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Just Muggin

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Freddie Avalos

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Freddie Avalos

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Endeesea

Great Minds, and Fools

I'd just read my friend & neighbour, Ninja, and couldn't help but feel as though my gob had been smacked....my gast flabbered, my dumb found and my non well and truly plussed. Here is a man who feels about the silly season almost precisely the same as I do. Reading between the lines and taking his choice of YouTube video into account, I dare say Ninja is a man who puts his best efforts forward at this time of year because he knows it's what's expected of him by everyone else. Which is why I have such an affinity with Chevy Chase's portrayal of Xmas and it's foibles in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation . Truly, it doesn't matter how much spirit you try to put into Christmas, or how you think you understand anyone else's view of the occasion, you'll never managed to pull it off to the satisfaction of anyone but yourself. So, does that mean Christmas is a dead duck?


Actually, Christmas is a dead chook, or of you're lucky, a dead turkey or pig. When I was a youngster, chook was the thing. We never saw a baked ham, or leg of pork, but we did always have chook; trifle, ice cream & jelly; millionaire mix, walnuts, brazil nuts, hazel nuts, almonds, jelly beans, ju-jubes and sundry other confectionery. There was always homemade Christmas cake, which was really Grandma's best'est fruitcake masquerading under a layer of marzipan and commercial sugar icing; as well as the genuine article....the boiled plum pudding with silver coinage secreted within. One vivid memory I have is 'Grilla Head', otherwise known as lime jelly. The origin fades for me now, but I do retain the startling recollection of my youngest brother & I kacking ourselves over 'Grilla Head'. Such are Christmas Memories.

Then comes Boxing Day, when my Mum's brother, wife & four boys (Mum & Dad had we three boys) would truck over, with the adults sequestered inside grogging on, and we boys outside playing all manner of games from bloody murder, television-inspired shoot-em-ups, to simple hide & seek. I recall spending an inordinate length of time inside the paper bin one year, hiding. I also recall my younger brother draining the dregs of each & every dead marine in the kitchen, and getting decidedly ill on a pathetically small amount of hot beer.

Of course, the mildly astute among you will realise that these are all childhood memories. Those memories of good times, or indeed, better times when life contained few stresses and those it did contain were short-lived and insignificant once past. That's where Christmas belongs for me. Coddled among the fond memories of times long past, among people now gone, or unlikely to ever re-appear in this life as I now live it. My youngest brother & I never see each other most likely because I walked away from a marriage which was killing me, literally. That's his issue, not mine, but he now has a daughter who knows absolutely nothing of an Uncle. My younger brother & I see each other maybe twice a year, and no angst is held there. We simply live different lives. As for Rabble's family, well, in the initial years the family Christmas gathering was somewhat fun, albeit extraordinarily tiring. Masses of adults all jabbering away, the inevitable obnoxious brother-in-law carping on about his fishing boat, the niece-in-law who seems to grow fatter by the year, yet insists on hanging her tits out further at each meeting, and the incessant shrill of children from the second and third generations behaving like the bush fly around one's ears & eyes on a hot day. I actually miss greatly the interaction with Rabble's Mum & Dad because they're honest and open people. Ron is a true gentleman in every possible sense of the word, and Joyce is the Mum I wish I'd had, which is not to say I don't love my own, save for the amalgam of the two as a preference.

Clearly, as we age, as we hopefully mature, and as the scales of false intent fall from our eyes, Christmas becomes less and less of a favoured time, and more of a necessarily pestilent intrusion upon lives which have become increasingly insular. Christmas, if you're religious, clearly has meaning. If you're not, like me, then it's simply another day which can be tied into the memory skein by virtue of memories of other anniversaries. It's a time of year, an annual period or in terms of pagan ritual, a festive celebration. I tend toward the latter, given that I regard myself more & more with each passing season as adherent to the pagan rights of winter-summer, dark-light, cold-warm. I'm atheistic in my beliefs. I'd like to think Sagan was wrong and death isn't the end, but I'm fast accepting that when the lights go out, there's no emergency backup. Christmas, as a time, an anniversary, a memory prompt or philosophical stalking horse is simply a day among a calendar of 364 other days. As that alone, I believe  in this current 24/7 world, we owe it to ourselves to take that day for ourselves. Not to share with others, but only for ourselves. For self, solitude, quiet introspection however that occurs.

And here's the point of this diatribe. After at least four Hahn Premiums - and don't ever let anyone tell you that alcohol doesn't allow the creative juices to flow - I deliberately, and purposefully spent Christmas day, the anniversary, the occasion, the celebration call it what you will, at a tiny location which has come to mean far more to me than any other in recent memory. Bolivia, New South Wales. Why? Because there's never anyone else there (at the Community Hall) and the location is wreathed in the past. I had a wonderful time. From AC\DC at the beginning to Nirvana and Metallica at the exit. I revelled in the history, walked the past, collected what was and generally wrapped myself in memories. After all, isn't that what Christmas is all about? Memories?

So, Ninja, don't ever feel as though you're being a grumpy old man, or that Christmas means you're obligated to pleasing everyone else. Far from it on both counts. I solidly believe that Christmas is what you, the individual, want it to be. Religiously oriented or not, we are all - every single one of us - entitled to at least one day every year where we indulge in what memories we want to indulge in. For mine, it's the peace & serenity, the solitude, the historical ghosts and self-fabricated beliefs of what was. The wandering up & down the derelict rail line and imagining what 1834 was like in that location. Do yourself a favour & do what you want to do, just the once, and see what it means to you. If that happens to be on or around 25 December, then so be it. If doing so makes us both fools, then know you're in good company.

3 comments Tags: memories, history, bolivia, individuality, christmas stupidity
Freddie Avalos

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Endeesea

Camped Out

Back from camping earlier than anticipated, for a couple of very sound reasons. Principally, when I rang Rabble yesterday to say 'Happy Krimas' I gained a strong impression that while she might have been surrounded by family, she wasn't all that chipper. Secondly, last night on the RN news came the weather alert for central NSW, due to the remnants of Cyclone Lawrence having degenerated into a rain depression as it crossed the SA/Qld/NSW border. Residents of the central-western NSW region from Dubbo to Bourke were warned not to travel on the region's unsealed roads after 10pm last night, for fear that roads would become impassable. Sort of rings a bell. Rain coming.


This morning, the weather had indeed changed for the worse. Low clouds, scudding scattered breaks and the odd light mist. That was it for me. Time to vacate. I UHM'ed and AAH'ed briefly, thought of home & decided to bolt while the bolting was good. Smart move. I was getting decidedly damp as I loaded the last of the tarps into the back of the car.

The break was good though. Not the same as going camping with Rabble, but a peaceful break at any rate, despite the brood adjacent. I have to admit that by the end of day three - Xmas Eve - I was wondering just what I was going to do with myself until Monday. Me, and Radio National, and even Aunty wasn't pulling her weight, with twelve hours programming being repeated from the beginning of hour 13. The lesson driven home this time around being NOT - definitely NOT - to attempt camping for the purposes of peace & serenity during school holidays. At any time. Why? Because parents will roll up with their billy-lids in tow, that's why. Hey! I'm 52 years of age, which qualifies me for the title of 'Grumpy Old Man!' If I go camping for peace & bloody quiet, I expect to get peace & bloody quiet! Rabble will be through her chemo & radiation treatments come next Winter, and who in their right mind would attempt camping on the Granite Belt in June-July? The perfect time to go. No rowdy camper-neighbours and all the pleasures of camping 'round a roaring wood fire. Been there and done that. Trust me, it's an experience worth attempting.

So that's it for me and camping for 2009. Five days of this abysmal year to go and I'll be glad to slam to door on it's departure. Will 2010 be any better? I always take the New Year as one that couldn't be any worse, which means I'm being optimistic. Something rather unrealistic for me, but then, a realist can only be realistic about that which he's been presented with, yeh?

1 comment Tags: camping, 2009, girraween
Freddie Avalos

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Team Vox

Happy Holidays!

6acardVOX
6acardVOX
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Happy Holidays to you, your family, friends and neighbors from all of us at Vox.
See you in 2010!
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Freddie Avalos

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Lord Shaper

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Lord Shaper
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