The Good Old Days
October 16th 2009 02:58
As I get closer to my grave I think often of other times in other places. Memory being what it is, I remember the good times best, not the misery and heartbreak that happened along the way. And so it is that we all have the 'Good old days'.
As a child I remember the freedom I took for granted and the relaxed and friendly attitude of the law enforcement people when I got caught out in some of my nefarious activities. Not criminal in any way, just illegal, and often dangerous to me and to my friends. This fact did not stop the adventures, merely changed their direction, and made me more careful. I knew, and accepted the fact, that I had to wear the consequences of my acts of adventure and defiance and did so with as much good grace as I could muster.
Tresspass was not such a crime then as it is today and I often ventured where I was not supposed to be. Near my home town was an Air Force Training centre for budding pilots and when the war moved away from our shores this became a storage facility and a rubbish dump for surplus war materials, spare parts and excess or obsolete radio and communication equipment. A treasure trove for adventurous kids, like me, for instance. for a while my little group of kids had the most wonderful billy cart with wheels from the tail end a Wacket trainer planes. There truck loads of these wheels dumped in a massive pit ready for burning. Nice rubber tyres and tubes, right size holes for axels on our carts etc. The law saw things differently and one day we were caught at the tip by Air Force Police. The rotten sods sneaked up on us and poked their rifles in our faces and generally frightened the daylights out of us. We then spent about four hours in the Air Force jail as we were held until the law could question us individually. We lost those nice wheels from our billy cart, but somehow retained the home made radios we all had. Such is life for a kid.
Another time I was involved with a service club and we wanted to organise and run a Family Fun day on a nearby copra plantation which had a little sea cove as a boundary. We needed a big bar-b-que plate to cook on as we expected a few hundred people to be there on the day. No gas barby, just wood fire for cooking. Being in Madang PNG at the time we thought that the shipwrecks might provide us with a piece of steel we could use.
And so it proved to be. Eight foot by four foot from the thinner part of the hull of a wreck in Madang Harbour. It took eight of us to lift it. We set it up well ahead the day and several of us tried it out. Absolutely magnificent, once it was hot. We did find that this took about an hour so made some adjustments to the plans for the big day. We cooked for 1200 people on the day which was fine and warm and trouble free. A wonderful time was had by all.
I wonder could it be done today with the same sharing of joy and excitement between different cultures as we had that day.
Your text goes hereYour text goes here
As a child I remember the freedom I took for granted and the relaxed and friendly attitude of the law enforcement people when I got caught out in some of my nefarious activities. Not criminal in any way, just illegal, and often dangerous to me and to my friends. This fact did not stop the adventures, merely changed their direction, and made me more careful. I knew, and accepted the fact, that I had to wear the consequences of my acts of adventure and defiance and did so with as much good grace as I could muster.
And so it proved to be. Eight foot by four foot from the thinner part of the hull of a wreck in Madang Harbour. It took eight of us to lift it. We set it up well ahead the day and several of us tried it out. Absolutely magnificent, once it was hot. We did find that this took about an hour so made some adjustments to the plans for the big day. We cooked for 1200 people on the day which was fine and warm and trouble free. A wonderful time was had by all.
I wonder could it be done today with the same sharing of joy and excitement between different cultures as we had that day.
Your text goes hereYour text goes here
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