Wednesday, October 19, 2022
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Pop,
I love you sooo much
The years I spent with you & Nan were some of the happiest & most cared for in my life.
You'd drive me around to Richie Nye's house in the old orange ford panel van, & take Nan & I to bingo & to vinnies.
We'd watch a country practice together while Nan was heating up vicks on her hand in front of the heater & rubbing it on my neck & chest,
I remember us all laughing with tears in our eyes watching the 3 stooges & some mothers do ave em & Mr bean.
I remember at 14yrs old going out to pick peas & beans with you & Nan & Aunty Shirl & Jim.
My back & knees were aching 4hrs in, & I had nearly filled only 1 bag, which was worth $5 & you & Nan were 70 odd years old & lapping me up & down the rows with 10 & 12 bags full & helping me fill up my buckets as well.
As a kid I remember trying to cut your toe nails for you, but some of them were so thick I didn't have the hand strength.
You looked after my dog 'Ripper' & spoilt him rotten, when I moved & couldn't take him with me.
You built your own house with the help of an old builder who lived up the road, & you lived there your whole life & also in the caravan when on vege picking expeditions to Bairnsdale, which I didn't know at the time, but later found out is the Gurni Kurni ancestral land.
I remember as a kid going out to the bush & cutting wood with you & the smell of the sawdust & the petrol fumes of the chainsaw,
I didn't help much, I more looked for centipedes & wolf spiders in my own little world.
You'd come out into the backyard at night with me & hold the torch for me (You were worried about the funnel web spiders out there at night, we saw a few up on the fence & you put petrol in their holes the next day.)
But you would hold the torch while I got the cicadas crawling out of their holes in the ground & up the fence, so I could take them in & put them on the lace curtains & watch them emerge from their shells & unfold & dry their wings & gradually change colour as their exo skeleton hardened.
You & Nan were very lenient to let me have a plethora of giant insects from cicadas to stick insects to praying mantis's crawling & flying all around your lounge room.
& that time I borrowed one of your big tubs from the shed because I caught some eels down the creek with an old shopping bag & wanted to keep them as pets.
They were gone the next morning & I was baffled as to what happened to them,
But you told me they can slither along the ground at night & sniff out water so they can travel to other creeks.
As a man you always had a great sense of humour, always ready for a laugh, you were charming & all the ladys loved you, & were also so hard working, patient & solid.
I will cherish the time I got to spend with you & Nan always.
You are such a beautiful man, my Pop
