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On white lines on valiant wheels I head north leaving behind the City of Sails with its humourless streets, its casino steel and glass Sky Tower built upon the rubble of a grander age peopled by a grander pride. In my rear-view the harbour’s steel arch, a bridge to near and far - monument to post-war industrialisation. And as far as the eye can see, New Age castles of urban sprawl; rows of suburban microwave towers; greenhouse chimneys; concrete bunkers - behold the isle of Rangitoto sits a jewel rock in the gulf crown. And straight up State Highway 1 - land of my youth where the hills are alive with the sound of cowbells, ghosts of gumdiggers, flax millers, sly-groggers, outlaws, brigand sailors… the Dead End at Schnapper Rock to Rosedale, Oteha Valley and beyond, the fertile salad and fruit bowl orchard trees of Clemow and Airborne. A land of milk and honey, fleece and beef, the rich strawberry fields where I once worked hard(ly)! Gone is the quaint village church hall - last year’s scything twister went Old Testament in a rage! But not the “Great War” memorial to twenty three of its sons. Poetic methinks that a mighty whirlwind, an act of God raze a holy edifice and smite down the hallowed walls on these Footrot Flats in the house of cowshed fundamentalism. Is it the work of a divine gumboot wearing monk named Fred or Trev? Raze a church and spare the fermentations of the heathen pub? I know which I would spare…cheers! Do tell by what grievance or sin or wrath is “thy will” done? Yet the hillside graveyard remains intact - well, you can’t be killed twice so those deadbeat bastards are laughing! So too the boys after a long day drinking in matchplay a matchstick glass, and romancing the bush pig rodeo girls on a Saturday night in their tight thigh slapping spangled jeans, in their rootin’ tootin’ fu-ck me boots and their “bend me over and hogtie me” eyes looking to bushwhack some poor drooling rope jockey at the Wayside Inn watering hole and saloon. Small lives in small towns drinking, shooting (pool that is). Rednecks and cowboys off their wagons till closing time’s last call. Hell, more than once I hitched my pony there - days when my saddle bags carried lead, not talents of gold, when loathing and loss filled my glass and there were no paths to glory - sadly no happy trails! Written: September 1996 Pic above: Wayside Inn pub in Albany. (circa 1980)
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