grumpyA Strange Gift of Life - excerpt
January 12th 2008 11:32
Possibly our childhood is remembered as a golden age by most of us once we reach a certain age- and will be for those still young today, perhaps even by the illiterate, mobile phone addicted nintendo heads - who only make me hope that mother nature might still have some nasty, natural selection aces up her sleeve.
My childhood was certainly a golden time for me, and having no real subject for tonight, I thought I would share a bit of my autobiography, "A Strange Gift of Life" with you.
Excerpt from Chapter one.
With the approach of my first year at Technical School and my newly found fascination with the world of radio filling my life, it seemed the world of my earlier years had fallen away from me. Richard and I no longer played at children's games or stalked the woods or waded the creeks in the valley below the Primary school. He had his studies and I had found a new, expansive world of my own. If we met we would talk and amuse ourselves with more inventive fun. Like the creation of the giant ging.
Often during our younger years we would make slingshots, usually out of suitably shaped forked branches cut from plum or rose trees and strung with heavy rubber bands connected to a leather pouch. The best ammunition was the fruit of the lily-pilly tree, with which we would - amongst other targets - bombard my sister's bedroom window from the roof of our cubby house down the back corner of Richard's garden. This practice had faded, like so many of our young games, but now, with our new found teenage penchant for cunning and outrageous amusement, we decided the only really good slingshot would be a giant one.
Old tyre tubes were cut into wide strips and joined together until they were sufficient to stretch between the apple and the plum tree in Richard’s backyard. Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending upon your outlook on such things - this meant that the aiming point of our giant ging was fixed to a single position, its imaginary cross hairs locking fortuitously onto the high tin roof of a house two blocks down the next street. The tree was laden with apples, ripe for the loading, and with the three of us - Kenny on one side, Richard on the other and me in the middle holding the apple in place - the first shot was considered a roaring, laughing success when our missile bonged loudly onto the distant gabled iron and bounced satisfactorily down into the unseen space below. I think three rounds were fired without mishap before a head appeared over the back fence of the house.
We quickly assembled in front of the infernal machine, hiding it from view as a sharp female eye fixed upon us like the gaze of Sauron rising out of distant Mordor.
“Have you boys been throwing apples?" she demanded, as we stood, trying to look innocent and stop the laughter rising from our already aching stomachs. “Well I'll have you know that one of them just hit my mother on the head!"
With that, the face indignantly disappeared, and we fell on the ground rolling about in an agony of laughter. A short time later, the giant ging was dismantled, having proved itself satisfactory in every possible way.
My childhood was certainly a golden time for me, and having no real subject for tonight, I thought I would share a bit of my autobiography, "A Strange Gift of Life" with you.
Excerpt from Chapter one.
With the approach of my first year at Technical School and my newly found fascination with the world of radio filling my life, it seemed the world of my earlier years had fallen away from me. Richard and I no longer played at children's games or stalked the woods or waded the creeks in the valley below the Primary school. He had his studies and I had found a new, expansive world of my own. If we met we would talk and amuse ourselves with more inventive fun. Like the creation of the giant ging.
Old tyre tubes were cut into wide strips and joined together until they were sufficient to stretch between the apple and the plum tree in Richard’s backyard. Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending upon your outlook on such things - this meant that the aiming point of our giant ging was fixed to a single position, its imaginary cross hairs locking fortuitously onto the high tin roof of a house two blocks down the next street. The tree was laden with apples, ripe for the loading, and with the three of us - Kenny on one side, Richard on the other and me in the middle holding the apple in place - the first shot was considered a roaring, laughing success when our missile bonged loudly onto the distant gabled iron and bounced satisfactorily down into the unseen space below. I think three rounds were fired without mishap before a head appeared over the back fence of the house.
“Have you boys been throwing apples?" she demanded, as we stood, trying to look innocent and stop the laughter rising from our already aching stomachs. “Well I'll have you know that one of them just hit my mother on the head!"
With that, the face indignantly disappeared, and we fell on the ground rolling about in an agony of laughter. A short time later, the giant ging was dismantled, having proved itself satisfactory in every possible way.
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