wollongong

3march2015
you know you gotta be born somewhere, that ain't my fault. the story as i heard it. on my 21st birthday , the old boy told a story about him , my granddad and an aboriginal bloke by the name of bryant, were up kembla bowling club , drinking and playing pokies. they made a tape of the story and gave it to me. it's long gone, i wasn't real interested in it at that time, one or two listens. i don't know what happened to that tape, probably taped over or lost. i found the bit about the club interesting, me and a few friends used to go to that club in the seventies, probably even played them machines. they were the old machines around, not many people knew about that club, kembla heights bowling club. now we're talking 1958, in them days when the pub shut at whatever, on saturdays they could go up the bowling club and drink and whatever they did in them days. i remember the old boy saying they were playing the dinars, dinars was slang term for a shilling, i remember them dodgy old machines still up there. i was born at 5 am, at wollongong.

6march2015
although i was born in wollongong, my recollections are somewhat vague. mainly because i lived in another suburb. i've been thinking a tiny bit about my earliest memories. the earliest probably was going to the dump at night. wollongong had a dump pretty close to the city, although it's still a dump it's since been turn into a refuse dump, whatever that means. back then , early sixties , it was just a free dump. i remember all the rats eyes shining in the lights of the car, that was the highlight. there's probably bits and bits that pop up in thought now and then. like, a shop that sold gifts and things, i got one of them coffin money boxes with the hand that comes out and grabs the coin, and the smoking monkey with them paper cigs. a time that i remember was a, had too be there things. car had flat battery , mother and sister had to push , clutch start , car takes off, had to do a few laps to find them, it was raining and they were on someones porch. my mother said, do i remember that. the old mans reaction was very homeresk , you know homer simpson.

7march2015
i tend not to think to much about them early days, but things pop up as i walk the streets. for instance, i remember we used to line up along this brick fence, waiting to go to the town hall for some estedford  thing. we used to just be able to grab the top and pull yourself up , and peer over at the codgers playing bowls, i don't know what it is with this blog and bowling clubs. now the fence is about chest height. i went to the movie theatre a bit i can't really remember much , a few disney things maybe, they used to stand for God save the Queen, but that was phasing out as i got older. there was the occasional visit someone at the hospital , muck around up and down in the elevators while waiting for visiting hours, beat the elevator run up the steps, shit like that. a favourite shop window where you did the axis of symmetry  trick , and other people looked down the glass and laugh . every year there was shows around the place, still is in some places. the wollongong show is now defunct. it used to run from thursday to sunday in october, just a smaller version of the royal easter show in sydney.
 
8march2015
this is mainly just to get away from that other stuff for a time. i got more to say about the show, that'll come later. i thought wollongong meant meeting or market place in an aboriginal language. then i thought it was canberra that meant that. luckily , i got the trusty, the readers digest great encyclopedia dictionary. their got wollongong :- see, the monster comes!.  really? i also looked up canberra :- women's breasts , meeting place. now i know why the place is full of tits. most people know capt. cook stopped at botany bay in 1770, that's 18 years before the first fleet. on the 25th of april, that's anzac day, capt. cook sailed past wollongong. as they sailed up the coast , they named places in their journal. a place that is still called that to this day is red point, among other places. i sometimes think it would be good to have a time machine and travel back to that day and watch them sail past.

12march2015
if you haven't figured out by now, this is more of a before and after, not so much reminiscing, more of a feeling.

16march2015
that was short, i could go on about before, till the cows come home, and after the bull shits. like the show, the first night, thursday, they might have bands, just the opening night some acts or something in the entertainment vein . one i remember, although i was just that bit young to go the thursday night, they had the wrestling on, world championship wrestling, then. people like brute barnard , skull murphy, mario milano, king curtis and so on. a couple of louts  spat at king curtis and he chased them all the way up crown st. i just heard the stories at school. the show had boxing tents and strip tease type tents . i got to go in the strip tease tent with a neighbour , her daughter and my sister , i just tagged along. they were the only girls in the audience. i think they just wanted to see what happened. a woman done the feather bit, when she got down to just panty hose, with the horny vibe from the audience, they left taking me with them, i never got to see the map of tasmania.. there was a couple of them tents one called bubbles as i remember. i was about 10 or 11. a kid reckoned they had them  tents down narooma show too. he said they had a bloke out the front saying see nana in the nude, see nana in the nude. when they went in the bloke peeled  a banana.

25march2015
you get the idea, i think it's time to move on. without repeating what of i've already said previously . today i went into town , 4pm. okay it was raining , but what a fucking ghost town. they fucked the place. no bullshit. any time in the last 45 years you could go into town at 4pm there be some sort of something.