My Earliest Email

The Internet hasn’t been with us for

My son, Mike, then aged 6, with a kangaroo.

very long and relatively few people had the opportunity to send emails before the mid-1990s. Think about it. When did you send your first?

Would you be surprised that I sent my first in 1952?  We didn’t have computers back in those days but we did have Morse code and that was the year I began working for the Australian Post Office.

Ten years later we had stopped using Morse in Australia so I went to operate a teleprinter for Qantas. I worked mostly night shift and when it was quiet there was always the opportunity to chat with the distant operator.

One guy, in Los Angeles, asked about Australian exports so naturally I told him about kangaroo feathers. Equally naturally, he thought I was lying until I explained that only the female has them and she only has two. They line the pouch and work as shock absorbers so that the joey (the baby) isn’t injured by all that jumping around.

I explained that they were exquisitely coloured and were popular in Europe as fashion accessories. After all, as Tennyson almost said, “The rainbow hath no richer hue, than the feathers of a kangaroo.”

If the man believed me he wasn’t nearly as smart as I thought him to be, but a question on ask.com last week brought him to mind. Somebody wanted to know if kangaroos can flip their pouches inside out if they fill up with water.

Well, you can’t look a gift horse -- or a gift kangaroo -- in the mouth, so I answered this way:

It doesn't work like that.
Kangaroos live in Australia.
Australia is Down Under.
Everything down under falls off the planet and out into space.
Humans have to wear magnetic shoes to stay on the ground.
Kangaroos don't have magnetic shoes so they keep jumping down.
That's why they jump instead of walking. It's an anti-grav response.
Their pouches face out from the bottom of the Earth.
So when they fill up with water it runs back out.
Chaos theory tells us that the water then becomes rain, and falls back on the forests in Brazil so that the butterflies flapping their wings along the Amazon can cause hurricanes in China.
So, no, there's no reason to turn kangaroo pouches inside out.

Culture on Dimmiga Berg

At a packed exhibition of his paintings at Springwood Civic Centre this week, art sensation Calvin Colourblind—creator of  Cheryllian Schematics—explained the inspiration that had led to the development of this fascinating new style.

Self Portrait of the Artist

A novice in the art world, he has captivated critics who are hailing him as a great raw talent whose originality promises to carry antipodean art to the great galleries of the world and to the homes of wealthy collectors.   

”My wife took me to an art show,” he said, “and I realised that you don't really need talent to be an artist. You just need a gimmick. So I went to the boozer to have a think.

“That's when I had my  eureka moment  and I named my new style for Cheryl who was working the bar that night. 

“I was drawing pictures with the bottom of my glass in the puddle of beer on the bar and realised that all I had to do was sprinkle it with coloured cement, wait for it to set, and I’d be famous. 

“The trouble is, they're all Philistines, them publicans. I never met one yet who'd let me get near his bar with a chain saw. 

“But it didn't matter in the long run. The wife was pretty good about the kitchen table." 

When asked if that were true, Mrs Colourblind declined to comment.

AIR-FM: Radio for the People

In The Mistress of Dimmiga Berg there are several references to the community radio station, AIR-FM.  This was a real-life radio station until about 2002 when a government decision to permit only one community broadcaster in the area saw the licence go to rival station WOW-FM (Way Out West) at nearby St. Marys.

David Evans with guests.

AIR-FM was located in an old dwelling on the campus of the University of Western Sydney, at Werrington. For two years (1999-2000) I was the breakfast announcer.

It was a voluntary position but the presenters’ spots were keenly sought out. Since few people wanted to be there at 6.00 am I won the position by default. In fact, I fell into it.

The overnight broadcasting was done by computer which kept music and commercials playing until the live staff came on in the morning. I was only there to assist the announcer but he was young, unreliable, and several times failed to come in at all. On those mornings the computer continued to dish out a bland diet until 9.00 am.

Then, on one of those mornings, the computer died. I had no option but to grab the microphone and the DVD player, and keep things rolling. Two years later I was still at it.

It was mostly just music, talk, announcements, weather and traffic reports, but sometimes I did theme broadcasts.

During that time a woman wrote to the Penrith City Star saying that her husband was serving overseas with the army. She wanted people to send in jokes to the paper so she could mail them to him to cheer him up. I don’t know if they received many  but I contacted the paper and arranged for the lady and her sister to come in one morning, and spent three hours telling jokes and playing funny songs. I gave them a tape of the broadcast to send to him. They’re the visitors in the attached photograph.

On another occasion a hot air balloon landed in the university grounds about a kilometre away from the station. I threw the computer into the loop, jumped in my car, and retrieved the pilot and his passengers –- three very bubbly Irish colleens. The interviews went well and for months afterwards listeners phoned in to tell me when they had sighted a balloon flying anywhere in the listening area.

It was fun, but it wasn’t a pushover. I arrived each morning at 5.30 am to set up the facilities, worked on air for three hours, then spent another thirty minutes stuffing around with whatever needed doing before heading home for breakfast. On top of that I spent about fifteen hours a week preparing the programs.

And so, when I needed a radio station for Dimmiga Berg, AIR-FM was a natural.

Death of a Friendly Bank

Some years ago I wrote a Tall Tales column for the Penrith City Star and at that time the major Australian banks were closing their small-to-medium branches so they could minimise staff and concentrate all over-the-counter banking in relatively few locations.

Things were no different on Dimmiga Berg and when Westpac closed their local branch I wrote this story.

At the end of the year the editor did a half-page feature on my column and concluded that of all the stories I had concocted, the only one that remained totally unbelievable was the story of a “friendly” bank.

~*~

Once upon a time on Dimmiga Berg, there was

All that remains of the bank is an ATM.

a beautiful little village called Blaxland, and in that village was a bank. It was a friendly, caring bank and lived in a big square building on the Highway of Dreams.

Each morning its windows twinkled as the first rays of the sun reached them and the wise women say that, long ago, it even smiled.

The bank loved the village and the villagers loved the bank. Together they prospered and the bank grew rich.

Then one day an evil witch cast a money spell on the bank's greedy owners and they closed the bank and transferred all its business to a big town nearby.

The people became angry and blamed the bank, and the bank was sad because it knew its doors had been closed forever.

To this day the bank still stands in the misty mountains but its windows no longer sparkle in the morning sun and the wise women of the village say it will never smile again. It stands lonely and forgotten beside the Highway of Dreams.

Once upon a time there was a friendly caring bank –- but that was long, long ago.

~*~

The building still stands. For the past ten years it has served as a popular Thai restaurant, so it’s still a friendly place. All that remains of the Westpac Bank is an ATM.

A Strange Encounter

A funny thing happened at Mollymook Beach last week.

My wife Lynne and I were walking along the waterfront when a woman passed us going in the other direction. She was slim, bright, in her late forties, wearing a tracksuit and she seemed so full of life that she fairly danced by.

Then she came back and said to Lynne, “You’re in pain.” 

Mollymook Beach, NSW

We wouldn’t have argued about that. Lynne has a dry hip joint that needs replacing and she walks with difficulty. Her pain is obvious. 

Bright as a button, the woman said. “My name is Vicki and I’m a Christian healer. I pray for people and they get better. I can help you with that.”

We had nothing to lose so we sat on a park bench while she put her hands on Lynne’s hip and prayed to Jesus, asking him to help.  Judging by the number of times she used his name I thought she was probably on pretty good terms with him.

After three or four minutes she said, “There. That will continue to get better over the next few days.” Then she gave us each a text card and left and we watched her bounding along until she was out of sight. An extraordinary lady.

So what does that have to do with Dimmiga Berg? In Chapter 5 of the novel I described a healing energy that makes use of the human aura and which the subject feels as warmth – even though no direct contact is necessary between the healer and the subject. Vicki was able to generate that kind of heat during even that brief session.  

So, did it work? I’d love to say that it had but sadly that wasn’t the case and Lynne will still need modern medical help if she is to get any relief. Even so, it was an interesting experience and Vicki is a fascinating woman.