This is a new start
All right. Not quite new. A second crack. The first first time this blogger attempted to work WordPress his head caved in. He hopes he can work it this time and keep his head.
Wish him good luck.
That’s him, Doust, on the left, standing by Ricky Heng, a genius of a man who fixed his car.
Photo by Chris Pash
Here’s what happened.
My partner and I are finally moving, from the city, Perth, a big smelly place, on the tip of Australia, the western bit, to Albany, a delightfully sweet location, on the southern tip, just before Antarctica.
On the way down, I pass through Manjimup, a small, once thriving timber town, now a thriving mixed farming district, with excellent cherry orchards, meander through the forests, past the last farm, when, without warning, an edgy kangaroo of a larger variety, jumps.
Of course, it being late at night, the roo has been out for some time, eating and drinking, no idea where it is, bang, dead, both, the roo and the car. I am left standing, on the side of the road, pitch black, no cars, no farms, nothing, but pristine forest, wonderful smells and the faint hint of rain.
The first car I flag down slows, looks closely at me, realises I am mad, a lunatic escaped from who knows where, plants his foot, leaves me in a hail of roadside stones, and, probably, not far on, bangs into another anxious roo.
I wonder about this. I look at myself. I see a man wearing ripped jeans, a torn t-shirt, and I remember my hair is long and uncombed and that I have not slept for three days and that I left the stinking city after loading a truck in a state of almost hysteria. Arr, no wonder.
The next car I flag I do so from the middle of the road and I yell into the closed window: “Gidday, Jon Doust here. My car is dead. I hit a roo. Can you give me a lift to a farm? Please.”
The luck: “Oh, Dousty. sure. Get in.”
I am saved. The driver takes me to a farm. The farmer drags my car into his yard. A brother from the nearby town drives out with a spare car. I sleep over night. Not much, but enough to drive on the next morning.
My car rots in the wrecking yard for two months while the insurance company decides which planet we all live on, according to it, and eventually Ricky Heng, the man pictured, gathers the bits together, adds some old bits from other cars, plus a couple of new bits, presto, working car.
The moral of this tale? There is none. Life is like that.