Cuz Gillian and the Blue Mountains in Australia

My grandparents lived in Katoomba which is well outside Sydney in Australia, up in the Blue Mountains.  Cuz Gillian is in Leith, part of Edinburgh near the sea, and did not have the opportunity to visit them out there to see for herself so we will try a bit of space and time machine to get back there a little bit.

Let's start with some color and these are the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains.  You know there is big magic here.  And as you see all around, it's blue.



There aren't any giant towering peaks as you will find in Europe but you can find bigger ones in the Snowy Mountains (seriously) more to the South.  Sure, it gets cold going South in that hemisphere.  It didn't seem strange to us (larfs).


Chicken Watching (just for the hell of it)

My last serious chicken-watching was when I was a kid and we were up in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains with my grandparents.  The place had a large property and a bit of a ranch vibe but not that large.

So I'm a kid watching the animals out there and one of the adults grabbed a chicken and chopped off his head.  Holy fuck!  He just chopped that chicken's fookin' head off!

Then the chicken went running around that yard and at a remarkable speed.  I was just thinking, no fookin' way, this whole Universe is broken.  This cannot possibly be really happening.

It didn't stop me from eating chickens but I can still clearly see that chicken running around without a head.  For me it was like a living but not for long horror movie.  Gives me the fookin' creeps!  So that prob'ly cured me of chicken watching!


Eating Rat Poison as Home Entertainment

Katoomba was a place well-removed from Sydney and we went up into the Blue Mountains to see my grandparents.  There were not too many trips up there and on one of them they said I ate rat poison in a shed in the backyard somewhere.  Such a drama bitch, huh?

My ol' Dad gave a maximum performance in driving race speed out of the mountains to get my stomach pumped at a hospital.  Yahoo, Frasers on the roll here!  I was too young to remember too much but this must have been something like Mister Toad's Wild Ride, an all-time favorite in my memory.

I imagine my ol' Mother was absolutely terrified because he was one high-speed maniac, highly-talented, but scary as you would ever want.  She would never show that fear, tho.  She said the Scots are a hardy race.  I guess so since the rat poison didn't kill me (larfs).

The man would have run through a burning forest if the kids were in trouble.  Lotho was almost hit by a car in Australia when he was quite small but Alex punched right into the car to get around him and pull him out.  Messed his hand right up but you never ever heard a word about stuff like that.  I'm the dad, it's what I do.

In fact, I did something stupid and I really hurt him.  There was a battery starter for the go-karts and we were dashing down to where someone had stalled and we wanted to get him going again.  I had the battery pack and it was a cart on two wheels.  It was getting unstable because I was going too fast with it so I thought I'd do a cool move and reverse it without stopping.  That was the stupid mistake.

It hit him dead dead center in his shin and made a serious gouge.  On his shin like that, it must have burned like a volcanic eruption.  He did not make a move, make a sound, or ever mention it.  You know, that may have been one of the best lessons he ever gave, without a single word.



Cavorting in the Garden

Children really don't have any responsibility beyond cavorting in the garden.  Go on out there and cavort and try not to get hurt, start fires, etc.

So the kids were out there cavorting, as we were wont to do, and that's going to involve a lot of running.  The details of the yard are not clear because they're clouded a wee bit by seeing in any direction I look a chicken running about with no head.  It was a large yard and being struck dumb at the chicken running all the way around.  No, no, no, this is fookin' impossible!  (larfs)

Granny loved growing things and she always had lovely gardens, wherever she was.  I'm sure Pappy must have helped but she got the reputation as the gardener.

She also liked growing vegetables and this was early in the season so they had no amounted to much yet.  Growing vegetables may require some support so there was a structure with some poles and wires stretched across it at various heights.

Yep, I'm the kid who ran into that at top speed and, yep, I spent another afternoon in the dark on a bed with a wet towel on my head.  I have an extraordinary penchant for wrecking myself doing just about anything.  It's passion, you know ... not foolhardiness, passion.  Sure.

My memories of Katoomba are a bit disappointing, I'm afraid ... but I have an alibi!  (larfs)

The memories of Pappy and Granny are not so clear but I remember he was kind and quiet and SO tall.  Alex was bigger than a full-size gum tree but Pappy was even taller than that.  He was more slender and, dayum, he was tall.  I had drillin' shyness but my sibs not so much so I think they knew Granny better.  I remember a nice lady who could be a wee bit stern at times but that just gave her more color.


The Indian Jones Bomber

Here's a really weird one: on the way up to Katoomba one time we stopped at some type of preserve and this was practically like steamy jungle or something.  We walked up to what looked to be a WWII-vintage aircraft.  It must have crashed but it wasn't that messed up and it was like being in an Indiana Jones time machine.  No idea at all how it got there.

There were waterfalls there too and it was a surreal Green Mansions but we were in it and it was just achingly beautiful.  These aren't waterfalls like the giants in Africa but they sure looked splendid to me.  There is ancient magic in Australia and the aboriginal people know about it.  They have been in Australia the entire time.  If you know how it is in Tennessee, take that as a taste of Australia ... or the other way around, however you like.


Sailing for Scotland

I didn't know why my grandparents left but I remember the day because they left by liner.  We could see them way up there, waving from their deck, and there were streamers in so many colors coming down from all the decks from the people who were leaving, possibly never to see Australia again, and the streamers went to the one(s) they were leaving.  More and more of the streamers come down until the liner needs to depart and then it sails away with colors streaming behind it.

I almost get teary thinking of the beauty of that moment and the poignance of it didn't go past even as a kid.  I did not ever see them again.

Note:  Cuz Gillian has since told me why but it's sufficient to say they had good reason.

On a brighter note, my ol' Mother did see her mother again much later in Edinburgh.  Pappy was already gone by then but still what a reunion it must have been.