I WAS THERE. I was there the day the world changed. Because there once was a day when the world changed. This day actually occurred. It really did. We live in a world that appears to be fixed. And in most ways it is. Our world does not often change and sometimes no matter how much we want it to change it never does. In many ways we don’t want the world to change and go to great lengths to prevent change. If you go through life expecting that the world will never change when the momentous change occurs it is hard to know what to make of it. In my case the world did change and would never be the same again. I found it both exhilarating and a letdown. Pleasing and disappointing. Both traumatic and healing. Soothing and disquieting. All of these and more. The day itself was almost perfect weather wise. The first week in October. Not a cloud in the sky. A cool fine day. There was a slight breeze. If you stood still you could feel the cool breeze across your face. I have always found this pleasurable and remember it to this day. I am reminded always when I experience this sensation. Tom and I left home early. I was fulfilling a long held promise to him. It had been touch and go whether I could keep my promise to Tom but after a lot of stress and effort I was able to arrange it. This day became one of the great joys of being a father. Only fathers and sons can experience what happened and the pleasure that resulted. We took the normal route to our destination and had no traffic problems. Neither of us are superstitious so we did not see this as portentous. But in hindsight you could read something into it. On arrival I fulfilled another long held promise in that I allowed Tom to buy a magazine that I had always denied him previously because I considered its purchase a waste of money. But I was pleased to see him read the magazine and get a lot of enjoyment from doing this. I had never seen my son take so much interest and concentration as he did in carefully reading every word in this magazine. We sometimes get pleasure in ways we never expect and I remember the pleasure I experienced in watching him added to the enjoyment of the day. He was ten years old and just learning the joys of reading. We had to wait a long time for the ceremonies to begin. We were in the standing room only section. But we waited patiently. Finally proceedings started. The world actually changed over the course of the next two and a half hours. This sounds trite but at the end of proceedings the world had changed forever. The actual event still seems like a dream. And like all dreams I only remember fragments. Some things have been indelibly imprinted on my brain and others have been wiped forever from my memory. I remember small unimportant things and I do not remember other things that have later been deemed important. In reality I only have vague memories of most of the day. I have no sense that two and a half momentous hours passed. I cannot remember either Tom or myself uttering a sound. Certainly neither of us can remember any involvement or reaction to what was happening. That is until the end. Towards the end I wanted the last 5 minutes to go on forever but of course it seemed to go in seconds. I did not dare make a sound until the actual end. Then I made my feelings known to everyone. Or tried to. I actually shouted. YES. YES. YES. People around me were dancing. The world had changed. I was there when it happened. And I was with my son. We will always have this to share. The date was the 6th of October 1990 COLLINGWOOD 13.11 (89) Defeated ESSENDON 5.11 (41) The Death of the Colliwobbles was announced in all the daily papers on the following Monday.
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GRANDPARENTS I know almost nothing about my grandparents. I have little in common with them. If they were to come back to life I doubt if I could have an adult conversation with them. When I was young I had two grandmothers. Both my grandfathers died before I was born. They are both mysterious shadowy people. I have no concept of them apart from what people have told me in passing. My maternal grandfather was a musician of sorts. He was of Irish decent and played the violin. Quite well as far as I can make out. He had a family band that played at dances in the district. Him and three of his children. An uncle who was from my father’s side of the family told me he once saw him setting out to ride home after playing at a dance. It was a very dark cold night and he would have had a long way to ride his horse in order to get home. When he died the family band stopped performing – although they did still play at family gatherings and all the members still had their party tricks. They did not require much persuasion to get them to perform. But he must have been the driving force. His youngest son carried on the tradition the most and performed in public more than the others. He played several instruments. I discussed this with him in his old age. Why did he do it I asked? I said I believed he loved playing music rather than actually loving music itself. I tested him by playing him extracts of Mozart. I asked why he didn’t progress into classical music. Why did he stop with popular Irish Music? He listened to the Mozart I played him but he did not comment. My paternal grandfather is even more of a shadow. He died in mysterious circumstances. Two people have told me that he committed suicide. I asked his son who I became close to towards the end of his life if this was true and he said no – his father came home one night on his horse in a dreadful state and died soon after. Other people have said he was found dead at the Wangaratta Saleyards. The grandparent I was most close to was my paternal grandmother. I know she loved me and I loved her. When her husband died she had one child who was 14 and one who was 9. She never lived with either of her children again until they were adults and had established their own households. Both children were farmed out to various relatives of her husband and she went to live with various relatives of hers. She was an example of what was then quite common. A widow of no means. Her husband had died when the mortgage barely covered the value of the farm. The farm was sold and she was left with no income or assets whatever. Towards the end of her life she was allocated a housing commission house which she shared with another elderly relative. This was the only house she had after her husband died. Of course I knew her well. Before she got her house she would stay with us from time to time. She had several idiosyncrasies. She would make sure all the blinds in the house were pulled down early every morning on hot days. She followed a ritual when brewing tea. She had trouble sleeping at night. She kept an enamel chamber pot under her bed. My mother never liked her and there was always tension when she lived with us. So she could only stay with us for a short while and then would have to go and live with others. My mother always insisted that her own mother would then come to live with us for the same amount of time. But this only happened once as I remember. When she got her housing commission house I once stayed with her for a week over the Christmas holidays. I remember this as a week of bliss. Absolute bliss. Except for the rough housing commission children who lived in the neighborhood and who all tried to fight me. She got ill and went to hospital seemingly shortly after I stayed with her. She had high blood pressure. Once when we were alone she showed me how to treat high blood pressure. She had a cut on her wrist which was exuding blood. She kept forcing as much blood to come out of the cut as she could. She kept rubbing her hand continuously down her arm to her wrist. This was the way to lessen blood pressure she said. I was the only person she showed this. Then suddenly she was dead. I never saw her again. I once saw an elderly woman coming towards me from up the street and for one wonderful second I thought my grandmother had come back from the dead. I almost ran towards her. The sun was coming through a cloud and shining directly behind this woman as she walked towards me and she did look like my grandmother. Perhaps Jesus did come back from the dead I thought. I thought this for only one second. But my heart did pound. And then went back to disappointment. My maternal grandmother I had less to do with. I was always being warned by my mother not to upset her. I had to behave myself when we visited her. I was surprised if she spoke to me. I can only recall her speaking to me once. She had long hair which she let down at night. She spoke to me as she let down her hair. She suddenly got old and lost weight to the point where she resembled a bird. The last time she visited us she was brought in a car by one of her children. It was a sunny day and the car was parked under a tree in the shade away from the house. Her son got out of the car and came inside. She sat in the car by herself for a while. She was tired. She was not to be disturbed. Maybe she had a short nap. I watched from a distance. She only came inside for a short while. She died soon after. She went into hospital and died within days. When we look at the gravestones of both women we see that both died in their mid 60’s. This is disconcerting. Why did they die so young? Neither seemed to have an official illness. They just got sick and died. My mother always said my fathers mother just gave up but I didn't see this. But would she have been intimate with me if she had? Did they both want to die? Did they will themselves to die? To the Editor It is 10 years since the Sorry Statement was made in Parliament. It is worth reflecting on what progress is occurring in the reconciliation process. The Rural City of Benalla takes part in this reconciliation process and has a statement that is read out before all council functions. This is the statement:- "We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land and pay respects to their elders and the elders from other communities who may be here today. We also acknowledge all other peoples who have contributed to the rich diversity of this Country.” I feel this acknowledgement could be improved. I find it vague and confusing. Just what are we saying here? Are we acknowledging the Aboriginal traditional owners of the land? Are we acknowledging that we exist on Aboriginal land? The first sentence refers partially to Aboriginal people but then refers to other communities. Are these communities other aboriginal communities? Are we likely to have other aboriginal communities present? Just what does this phrase mean? Who are these other peoples? Are they meant to be aboriginal? Is it not odd that this sentence does not even mention the word Aboriginal? The second sentence does not refer to aboriginals but other peoples. Who are these other peoples? Is this referring to white pioneers of this region? It seems to me that this sentence can only refer to non-aboriginal people. Should not the acknowledgement statement simply refer to Aboriginal Elders and their traditional ownership of the land? The current acknowledgement is a grudging statement. It is read as if the reader does not really want to read it out but is being forced to. It is as if the reader is saying I don’t want to read this but if I do I want to mention white people also. The reconciliation process needs to have meaningful symbolic gestures that in time will affect the way people feel. We should have rituals that have meaning. Yours Faithfully Neville Gibb |
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