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'For Better For Worse'

29/9/2015

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​I have been blessed, extraordinarily blessed with “better”.  My parents’ genes meshed without abnormal consequences for me and three siblings. 

I grew up with my brother and sisters and nearby farm bred cousins and neighbours doing more or less what we liked. We built and sailed rafts on creeks and dams, hunted rabbits, tried to outwit recalcitrant ponies, sheep and cattle and drove tractors, utes and cars from the age of five or six.

Admittedly culture was limited to Superman and the Argonauts on the radio and irregular films at Mortlake's Soldiers’ Memorial Hall and the Warrnambool drive in.  But we were blissfully happy and no “better” called out to me.

When I married Monica at the age of 32, I know I gave no particular thought to better or worse because I had not really experienced worse.  Still haven't really, because I am quite happy and contented almost wherever I am.

For much of our married life we bred and brought up three children from a crummy farmhouse on a small farm between Benalla and Shepparton.  I and I think the kids were perfectly content and they ran almost as wild as I had a few decades earlier.  

But my wife wanted a better house and eventually that was a factor in our separation and divorce. 

Just yesterday I had a long conversation in the street with a 94 year old man who used to live five or six kilometres down the road from us on the Broken River and is now in my street. As an ex journo I tend to pry a little and I asked him what it was like to be 94. 

He said it had taken him by surprise to the extent that he was quite pleased his body was still functioning reasonably well; I gathered his advanced age had sort of crept up on him.

He walks past my place every morning but he did say his legs aren't work as well as they used to. His wife who he clearly misses, died 11 years ago and last year he ran over and killed his beloved 12 year old terrier dog.

But he is content and I don't think he wishes for a “better” either, because he too has not really experienced a worse despite war service in the RAAF.

So to me for better or worse is an extreme phrase and I guess designed to be so. 

But for many people again like me, it's the comfortable middle ground which is reality and for that I am truly grateful.


Monday September 21, 2015.
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'Car Story'

2/9/2015

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At the beginning of 2012 I started a job as a part time journalist for a newspaper called Southern Farmer. The job was based in Surrey Hills in Melbourne and I was required to use the company car to venture onto farms and gather readable stories on what farmers were doing.

One of my early trips took me to Ballarat in the company's Mazda SUV, or in my parlance a four wheel drive.It was not a success on two counts because I broke the back window and then picked up a computer generated speeding ticket.

I did a really good job on the rear window by backing it into the edge of a semi trailer as I sought to drive away from a farm where I'd asked directions to my appointed interviewee.

That was bad enough but to get to the dairy where the subject worked, I had to drive along a gravel road. That wouldn't have been too bad in winter, but it was high summer and the rear windowless SUV sucked in huge quantities of dust.  It coated every surface imaginable and even opening every window on the way back to Melbourne hardly made a dent in its tenacity.

In any event I took the car home and spent about an hour and half dusting and vacuuming to remove as much as I could.

At the same time I had to tell the owner his steed would be damaged and late for a night time engagement he had planned for it. However I more or less met his deadline.

Some weeks later my boss handed me a speeding infringement notice from the police, which indicated I'd been doing 112km/h in a 100km/h zone on the Western Ring Road.

While this seemed like bad news, I determined I would not pay it unless I was forced to, as I had recently bought a book on how to avoid paying speeding fines.

I'll spare you the details of the resistance but in early 2014 I found myself in the Sunshine Magistrates court defending my actions.  In fact I had to sit through a morning of more serious efforts by several people who wanted to regain their driving licences after committing a range of offences.

Eventually when the magistrate asked me to explain the circumstances of the offence, I told him it was quite inadvertent and I thought the speed cameras might not have been checked for accuracy for some time.

He more or less dismissed that but said that as I'd come all the way from Benalla to defend the charge and the speed was only a few kilometres over - it had already been rounded down or something to 109km/h - he would dismiss the charge.

Just shows you shouldn't always just pay those speeding fines.

 

David Palmer

August 2015

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    'Our Stories'

    David's page

    One of our original members who has written many stories over the past five years or so, these days David is writing the column for the 'Stock and Land' group he convenes each month.  He still sends in the occasional story  and pop up in class from time to time if he isn't helping someone out on a farm somewhere. 

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    'Walking The Camino'

    Other writing by David 

    As David convenor of the Stock and Land group, David writes the monthly newsletter reports also posted in our 'Stock and Land' news blog.

    A new member of the Family Research group, David's family stories are now starting to appear under 'David Palmer' on the Family Research page.

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