ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Getting the News

My paper once spun
Through the air. It was fun.
I never knew where I would find it.
I know that some say
It was not the right way
I should get it, but I didn't mind it.

Would it be on the drive?
I felt keen and alive
As I searched the front lawn and the garden.
Or perhaps in the street?
It was ragged, not neat,
But nothing that warranted pardon.

My desktop now hums,
And that's how it comes;
Through electrons, along a thin wire.
It is always the same,
And I've lost the old game -
The throw, was it lower, or higher?

Did it shear off a rose?
(It is true, I suppose,
That the plants took a bit of beating,
But I cherished my flight
Through the pale morning light.
You'll not find me whingeing or bleating.)

I now read my news
With the clearest of views.
It is back-lit, with lots of bright colour.
It pours out to me
At the tap of a key...
And it just couldn't be any duller!

I think I'll go out,
Knock my garden about;
Whack the head off a rose with a stick;
Turn the screen off
With a curse and scoff.
Am I simply nostalgic...or sick?

Stephen Whiteside 15.03.2013

on line news you see
you can read by degree
and just pick out the bits that you fancy
it's right in your face
at your computer space
though not always the truth - sometimes chancy.

As one who spent many chilly Ballarat mornings riding the streets pre-dawn hoiking rolled up papers from a crate occy-strapped to back of my bike I can empathise with your nostalgia Stephen

Marty

The other side of the coin eh, Marty? Many years ago I worked as a garbo. Now there's another lost art!

I guess we've all had some fun with some of our early employment. During one Christmas Vac. when I was a secondary school student I had a job at a city pub. Nothing nostalgic about my memories though. My working environment was a back room with spiders and cockroaches for company. The publican would roll a keg into the room and set it up on a stand. He would attach a rubber tube to the keg tap and then send in crates of empty beer bottles. It was my job to sit at the keg and fill the bottles. Of course after rolling the keg into the room it was just simply froth that entered the bottles for several hours. I would set them aside and finish the filling when the keg was producing beer. It was usually about midday before this occurred. Then I would cap the bottles and they would be sold later as draught beer. Obviously no health department worries in those days. By the end of the day I smelt like a pub. I would travel home on the tram each afternoon drawing many disgusted looks from fellow passengers. One afternoon an elderly lady told me I should be ashamed of myself for drinking at such a young age.
Wazza

Wazza my first job was bailing out the sump of all the washings from a butchershop floor. Had to stand in the sump where the water came up to your knees and bail it down a drain. All the fat ect would stick in the hairs on your legs which would wash off but the smell stayed behind.

I aso used to help make the sausages and thats why i do not eat them now.


Bob