Antiquity and Me

With a great burst of enthusiasm and delight the last news from Yaraka was about my Ross River virus/fever finally allowing my fingers to operate the keyboard on my laptop again!

However – and why is that when all seems to start going smoothly in life a ‘however’ crops up. And so it was when my laptop blew up. Not a minor blow up but a major blow up. My technical advisors which ranged from professionals to grandchildren had little sympathy with my lack of understanding and all agreed that my 12 year old laptop was an antiquity and was fit only for the dump. Nowadays nothing seems to be built to last and it brought back memories from the past.

When I was a young teenager in England my greatest desire was to exit the country as soon as I could. My age was a barrier and not helped by having to be declared ‘clean’ from TB which had attacked me. So during this time I worked in a variety of jobs and one of them was on the assembly line where Remington typewriters were manufactured. I never ever really discovered what it was that I actually did in my key role on the assembly line; I sat on a high stool in front of a large press drill. To my right was a wooden box which was continually filled with a ‘bar’ covered with a metal skin that was an integral part of the typewriter where the paper was placed between the rollers and positioned for the commencement of typing. The bar that I had in my continuously filled up box had to be placed in a jig where I proceeded to drill seven evenly spaced holes through the bar whilst striving not to break the drill bit by trying to go too fast. When the bar was finished I then placed it in another jig and placed a rivet in each hole and pressed the rivets flush into the holes and with the job completed placed the bar into the left hand side box without ever discovering why I was doing it.

However – that word again – those typewriters that I was such an important part of on the assembly process – were built to last and I’ve just seen one! Not physically but on television. A journalist here in Aussie was doing his news segment from his home office as a result of the Coronavirus lockdown and there proudly behind him was his antique Remington typewriter in pristine condition! Could it possibly be one that my skilled hands had helped manufacture 65 odd years ago?!

Things were built to last back in those days. Nowadays in this throwaway society anything that sees double figures in its life span is considered well built.

And pondering on antiquity, realising that at my age it entitles me to claim possession of it, I realised why I love living in this remote outback wilderness; not just for the spacious never ending landscape of mesa hills and ranges with the ever changing colour changes and mostly deep blue skies, but the fact that here it’s almost as though time has turned back the clock. We are not caught up with the frazzle and dazzle and rush of ever increasing stressful lifestyles that occur everywhere where large populations congregate in close proximity.

Our lifestyle here is still in the ‘antiquity’ period where we don’t fight traffic (the occasional Roo does cause a burst of adrenalin quite frequently but does not cause road rage) we don’t fight for parking spaces or sit in traffic jams. We have the time, and inclination, to talk to others and enjoy the conversations without glancing at our watches – if we happen to be wearing one.

It’s dangerous to blandly speak of the ‘good old days’ relating to specific periods of time but the good old days can be related personally when stages of our life had those “Happy Days” periods whereby we enjoyed all aspects of our lifestyles.

My period of happy days was back in the days when Cliff Richard and his music and singing (and being able to hear the words being sung) kept myself and my friends humming and whistling throughout the day (when was the last time you heard someone whistling).

I was also deeply in love with Petula Clark and would go through temporary hardship of foregoing froth covered expresso coffee and cigarettes – yes everybody seemed to smoke back in those days and coffee bars had a constant smoke cloud hovering over the patrons – perhaps not so good – and by these thrifty measures I would save enough money to be able to purchase a ticket for Petula’s concerts where I sat – or stood which was dependant on how much I had saved – and watched and listened in a love sick condition.

So living here in our wilderness sanctuary creates for us happy days environment and suits us so well as we, like a good wine, age and improve in our contentment with our chosen ‘antique’ lifestyle.

It’s also interesting that more and more of our travellers who come here, many on a regular basis, are understanding as to why we live here and indicate that they are seriously considering moving from their heavily loaded population base and moving and buying in these regional towns – for the lifestyle.

Since the Coronavirus travel restrictions were lifted here in Queensland the travellers are on the move and Yaraka population increases significantly as the vans flow in and out. We are busy and it’s lovely meeting up with the regulars who in many cases bring along their friends for the first time and then the delight of hearing their enthusiasm for the region and their farewell comments of ‘we’ll be back!’

And we hope that not too long in the future you also will be back!

*Produced on my newly arrived MacBook Pro!