September Smooch
I suspect a different perspective of September would exist
Between Northern and Southern hemispheres
Like Aussies being down under when we really are on top
We've just come out of winter
We're all agog at the prospect
of looming summer days
We are fully uplifted spring is in the step
While down north they're in a fall
It's nineteen sixty four my sixteenth birthday has just passed
Heady days of Beatles and other Mersey beat
We switch the wireless dial
To listen to the latest songs
Birds are on the move, mating
Magpies gather dry sticks to build an untidy nest
Chirpy willy wagtails gather spider webs
To build the neatest nest I've seen
I'm living on a farm in a remote country area
There's a dance in a tiny country town
It's the September spring school holidays
I put on my black mohair jumper knitted by Grandma
I listen to Roy Orbison sing Pretty Woman whilst I dress
The excitement begins to build
It's an hour of travel to reach the dance
One of my friends father is the chauffeur
We arrive at the hall, A lady plays old time dances on the piano
A young teenage girl is seated along a wall
She lives on a family farm a few miles up the road from our farm
I haven't seen her for several years as she attends a boarding school
She only comes home on school holidays
Later I discover she is a year younger than me
So we all have a dance, she now sits beside me
We have several more dances and still she sits beside me
There is only one small cafe in town
We agree to go for a walk and have a milk shake
I think we held hands on return from the cafe
We stop. In hindsight I think she has had some romantic experience
I am green. We share a long passionate kiss
Next day day I awaken smitten by this young woman
I recall just lying on the grass
Mooning for hours. Totally Love struck!!!!!
She returns to boarding school. I return to school
For all of that final term I lusted for the summer school holidays
She returns. She has a new boyfriend
A flashback to some years previous to our meeting at the dance
I was eight she was seven
Local farmers and their wives would gather on Sundays at the local tennis court
Games were informal whilst children played on swings and slides
I was behind the young woman on the slide
She fell and broke both her arms
Her mother believed I had pushed her
On the night at the dance my right arm was in plaster
A broken thumb from a fight with my brother
So I lick my wounds. Summer holidays are in full swing
There's a New Years Eve dance in our little local hall
A new girl is staying with her friend on a farm
We meet. We share an unhealthy common interest
We have to hide together to share a forbidden smoke
Every day I ride my bike ten kilometres to spend time with her
I leave well before sunset
I ride home without a light in bright moonlight
She is gone a week later
We begin writing letters to each other
I now spend many hours driving a tractor
A plough is attached to till the land
I am remunerated by my father
The grand sum of one pound a day Australian currency
My friend brother and I travel standing on the open tray
Of my father's old Cheverolet tray truck
We try and harmonise the Beatles song She"s a Woman
The latch on the drivers door is broken
My father has attached a rope to the tray
He pokes the rope through the window of the door
He then sits on the rope to keep the door shut
Cousins arrive, We play cricket in the paddock
We swim in the creek
We catch horses and ride in the bush
We bait a hook and catch a trout
There's a sports day on a rough arena near our home
All the locals gather to compete
There's sprints, high and long jumps and wood chopping for the men
There's sack races, three legged races, and egg and spoon race as well
To end the day a mighty tug o' war
Whilst all these events were happening
Farmers wives gather in a booth
They make sandwiches and boil big kettles
On an open fire to make tea
From September on we always looked forward
To six weeks of summer fun
All these holidays were great
Nineteen sixty four outshone them all
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