deceit and good old sex, drugs and money.

This week I will attempt to right the injustice of my earlier “dullsville” comments. I will be contacting Steve Leiberman and, as soon as I remember its name and channel, the producers of the breakfast TV show.

I will claim I was disoriented at the time, heavily medicated following a number of losses on the property market, suffering from mild heavy-metal poisoning, and depressed following my break-up with Megan Gale.

The West, Saturday: a bad week

31/3/2007

I am writing this on the third day of a bad week, well not quite a week, but if it goes on much longer I can call it a week.

Bad weeks start innocently enough for most people, usually, I guess, on a Monday.

The Monday-thing is not normally a thing for me, given the way I work, well not really work, sort of follow my hobbies and wonder where the money comes from.

It all started when I woke up, not unusual in itself, because I often do that, but never before have I woken with my right leg twisted at such an angle. My left, sure, but my left has a life of its own and normally the right stays swell clear.

At first it seemed fine and I lay there marvelling at its flexibility, but when the pain hit I marvelled at its inflexibility.

Those of you who suffer regular pain, like my life’s partner, Hildegard, she of the terminal back-thing, well know that pain can cause grumpiness, irritability, irascibility but rarely, at least in our case, infidelity.

Normally when I wake I get up, it seems to help me get things done, so I did, but forgot to do my neck bends. A day without neck bends is bad enough, because it sets me up for neck-stabs which lead to neck stiffness, which leads to instability.

That was two false starts, so I gave up on the normal round of floor and standing exercises, deciding breakfast was the way to go. Go it did, all over the kitchen table and some made its way to the floor.

I’m ok with eating recently prepared debris and sucking up soy-milk off a table, but our floor hadn’t been ironed in a while and I couldn’t sort out the breakfast debris from the other debris.

Sorry, not ironed, we don’t iron our kitchen floor, slate is not a thing you iron, what I meant was swept. Well there was that one time, a long time ago, but I was heavily medicated and my father-in-law was visiting.

I’m not sure about you, but after I have eaten early in the morning this seems to lead to the other thing that is a logical consequence of eating. I don’t think I need to go into detail here but if you require it, please consult your local doctor.

Nothing untoward happened in the small room, but on leaving it, I forgot to flush it, not the room, you don’t flush rooms, well not in our house, but the water-thing that sits above the place that holds the debris.

Not a pretty thing for the nose when you happen upon such debris later in the day. After opening the small-room door you usually stumble backward and hit your head on the shelving above the washing machine, which is exactly what happened.

After all this, a person really needs their computer system to collapse, just to remind them how important it has become in their lives and how incompetent and insignificant they will feel when it has been removed by the technicians who shake their heads as they carry it down the driveway without a definite promise of a return date. Which is exactly what happened.

Over the years, due to an inability to cope with bad days in the manner taught me by a Zen Master, I have sore feet, as a result of kicking things that don’t kick back and generally stay where they are, like brick walls and granite outcrops.

When I arrived at the podiatrist for my appointment she said: “Well, you have the right month, and year, but it’s next week.” Her reception desk was made of a flimsy material and I decided against kicking it.

I tried to drive home but the car wouldn’t start.

I called home but Hildegard was busy ironing the patio.

My son, Hansl, said he would come and pick me up as soon as he remembered where I lived.

It was then I realised how important getting out of bed is, because if you get out wrong and the feeling lingers the wrongness will infiltrate the entire day, polluting it with its venom and nastiness and by the end, even though six things went right, you will not have noticed them, or their cousins, the almost right and, as far as you will be concerned, the world is the work of the devil and you are the only one who can see him.

Thanks for that. I feel better now. Not quite a week, just the three days. Good luck with your week

The West, Saturday: toothpicks

24/3/2007

In most restaurants you will find a small container of toothpicks sitting on the counter and while waiting for your bank to say, yes, you can rip money from this person’s credit-card, you can dig into your gums with a piece of wood.

Nice.

Wasn’t always like that.

When I say restaurants, there must be a range at the top-end where toothpicks are frowned upon, maybe banned, where picking could lead to ejection, but I don’t go there.

The toothpick is an essential tool among my eating apparatus.

I have no idea how it started, the thing with toothpicks, but more than likely it was dad’s idea.

Dad loved nothing more than to consume a side of pig, with healthy portions of potato, beans, liberally splashed with apple sauce, followed by a family block of fruit and nut chocolate, then poke a stick in the mouth for the hidden portions.

He had plenty of spaces to store the uneaten bits and the probing could take up to an hour.

Mum didn’t appreciate it, not the probing itself, but the way he probed. Her style was more your dangling hand-in-front with soft finger thrusts accompanied by downcast eyes.

Dad had no shame: he had a lump of wood in his hand, there was food in there, he was going in after it.

Given there were four boys in the family, not surprisingly we all took after the manly dig and these days, after a good solid meal together, people sitting on either side shift their chairs to make way for the raised elbows.

It should be noted, by the way, that the toothpick has been around since BB, before-before.

According to Wikipedia, my choice for all important information, it is probably the oldest instrument for dental cleaning.

Not surprising.

You’re living in 567BB, you’ve just eaten a woolly mammoth and some of the wool is stuck between your back molars.

What do you do? It’s obvious. You grab one of the tusks, whip out your Swiss Army knife and whittle it down to a manageable size.

There is much to like about a good pocket knife, but the Swiss knew from the start that any knife worth its cut should contain a toothpick.

Not my favourite, the plastic pick, but handy in an emergency if there is no available wood, or all the old well-used picks left in the back pocket have broken or frayed too close to the end.

When it comes to favourites, I don’t mind the standard pine, but I am partial to sandalwood, marri, wattle, wild grass is always handy, but wandoo is a bit too tough.

Yes, I know, you’re still thinking about the bloke in 567BB with the ivory pick.

If you took the time to peruse the Wiki, or even add your personal knowledge to its massive database, you would know that the humble toothpick was not always made of wood.

Picks of bronze and silver have been found, sometimes buried with their dead owners, which suggests the pick may have been a symbol of prestige.

A long time after BB, BC and well into AD, toothpicks were sometimes manufactured as luxury items, well crafted, styled, enamelled and encrusted with precious stones.

It certainly opened my eyes and, as a consequence, I have changed my burial instructions to read: To be buried in the Bridgetown cemetery, facing north for winter warmth, along with various personal items, including his favourite toothpick, the one he whittled out of Japanese bamboo.

Some dentists, I know, frown on the toothpick, but only those who don’t realise the work it brings in.

I mean, if you dig around inside your mouth for 45 years with a piece of wood then you are sure to wear great gaping gaps between teeth, gaps any self-respecting dentist would love to plug. And invoice for.

As for me, even though I floss and use the very modern electronic round-brush technique, there’s still nothing I love more than a damn good dig with a lump of pine accompanied by the tongue and cheek double act.

As for those restaurants that don’t supply picks, no concern to me, because, like dad, I never leave the house without one.

A letter to the West Australian Premier and the Minister for the Environment

Dear Alan and David,

As you well know, I am a Bridgetown boy.

What might not be so clear is that I am a somewhat radical boy from a very conservative family.

My brothers are upset.

They don’t get upset very often.

My sister-in-law was recently on the front page of that wonderful publication, The West.

She hated being there.

But she had to, because Hester Brook is a vital water source for their farm.

Now her husband, my brother, Jamie, has penned his first ever letter to the press.

It frightened me.

Please read it.

It’s important.

And then, please, take courage, and do the right thing.

The right thing, not the politically expedient thing, the best thing for the future of lawn, but the right thing by the forests, the rivers, and the dairy, fruit and vegetable bowl, that are and is the Lower South West.

Thanks.

Best

Jon Doust

My brother writes:

Our property was recently featured on the front page of the West Australian.
The article was about the Hester Brook which had stopped flowing. We grew up in Bridgetown and have lived on this property for 17 years. To our knowledge, Hester Brook has always been a permanent water course. We are well aware of how precious a resource water is and for years now have imposed our own very tight water restrictions, including buckets in the kitchen and laundry sinks and also the grey water, pumped from the washing machine, goes out for the garden. As with most rural properties, we do not have water piped to our property and must use the available water very wisely. We do rely on the water though for the stock, up to 100 head of cattle that we run on the property. Apart from two small dams, Hester Brook is the only source of water for these animals. It was to our dismay that we read the headlines in the West Australian today stating that the Government is going ahead with pumping water from Yarragadee so that the city would not have to have sprinkler bans. The “Suck it and See” approach that has been proposed, at a cost of $650 million, is flawed, especially when one looks at how the Gnangara mound has been managed. The water situation in the South West is already critical and lowering the water table further by the pumping of Yarragadee each year will have far reaching effects throughout the region, social, environmental economical.

Sue and Jamie Doust

PO Box 147

Bridgetown WA 6255

97 611985

17 March 2007

The West, Saturday: the beard

17/3/2007

I recently grew a beard. It wasn’t the first time.

The first beard I grew appeared in 1972, the year I left the family’s south west retailing business to pursue a career as an aimless hippy.

That was a successful beard and kept me well hidden from those who knew me as a clean shaven, clean cut, ex-private school boy from Bridgetown.

It lasted 20 years. It was a handsome, ginger-fired, manly, extravaganza of hair.

Once I’d done with the hippy thing and found myself aimless on a university campus, the beard became a symbol of redness, of revolution, of alternateness, of intellectual intensity.

I did my best to live up to it.

This latest crop of face-hair, however, suggested none of the above and was an entirely unsuccessful growth.

It itched, it annoyed, it hid me from people I wanted to greet without having to explain that, yes, I was indeed Jon Doust, not some weird, goog-eyed perve who confronted people in the street with strange tales laced with personal knowledge and who frightened small children.

Ok, I can hear the question: Why was a bloke at your age letting his face go anyway?

Thing is, I’m not in the middle of a middle-aged crisis. There are no signs: no motor bike, no running off with a younger woman, younger man, canoeing trips down the Amazon, or late nights on ABC2 watching footy finals from the 1960s with a bag of twisties.

No middle crisis for me, no need, my entire life has been a crisis.

What happened was, my wife left me.

Not forever, but for a long time.

Not because she didn’t love me anymore, because she does, she can’t help herself, but because whenever I have married I have always married outsiders, foreigners, people from other countries, and, when there is a family crisis in their homeland, they have to go home. And rightly so.

I have always considered it important to marry people from out of town. Many people do, but, for the most part, they go to Manjimup, Donnybrook, Gosnells, or even Hyden.

Let us pause for a paragraph or two and allow me to tell you that my wife is now an Australian.

It took a long time, almost 30 years, but she made it, and made it with an obvious keenness.

What was it that changed her? A change, I might add, that forced a realisation: I am now more like these people I live with than those people I used to live with.

It was Roy Slaven and HG Nelson.

Yes, remarkable, isn’t it?

Hildegard watched Roy and HG during both the Sydney and Athens Olympics, laughed herself stupid, visited her grumpy homeland, and thought: Bugger, I’m an Aussie.

That was all it took, just two looks.

She realised then and there that there was something wonderful about an Aussie sense of humour, a real one, the one she now shared with my father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, siblings and our Noongar mates.

It’s the one that helps you laugh in the face of all odds, of the thing that’s intimidating you, working against you: the drought, the budget, the idiots on the roads, the system, the lack of hot water, milk for the coffee and the inadequate public transport system.

All right, back to the beard.

When she left me, I decided I was not going to shave until she returned.

But Hildegard, a large and powerfully built woman, would not even allow me that pleasure. She issued instructions, through her solicitor, that I was to remove the offending hair well in advance of her return, or there would be no return.

Sorry, I was thinking of someone else.

But Hildegard, a slender, elegant and attractive woman, who looks ten years younger than her actual age, said that although she respected the symbol of her absence as a manifestation of my continuing affections, she would prefer I had it removed before her return.

Either that or go look for another foreigner.

Saturday's West Australian: Sydney Greenstreet

10/3/2007

Before I start, I must make it quite clear, Sydney Greenstreet had nothing to do with the writing of this column.

He did not dictate it over the phone, in person, or slap me on the side of the head with it. He did not email it, send it around by courier, or arrange for it to be delivered by Peter Lorre.

Because of current controversies surrounding various issues, recipes and table settings, it is also important that I reveal all previous meetings, meals and toilet breaks I have had with both Greenstreet and Lorre.

Let me start with Greenstreet: I have never had relations with that man.

From time to time there have been vicious and uncalled for rumours regarded the disparity in our respective sizes: I am a weaselly man; Greenstreet is a fat man.

This has not affected our relationship in any way. We don’t have one.

I have never met him, heard of him, know what he does for a living and I most certainly did not buy a used car from him or anyone associated with him.

I don’t go to parties with him. I don’t know what he looks like close up, or from a decent distance, say five metres, or why he wears that stupid hat when he is inside a house, building, or place of investigation.

All right, there was that one time, when I thought I was going to a pyjama party at Humphrey Bogart’s.

When Humphrey rang he said all the “gang” would be there, but I thought he meant Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy, Edward G. Gobinson George Raft, Ingrid Bergman and Jason Akermanis.

I assumed we would be discussing up-coming projects, including a remake of The Big Sleep. It was to be called The Big Wake Up.

We all make mistakes. I made a mistake which, in hindsight, I probably would have made anyway, but I would have made it in the knowledge that I was making it, rather than the other way around.

All right, okay, then there was the fund-raising for my election campaign. As it happened, my nomination was withdrawn at the last minute due to something to do with my nationality, which I am sure will be cleared up when the papers are found, or my parents turn up.

As for the money, I understand it was absorbed by various bank accounts related to the organising body, or donated to a double-bass player with curly hair.

And now I think I should deal with Peter Lorre.

To be honest, it is very difficult to know if you are talking to him. I once spent 45 minutes on the phone before I realised it was him. His soft, sneaky tones make him hard to discern and hanging up didn’t help because when I went into the next room there he was on the carpet.

Six months and $4076 later, we thought we had him removed but the very next day my youngest discovered a small stain at the back of the house near the old septic tank.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to my neighbours, the people over the road, those who live down our side of the street, a couple of those on the other side towards the north east, not the others, on the south west, because of their failure to stand up and be counted over the curbing issue, which I won’t go into here.

I think that’s all.

As far as I can recall.

Now, let’s return to Sydney.

In fact, we tried returning to Sydney, to get away from Sydney, but it made no difference. The man has tentacles.

He said he had something that sounded somewhat similar and anyone who wasn’t with him didn’t have them.

Sorry. Just a second. The phone.

“Hello. Yes. Oh, Sydney. No, I didn’t know you still had a phone. What? No, mate, no, maaaaate, yeah, sure. What? The column? I’m writing it now. You serious? Editor? Of the whole paper? You could? Mate, Sydney, of course I can. We go back, mate. No, it didn’t come from you. Bye.”

Look, if you don’t mind, I’d like to start this again.

Before I start, I would like to make it quite clear, Sydney Greenstreet is an honourable man, an old family friend, a man I have looked up to ever since I have known him as a taller man than me and I think what is happening to him is a travesty.

This time it’s personal!

The West Australian, Thursday, February 22, 2007

The West: Peter Foster

3/3/2007

It is important that I get this off my chest, my relationship with Peter Foster, you know, the bloke who is awaiting trial on trumped-up charges in Queensland and recently escaped from the KGB in Columbia, or a country with a similar shape.

When I first saw him, form a distance, he certainly seemed accident prone, financially prone, people prone, mainly prone.

Later, I thought he was a good bloke with a funny looking head full of hilarity and some other stuff I couldn’t get a handle on, or there wasn’t a handle, I wasn’t sure which.

It was my father who brought us together. He was a butcher, well, he said he was a butcher, but he wasn’t, he was a small-arms dealer plying the volatile islands between a whole lot of other islands in the South Pacific.

At least, that’s what he said.

If he was alive today, he’d be so close to dead he might as well stay where he is, but if he was, I’d ask: “What did you really do, when you went away for months at a time?”

Mum used to say: “He’s on business for your Uncle Ted.”

Years later, when I told her about dad running guns, she denied it: “No, he meant gum, he was a gum-runner, a travelling salesman for Wrigley’s.”

When I was 12 he left for good and we never saw him again. Over the years I saw a lot of men around his age who looked like him, talked like him and I asked each and every one of them: “Are you my father?”

Not one replied in the affirmative, some of them ran, three cuffed me on the back of the head, two said, as far as they could remember, they were skiing in the Alps at the time and one swore it wasn’t him but he knew someone who looked just like a man who could be my father..

This is where Peter Foster comes in.

Recently, in another attempt to find the man behind the father I never knew, I sought out Foster, who was well known in Fiji as a medium sized, plump, flatulent man who had a habit of bringing people together, then turning them against each other.

I liked him because he spoke English with an Australian accent and ate peanut butter and jam sandwiches with a slice of banana on top.

Peter said he was a research officer for the British Secret Service Agency MI5, the RSPCA, or BHP, or he sold cheap jewellery to rich American tourists with big stomachs, skinny ankles and swollen necks. It was hard to tell.

He was exciting to be around because every day was a new day. He said he knew this for a fact because he made a point of watching the sun go down, then come up again.

I paid Foster hundreds to help me find my father. And then I paid him thousands.

Everything went well until he claimed he had uncovered a plot by the President of the United States to net all fish in the Pacific Ocean and transport them to Florida, where they would be trained to invade Cuba.

It ran in all the papers and then it ran us out of town.

Everyone was after us, the Americans, the Fijians, the vegetarians and we had to swim from Fiji to Vanuatu, which we did, with considerable help from a passing steamer.

The captain of the streamer was a man who looked a lot like a lot of men I had spoken to over the years, or someone who looked like them and as I dived overboard for the last 200metres, I could have sworn he said: “Your real father is the new Secretary General of the United Nations.”

When we arrived on shore, I asked Foster if he had ever worked for the United Nations. He said: “Of course I have. I was once a roving ambassador for UNESCO, with special responsibilities for nubility, proximity and gold bullion.”

Despite hundreds of emails, mobile phone calls and letters to MI5, I never heard from Peter Foster again.

Until this week. He rang and asked if I would get my father to arrange diplomatic immunity for him.

I said: “Don’t be silly. My father’s a butcher in Dalwallinu.”

The West: sport, more sport

24/2/2007

It’s that time of year again, when the big sports merge into one great paroxysm of sport and more sport.

It’s disgusting, the amount of sport on free-to-air television and from all seasons.

The only way to discover what season you’re in is to go outside and see for yourself.

Trouble is, I do love a good sport and not just the big two, cricket and Aussie Rules.

No, it gets worse.

I love all-gender swimming, running, jumping, hockey, rugby union, table tennis, lacrosse, surfing, handball, netball, basketball, volleyball and if they are on the telly then I have to watch a little just to see how good the game is and if it is in a state of intense competition with all players fit and firing then I can’t get to bed until 3am or even later if it is the World Cup.

Yes, the World Cup added soccer to my list and I couldn’t get into a delightfully made bed in a small motel in Dunedin, New Zealand, because of the Socceroos game against Italy.

A lot of people look at me, which is fine, it’s when they raise their hands that they worry me.

And when they look, those who know me, or think they know me, or know someone who looks like me, they sometimes say: “What is this with you and sport? You are a cultured man, with fine artistic sensibilities, yet you seem to have a perverse fascination with the brutal arts.”

Oh, I forgot to mention boxing.

This is the big one. This is the one that really gets folk fired up: “You love boxing? Are you mad?”

Some don’t wait for the answer, assuming they know it already and as they leave the room I don’t call them back because there’s not much I can say in my defence.

I have no defence.

And we all know, those of use who watch boxing, that defence is crucial.

But this is not a column about boxing, that’s another column, because I have a defence, of sorts, not really a defence, more an analysis of a psychologically disturbed aging baby boomer whose parents gave him boxing gloves one Christmas and watched in admiration as he beat the living daylights out of anything that moved.

Now, let me say, please, that I do not think that a love of sport in any way negates a love of art and culture.

Think Ernst Hemingway.

Ok, forget Ernest, what about Damon Runyon, Mick Jagger, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sir Elton John, or Gideon Haigh?

Don’t recognise any of them?

How about Reg Cribb? Now there’s a cultured man, writer of plays, films and small scraps of paper.

Last Train to Freo was a work of Mr Cribb’s and he has been called a “chronicler of our times”, which means he has observed stuff most of us walk past with our heads facing north while shoving icecream in our faces.

Mr Cribb loves football.

He and I have stood together in the front bar of a dilapidated pub engaging in a conversation about some long-dead Greek philosopher while marvelling at the ability of Chris Judd to slip through a marauding pack of behemoths.

Given the propensity of humans to batter the hell out of each other over anything from an imaginary line in the sand, to a few barrels of oil, an insult, or even who has the largest collection of weapons of mass destruction, then thank the gods for sport.

At the very least, while we are engaged in sport we are not beating the hell out of reach other, unless, of course, that is allowed under the rules of the particular sport, or your team loses

Which brings me back to my dilemma, which particular sport?

I’ve got to get out more, get away, turn off the telly, leave the building, use my legs, a car, a bike, anything that will take me away from the torment, the inability to decide which one to watch.

I’ve got to have some down-time, some time to smell the roses, prune the roses, or remove the roses because they drink too much water.

Either that or play a sport.

The West: love and Katanning

17/2/2007

I was in Katanning last week.

It has nothing to do with this week’s offering. Just thought I’d mention it.

But now I have, I may as well go on a bit, since, it seems, going on a bit has become one of the characteristics of this column.

It is not the place it once was, Katanning, no way, a long way from it.

Well, it’s still on the same town site, with many of the same buildings and thank you, Katanning, for hanging on to those fine structures.

If you want to see a handsome looking town, with a sense of heritage, of the past, of from whence it has come, there are a number of them, but make sure Katanning in on the list.

I can remember back in 32, or 47, or more likely one of those years after the year I was born, walking upright, eating, probably talking, not necessarily making sense, but certainly able to remember what I did yesterday, when Katanning was not the place it is now.

If you said to someone: I was in Katanning last week.

They would respond: Why? Is there someone wrong with you?

Not anymore.

It has, they say, the most culturally diverse community in this vast and handsome state of ours.

Not only that, in the local library is a young dude with enough energy to sell her excess to Western Power, sorry, Synergy, create a separate power grid and supply the entire Great Southern.

Not only that, you can buy a cup of coffee in town to better the one I bought the week before in Rokeby Road.

This week’s column, by the way, is about love.

But I’m not ready yet.

If you do drive down the Great Southern Highway and turn left at the sign for a fine example of the ancient craft of public building, don’t forget to drop into Mungart Boodja, an art gallery displaying the modern art of Noongar painting in the Carrolup style.

Inside you might find a man who could paint the world a vision of itself as it should be.

Ok, I’m ready now.

Love. That’s what this column is about.

Apparently there was a day this week when I should have remembered flowers.

I didn’t. I was busy in Katanning, or thinking about Katanning, or writing about Katanning, or missing Katanning.

This year is the 30^th anniversary of my marriage to Hildegard, which is not, by the way, her real name.

Someone once told me, after I had taken Hildy’s name in vain in a public setting, that loud mouths such as me should leave their partners out of it.

So I do. In a manner.

Hildy knows I talk about her and write about her, but she, also, would rather I referred to her as Hildy.

Anyway, Hildy has been to Katanning. Just the once. A sad story. The marriage nearly ended there and then.

Sorry, I thought I’d moved on from Katanning.

Hildy and I are still in love. Isn’t that amazing, after 30 years of hell?

No, not hell, a long way from hell. We’ve had it good. We’ve been blessed. And Hansl, our son, also not his real name, but correctly spelt, is proof of our successful union.

He is, of course, a genius, a university graduate, high-income earner, tall, handsome, unattended, built like a Katanning farm-house, but does he visit, does he call? Yes, he does.

Hildy and I met in Katan, sorry, in Israel, on a kibbutz, in 1976 and we got married late the next year, in Perth, because the immigration department had her on a list of illegal immigrants.

And just to spite those bureaucratic bastards, we’ve been together ever since.

One of the first towns we visited during what I called our honeymoon, more a trip down south to see an old mate who promised a good weekend with plenty of beer and a side of lamb, was Katanning.

Hildy was bit suspicious, given I was vegetarian and drank spirits, but she was new to Australia and thought it best to go along for the ride.

She hasn’t been since.

Don’t say anything, she doesn’t know yet, but next week I’m taking her back.

I can’t wait to see the look on her face, because now, after all these years, you can feel the love in Katanning.

The West Australian, Saturday, Weekend: climate change

10/2/2007

I don’t know if you’ve caught up with the latest news, but the planet is heating up.

Yes, this one, the one we’re on.

Some of us, I know, occasionally, live on other planets, but even those of us who do have to drop back into this one if we want a glass of water.

A lot of people poo-hoo and I quite enjoy that, because it takes me back to a time when poo-hooing was popular and an art form.

In this case I refer, of course, to a poo-hoo of climate change.

Well, I have only one thing to say to those folk, the poo-hooers: Take a look around you, buddy!

First thing you’ll notice is that there are more people than there were this time yesterday.

They are increasing by the minute and there is no better example than the inability to find a parking space on Rokeby Road outside your favourite shoe shop.

It can get worse.

My partner, Hildegard, said that when she went shopping in Holland recently there were so many people in the street that when she went to blow her nose, someone had beaten her to it.

Hildy was in the Land of Dykes for Christmas and it was the hottest winter on record.

Oh yes, minimums of -2 degrees Celsius and balmy days with maximums around 10 degrees.

It was disgraceful, Dutch folk throwing off their doonas in the middle of winter and walking in the streets.

Not only is global warming destroying climates, it’s causing the disintegration of cultures.

This brings me back to ours.

Everyday, I am reliably informed by a government department, thousands of Victorians and others lost and confused charge into this great state of ours looking for a place to stay, 24-hour shopping and oversized bananas.

It wasn’t enough for them to send us their kookaburras, rainbow lorikeets and tinned jam, now they have to send themselves?

A lot of them arrive in an exhausted state, in an exhausted state.

And I meant to say that twice, because, let’s face it, we are pretty tuckered.

It takes a lot of energy and resources to dig up what we have to dig up and ship it to where we have to ship it in order to keep this great nation off its knees.

And the arrivals are exhausted because of the walk from the border, where they had expected everything to be handed over, including a four-wheel drive with trailer and boat attached.

I don’t know about you but I don’t have a science degree, in fact, I failed chemistry, physics and geology, all on the same day, so don’t go asking me for the scientific facts.

But, I do know stuff.

And so do you.

Here’s a thing you can try tonight when you get home.

First, climb into bed on your own and notice the under-cover temperature. Then ask the rest of the family to join you, or even a few near neighbours.

To warm it up even more, engage in strenuous activities, eat fatty foods to encourage the production of certain gases, run a lawnmower over your carpet and build a small coal-burning power-station.

Yes, you’re right, in no time at all you can dump the doona. Why? Too hot. Now imagine millions of bodies just like your mob, all under a massive doona.

It’s no wonder we’re losing our cool.

If everybody on the planet did nothing, just stood still, or lay down on a quiet patch of soft grass and took shorter breaths, that might help, but it isn’t going to happen, even if the fat lady sings.

We’re not made like that. We’re more like lemmings than lemmings.

And so what is needed is some kind of action and I am calling on everyone to join me tomorrow in a march on climate change.

We’ll meet in St Georges Terrace, march due west up the hill to Kings Park, down Thomas Street, along Stirling Highway, turn right into Eric Street and cluster at North Cottesloe.

By then the planet should be warm enough for a swim followed by a long-black at a beach-side café, if we can find one above sea-level. (Better arrange for someone to drive your car there, so you can get home.)

The West Australian, Saturday, Weekend: holidays & hair

3/2/2007

I love this time of the year: I don’t work, I don’t sleep, I don’t eat, I simply lie about reading and then, every so often, mainly early or late, I get up and walk along Middleton Beach, Albany, until I find a good sized wave.

Then I plunge in the surf like I am a man who is not yet a man, more a boy who wants to be a man.

This is where I am, Albany, for my summer break from everything but the life I really want, which involves all of the above and a few flat whites with any old friend I meet or even complete strangers.

It wasn’t always like this. In order to get here I worked hard, long and hard and before breakfast dad would drag us from bed, whip the flesh off our backs and then, only then, would he kick us in backside until flesh grew back.

All right, dad was a good man and he only made us work until our flesh bled and then he let us play cards.

But that’s not the point. The point is that when a man was much younger this time of the year was full of work, the holiday work, in the bins, down the mine, on the farm, in the shop, on the back of the truck, wherever and whenever in order to make the money you needed to fund the activities your parents would have nothing to do with.

Once I worked in a post office. Well, not in, but out of. My job was to deliver the parcels that arrived from all over the planet, usually badly wrapped and spilling.

I delivered them on an old motor bike that should not have been allowed to use the name. It was a malicious beast and as soon as the relief bike arrived on the back of the manager’s ute it would splutter and start and make me look a liar, a cheat and a student who knew nothing about motor bikes.

Which I was.

I was also once a student who knew nothing about hairdressing, still am, which is why I have never taken a job in a salon, for men or women, or dogs.

My mother, however, is a woman, for which we are eternally grateful.

Sorry, I digress.

My mother is a woman who has always presented herself as knowing everything there is to know about hair.

When I achieved that age when boys are handed a book by their fathers and told to go away, read it and come back with any questions, my father was nowhere to be seen. It was mum with the book and it was called: Hair Today, Success Tomorrow.

As far as mum was concerned, hair made the man, the girl, the person.

“Without groomed hair,” she would say, “you might as well be Wally or Crispin.”

Wally and Crispin, I should explain, were two men invented by Findlay Campbell. Findlay, by the way, was the man who stopped World War II, but I haven’t got time to go into that here, suffice to say that Fin was a story teller and Wal and Crispy were his two down-and-out night-cart men, the blokes who emptied the pans at the back of every house in 1950s Bridgetown.

Apparently they existed and mum said their hair was the work of the devil.

And so was mine. It needed to be trained, subdued, controlled.

And so was my father’s.

Not once did I see my father leave a room without my mother grabbing a comb and digging it into his scalp.

“Don’t you dare leave this room without doing your hair,” she would say.

Dad would stand, dutifully, and allow mum to comb it one way, then another, until she found the perfect set.

Which brings me back to Albany, because while I’m down here, while students state-wide are working jobs to raise funds to buy stuff they don’t need, or want, I never comb my hair, not once, not for anyone.

I get out of bed, hit the beach, surf until my body shakes with the cold, change out of wet into dry, eat something, not much, read a book, nod off, wake up, hit the beach again, never once running anything through my hair, just the wind that takes it when I stick my head out the car window.

I’ve been here two weeks now.

My hair is matted and spiked.

When people ask what I do for a living I say: I’m a hairdresser.