Kellerberrin Wednesday 4 May 2005
Joining up to a bootcamp in the city. I’m late with my enrolment and that’s ok. But i want to go do a different “campus” so I trek across through a park. It’s getting on in the morning and I’m worried I’m going to miss out. I bump into Travis at a train station. He’s older and chubbier than he was at school. He’s got lines on his face. I congratulate him on his forthcoming appearance in the play “my right arm” but unfortunately I’m not going to be able to make it. I rush off, but Pip’s power hose in the lane wakes me up before I reach my destination…
A quiet day, comparatively, yesterday. Anne and Tim drove off west in the old van, leaving “us locals” to get on with whatever it is we need to be doing:
- I tinkered around with some drink coaster designs.
- I went to the bank, twice. There’s a nice young lad there who is always very polite but we’ve never exchanged names.
- I picked up a bunch of packages from the post office. There is a tall man who works there, I have never learned his name either.
- I got some bread and juice from the co-op. I usually wave and say Hi to Rebecca who works in the Westpac bit and books tickets on the train for you. At the checkout there’s a friendly lady (is her name Cindy?) – I met her once while waiting for the train to Perth. A few days ago her son, who lives and works in Merredin, pulled up in a gorgeous yellow Kingswood flat bed ute. Anne and I were mucking around with her curtain near the train line, she wanted to video as the train went past. He got out of his ute and came over and asked what we were doing. Anne explained, and he wanted to be in the video. He did a kind of dance, weaving through the hanging strips of the curtain, back and forth, and occasionally popping his head out with a surprised expression on his face. “That’s all I wanted to do” he said, and he was off. At the checkout, his mum told me that she has to drive around everywhere with him, since he is still only on his “Ls”.
- Felena arrived, she’s quite sick, sniffling and snorting and churning through the tissues. Still working though. We talked about the invitations to the opening and how Cristina and I might best share the exhibition space. This week there are a few boring things like that which we need to finalise.
- Inside the gallery, I found Felena talking to Jo and Di. Soon after, Pat arrived. We talked about this crazy idea of making a scarf (a vest, a jumper?) for the pipe. “What pipe?” Jo asked. I wondered what town she’d been living in. THE pipe, of course. We want to make a long scarf (or a vest?) to wrap around the pipe. They all agreed it would be too much work, but I said there was no reason it had to be finished in time for the opening. The main thing would be to get it started. Pat has some raw wool which has only recently been spun, and Di might have some too, in her cupboard. Betty offered to show me how to knit, and we’re away!
May 4th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
I was reading a bit more from Collapse last night. The chapter on Montana. Jared Diamond was talking about the major environmental and economic issues affecting modern-day Montanans, particularly farmers. He talked a lot about individuals, used their names and there own words to talk about the issues. It reminded me of your writing, Luco. I like.
May 5th, 2005 at 9:09 am
I think that the tall man at the post office whom you don’t know the name of is Geoff Main. He’s the Keller postmaster – knows everything that goes on in town but maintains confidentiality and a code of silence better than most medical practitioners.
How’s the Keller tap water – or haven’t you been game to try it yet?
I lost count of the number of med students (all female) who started knitting or learning to knit after visiting Betties. Perhaps you could ask them to help out with the Pipeline scarf project?
May 5th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
thanks donna
would you describe “geoff” (it must be him) as “taciturn”? I like the dictionary.com definition: “habitually untalkative” which is kind of taciturn in itself, don’t you think? Of course, you are right, he would know everything that goes on…perhaps he’s like the all-knowing shoeshine-boy in those Leslie Nielsen Naked Cop movies or whatever they’re called.
Well, I was drinking the tap water until I got one of those big spring water bottles from the co-op. I guess the tap water’s fine, tastes a bit earthy though. Now that I’m onto the spring water, it’s hard to go back to tap. I must say, the earthiness isn’t bad. Certainly not as bad as the Perth northern suburbs chlorine/unspecified chemical taste. I get your point about tap water though (in your previous comment, which I think really “raised the tone” of the debate).
If the knitting thing takes off, I will definitely call out to your girls for contributions. Thanks for the tip. I’ll let Bettie know that she’s started a craze!
Cheers
Lucas
May 9th, 2005 at 8:56 am
Hi Lucas
Hope you’ve recovered from the suspense of witnessing vote counting – it sounds almost meditative.
The Perth to Kalgoorlie Pipeline, where Keller tapwater comes from, is quite unique in that it is a “long-line” water distribution system – that probably accounts for the “earthy” taste you experienced.
Taciturn would seem to be a reasonable description of Geoff. No doubt it’s a very useful trait in his line of work – I can’t imagine a garrulous postmaster surviving for long in a small town.
I addition to improving the productivity of Katie’s study time, your blog is also expanding my work productivity!
Donna
May 18th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
[…] s. Someone like Johnny Farnham, maybe… * * * * * A breakthrough has been made with Geoff, the taciturn postmaster. It happened a few days back, when I was picking up mail, and […]