Indelible Adventures

My first real career was that of a teacher.   The year was 1982 and I was finishing my third year as a primary school teacher.  This past year had been particularly tough one and the whole teaching thing was wearing a little thin to be honest.   This was my third school in three years and I had so far taught in two rural settings and this past year at an inner city in Melbourne’s western suburbs. My first teaching assignment was in a little community on the Victoria – South Australia border in a town called Apsley.  In those days the head teacher was provided with a house in the community in which they taught, but because the principal was a local the house was sitting vacant until I arrived.   A small three-teacher school on the edge of town surrounded by farms, idyllic setting you’d think but the town was almost devoid of anyone near my age...well of the fairer sex that is!   I was 22 years old and stuck in a town 2.5 h...

The year was 1972 and it was another hot, dry and dusty January (Clunes is situated on the dry side of the Great Dividing Range in Victoria), the wind blows pretty constantly over the heat-baked plains as it approaches the hills of the Great Divide so anyway to escape the heat was a plus.  Fortunately the town had a small but well used swimming pool and during our pre-work years spent almost every summer’s day at the pool, from the moment it opened at 10:00 am until it closed at 6:00 pm.   My younger brother James and I almost lived at the pool each summer, and as you can imagine were as brown as coconuts (no sunscreen in those days!).    One Saturday instead of going to the pool using my usual route down Ligar Street, fate intervened and for reasons that is completely lost on me now I decided to go to the pool via a rather circuitous route – down the primary school hill.   The school hill as it looks today, looking toward the pool - it doesn't look...

This week my son Zach and I had a long conversation about school, his feelings and some of his fears.  Surprisingly I was able to use last week’s blog to highlight that he wasn’t alone in his feelings of loneliness and despair at this point in his life, and that there seemed to be a number of parallels to me as a teenager.   Clearly mine were for different reasons, but we were able to draw on many similarities as an anchor for our conversation.   Although the conversation started innocently enough, it soon turned into a rather emotional and deep discussion with a few tears shed by both of us.  As I held him close I told him it was okay to cry, and in fact an important part of growing up and maturing and that even as adults we need to let our emotions out.     Zach in a less emotional setting, about to tackle an opponent in school rugby - May 2012 I know Zach will read this weeks blog with interest as he was peering over m...