Aunty Amy's mustard – another 'tale from my wicked past'

A delightful posting here about plastic-tasting glug reminded me vividly of a saga with my Aunty Amy. I was living with her and Uncle Vic the whole three years I was at university in the late 1960s, after teaching ankle-biters for a couple of years.

    She insisted on packing me a cut lunch, which had its advantage in cost-saving for someone climbing down from a teacher's wage of about $50 to $19 per week. Apart from a piece of fruit, the lunch invariably consisted of two sizable packs of sandwiches. Aunty Amy was short and barrel-shaped, and her main mission in life was to try to make everyone else conform roughly those proportions. Me, anyway.

Avocado, not mustard. *SIGH*

    The only problem was that one packet of the two invariably contained ham sandwiches with a particular mustard on them I loathed. I figured I was being picky and should get used to it, so I ate them for some time. A farm life made it impossible to throw away good food.

    But, as in the piece mentioned above, it got to the stage where it was too late to say, "Don't put mustard on it" without raising a query from Aunty Amy about why, and I wasn't skilled enough in diplomacy to get around it.

    The problem was solved when I started meeting my youngest sister at the university refectory for lunch, she being in the first year of her degree. She had no objection to the mustard and was as poor as I, if not poorer, so for the best part of three years, Aunty Amy unknowingly provided lunch for both of us. [Had she discovered it, she would have simply doubled the rations.]

    Aunty Amy was Dad's sister, and much loved by us all. When we were little, on the rare times she was able to visit the farm, she snuck out to us kids on the verandah and told bum jokes.

    Aunty Amy was wicked, you see. That's why we loved her so much.

    "What's the difference," she would ask us, blue eyes sparkling, "between a postbox and an elephant's bum?"

    "I don't know," we'd chorus, with evil expectancy in our eyes.

    "Well," she'd snort, "I'm not going to send any of you to post my letters!"

    They just don't make them like that any more.

    Her only complaint was that she couldn't sit babies on her lap, "...because I don't have any lap!" she'd say sadly.

    But oh, she was rude, in the way the Vicar of Dibley is when telling rude jokes to Alice.

    "Do you know what I'm going to buy if I win the lottery?" She'd make sure our mother wasn't around, or pretend to, to make it more conspiratorial.

    "What will you buy?" we asked, knowing it was going to be deliciously rude.

    "I'm going to get a new bum," she said, "because mine's got a hole in it."

    Unlike the Vicar's Alice, we were rude too. We needed no explanation of the joke, and a splendid one it was, you must admit.

    If you're rude.*

___
*No kidding, this just came up on my tweetline: "Touch the hole in your life, and there flowers will bloom." ~ Zen saying. [I suppose now you can be certain that Aunty Amy and I are related.]

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Two new brain tumour papers

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 I am publicising only two very recent papers on new brain tumour trials and therapies, but I do it with important qualifications and differing reasons.

It's interesting that the first has taken so long, not only to have this trial done but to get it into the public arena. The fact is that it takes time and money to get to this point. If it's to be done properly, with intelligence, planning and post-number-crunching, then a good case must be made for investing in all of this.

Even more confusing is the conflicting evidence, and I'm living proof of it. The story on the first says that Avastin offers only 'extra weeks' on average for GBM victims.* In my case, a person in his 60s, Avastin has given me an extra two years or more so far, although it is clear that I am at the stage where the 'cure' becomes the 'poison'.

It's done its job. I can't ask for more, but the fact that it's an unbreakable pact between Avastin and me may explain in part why I did not opt for it months before I did – a question I've been asked several times. There are other reasons as well, but I won't go into them further here.

My point is that this report can have a negative impact on decisions by Governments to extend PBS subsidy to drugs like Avastin, if those who decide these matters think 4.5 months is not worth the $20,000+ expense. This means many may miss out on significant reasonable quality of life extension simply because they can't afford tens of thousands of dollars to see if it's useful for them. The benefit as in my case, is measured in years, not months. This could well be the case for others, like young parents.

In the first case, Avastin is in use in Australia, obviously, or I wouldn't be here now. In the second piece of research, it is likely that because it is only in the trials stages in the US, it won't be of any benefit to those in Australia who have brain tumours now. This is not to say that it has no long-term value, of course, but often hopes are raised, only to be dashed. 

I have taken chunks from these articles but you should read the originals at the sites indicated, as they say important things I leave out. I offer them to you to help move debate along as to new therapies and how they might work. As I said, please read the full article if you want a real understanding of its substance.

The first is a British study, the second American. Three dots [...] indicates where parts of the original article have been omitted. My sincere thanks to all involved.

Article 1 

Drug offers brain cancer victims extra weeks of normal life

By Victoria Fletcher

Patients with incurable brain tumours could be given new hope thanks to a drug currently used on bowel cancer, a study suggests.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) kills more people under 40 than any other cancer... the most common and most dangerous of brain tumours.

Unlike other cancers, which are more likely to strike as patients get older, GBM is just as prevalent in patients who are young and healthy.

Unfortunately, the average sufferer will only survive for 14 months after diagnosis... and 2,500 die from their tumours annually.

However, a new trial published yesterday shows patients can be given an extra four-and-a-half months without their condition worsening** if they also receive the drug Avastin.

The trial on 911 men and women suggests Avastin can slow the growth of the tumour, giving patients a few more months of relatively normal life before the tumour grows so big that it starts to destroy their ability to speak, their behaviour, their memory and their movement.

...  'Giving them a few extra months to [prepare] before they deteriorate and cannot speak is important. This is an endpoint in itself, even if this drug does not improve overall survival rates.'

...At the moment, patients diagnosed with GBM are usually offered surgery to remove the tumour, followed by cycles of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. For most, however, relapse is inevitable and half will have died from the disease within 14 months. Around 25 per cent will manage to survive for two years, while fewer than ten per cent live for five years.

Avastin, which is made by the pharmaceutical giant Roche, works by reducing blood supply to the tumour and slowing its growth. It is already used to treat colorectal, breast and ovarian cancers.

Some patients in the UK already receive Avastin to treat recurrent forms of brain cancer, because it is not yet approved for this use on the NHS....  'In principle, anything that slows the progression of GBM has to be a good thing,' he said.

 'But this disease is such a minefield and it's important to remember different patients are affected differently, depending on which side of the brain [and the location D.W.] the tumour is found.

 'My wife was climbing mountains after she was diagnosed but then the tumour progressed and it was on the left of her brain, so it affected movement, personality and memory.

 'I would want any new drug to ensure it gives patients four more months when they can climb mountains and not four more when the disease has already robbed them of their speech and memory.'

It currently takes the average GP three months to diagnose GBM.

This is because symptoms include severe headaches, vomiting and blurred vision, which can be attributed to other conditions such as migraine. Sufferers may also experience an itchy head and feel as if something is running across their scalp.

Article 2

Brain cancer breakthrough: Experimental vaccine trains immune system to target remaining tumor cells after surgery

November 14, 2012 by John Murray....

UC Irvine oncologists are looking for new ways to treat glioblastoma multiforme, the deadliest type of brain cancer. While surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiation is the current standard of care, it doesn't fully eliminate the cancer. The goal is to develop an additional therapy that seeks out and destroys the cancer cells that inevitably remain.

Dr. Daniela Bota is testing whether enlisting the immune system to fight the tumor can complement surgery, drugs and radiation and improve a patient's odds of surviving....

"Cancer cells are like crabgrass: Once they take root, they're hard to eradicate.... The immune system is powerful, but it must be trained to recognize these cancer cells before it can do its job."

Enter the experimental glioblastoma vaccine. Think of it as a personal brain cancer smoothie: Pulverized pieces of a patient's surgically excised tumor are blended in a laboratory with his or her own white blood cells. When injected back into the body, the concoction programs the individual's immune system with new targets – any remaining cancer cells....

A previous trial demonstrated that this vaccine is safe and, in some cases, doubled patients' median survival after diagnosis from 15 months to about 31 months....

A glioblastoma vaccine does not eliminate the need for brain surgery, which is also required to collect the cancer cells used in the "smoothie."...

"Everyone responds differently, but immunotherapy has a great chance to be the next leap forward in cancer treatment," Bota says. 

Provided by University of California, Irvine

There is much more I could say on this, as it leaves many things open-ended. Another time perhaps – but lastly, and the most important thing – every case is different, depending on a variety of factors.

I may not comment on any or all comments, but others should feel free to discuss this in the comments section.

____ 
*Am I allowed to use the terms 'victims' and 'sufferers' for those struck down by GBMs? Some people object on the grounds that they are negative terms. Well guess what? It's not a positive disease! The terms are deadly accurate, so I'll use them if I like.

**In my case, my condition improved substantially – and immediately.

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The first picture show

Anyone who knows me well will probably know also that I love The Last Picture Show – that bleak, stark b&w Bogdanovitch film set in a dusty tired little Texan nowheresville.

   Like matter and anti-matter, things have their reverse somewhere in time and space, and this incident in Calliope illustrates it.

   Shell Oil Co. would periodically bring travelling movie shows to little places like ours, mainly propaganda about how wonderful Shell was in helping to build our fair country by providing services for various progressive operations of national importance.

   One project I remember involved great tractors with a ball and chain between them, to mow down masses of the only spindly vegetation that could grow naturally in great swathes of the country. Then, using fertilisers sold by Shell, Gardens of Eden could result. Stuff like that.

   They also brought cartoons like Woody Woodpecker, a Movietone newsreel or two, and some health films, so we hicks could learn about sanitation and other things that hadn't crossed our minds.

    Because we had no movie theatre, they'd set up in the Diggers Arms dance hall, starting when it got dark enough to see the screen. Country people got up early and if Shell were going to get its propaganda in, then the show couldn't go very late.

   We loved these free shows and gladly put up with the boring stuff just to see the cartoons, which would be the subject of discussion in the playground for weeks after. No doubt we also absorbed the idea how altruistic Shell was in contributing to the growth of our nation.

    People brought pillows and blankets for the littlies, and put them on the floor down at the front.

   On the occasion I'm describing now, the Marr family, backwoodspeople even by Calliope standards, turned up for the show. There was a tribe of them that I don't think anyone, maybe not even their parents, could keep an accurate count of. Ma and Pa Marr just had fun year in and out, and kids kept on turning up. Had Ma Marr been in the USSR, she would have been declared a Mother of the Soviet Union and received the Order of Lenin from Stalin himself.

   This was their first picture show. First ever movie for the lot of them.

   The kids sat on the floor at the front, cross-legged, noses in a line nearly touching the screen until someone told them they'd see it better from slightly further back. They weren't entirely convinced, based on the principle that the closer you get to something like a red-backed spider, the more clearly you could see it – but they obliged. They were also told to stop getting up and down in front of the screen, which was a bit of a disappointment to them as they'd never been able to make shadows with the kerosene lamp at home anywhere near as good as those made by the film projector.

   They took seriously a threat from the back of the hall from Blue Savage that he would bite off the next Marr head or hand that made a shadow on the screen. With a couple of rums and several 10 oz. beer chasers under (and above) his belt, Blue Savage and his promises were not to be ignored.

   If you think I'm laying it on a bit thick, let me tell you that the first thing that came on the screen – maybe a movietone news – was such a delight that all the Marrs burst into gales of laughter. Regardless of subject matter, they chuckled their way through it, and roared gleefully at anything that moved on that thar screen. 

   To them, the cartoons were magic. Woody Woodpecker, which was in colour, did amazing things like getting chased by a live circular saw blade. They screamed in fear and delight, and were greatly relieved when Woody's indomitable spirit saved him time and again.

   Of course, everyone else in the vill-arge, seasoned Shell free-movie veterans, became highly amused at their antics, and there was much mirth all round. Even the serious bits of the propaganda soundtrack regarding Shell's vital contribution to the nation were compromised. In spite of earnest Shell executives on the screen, no-one could now hear them because of the squeals of glee coming from the Marr camp, plus the general guffaws from everyone else. Only the Shell guy seemed to mind about that, but he was outnumbered. Everyone else was having a rip-roaring time.

   The Marr chuckling bonanza lulled slightly until the Health film came on. This one was a colour cartoon about building an earth closet lavatory. What did they think we did – build nests to live in like gorillas, befoul it till it became unliveable, and then move on and make another one?

   The movie was at the stage where the dunny toilet lavatory was complete except for the cladding; in other words, at this stage, it had no wall covering. For a touch of humour, they had a little smurf-like boy character hurry into the dunny, and is about to drop his pants when he discovers, to his horror, that it's a completely see-through structure. But he is saved by the magic of Disney-like cartooning. The walls are added in a flash, wrap-around style, and a door appears exactly where a dunny door should be.

   This was altogether too much for the Marrs. They screamed with laughter at the smurfie boy who had been so nearly caught with his pants down for all to see. They rolled round the floor in hysterics and the littlest ones hugged each other at the spectacle. Never in their lives had any of them, I'm sure, seen anything so utterly side-splitting.

   It must be said that the laughter was infectious. You know where someone is in hysterics so much that you catch it too? That's what happened. The whole hall was full of people laughing so hard that not even a Blue Savage threat could have brought order to the proceedings. There wasn't much chance of that – he was nearly pissing himself laughing anyway, tears coming from both eyes, which was as near as Blue Savage had ever been seen crying – probably even by his mother.

   All were enjoying themselves except for the Shell man, swapping the reels of film over, convinced he had come to a backwater of lunacy so uncouth that its inhabitants probably did need basic toilet training. He still had several pieces of propaganda to run.

   He needn't have worried, for here's the funniest thing of all. The Marr kids, every last one of them, had hystericked themselves out. They were used to going to bed with the chooks every night of their lives. By the end of that Health film, not halfway through the proceedings, they'd had enough excitement, and not even they knew it.

   They simply sank exhausted from cross-legged on the floor to prone, and fell fast asleep in seconds. There was not another peep out of one of them for the remainder of the show. Not a murmur.

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Myth does it better: the Parade of Ants

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Shiva Nataraja – Lord of the Dance

In the last posting I wrote in the Illusion, truth and reality series, I tried to indicate how myth could be a better form of transmitting truth than preaching. It tells a story – and we all love a story. It doesn't have to be dogmatic, and it uses exactly the same method as the great religious teachers such as Jesus and the Buddha used – parable and metaphor. 

This is an example from the Hindu tradition, which tells its greatest truths in epic myths – the Mahabharata and the Ramayana in particular. This myth comes from an excerpt from the wonderful book by Heinrich Zimmer (Joseph Campbell, ed.): Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. I gave it to my students in Indian history every year, and always had my suspicions that I could have graded them on their reaction to it.

Here's the story.

The Parade of Ants

The endless cycle of Indras

Indra slew the dragon, a giant titan that had been couching on the mountains in the limbless shape of a cloud serpent, holding the waters of heaven captive in its belly.

   The god flung his thunderbolt into the midst of the ungainly coils; the monster shattered like a stack of withered rushes. The waters burst free and streamed in ribbons across the land, to circulate once more throughout the body of the world.

   This flood is the flood of life and belongs to all. It is the sap of field and forest, the blood coursing in the veins. The monster had appropriated the common benefit, massing his ambitious, selfish hulk between heaven and earth, but now was slain. The juices again were pouring. The titans were retreating to the underworlds; the gods were returning to the summit of the central mountain of the earth, there to reign from on high. ...

   [Indra] summoned Vishvakarman, the god of arts and crafts, and commanded him to erect such a palace as would be worthy of the king of the gods. The miraculous genius, Vishvakarman, succeeded in constructing in a single year a shining residence, marvellous with palaces and gardens, lakes and towers.

   But as work progressed, the demands of Indra became even more exacting and his unfolding visions vaster. ... he developed visions beyond visions of new and more complicated marvels. Presently the divine craftsman, brought to despair, decided to seek succour from [the creator god, Brahma].

   [Brahma assured Vishvakarman that he would soon be relieved of his burden.]

 
The brahmin boy

The next morning, a brahmin boy carrying the staff of a pilgrim appeared at the gate of Indra. ... The two retired to the hall of Indra, where the king asked: "O venerable Boy, tell me the purpose of your coming."

   The beautiful child replied with a voice that was as deep and soft as the slow thundering of auspicious rainclouds. "O King of Gods, I have heard of the mighty palace you are building, and have come to refer to you the questions in my mind. ... no Indra before you has ever succeeded in completing such a palace as yours is to be."

   Indra, full of the wine of triumph, is amused at the mere boy's pretension to a knowledge of Indras earlier than himself. "Tell me, Child! Are they then so very many, the Indras and Vishvakarmans whom you have seen - or at least, whom you have heard of?"... [The boy says he knew Indra's father, Kashyapa, the old Tortoise man, and his grandfather, ... son of Brahma. ..]

   "Oh King of Gods, I have known the dreadful dissolution of the universe. I have seen all perish, again and again, at the end of every cycle. At that terrible time, every single atom dissolves into the primal, pure waters of eternity, whence originally all arose. Everything then goes back into the fathomless, wild infinity of the ocean, which is covered with utter darkness and is empty of every sign of animate being.

   Ah, who will count the universes that have passed away, or the creations that have risen afresh, again and again, from the formless abyss of the vast waters? Who will number the passing ages of the world, as they follow each other endlessly? And who will search through the wide infinities of space to count the universes side by side, each containing its Brahma, its Vishnu, its Shiva?

   Who count the Indras in them all - those Indras side by side, who reign at once in all the innumerable worlds; those others who passed away before them; or even the Indras who succeed each other in any given line, ascending to godly kingship, one by one, and, one by one, passing away?

   King of Gods, there are among your servants certain who maintain that it may be possible to number the grains of sand on earth and the drops of rain that fall from the sky, but no one will ever number all those Indras. This is what the Knowers know."

 
A procession of ants

[The boy continued to speak in this manner while, meanwhile,] a procession of ants had made its appearance in the hall. In military array, in a column four yards wide, the tribe paraded across the floor. [This sight set the holy child laughing. At Indra's stammering request, he explains his action]:

   "I laughed because of the ants. The reason is not to be told. Do not ask me to disclose it. The seed of woe and the fruit of wisdom are enclosed within this secret. It is the secret that smites with an axe the tree of worldly vanity, hews away at its roots, and scatters its crown. This secret is a lamp to those groping in ignorance. This secret lies buried in the wisdom of the ages, and is rarely revealed even to saints. This secret is the living air of those ascetics who renounce and transcend mortal existence; but worldlings, deluded by desire and pride, it destroys."

   The boy smiled and sank into silence. Indra regarded him, unable to move. "O Son of a Brahmin," the king pleaded presently, with a new and visible humility, "I do not know who you are. You would seem to be Wisdom Incarnate. Reveal to me this secret of the ages, this light that dispels the dark."

   Thus requested to teach, the boy opened to Indra the hidden wisdom. "I saw the ants, O Indra, filing in long parade. Each was once an Indra like you, each by virtue of pious deeds once ascended to the rank of a king of gods. But now, through many rebirths, each has become again an ant.

   This army is an army of former Indras. "Piety and high deeds elevate the inhabitants of the world to the glorious realm of the celestial mansions, or to the higher domains of Brahma and Shiva and to the highest sphere of Vishnu; but wicked acts sink them into the worlds beneath, into pits of pain and sorrow.

   It is by deeds that one merits happiness or anguish, and becomes a master or a serf. It is by deeds that one attains to the rank of a king or Brahmin, or of some god or of an Indra or a Brahma. And through deeds again, one contracts disease, acquires beauty and deformity, or is reborn in the condition of a monster. "This is the whole substance of the secret. This wisdom is the ferry to beatitude across the ocean of hell." 

   Life in the cycle of the countless rebirths is like a vision in a dream. The gods on high, the mute trees and the stones, are alike apparitions in this phantasy. But Death administers the law of Time. Ordained by Time, Death is the master of all. Perishable as bubbles are the good and the evil of the beings of the dream. In unending cycles the good and evil alternate.

   Hence, the wise are attached to neither, neither the evil nor the good. The wise are not attached to anything at all." The boy concluded the appalling lesson and quietly regarded his host. The king of gods, for all his celestial splendor, had been reduced in his own regard to insignificance.


The old hermit 

The Chinese equivalent

Meanwhile another amazing apparition had entered the hall. [An old hermit, his head piled with matted hair] strode directly to Indra, squatted on the floor, and remained motionless as a rock. [When asked, he says to Indra:]

   "Each flicker of the eyelids of the great Vishnu registers the passing of a Brahma. Everything below that sphere of Brahma is as insubstantial as a cloud taking shape and again dissolving."... Abruptly the holy man vanished.

   It had been the God Shiva himself. Simultaneously, the brahmin boy, who had been Vishnu, disappeared as well.

   The king was alone, baffled and amazed. Indra pondered; and the events seemed to him to have been a dream. But he no longer felt any desire to magnify his heavenly splendour or to go on with the construction of his palace.

   He summoned Vishvakarman. Graciously greeting the craftsman with honeyed words, he heaped on him jewels and precious gifts, then, with a sumptuous celebration, sent him home.

   Indra now desired redemption. He had acquired wisdom, and wished only to be free. He entrusted the pomp and burden of his office to his son, and prepared to retire to the hermit life of the wilderness, whereupon his beautiful and passionate queen, Shachi, was overcome with grief.

   Weeping in sorrow and utter despair, Shachi resorted to Indra's ingenious house priest and spiritual advisor, the Lord of Magic Wisdom, Brihaspati. Bowing at his feet, she implored him to divert her husband's mind from its stern resolve. The resourceful counsellor of the gods... listened thoughtfully to the complaint of the voluptuous, disconsolate goddess, and knowingly nodded assent. 

   With a wizard's smile, he took her hand and conducted her to the presence of her spouse. In the role of spiritual teacher, he discoursed on the virtues of the spiritual life, but on the virtues also, of the secular. He gave to each its due. 

   [Indra ought not to abandon his life, but he most certainly ought to keep the endless cycles of the universe in mind in order to have the proper humility and perspective regarding his works in life.

   The vision of the countless universes bubbling into existence side by side, and the lesson of the unending series of Indras and Brahmas would have annihilated every value of individual existence. Between this boundless, breathtaking vision and the opposite problem of the limited role of the short-lived individual, the myth effected the re-establishment of a balance.

   Brihaspati, wisdom incarnate, teaches Indra how to grant to each sphere its due. We are taught to recognize the divine, the impersonal sphere of eternity, revolving ever and agelessly through time. But we are also taught to esteem the transient sphere of the duties and the pleasures of individual existence, which is as real and as vital to the living human as a dream is to the sleeping soul.]

It doesn't matter if you have problems with the notion of reincarnation, or a profusion of gods. All that's needed is to stand back from the story, and draw out its essential message[s]. 

   That's the beauty of myth. It talks to us at our own level of understanding, and this changes with time and experience of the world. But what we must not do is to treat the myth as historical fact, and defend it word for word as if it were.

___
Tandava: Shiva's Cosmic Dance p. 151-155
My thanks to the author of a review of Zimmer's book for excerpts, some of which I have corrected. As he is using an invisible page I presume he does not want to be acknowledged. I will happily do so if he wishes.

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The match-head cracker caper

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A few people have discovered recently my Calliope fireworks saga and it reminded me of another explosive event of my childhood. 

   No, nothing like that....

   Some kid at school reckoned you could shave the heads off matches, wrap them in tinfoil [there being no alfoil when I was about ten] hit it with a hammer and it would make a very satisfactory bang.

The real thing! Oz-made.

   So I sneaked up to the cupboard where the boxes of matches were stored, and nicked a full box. Fifty top quality Redheads matches in a box – the real thing, not the imported rubbish you get now.

   Our house, as were most Queensland farmhouses, was on stilts about two metres above the ground. I went downstairs, got out my trusty pocket-knife last used for making arrows, and carefully shaved off the matchheads one by one.

   I buried the matchsticks under the old slightly raised floor in the centre of the space downstairs amongst the ant-lions' funnel-shaped traps. I then wrapped a pleasing quantity of the match-heads [i.e., the lot] tightly in the tin-foil I had commandeered from the second kitchen cupboard drawer.

Ant-lion traps

   We had a flat steel disc on which we hammered the kinks out of objects like No 8 wire. It was always next to the cobbler's last used to give many a shoe a few months' life extension. Perfect for the experiment.

   I got the big claw hammer from the bench next to the rifles and ammo, placed my small foil package on the disc, and struck it tentatively.

   Nothing. It just flattened it a bit.

   I wasn't that surprised. I struck it again, a good bit harder.

   Nothing again. I guessed it needed more force than I thought.

   Third time lucky? I gave it a good wallop, and I can tell you, years of driving three inch nails into hardwood made me no slouch with any sort of hammer.

   Nada. Nix. The package was holding up well, but looking more like one of those little Dutch pikelets in size and shape – maybe a bit flatter. What are they? That's right – poffertjes. One of those.

   What a waste of time and effort, I thought, now thoroughly cranky. I picked up the hammer intending to smash that stupid poffertje to bits.

   Bang. It flattened a bit more. I raised the hammer and hit it full force. Twice, in quick succession.

   It wasn't so much the god-almighty bang that made me fall backwards, it was those ringing waves of sound in my ears. My head was an echo chamber. I felt like my now-entirely-successful experiment had been performed right inside my head. Not even the loudest bunger I had ever lit had achieved such distinction.

   Fortunately for me, my sisters were playing with our cousins at their house across the creek, and Mum and Dad were both at the dairy. Had either of my parents heard it they would have been certain I'd fired a cartridge from the double-barrelled shotgun, with unimaginable consequences. I'd cocked and fired that empty gun a thousand times, but would never have dared put a shell in the breech.

   Anyway, I had proved the point. For half an hour afterwards, my ears were still ringing, but I had made a glorious bang that I'd have enjoyed much more if I were expecting it.

   My ears are ringing now. Not from the memory, but from my permanent state of tinnitus.

   People speak so softly these days, don't you reckon? What? Speak up dammit, can't you?

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Religion in post-war Calliope 4

[Final part]

As I said, it was all about the children. If they were raised in the 'other' faith, the implications on a personal level could be enormous, or so it seemed. Most times the decision to cross the line was life-changing. A very bright girl destined to go places might get married off and start producing babies at nineteen and not stop till she was forty plus, the family's ambitions for her unfulfilled, even if she were happy with her life.

   If the family became Protestant, then Catholic members worried that their grandkids were destined for hell, not having been baptised in the faith, thus fearing that they had failed in the one truly religious duty that mattered.

   One thing was certain. Each could not easily retain his or her own faith, except on a most private basis. It was usually all or nothing on the quite rare occasions where it happened at all, but there was much nipping in the bud. The church where they were married signified which "all".

   This wasn't restricted to Catholic-Protestant connections either. If a C of E/Presbyterian marriage was on the cards, it could also be a matter of family honour as to which church it was, as again that would determine the religious fate of the kids. Once in, there was no turning back.

   It wasn't really about dogma, it was about family. "Religious" rivalries often are. In Northern Ireland, where are the theological debates? There are none. It's about land, money, jobs, power ... anything but theology.

   In Australia, there remained an element of class as well, the invisible luggage from very old rivalries and hatreds between British Protestants and Irish Catholics. As descendants of Irish immigrants, many Australian Catholics were lower class (by timeworn and inaccurate definition), although it was not really recognised as such in little places like Calliope. Yet the Catholic church itself was well away from the township centre – in the town as it was then – where they could practise their mysterious rites without anyone else having to know about them.

   Amongst themselves, in the playground, children were hardly aware of it, except for the occasional spouting of propaganda on religion overheard from adult conversation. What mattered at school to the kids were sporting ability and grades, often in that order.

   But it was always a matter of interest to discover the religion of three people - the teacher, the policeman and the publican. God only knows why. It made not a scrap of difference in practice to the way they did their job, but somehow it just mattered.

   I hope that you realise I am voicing old prejudices here, playing the game of "them" and "us", and I certainly have no convictions that makes one sect of Christianity any "better" than another to me. Each "tribe" had its place, but when it came to the crunch, community in the wider sense was always more important than creed. 

   We could not afford any holier-than-thou nonsense in our family. A quick survey shows that strict sectarian boundaries were a luxury a close-knit family like ours could not have afforded.

   After all, judging by the Bible she left behind, my grandmother on my father's side must have been a Catholic who crossed the line to marry a man who, my sister tells me, seems to have been one of the original trustees of the stark little Union Church sketched here. Their children, twelve in number, were married either as C of E or Presbyterian, nominally at least. As well, there were times in little communities when there weren't that many available spouses in good nick, and people had to be less picky than they might have been otherwise; individuals and families. There are, for example, many names on the War Memorial Monument just up from this church.

   Of my parents' children, we have managed to squeeze in three intermarriages within the Protestant camp, and two between those born into Protestant and Catholic households, with no blood on the congoleum. 

   Admittedly, most of these marriages were just a few years beyond the 1950s, coming into the time when the worst of this nonsensical prejudice was being swept away by social change. Family and job mobility tell the story. This resulted in breaking the stranglehold of the extended family over the nuclear. 

   ...which is just a bad academic way of saying kids moved away from the power and influence of their wider family.

   All is not what it seems, that's what I meant, in spite of some of the arrant prejudice I've been spouting. 

   Here endeth this epistle. Please turn to Hymn Number 365, O God Our Help in Ages Past.

pt 1 [979 words] | pt 2 [940 words] | pt 3 [846 words] | pt 4 [770 words]

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Religion in post-war Calliope 3

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Now, it is meet and right so to do. On marriage in our tiny township....

There was no problem if the boy and the girl were an exact religious match, like blood types. They got married in their church (any other sort of marriage ceremony being unheard of) had their kids baptised there, and went to that church on Sundays (if they went at all – it wasn't a requirement amongst Prods, but I think that the priests of the Cattleticks had strong views on that, based on Papal Encyclicals. So, they marshalled the troops to Confession and Mass as often as they could.)

   Confession. What a weird concept that was to us non-Catholics. Getting in there and routinely admitting to all the terrible things we'd done was alien to us. That was between us and the Main Man if at all; no intermediaries to blackmail us with our crimes thanks. Just not on, as Gough would say; and Gough, as all Australians know, is as close to God as we get. (Right, IBW?)

   We were glad we were born into the right tribe. The idea of confession scared the hell out of me. 

   Oh hang on, that was exactly the idea. By George and Henry Higgins, I think I've got it.

   But coming back to marriage.... that event usually had its origins in the Saturday night dance. When a boy asked a girl up to dance a few times in a row, it rarely passed unnoticed, particularly by mothers, if present. Was s/he... the other type? Acceptable marriage material or off-limits?

   Really, in most cases, that was a rhetorical question as far as religion was concerned. Everybody knew what everyone else was, except when a stranger came to the dance – a townie whose caste was unknown – and mothers, often sitting next to their daughters at the dance, would peer suspiciously at the interloper, on a number of grounds, his religious ties being one of the question marks.

   If it were a girl out to the dance from Gladstone, the boy's mother would develop a keen interest, checking out before too late what her son might be getting into (metaphorically speaking, she hoped fervently). That was something which would remain unknown until or if the boy asked her out to the pictures at the Civic in Gladstone.

   It was a matter of family honour, you see. Everyone hears about Hindu and Muslim boys and girls falling in love and wanting to tie the knot, and the fate of star crossed lovers. But in Calliope, this could be just as much a question, though not quite so ominous in its consequences. It mattered not how indifferent to religious observance the other family was – there was no way s/he was going to marry him/her if s/he didn't cross the line and get married in our church – whichever "our" might be.

   It was all about the kids. If the besotted pair were so hooked on each other that one was willing to cross that thin red line, it was OK with the winning team, whatever fuss the other family kicked up behind the scenes. But if one lot had to go to a marriage ceremony in that other church, it was often a great loss of face for family and tribe. Sometimes it wasn't to be countenanced at all. People of strong religious conviction, a dedication often discovered with great suddenness even by themselves in this time of crisis, even refused point blank to go into that building.

   Usually the ill-fated romance ended well before that point, with the relationship broken off. Girls wept tears by the million when their beloved went off to marry some other "suitable" girl. A boy would yield to his mother's emotional blackmail if applied. A jilted sweetheart sometimes never married as a result of a fatally broken romance, and served out the rest of her life looking after her aging parents, and/or being godmother to hordes of nephews and nieces if she were lucky enough to have them.

   The maiden aunt was not an uncommon phenomenon – more so, it seemed to me, than the confirmed bachelor. Men had more mobility and could move away to greener pastures, where they de-bachelorised themselves or had it done for them by some available city wench in a new place who cared not tuppence for religious impediments to Happily Ever After.

   Some spinsters (ghastly term!) even ended up at Goodna, getting regular shock treatment for their depression, and slowly went mad. To escape that looming fate, others jumped into the back seat of the next boyfriend's car after a dance, were promptly knocked up and a marriage was hastily arranged anyway, regardless of any other consideration. A bastard in the family was one thing above all that couldn't be tolerated, its presence an eternal reminder of the family's shame. It could not be. It was against nature.

   It wasn't, of course. It was just the opposite. Mother Nature and raging hormones had much to answer for, and she didn't give a flying fox about the politics of marriage in our little town.

pt 1 [979 words] | pt 2 [940 words] | pt 3 [846 words] | pt 4 [770 words]

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Religion in post-war Calliope 2

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Back to the main theme. I have no stats to back this up, but my guess would be that our township was 40% Church of England, 25% Presbyterian, 25% Catholic and 10% Other. Something like that. As there was no religion classed as 'Atheism', those who professed no religion were probably called C of E as well, to save them from the embarrassment of being in a group no-one ever classified.

   There were a couple of families from the scrub whose names I won't mention but whose religion was indeterminate, so they would have been bundled in with the C of E on school enrolment just to give them a slim but best possible chance of redemption on Dat Jujm'nt Day (and to keep the School Register in good order).

   I don't mention family names any more, because each time I've said something in this blog that I thought individuals or families I've named would never get to see, they damn well have, and they've written to me, Fortunately it's with only mild protestations and good-humour, and not defamation suits. But I've had a good run in this respect and don't want to bust it. No names, no pack drill.

   There was rarely any debate raised at school between Catholics and Prods because the kids had not the faintest idea about church history a million years ago in weird places like Europe. The Catholics, we were told, did everything they were instructed to by this Pope character, mainly to have lots of children. That was it. Go forth and multiply, yea, as quick as you can. And they did. There were four kids in our family, but that was a mere trifle compared with the Catholics, who followed Father's orders to the letter and produced babies by the score.

   The men were generally sweet with that, but having a kid once a year until the end of their child-bearing days was a bit of a strain on the women, who nevertheless performed their maternal duties admirably.

   I got the idea, probably from what I overheard from adult conversation in the right camp, that this was the only real instruction via the priest. Make babies. Later on when I was stepping out with a Catholic girl, she raised theological arguments about this English king called Henry VIII who, to save on alimony and arguments, had chopped the heads off almost 8 wives (which was why he was called Henry VIII don't you know) but I said to her I was sure it was more complicated than that.

   I wasn't all that sure. I didn't have a clue really, but hell, you've got to defend the religion of your birth, haven't you? You can see why I ended up teaching history and religion at university now I guess.

   So yes, I was C of E. You may already have figured out I wasn't born a Catholic. I think we were well in the majority, particularly with the Don't Knows thrown in. This had its comforts, as there's always a measure of safety in numbers. A neighbour of ours one Christmas time was at the farm having a drink and made a comment that burned into my brain:

   "You might think it’s the Communists we have to worry about, but I'm telling you, it’s the Roman Catholics."

   There were, as you may gather, no Catholics present, just a group with the correct religious and political opinions. I'd never seen any evidence at school of the Clear and Present Danger from the Catholic kids, but when adults say things with such conviction, you can't ignore them, can you?

   So far, so good. It hasn't happened yet, but ... you never know.

Calliope Union Church 2007 - barely changed from 1957!

   We shared the little church with the Presbyterians, better known amongst us (non-Presbyterian) kids as 'Pressbuttons'. I don't know if we made that up or if it has wide currency throughout the Queen's realm. We thought it was good for a belly-laugh anyway. But because there was a C of E altar at the business end of the church, the Pressbuttons apparently put some sort of a screen across at that end when they worshipped, to save them from the hell-bent sin of association with graven images or something.

   I can't even remember if there was a C of E crucifix at the pulpit end or not, but the more I think about, yes, there was. Some even said that the Presbyterians worshipped facing the front door, with their back to the pulpit. This may or may not have been the case. You can be sure some diligent Calliope Presbyterian is going to read this and correct me if it's not (which is fine by me; I am just a Humble Seeker after Truth). Oh, and they didn't kneel to pray either – they sat – which seemed to me to be a very solid point in favour of going over to them if I renounced the faith of my birth and had to have another one for the Census.

   I think it's the Scottish heritage. Those lads and lassies, they don't kneel for anyone. It's eyeball to eyeball for them. I know, because I fought a Pressbutton once. In Grade 1 it was. She was fierce.

   Where the Methodists or any other sundry groups worshipped I haven't the foggiest.

   The real interest in all this is the sociology of religion – a fancy way of saying how things worked out in practice. The critical issue – and it was a biggie, I can tell you – was marriage. This really tells the story, which is where I shall resume, when it is meet and proper so to do.

pt 1 [979 words] | pt 2 [940 words] | pt 3 [846 words] | pt 4 [770 words]

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Religion in post-war Calliope 1

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Let me tell you about religion in a tiny country township in Central Queensland in the 1950s. From the inside.

   Firstly, I must make it clear that when I say 'religion', there was only one in our township, and that was Christianity. It never occurred to me as a child that there might be any other. We hadn’t been warned. No other religion was on the School Syllabus, I am certain of that.

   So no other religion in the entire world was relevant to our lives. I'd never even seen a person who admitted to being anything other than Christian. If anyone had asked you what your religion was in Calliope, they would have meant which sect within Christianity. If you'd said "Christian", they would think you were being obtuse and want a proper answer, with a clip over the ear for being cheeky as well.

   Come to think of it, religion was a taboo subject for the most part. It was personal and no-one had the right to ask you. In any case, if you were both local, they would already know. It was a bit of a sissy thing to talk about, and men, at least, never discussed it man to man. If you had questions or doubts, you usually kept them to yourself. I mean, to ask an adult "Is God real?" might have brought who knows what sort of fearsome response. How could you guess? Adult disapproval would have been one thing; Godly objection to the question invited disaster. Shut up. Play it safe.

   You might think that just one religion would simplify matters in the Calliope what-happens-when-you-die department. Maybe it did. Good people went to heaven and bad people went to hell. Good people spent their lives doing virtuous things and had a one-way ticket to heaven. Bad people swore and fibbed and cheated at Monopoly (but not as bad as Bimbo Brown) and played wicked tricks on their sisters. At every religious instruction period it was strongly implied that all of us, even Jan my eldest sister, who never did anything wrong, were going to the other place, because we were sinners and were told to admit to it in all our prayers, and beg forgiveness.

   In my case, it was true. I might have been eight, but I had spent my life in sin. Just ask my sisters. I could see I was doomed, so I just had to make the best of it while I could. Were I to die, I hoped it would be in my sleep, somewhere between when I'd said my prayers and before sinful thoughts came to me in pre-sleep fantasies.

   But this isn't about metaphysics and philosophy. We've had enough of that, I know. This is about the sociology of religion in a little place that probably wasn't much different in attitude to spiritual affairs from any other little country town in Australia at the time.

   It's about the sect of Christianity you were born into, because no matter what, once it was entered into the School Register, that was what you were and where you'd stay. It didn't matter if you never went to church; it was a system rather like caste in India. You were born in it and that's how you were branded forever and ever amen.

   That's as long as you lived in Calliope, of course.

   There were basically two generic brands of religion on the market; Protestant and Roman Catholic.

   Notice how I said 'Roman Catholic'? If I had said 'Catholic', you would have known immediately that I was a Catholic born and bred. But there, I said it. I was a Prod, because I used the pejorative delimiter 'Roman'. I had no more say in being Protestant than that I had white curls at age four and for years at school they called me snowball.

   I won't go into why the difference in terminology, but you can probably work it out if you don't know already. Here I'll be kind and call them Catholics, even if they are Roman Catholics. OK? I'm not prejudiced, as you can see.

   Within the ranks of the Prods, there were two main sects, Church of England, and Presbyterian. No Baptists, Jehovahs, no SDAs, no Mormons. Mitt Romney wouldn't have got a look in in Calliope. 

   But there were Methodists. I had no idea what Methodism was except it was austere, and I thought they must have been totally against spirituous liquor and methylated spirits, and that's where their name came from.

   Mr. Curtis, our headmaster, was Methodist, but he smoked his pipe in his own house and yard – admittedly, never in the school grounds surrounding his house on three sides. I didn't think that would bar him from getting into heaven – maybe with just a tiny question mark, because every time I got caught attempting to smoke it was A Very Bad Thing, so there seemed something a wee bit out of kilter with his quietly puffing away on the faithful old walnut in his garden.

   As an aside, my sister Lyn wrote to me just a day or two ago:

When Jan [our eldest sister] and I were kids we were very keen on saying our prayers before bed. Jan and I had Grannie's big old iron bed at that stage. This particular night I had jumped into bed before Jan, and when she came in she asked me if I had said my prayers. I said that I had, but Jan then asked, 'but did you kneel down and say them?' I replied that the floor was too hard and I said them in bed, to which Jan replied that I had better do them again, but that I could kneel on the bed! So I did as I was told and said them again, kneeling this time, and hoping the revised edition was satisfactory.

   Enough Applied Theology. Back to the main theme now....

pt 1 [979 words] | pt 2 [940 words] | pt 3 [846 words] | pt 4 [770 words]

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