the bricks

27sept2014
the bricks were a lot things in 72, maybe 73. for me personally, or should i say less personally. probably at that time i was below person. it's not that hurtful to write about that time, as it was different. my home life was miserable, school life was shitfull , very dog eat dog. the big difference then is there was some ways to do okay, without having mummy and daddy. nowadays you inherit their debt. if i wasn't scarred (here i mean scar , the spelling gets me) enough, after the bike thing and earlier, the move from my grandmothers was the big hit.

1oct2014
the move from the grandmothers, to a place i didn't like to start with. now, when i look back, i think i was very wild. i think about it , you can't really blame anything really. i never had no proper home for a long time. my parents never had no proper home. the old boys gambling and drinking was atrocious. i could never understand it. to put it plainly he was a prick, when he'd come home pissed. i wasn't no goody goody either, but there's a time for discipline and that's not when you're pissed. i think i  was strong, even though i was a scared little chicken when he came home. the move , was just the parents and me at that time. he came home and beat me up pretty bad, ripped hair out of my head. said i smoked marijuana , which at that time i would never. i could go into it more. that's basically it really.

9oct2014
hurt you at home , hit you at school, i hadn't heard that yet, but i sure did know it already. i was just a defeated low nobody. when you're like that, you're so easily lead. i'm talking 1972 here, as if anythings changed, probably worse. the bricks were already happening, with a crowd that i was not part of. even back then, savland was far from normality, not too many could relate to me, no one like me as far as home life. the bricks as they became known, were a pile of bricks next to the school. i never knew anything about them then. apparently students of a different higher class, hollowed out a pile and threw in some p.e mats. not surprisingly, the culprits or part of, were old primary school friends. they would ride their bikes to school early , steal flavoured milk and have it over the bricks, then wag periods over there. eventually they got caught out, some spent weeks or months in a boys home.

25oct2014
it became known about the goings on of the upper class follies, with us lower class plebs it was just follow the rules , morning assembly , roll call and class, maybe share a drag of a fag (cig) or some other nonsensical prank, like the infamous dead leg, or the stomp on a empty milk carton, making a big bang, sliding down the hand rail slide saddle . the games of knuckles, and slaps, and hand ball. so where does one fit into this world of real world preparation .

2nov2014
nowhere really, i never really fitted into any class. the school had only been built for 2 and half years before i went there. the first 6 months  it shared another high school until work had finished, so they could open it. as i remember, the shoddy workmanship, seen a wall collapse, a worker injured. when i started, there was all the no hopers under the sun there, waiting for the 15 year birthday so they didn't have to go to school no more. after a time they left , and some sort of school structure started to form. i knew some or most of the no hopers  from the pinny shop, the 1st year i hung around them until they fizzled out .

3nov2014
my attendance was pretty good really. sometime after the old boy episode, i got invited by some foes from a lower class, to wag a period. we sneaked through some bushes near the pushbikes, some bicycle racks, then bolted across the paddock. it reminded me of hogan's heroes or some tv crap. i remember it was a sort of rainy day. the old hype of the bricks had died down. we went through some bushes and they had hollowed out a pile, bit of corrugated iron and timber for a roof. they just stacked bricks on it to make it look like a pile. they just sat there blowing smoke rings with the cold air, wishing for real cigs. for me it was an adventure, but i thought you'd be better off in the classroom with the heater. i think the whole thing was just you could do want you want, and not be confined to a chair and table, and listen to bullshit.

4nov2014
the bricks wasn't the only spot to hang , but it was the safest, just getting there was a hassle. i'm not quite sure whether i started smoking seriously after or before the bricks. it became the place to go during lunch or wag a period and have a smoke in peace. no jerk coming up and dragging the guts out of your fag. i remember one incident . one lunch , me and smiddy, snuffy smith now deceased,  he was one of the foes which took me over there.we were over there probably smoking. i remember it was lunch time. the bell went, and we started going back, then i seen the other foe on the other side of the paddock, with what i thought was a prefect . i told smiddy quick bolt a prefect. he took off the other way like a flash. then i realised it wasn't a prefect it was some bird with a blazer that look like a prefects. i tried to run a get smiddy , but he was long gone. when i went back, i couldn't find them, then i saw his bum rotating up and down unusually in the grass. they were having a fuck, this sight stuck in my head. since the bell had gone i went to the next class, on the way i saw smiddy and told him what had happened .

8nov2014
as i remember we had an easy to wag period in the arvy, so the 3 of us wagged that period, over the bricks. i thought, this is what happens over there. at that time i had never seen the map of tasmania, only the baldy badgers of primary school. tv and movies rarely had them in them, just boobs and bums at best. i remember someone found a  picture out of some mag , it had a photo showing the bearded clam , everybody was lined up to see it. it was just a one lucky fucky, he just asked her and she said yes. they asked me if i wanted go with them on the capers on friday night, just say you are going to some fellowship thing in a different suburb. that was the start of me going out friday nights. we met up, on the way raided a few chicken coupes and threw the eggs at cars from the over pass. i thought, is this fun. eventually we got to the fellowship, we didn't stay long. then, we went an hot wired a steam roller , dickhead drive it on the new highway they were building, i couldn't drive at all.

9nov2014
that probably was the start of the going out friday nights, which went on every friday night there after. not the juvenile behavior , just going out and whatever. word soon got out about the push in the bush, and there was 1 less going over the bricks. he got expelled from the school , he was a trouble maker, though.me and smiddy still went over there, but we were in mostly different classes. i had a pushbike , i brought it for $2, i used to ride to the school on weekends . i knew a few younger guys, who lived close. they had motor bikes. as the school was still being built, what became sports fields, was a motor bike track. i'd ride there and watch them ride and that. there was sometimes a lot of activity with different bikes . things like old bsa and villiers, even bridgestone and lambretta, there was the mini bike thing, but it was mainly old shitboxes . there was no motocross much at that time. scrambling was the word.

11nov2014
with living close to the school them young guys knew that area quite well. i started hanging around them , the bricks was part of that. the bricks were there for quite a while apparently. they were going to build a church there. it was strange that the main period to wag was scripture, over the bricks. scripture was the easiest because the whole form was there in the hall. me and smiddy and whoever went to the bricks and smoked cigs and told yarns.  on weekends we'd hang at the track, over the bricks, or a someones place fixing bikes or other stuff.  we'd catch eels from the creek and put them in bins half full of water or hang them on the goal post.. one guy used to take them home to eat.

15nov2014
 probably around august 1973, there was a few bikes and about 10 older type people at the track. it's not easy to remember the exactness of it all. the word was, there was crowd up the quarry, out unanderra. if you read earlier blogs , that quarry. anyways the relevance here, smoking pot. the guys on bikes had to go over the highway being built. there were tracks going to different places were you didn't go on main roads, compared to nowadays. i rode the push bike straight over cobblers hill and actually beat them, that blew them out a bit. up at the quarry there was a few older hippy type people. they passed round a joint, the first time i'd seen that thing. i thought of the old boy , and when it was passed to me i had a drag, thinking  i was gonna get hooked . it tasted different , like something i tasted before but couldn't quite figure it out. even after all these years i've never really had that taste from other pot . a few times it had that taste, not many. i only had one drag and never got stoned, more of a guilt trip really.

16nov2015
again the time of this next bit are sketchy at best, not the story but when. i say not long after the quarry , maybe weeks or months. one of the young guys had a sister, who hang around us from time to time. like a lot of sisters around that time, they had elder hippy boy friends with records and that. she was the first person to tell me about pink floyd, before dark side of the moon. it was through her that i bought the album pretty much not long after it's release. one afternoon i was invited over the bricks after school, i had my pushbike which seems strange seeing i'd catch the bus to school and only ride there weekends, anyways, there was about 5 or 6 of us in the bricks and she light up some joints. there was no getting away from it, we were whacked. i was blanking out in that claustrophobic atmosphere, i had to get out. it was like slow motion. i remember riding the bike it seem like slow motion. in them days , when you got stoned you'd get a dry mouth and your spit was white. what happened to that. i had to have a drink, after having a drink. i was fucked, i decided to ride home and not worry about them others. i started riding and got halfway up cobblers hill and fell over. i sat there for a bit, stoned, thinking i can't go home like this.  i decided to go back and see the others. they were still there, i just said i was riding round the place. i'd came down a bit, when i finally got home. i just lied on my bed til i'd came down , or there abouts  

23nov2014
one school holidays , i told the olds me and a few were going camping up the mountain, like me and a different crowd had done sometime before. instead it was planned , i'd camp over the bricks and the younger guys would sneek out and come over the bricks. it was scary as fuck there at night on your own. the first time i had really been on my own all night before. i used milk creates for firewood they'd burn longer than wood and brighter, heat the bricks up outside and inside would be warm after they went out. you didn't think much about the toxic smoke, like you do today. even with copper wire you'd burn the plastic off the wire. i was hoping that the guy would bring his sister , so i could crack on to her. that didn't happen. after the fire had gone out i crashed out. sometime in the very early hours of the morning, the guy woke me up, no sister though . apparently they were coming and she got busted by their old boy , he hid behind a door and sneaked  out later. then another guy turned up. maybe one or two more. we decided to go and pinch milk money, we didn't get much a few dollars at best. while we were out walking the streets , the sister and her old man had came looking for the guy, busted. we got back to the bricks not knowing nothing. i can't really remember what happened next, the young guys just went home. we never saw that guy , and the word got out he was grounded for a bit.

27nov2014
i could go on about other stuff at the bricks, but i think you get the basic picture. besides wagging periods not a lot, others may have used them for whatever. it did grow though, them younger guys had other friends in their form , maybe they went there, whilst i was in class. like i said before, the bricks was just one place, it was whatever was easiest at the time, mainly the creek. near the end of the year, not long before the final exam . a whole bunch of us wagged scripture as per usual , more than usual though.what next, i never knew what for, i think it had to do with job interviews or something. i knew i had done a test for a apprentice brick layer at the steelworks, i don't know. but for some reason my name was called out, i wasn't there . neither was a few others, the big search was on. we didn't know nothing. the next thing we was raided by teachers. rounded up , no use running , we were all busted.

29nov2014
the whole lot of us were suspended pending. being an important time, a lot were scared . i was more scared of the old boy flying off the handle, when he found out. there is a blank in my thinking about this. i know i was out . i had a few clothes and a sleeping bag, i still had the school locker to keep the books in. i just stayed over the bricks and slept there, i remember it started to rain there wasn't much of a roof in them bricks. i ended up sleeping under the portable classroom. i remember that. i don't know what happen after that, i think i ended up just going home and facing the music. the final result was we all had to come to school in full school uniform for the remainder of the year which was the final exam , whilst the rest of the form just wore casual gear. it was strange , cause usually i just wore levi's . now at assembly we had the full uniform and everyone else had just the casual look. it felt like a curse.

30nov2014
before i go on with this, i was a bit troubled about the baldy badger thing. in england if somethings mickey mouse it's shite, in australia if somethings mickey mouse it's alright. i checked out the online urban dictionary , they reckon a bald badger is a penis, to me a baldy badger is just some bald headed bloke ,cunt whatever. i think you got that. getting back to the curse of the saveloi , that was pretty much the end of the bricks. this next bit may have been before the bricks. i never really thought about it much at the time , but over the years i have on occasions. there is some relevance. i remember having to see this bloke, some straight looking dude. even then i didn't trust no one , even with the home life. the bloke just asked me these questions about shit. when i look back my behavior was outrageous to say the least, for that time. the questions that i remember the most was embarrassed . he kept asking me about  embarrassed, like what it meant. i just said when you do something and you get a red face. he kept going on about it. i didn't realise, until years later, that he was some kind of shrink, sussing me out. that bloke knew jack shit about me, or the fucking miserable life i had. even i didn't know who i was at that time. he also asked me if i believed in God.

1dec2014
in 1973 or when ever it was, god was dead. a concept. the reason i went to that school was , i'd had 7 years of catholic school and never thought my life was for the better. well was it . in 1973 i thought god had had its day, i pretty much believed in worldly stuff, like tv shows and records and materialism . so the answer was no.  it's easy to say no, or have it turn into a philosophy session of never ending dribble. not long after that he left. i never really thought about that time , until  years later. never saw the dude again. probably somewhere someone who has interest in me reads his report . i've still got some old school books from that time , and have a laugh sometimes when i come across them.

3dec2014
i'm pretty much bored with the bricks as much as you are. sav of the bricks. the curse is, the powers that be,  reaction and answer to such folie. at first it seemed like an achievement, but as time went on and things change it turned into a curse. their answer was to delete scripture from the curriculum (hey, i spelt a word with getting it wrong, achievement or curse). so, maybe still every tuesday finished 40 minutes earlier than every other day. i know i used to see them going home earlier on tuesdays when i drove pass there in the 80s and 90s. i often thought if they knew why they were going home early on tuesdays. thank the bricks.