July 1990: 'Roos & Didgeridoos

Dorothy thought it might be time for me to bring forth another of my world famous reports on those strange beings - the Grimms and their adventures in the land of 'roos and didgeridoos. (Hey, that rhymes.)

I'd imagine most of you have gotten the trip report for our travels to the big city (Adelaide) in April, so I'll pick up the tale from there. I can't remember May, but then I can't remember what happened last week so I just placed a call to Lois Lane at her office. «I sometimes refer to Dorothy as Lois Lane, who was/is a reporter friend of Superman - Dorothy doesn't mind but retorts with "you sure aren't Clark Kent" - Superman's disguise)). She reminded me of a number of things - not necessarily in chronological order.

We all spent a lot of time one week at the Araluen Arts Centre for the annual Eisteddfod (a competitive festival of the arts).

Toby sang in three different choirs during the week. I really enjoy the Eisteddfod because the community has an incredible number of musically talented people ranging from the very young to people even older than me. If you enjoy music it's a real treat. There is everything from piano soloists, to rock bands, serious choral groups to a group of teachers from Toby's school dressed up in funny outfits and singing humorous songs. I commented to them that I shouldn't be surprised if there were a number of kids withdrawn after parents saw the types of people who were teaching their children. The Eisteddfod ran for 5 and a half days and only one adjudicator graded every entry. The event culminated in a concert on Saturday night in which the best performers from the entire week did a number, and the concert was sold out.

I finally went fossicking again - after a long lapse - and actually found some small zircons which I had faceted. That was enough to get me interested again. As soon as I get the chance I want to go again, maybe with Dwight.

A national craft magazine was looking for someone to do an article for them on crafts in Alice Springs and were given Dorothy's name. She not only wrote the article, but took her own color pictures as well and sent the article and pictures off to the magazine. I believe the article is to be in the September issue of the magazine. She is excited about it and I think it is neat. Dorothy still gets invited to attend a lot of activities in town (I comment that she occasionally makes a guest appearance at home) and once in a blue moon even invites me along. I often complain that it must be nice to get to go out to dinner - I never get to. However, I won't do that again for a while. I was invited to accompany Dorothy to the "turnover" (installation of new officers) dinner of the Lioness club. I can't begin to tell you how exciting it was. I will gladly forego the free meal for anymore such excitement. The one nice touch was that they presented Dorothy with a certificate of appreciation for all of the work that she had done for them by covering many of their activities. It is nice to know that people in town appreciate how hard Dorothy works for the community - unfortunately the sorry excuse for a staff at the newspaper doesn't. Once recently after she spent eleven hours putting together the community arts page, the management pulled the entire page because they needed the space (probably for more sports)

and didn't tell her. She didn't know it until the edition came out. To give you an example of the importance of sports - in a paper of about 30 pages (more or less), one page a week is devoted to community arts, six in each issue (two a week) to sports. Needless to say Dorothy was not happy and I think management is still reminded of it. That occurred on a Friday and on Monday all sorts of disasters struck the paper - computers went down for most of the day and pictures sent up to Darwin, where the paper is printed, were lost. Dorothy told them that some of her Aboriginal friends had used their influence with the spirits.

Fortunately, she did not invite me to go along to a couple of recent "male revues" which she reluctantly ‘covered" recently.

Speaking of Aboriginals, Dorothy knows quite a few of them, and has visited various of the areas outside of town on a number of occasions. Sometime back two of the senior elders were murdered in one of the communities - about 75 miles from town. Of course it was big news and there was a lot of discussion about it at the paper Dorothy didn't tell the staff until afterwards, but she went to the funeral for the two men and wrote a very nice article about it in the paper.

Dorothy has also done a number of things for the writer's group in town (the Fellowship of Australian Writers), including doing critiques of some of their writings. Recently the organization decided to collect a number of their stories and publish them, and they asked Dorothy to "launch" their book (formally present it to the public). The president of the local chapter wanted a lot of publicity and called every radio station in town, one of which interviewed Dorothy live. The launching was held at the library and was attended by 15 or 20 people. Dorothy gave a nice speech and at the end tossed (launched) the book to the librarian. I don't think any of the writers present were offended.

Another movie was recently shot in town. The title is "Until the End of the world" (now why did they pick Alice springs for a movie of that title?). It starred Sam Neil, William Hurt, Jeanne Moreau, and several aboriginal stars - Ernie Dingo (Crocodile Dundee), David Gulpillil (Storm Boy) and Justine Saunders (Fringe Dweller~). None of us got on the set, but Dorothy photographed a benefit concert, at which several of the stars showed up (Sam Neil even played the electric organ). She also had a number of dealings with Ernie Dingo. And all of us went to a local video shop (along with about 300 other people) to see the announcement of the kids who won the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Contest. Oh, and William Hurt made a guest appearance (I've suspected he is a bit weird, but showing up at that event in the outback of Australia should raise of few eyebrows even among the strange mob in Hollywood.) Toby and Dwight both got his autograph and he mentioned to Toby that he had a boyhood friend named Toby.

This was the fifth movie filmed in Alice Springs in the last four or five years: "Last Frontier" with Linda Evans; "Evil Angels" ("A Cry in the Dark" in the U.S.) starring Meryle Streep; "Quigly Down Under" with Tom Selleck; "Naked under Capricorn" with some English stars, and this one. Yessir folks, to get right up close to your favorite movie star - come to Alice Springs.

Dorothy wanted me to mention that while she was in town, Justine Saunders directed a play, called Sheerluck Holmes, for one of the high schools and Toby sang in a group which stood offstage mainly because they weren't all students at that school.

I have mentioned Dwight a couple of times - that is because he is here ("home") for the summer. We know he is home because: A. there is one less car available for use (affecting me as the "third" driver); B. our grocery bills are up significantly (due in part to one of Dwight's friends, Chris, who sort of lives at our place now); C. the big increase in laundry (how many sets of clothes tan you go through in one day?); D. there are often noises in the middle of the night that weren't there before (a voice out of the dark at.3 a.m. saying "Did Dwight come home?" - "Oh, please dear, let me jump up in the cold" - it's winter here - "and go check," I answer.); and E. I am washing a lot more dishes.

Dwight left San Francisco on June 14th, after a good year at Stanford, flew to L.A., where his plane left 5 hours late for Sydney. Fortunately, he called us so we didn't worry, but I knew he would miss his connection in Sydney for a direct flight to Alice and assumed he would have to spend the night in Sydney. However, the airlines put him on a flight through Melbourne and then on to Alice, arriving here at 4 p.m. That was Saturday, June 16th. He rested the next day, and caught up with friends, looked for a job Monday, had his first job (for the newspaper) that night, went for instructions on another job on Tuesday, and started work the next day and has only had one entire day off since. He worked several weeks full time in a clothing store (as manager since he was the only employee) and so far two weeks full time at the newspaper. In addition, he occasionally has assignments for the paper in the evening, taking "social pics" and covers sports on the weekend for them. He may start to have some free days soon, although a guy who owns a photographic studio in town wants him to fill in for him while he is away over the next month. So, Dwight may have more work, and I believe later on there is another full week at the newspaper. He should have enough money for incidental expenses at Stanford next year.

Toby just finished a month's vacation. He didn't do much except spend a lot of time with his mates. He did spend one day sorting his comic collection in the master bedroom. I came home from work and opened the door to the bedroom and gasped. Every square foot of flat space - floor, bed, dressers was covered with stacks of comics. Needless to say, I told him they would have to be returned to one of the numerous filing cabinets that he has for them before bedtime. I won't tell you how many he has except to say there are probably enough to start a used comic shop. Toby also spent a lot of time on the tennis courts, playing computer games, and watching videos on his vacation.

Toby's return to school resulted in a slightly embarrassing situation for his parents. He received the results of his exams shortly after the end of the term and we didn't tell him - they were quite good. I have to explain - when Toby was three he told me one day that he had helped the baby sitter clean up her house. I asked what he had done and he said he had swept the kitchen floor. The he asked for a reward. I asked what type of reward - figuring 25 or 50 cents. He immediately named a Star Wars toy that cost $15. So you have to be careful discussing "rewards" with Toby. Also we are on him all the time because of this casual approach to doing homework. So, we knew we were in for trouble when these grades came home and were so good. I didn't realize Dorothy had never told him about them, but the first day back at school he mentioned that he had never seen the grades and one of the teachers tore the office apart trying to find a copy of them and apparently never did. I had to call the teacher, who fortunately is la lot like Toby and apparently really likes him, and confess that we had not told Toby. I told him about the incident when Toby was three and he said "This lad is no fool." As Dorothy and I keep saying - how many more years until he goes off to university?

So what have I been doing exciting? Ha! The most exciting thing is trying to organize the family stamp collection, which involves thousands of stamps which have not been organized for about 10 years or so. On top of the stamps we have, someone in the stamp club left town and left bags and bags of stamps (big grocery size plastic bags) and Dorothy periodically brings several home for me to go through looking for some we don't have. I feel I have a never-ending task.

For my birthday, Dwight and his friend Chris decided to treat me to Mexican meal - prepared by themselves. There were four courses the first of which was nachos, which we started eating at 6:45. Those were followed by tacos, enchiladas (Old EI Paso brand), and finally, quesadillas, which we finished at 9:30. It actually wasn't a bad meal. Toby traded in four used comics at a used book store for a free book for me (last of the big time spenders) and Dorothy bought me two tickets to a performance of the Australian youth Orchestra (I asked her along - she wasn't enthusiastic but went and did not grump.)

I have been very busy at work filling in for my boss wh6 has been in the u.s. for two months (on home leave between tours) and doing my own job as well. He should be back at work next week and I am sure looking forward to that. I think as soon as he settles in I may take off a few days to spend some time with Dwight.

Our dog, Snickers, is still driving me crazy, Between running up and down along the side fence barking at the neighbor's dog, or along the front fence chasing anything that moves, and trying to get over my chicken wire addition to the low fence, the dog never stops. He is not vicious, but loves to herd anything - so he allows people to come into the yard, but tries to stop them from leaving so they will play with him. But the constant source of amusement for us is his attempt to get the cat to play by jumping up and down all around her until she (who is about 1/5 his size) gets tired of his antics and goes after him. Since he has seen her climb a tree to get away from him, he figures he can do the same, but he hasn't mastered it yet - he is not an especially bright dog.

Well, I have rambled on long enough and I have to get back to work, so I will stop here.