Here I am at nearly three score years and ten reflecting on  ‘What happened in Vegas’ moments.  I’ve definitely had them – I’ve danced on Spanish bars; broken plates while dancing at a taverna in Greece;  visited red light districts in Kings Cross, Amsterdam and Thailand ; had Mama Mia experiences in the Greek Islands, Bridget Jones experiences in London and more.
    
Interestingly, I now find myself squirming at the thought of sharing such Vegas moments as part of this memoir related writing task!

I’m reminded of my mother at about my age, who could be heard to make ‘tut, tutting’sounds and to say ‘that isn’t necessary’ as gradually more explicit sex scenes began to be shown on television!    I particularly remember watching the film ‘The Go Between’ with her.   During a fairly discreetly directed sex scene central to a little boy’s dawning realization that he was being used as a go between, Mum got up and promptly changed the channel, saying ‘Now that’s quite unnecessary’!    I suspect that she found herself feeling rather squirmy at the time, while I was most concerned that she couldn’t see the relevance of the scene to the story.

Upon reflection, it seems that ‘What happened in Vegas’ moments incorporate adrenalin and endorphin related ‘rush’ features linked to ‘risk taking’ and perhaps even romance, but also involve ‘squirm’ features, both physical and psychological, perhaps linked to guilt and shame!   It also seems distinctly possible that as we get older and well past our experimental, risk taking prime, retelling ‘What happened in Vegas stories’ brings up only the ‘squirm’ features!

This is certainly happening in relation to two ‘What happened in Vegas’ moments which involved my going as a tourist to ‘strip’ shows, once at Kings Cross when I was twenty, the other in the red light district of Bangkok during my late twenties.

In the first case, I’d been attending the Economics and Commerce Students Association conference in Sydney in the late 1960’s.  My brother was there, as a representative of RMIT’s Commerce Students’ Association, while I was there as a student of the Economics Faculty at Monash University.  After the conference dinner my brother and his friends decided to go to Kings Cross with the aim of seeing the best known stripper of the day, the infamous Sandra Nelson.  I tagged along, chaperoned of course, by my brother!   My main memory of the event was watching the reactions of the men in the audience when a tassle attached to one of the swirling breasts of the stripper became dislodged and flew off into the audience.
   
This Vegas moment had strong risk taking elements at the time.  Writing about it now just provides a squirmy feeling – no adrenalin rush from this almost seventy year old vantage point.

The second event occurred in 1976 when I was visiting young married friends who were attached to the Australian embassy in Bangkok.   After a dinner party we decided to go to the red light district, visiting three or four bars, including “The Golfers’ Lounge”.  As I definitely feel the squirm factor about sharing the antics observed on the stage at this particular bar with you, I’ll say no more!

Visiting such red light districts certainly doesn’t tick off the new and risk taking features of ‘What Happened in Vegas’ moments for these days. 

Also, it’s not something that my peers do these days for distraction (no news of bus trips for seniors in Benalla to see St Kilda night life)!
  
Perhaps like my mother in her seventies, I’ll  soon be saying, if I’m not already, that sharing such ‘What happened in Vegas’ moments isn’t just about  maintaining confidences, it’s actually “quite unnecessary!!!!”
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Bev Lee
September  2016

Do you remember ‘free periods’ at high school – classes in which the teacher was perhaps ill, and a substitute teacher entered the room? 

I loved free periods at high school, a chance to catch up on homework or to openly read the novel I was covertly reading under the desk whenever I had the chance.  I usually didn’t mind free periods when I was teaching and was the substitute myself, although remember the occasional class (two in fact) when a year 8 class must have had lots of sugar at lunch time and were quite irrepressible, and in one case, almost dangerous.

This story relates to a day when I was in the staff room during a free and a friend who had been timetabled during a free asked if I’d mind coming in to the class for a time to help him out.  He had an ‘often difficult’ class,  but had an activity he thought might engage them for which needed an offsider.
 
I won’t give you the instructions he gave me just yet, but he described the activity to the class as ‘ESP’.   He introduced me to the class, explaining, using lots of embellishment, that we had ‘ESP’ and could read each other’s minds.  By way of example, he placed three books on top of one another on the desk, explaining  that I could read his mind, and could tell him which book of the three books the class had chosen.
 
I was out of the room while they chose of course.  The irrepressible students came up with all sorts of ideas as again and again, on entering the room, I  appeared to read his mind and correctly chose the book they had selected.   They suggested  it was “the words he’d used”, “the expression on his face”, “where he was looking in the room”, and more.   Up to half an hour later they were still trying to work out what was happening, and of course we were in no rush for them to find out!

Do you want to know the answer to our riddle of ‘ESP’?  It was very simple really, it related to where I was when I walked towards him – if he asked the question when I was near the door, it was the top book; if I was in the middle of my journey towards him it was the middle book, and if I’d almost reached him it was the bottom book!
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It was such fun – a mystery waiting to be solved.  It also had a very ‘bonding’ effect.  When I’d see the students later during yard duty, or if ever we had a free together, we were almost soul mates. We’d once shared an experienced of the unexplained, in a fun and seemingly magical way, even if only for half an hour or so. 
 
Bev Lee, August 1 2016
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