All tagged Memories
Well, I didn’t take it seriously, took the mickey out of the choir leader incessantly and fell for her best friend.
Joining that choir was an eventful decision, if ultimately rendered embarrassing by my lack of tone, musical ability or willingness to play within a team.
It also eventful because another member of the choir was the only other girl I’ve ever dated.
Perhaps it was the time I saw it, perhaps it was my low expectations, perhaps it was the hunger-making scent of whatever he had in that brown paper package, but either way, I was, all of a sudden, very excited to see Paris.
It also immediately takes me back to that musty, timber-lined hall.
The rows of uncomfortable, folding vinyl seats.
The gold lettering on the plaques hanging up near the windows.
The dusty, aged blue curtains on the stage.
Because, for every wonderful element of living here – like being entirely confident I won’t be shot tomorrow, or hot running water, or free commerce, or an educated population, or speed limits, or sewerage, or Bunning’s sausages, or the MCG, or the view from Darling Harbour train station, or the ‘cool change’.
I do think, though, that it created – through some weird group alchemy – a minor bond between all of us that were there.
It’s not a strong connection like you hear other people (footballers, often) talk about, but more like a soft shadow burnt into part of our histories.
A shadow that’s fading over time as our lives move on and change and become more complex and compressed.
One of my favourite things about my runs to Maryborough – besides the biscuits and finding crumbs in my shirt on the long drive home, with an embarrassed smile and lick of the thumb to get them all – is the drive.
It sits between Bendigo and Ballarat, so it’s off the main highways.
In the middle ring of Melbourne’s suburbs is a house that has no insulation, mismatched carpet, handmade curtains, a bad interior paint job and no heating or cooling.
I know this, because I used to live there.
My first job was at Hungry Jack’s. It might be the rose-tint of nostalgia, but it remains one of my very favourite jobs.
Work all shift with your mates, in a fairly demanding environment (the local appetite for Hungry Jack’s was, back in 1999, insatiable), giving each other stick and actually working pretty hard.
