Research into the mind and the subconscious has found that we don’t (can’t) remember hours or days from the past. We record in seconds and moments. Instead of long sequences of events being stored, we mentally file the past as pictures, as a short series of snapshots. But behind every snapshot there is a story. These are a few from my murky past. They are still packed with colour and noise and I re-visit them whenever a trigger occurs.
1. “Casablanca surfboard.”
I was travelling in winter with my Australian girlfriend in a dilapidated VW Beetle when we met two Aussies who had been surfing in Spain and Portugal. The surfboar on their van looked incongruous as it was under half a metre of snow. We were in Holland and all of northern Europe was snow covered which is not unusual in December. I was admiring the psychedelic artwork on the board when they donated it to me. (They were flyin
back home and were leaving the board.) So we drove to Berlin and down to Turkey with the board sitting on ski racks on the VW. Occasionally I would paddle out
in the Mediterranean but it wasn’t until we reached Morocco that I found a few small waves. A local Arab really admired the board. He was very switched on, fluent in English, French and Arabic and was just getting into surfing. I was returning to London so I
gave the board to him. Three more trips to Morocco and five years later, I was driving through Casablanca in a VW Kombi when a maniac tried to
run me off the road. Arm waving out the window. Blasting horn. Heavy traffic. I reluctantly pulled over. “My” surfboard was on the roof of his Mercedes with two other boards. Incredibly, he had recognized me as he drove past.
2. “Doctor, Doctor!”
The A.C.T. Marathon is a beautiful scenic race along the shores of Lake Burley Griffin and it
58
is an out and back loop which runners have to complete twice. I was only five kms from the finish and on track to run my fastest time. No other runners were near me as I approached the last aid/drink station with perhaps three hundred cheering, clapping supporters watching. I knew the sports medicine Doctor attending, so hoping to entertain the crowd, I pointed at him and screamed, “Doctor, Doctor, I need your help!” and (Snapshot) as if it was rehearsed, he screamed back, “Do you have any money?” Upstaged yet again but the crowd loved it!
3.“Tree High”.
We left Durban, South Africa, where we had been working for ten months and headed south down the ‘Garden Route’ towards Cape Town. Three surfboards on top of an old groaning EJ Holden. We checked every beach looking for waves. The first night we found a deserted inlet and set up “camp”. We didn’t have a tent but we were used to sleeping bags on the ground. Chris grabbed the front seat and Bob immediately locked the doors in the back seat. I slept beside the car (almost under it). African animals were on my mind all night. Chris and Bob agreed to rotate nights in the car seats as the only fair way to travel but the next night I couldn’t force them to vacate. So I slept beside the vehicle again. BIG mistake. The bush was noisy with animal sounds and all night I had one eye open. Bob is my brother but that meant nothing. They never relinquished the car seats again. For weeks I had dreams of being dragged away by a lion. Weeks ran into months and we forgot the surf and we drove north across Zimbabwe through Zambia, heading for the Congo border. Near midnight, after hours of driving, we finally found a clearing beside the road. The growth
nearby looked like Australian bush, so I picked a small tree, took all my clothes off (as I’d done just about every night) and draped them in the branches overhead. Weak dawn light and I woke to noise and movement nearby. “What the ……!” The Holden was 20mtrs away but the boys were still asleep with their feet in sleeping bags out the windows. We hadn’t seen the village in the dark so now we were surrounded by four hundred natives! The amusement started when I tried to move. The bolder ones ran to the car and peeked in with giggles and delight. (Snapshot.) I clutched the sleeping bag to me and stood trying to reach my underpants and shorts. It was live theatre as the entire village whistled and cheered and clapped as they realised I was a shy (little) white boy.
4.“Early Male.”
My Mum and Dad had six kids and we all got married eventually and created over 20
grandkids. The first seven born were all girls. Dad was getting a little exasperated as he’d
had 5 sons (and one girl.) His response was to offer $200 to the first male. I had a
restaurant in Canberra at this time and Amanda was pregnant with our second baby.
Ken and Sue were expecting as well and were warm favourites to take the money. The
restaurant was close to the new Parliament House so lunches were frantically busy. I took
the phone call from the hospital. Amanda was in labour unexpectedly. My staff took over and pushed me out of the door. Forty minutes later I watched as Dash won the prize.
The doctor knew about the offer from Dad and was chuffed to be involved as he announced formally, “and we have a boy!” Just for the record, payment was never made!
5.”The Wave”.
My brother Bob didn’t talk a lot as a kid or even as a teenager. He didn’t chase after the girls either. On the ship to South Africa he tried to overcome his shyness without any success. We (three of us) all worked on the docks in Durban and surfed every day when the swell was up. A sparkling day when Bob comes out of the water with board on hip. He is muscled up, tanned and fit. Chris and I watch him as he approaches. A very cute bikini clad girl near us, jumps off her towel and runs towards him.They stand together chatting and watching the waves. Bob turns to us with his biggest smile ever and (Snapshot) raises his arm in a sign of triumph. The girl wanted surfing lessons! Bob the Man has arrived.
6.“Mortal Leap”.
Left school. Got a job. Told to study accountancy. Night school 3 times a week. Passed year one. End of second year and passed commercial law. I sat and read the accounting
exam paper the next day. I’m trapped and I’m miserable. How to tell my parents I’m going to walk out leaving a blank paper? How to tell my employers? But that is what I did. (Snapshot) Heads turned to look as I walked away from the exam. A leap into the unknown at nineteen. A week later I was happily in the Advertising Dept.
7.“Sanctity”.
The boy soprano voice soared through the cathedral. There was a mass being said when Ann and I wandered in during our last day in Paris. Busy with curious tourists and locals here for the mass. Stunned by the beauty and size of Notre Dame, I asked Ann if we could sit in the pews for a few minutes. The soprano finished a Latin psalm and then
started a hymn in French. I was stunned at how emotional I’d become. I wished my Mum, who had died two years earlier, could have experienced this sanctity, this beauty. I wished I could have my life over so I could show her more love. To my horror I found myself crying. I sobbed, without knowing why, for minutes. Not something I do very often. Ann felt it too and held my hand. (Snapshot). No-one noticed me but I couldn’t move. The singing slowed and stopped. Angels couldn’t do better.
8.“Road rage”.
Bodies hit the car and bounced off. Bikes buckled and crashed. Screams and shrieks in the darkness. Bob was driving our old Holden on the quiet suburban streets of Harare (previously known as Salisbury, capital of Rhodesia) about eleven pm and driving slowly as there was no street lighting. The smashed bikes and bodies lay all over the road. Thirty Zimbabweans had been riding home without a single light between them. They had been drinking “mealy” (corn beer) and were very drunk. Miraculously no-one was severely injured, just cuts and bruises. (Snapshot). We paid two or three of the most aggressive for damage to their bikes. Then they all got belligerent and wanted money. They were at fault and nobody was making sense. We fled just before we bled.
9. “Starman”.
I was travelling around the North and South islands with four Kiwis in 1980. The Coromandel is a fairly remote area on the East coast and we stayed in a
cabin on the beach. The weather was unexpectedly good so we had a barbecue on the sand with a big fire. Pipi’s, crabs and fish fillets. Oh yes, and a few
glasses of wine as well. Waves breaking. Low tide. Ten million stars. Time to go for a little jog along the shoreline. No one wanted to join me. Down to the rocks and then turned to go back past the roaring fire. Splashing in the shallows I tripped in a deep hole and was totally submerged. I stood up to yells and screams from the gang around the fire. “Look at John!” “My god, what is this?” (Snapshot) I’m totally covered in phosphorous! I’m a starman for sixty breathless seconds as the masses of blue lights slowly faded to black.
10. “Spooky.”
Some beaches are beautiful. Some are uninviting and others are dangerous. A
few are spooky. We drove off the main road as we were going south to Cape
Town because the sign read “Victoria Bay” and we couldn’t resist. A small car
park and a tiny cove and rocky shoreline. Very pretty. So why did it feel “spooky”.
Maybe it was us or maybe it was the weather. A small wave was running as I
paddled out alone. Chris and Bob didn’t like the vibe. Sharks? Rays? If I catch a few waves the others will join me. Forty metres out and (Snapshot) a monstrous humpback whale breaches almost taking me up with it. An explosion of violence and spray. Whale watching close up. I clung to my board, praying the whale was alone, turned and paddled back. So spooky but so spectacular.
There are endless more of these “snapshots” but not many cameras around in those days so the memories will soon be lost. Hopefully these ten will survive as they were great moments in my life.
John Wilson, Gold Coast 2016
Comments