Feb2014_SO WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

by Ryle Winn

I got a bit of a fright the other day.  I was in the dressing room at Lowes, my favourite cheapy menswear outlet, trying on a pair of trousers.  I don’t know about women’s dressing rooms, but men’s are fitted with mirrors front and rear.  And who should be in there with me but my father – except he died in 1999.

I find myself getting more and more like him – my walk, the way I fold my arms behind me, the hair.  How can it not be so anyway?  The only thing that concerns me is that’s the way Dad looked at 87.  I’m 65. Bloody 65.  How the hell did that happen?  Then again, I’d rather be 65 than dead. 

For the rest of the morning, while being towed along by beloved wife (this is a bit dated because it was Christmas Eve) I was being used as a pack horse.  While she loaded and unloaded me at regular intervals I caught glimpses of myself in shop fronts. 

At 65 Dad was still fit and work hardened.  I’ve got a bit of catching up to do.  I’m going to do something about it. 

Eight year old grandson Matthew helped me along when he said – not as a question, just an observation ‘when you get old you get loose, don’t you?’ 

                             A new resolve has emerged. I’ll have to tighten up.  How do you do that?     

Just while I’ve got you.

In the wake of Australia Day I thought that, for newcomers to the district anyway, they might be interested in a bit of local history.  I have just reprinted one of my books again.  I know this pertains to my own family since 1859 when they started rafting logs down the North Pine River but it is more than that.  It culminates in the annihilation of the township of Samsonvale and the 105 farms right down the river to the North Pine Dam wall.  Do you know that the infrastructure is still there underwater?  It reappeared in the drought and then submerged again.  The book is titled When a Tree Falls and it is available in the IGA.