SUMMERTIME 2

 

 

Sonnet by William Shakespeare :

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

THOU ART MORE LOVELY AND MORE TEMPERATE:

 

 Copyright Acerules

Except, it's not May here. Summer in Southern Australia is from November until the end of February. It's hot, usually drier, sometimes drought, dusty, sometimes humid, but not very , in the south. There are flies, mosquitoes, but not usually cockroaches. Spiders spin their lace to trap the unwary night walker in the gardens, or across the footpaths, ask any early morning newspaper deliverer. 

Chickens and ducks are laying unless it's obscenely hot. Fleas can be a problem for pets. At night there's often the sound of quiet conversation on porches and on backyard patios, with curlicues of cigarette smoke coming from beer gardens of the pubs. Some yards have loud and obscene language , the clinking of beer bottles in wheelie bins and intrusive loud volume of classic rock standards. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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YEAR TEN FORMAL DANCE

It was 1980. The 70 s were over. At our Catholic girl's school we were to be formally introduced to boys. The "right" kind. The boys from a Catholic school. Funnily enough, in my two marriages I didn't end up marrying a Catholic man. But that's getting too far ahead. All the girls prepared for the formal. I know our friendship group did. We played poker. 

 

Now don't get me wrong,we were not inflexible gamblers. We also played Yahtzee and Uno. I remember some of the others would be sucking on a Sunnyboy (frozen pyramid shaped flavoured iceblock. ) Not me, I always had a packed lunch.  We would sit in our customary place on the step of the side entrance of the old convent adjacent to the school. By then there were fewer nuns than in its heyday. They seldom used that door. I don't think we played for money, as I only got $2 a month pocket money, and I spent all of that on birthday and Christmas presents for my family etc. Nevertheless, we played poker religiously. We even had our "bible". 

 

The old convent building:

 

These images , manipulated from Retrowaste site, (which is worth a visit some time), are from America, I think. They are the kinds of clothes we girls wore to the dance, I remember hazily. We were glad to get out of our school uniforms. I may have worn something I made in sewing class, I'm not sure. 

 

Retrowaste.com. 1981

 

Retrowaste.com. 1982

 

Sears and Retrowaste.com. 1980

There was dancing in our school hall with the visiting boys. The lights were down, and flashing coloured lights. Now I have always danced, and loved dancing. I was slim then like my daughter is now. I had lots of energy and my signature dance at that time was jumping  up and down. Very sophisticated. 

I did my dance along with this boy called Mike. There were lots of teachers dotted around to preserve our virtue. The Master of Ceremonies was the science teacher, a nice man. When the music stopped, he announced we had won the prize just then for dancing - a chocolate bar each! Here is the hit song we danced to, in those days I never considered the meaning of the words, we probably had a censored version: 

So after that Mike and I got together, I'm not sure, I think there might have been heavy chatting.  I took him down the back of the hall to meet my friends. 

There was better lighting there. They were beautifully dressed, and at least one of them was wearing gloves, very ladylike! Now it was a few years before Madonna popularised lace gloves, these were 1950-60 s style, and I think another girl had on something like a bowler or top hat. We girls sat down in a small circle on the floor, and proceeded to play poker, gloves and all! The boys we had met stood about gawking. I remember the incongruity of the scene, as the disco went on up the front. 

Well, Mike and I called ourselves an item after that, and agreed to exchange letters. I got one from him with a colour photo enclosed. There he was, standing in his flannelette shirt, next to a huge hanging wild pig, with its front cut open!! From that time on for the rest of the year, my binder (folder) inside cover was adorned with silver cut out letters saying his name, over and over. After the first couple, I never received any more letters. I think my mother intercepted them, as later, somehow, my whiskey bottles would disappear from my room (after I was 18. )

But that's another story.

 

Trump playing cards

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