A Mighty Move

Well folks, It looks like my famous writing career has come to an end, Oh! I can still write, but unless I mail the stories to you they will not appear in print.

My flash in the pan is lacking a publisher.   So, what.  I was never going to make a motza anyway, and was only happy that my ego could be stroked.

I love the Outback, I love Australia...Well the Australia I was born in, not this one we have now...I do not want to control people but I do not want to be with people that are out of control...Our soft gutted politicians will let the country be taken over by those that have no idea what he Australian ethic means to us oldies, and when the ethic is completely gone, the ones that changed it will complain more.

We Aussies wont change anything, we are too complacent, and we were happy with the country, and we are too bloody slow to stop the rot.

If you reckon that Gallipoli was a big Churchill blunder, and it was, wait until the full repercussions of our immigrations policy, and the complete failure of the Multi-cultural concept , which is only a blind to hide the truth, causes the chaos it is heading for.

I might write a blog from Taiwan, I have an urge to live out the last days of my life in a different country as a foreigner, so I can try to change the country to what I came from.  Surely Taiwan  had an Outback.

Maybe if I get an old wooden boat and set sail for the Island, I  will be greeted with open arms and given a few thousand dollars to set up, hey?

If you try to get a carer in this country, the per-requesite  is  "How much does it pay"...From what I have seen of the Taiwanese people caring is a natural ability.

Am I sad? No.  Am I disillusioned? No, been around too long for that.  Am I disappointed about no books?  You bet, I have a lot of stories in me yet.

Ordinary Country Folk

Trying to tell stories that suit all English speaking folk around the world is difficult in the fact that we have different terms for the one thing.

For instance, in Australia we say timber, in the US they say lumber, I believe that the Kanuks are also so inclined.

Also talking of timber, we say 4 by 2 and the others say 2 by 4's. So if you can get around the Aussie terminology for whatever, you may get a bit of a giggle outta 'me yarns.

I know a few country folk, folk that spent a lot of time working, and little time at schooling, but that is the way it is sometime in poorer rural families where Dad reckons that if you have one son in school, why bother sending the rest, as the frist bloke can tell the others what he learnt.

However, some of the rural folk have that loveable slowness in speech and in thought. These ones are the purely lateral thinkers. These folk are the ones that I love to hang around as it makes me look almost intellectual.

My best mate, Slow Joe Rolly and his dad, Joe Slower Rolly, had come into town, with the old Bedford truck to get some timber at the local timber place, wot sell timber and stuff.

Old Slower didn't like town much, and was not really eager to leave the truck, but this was for several reasons, one being that if it cut out he wouldn't be able to get it started again without a lot of swearing and bush type mechanisation applications, known only to the two Rollys. Another reason was that dad Rolly couldn't open the driver's side door and the third was he had trousers on that had suffered from a severe bout of ….Well you know what.

Young Slow Joe went into talk to the timber bloke. “Do ya' have any hardwood timber, mate?”

“Yeah, plenty of hardwood timber. What size do ya' want?”

“I'll go an ask Dad.”

“Dad said we need some 4 x 2.”

“Yeah! Mate, we got plenty of 4 x 2 hardwood, how long do ya' want 'em.”

“I'll go an' ask Dad,” said Slow Joe.

“Dad reckons we'll want 'em for awhile, 'cause we is building a shed.”

Now don't be unkind, it seems reasonable that 'how long” should indicate time. I mean if you are going out and your wife asks, “How long will you be?” do you tell her that you will be the same length when you come back as you are when you went out, right? Okay, so you will from now on, I see.

Eventually, young Slow Joe Rolly got a job in a saw mill out near the back of the place that they lived in front of, ifn 'ya' know what I mean. See, I told ya' it made me look intellectual.

At anyrate, not long after young Slow Joe started work he was in a hardware store in town and up on a shelf he saw a row of vacuum flasks, or as we call them Thermos flasks, Thermos being a trade name.

“What are those things?” he asked.

“Thermos flasks, mate, stainless steel Thermos flasks.”

“Gee! What are they for?”

“They keep hot things hot and cold things cold, and a lot of workers have them.”

“Fair-bloody-Dinkum, I'll get one then.”

The next day, Slow Joe was busting a gut for Smoko to come, and when it did he sat down with the rest of the blokes and casually opened his tucker box and pulled the Stainless Steel Theroms flask out and put it in full view of the other blokes.

They looked, they looked but didn't say anything, so Joe moved it around and about until one bloke couldn't hold his curiosity.

“What's that thing, Slowee?” he asked.

Joe was so proud, so happy that he had something that no one else had that he almost cried, but instead he said. “It's a Thermos flask.”

“Wot's a Thermos flask for, Joe?”

“Well,” the beaming Joe said, “It keeps cold things cold and hot things hot.”

“Fair-bloody-Dinkum,” chorused several of the other blokes.

“Wot ya' got in it, Joe?” they asked.

“An ice-cream and a cuppa' tea, that's wot.”

So there you go again, running poor young Slow Joe down for a bit of lateral thinking.

Pete's Publishing News - Grab yourself a bargain

To celebrate the immenant launch of Peter Rake's debut novel, 'The Outback Story - The Adventures and Loves of 'Tiger' Williams', the price of Peter Rake's five short stories have been reduced to $0.99 apiece and the collection of six short stories and two poems to $2.99.

This is the perfect opportunity to sample Peter's work for less than the cost of a cup of coffee.

Choose from 'The Pup' - a comical tale set in droving country; 'Notty' - a suspense comedy full of wit and Aussie slang; 'On Swallow's Wings' - an urban tale of love and loss; 'The Awakening' - a coming of age story; and 'The Coachman' - to get swept into the past. All these fabulous short stories are now $0.99 each.

'Fair Dinkum Yarns From the Australian View' on the other hand is the complete collection, plus the comical but moving yarn about 'Arthur', the drunk sheep station hand who finds that it's harder to end it all than he first thought. The collection is now available for $2.99.

Find them all here.

The Code of the West

Was there a code of the West in the Outback? Does it still exist? What is the code of the West?

One main thing I could remember, and it is a pity that it is still not 'the code', but anyone that pulled a knife in a fight would not last long in any Outback town. It just wasn't done, and anyone that did was labelled as a "Wog."

Now, I know that word is offensive to some people, but to cover myself from litigation, please recall the book and movie, "The Wog Boy", or expressions like "Wog Football". These expressions are used by many ethnic people in this country to this day.

It is odd, I know, but I never suffered a cultural cringe when I was in the back country. We accepted the Greek Café owners, the Greek and Italian pub owners, and they in turn, accepted us Australians just as though we were actually humans.

In a Greek Café you were sure to get more than you could eat if you asked for a mixed grill, and as many cups of tea or coffee as you wanted.

So, Code #1 was fight fair.

Code #2 was respect the people around you, the ones that would help you out without hesitation, the ones that fought nature's onslaughts, standing side by side with all other men and women of the West.

Code #3 was definitely the hand shake. To shake on a deal was like writing it in blood, and consequently if one reneged on a handshake, there would be plenty of blood to write another agreement. Mainly from the reneger!

To have a reputation for someone that cannot be trusted was probably worse than someone that was a bit of a mug, a fool, as they often could not help themselves.

Code #4, I remember well, was respect women. They were so few women in the Outback towns that it was more awe than respect. I remember only too well young Nerida in Longreach saying "Are you going to stop babbling and kiss me, or not?" I kissed her, but I am sure the red glow of my face gave her sunburn, so much was my awe of the fairer sex.

Don't ever steal from your mates ... this one could be any number but I will give it Code #5. You see, trust features in The Code in a big way, and if you lose your mate's trust, you lose your mate, and many more mates along the way.

Code #6: never leave a man in trouble, be he broken down on a dusty road, hurt in some fall or accident. I say fall, as many of us fell from horses, as well as falling for a girl or falling from the graces of a girl ... lots of falling about went on in the good old days. Life was a bit slower, and we had time to stand by a mate, or anyone else, for that matter.

Code #7, do not be a coward. If for some reason, during a drink or two in a pub, a bloke says "You ... out where the bull feeds," there is a good chance you have been invited to a bit of a donnybrook, out on a patch of grass, grown for that specific purpose in a good few of the Outback pubs.

Being a smallish bloke, I won a few of my fights by at least fifty yards. However, there were the times that I was forced to stand toe to toe, nose to nose, eye to eye, finger to chest and likewise, reciting the well known battle chant ...

"Yeah! Sez 'oo?"

"Me, I sez,"

"Yeah?" Jab with the finger.

"Yeah!" Jab back.

And this would go on until someone in the gathered assembly would say, "Come on blokes, these pair of pansies ain't gunna have a stoush ... let's go have a beer," and off they would go, leaving the combatants standing there glaring until one or the other would say "Your shout."

Later in the evenings the real 'blues' would be on, and some serious, well bet upon, fights would take place. I never saw a coward in my time. Many of these blokes would be the best blokes to have around you as you would ever find. In fun someone might say "YOU! Out where the bull feeds," quickly adding "And if I'm not there when you get there, start without me." But you had to be good mates to get away with that.

Code #8, although you might be called a pansy in circumstances like the one I relayed above, if you showed any sign of being what a pansy intimates you would have no mates, inter or otherwise. I do remember one chap in Aramac, that made advances to a young bloke in the middle of the night, and I tell you, I have never seen such a bloodied, almost corpse, in my life. I never came across him again in Queensland, and although his gear was still at the pub, he never came back for it to the best of my knowledge. Such was the Code of the West.

Editor's Note: These are thoughts and recollections on life in Outback Queensland in the 1950s and 1960s.

As my publisher said, I must laugh a lot.  That is very true when I create a character,and have that character interact with other characters and start the thread of a story, probably based, very loosely, on something that actually happened.

Using a fair amount of dialog like I do, the characters come more alive than just talking about them in the third person narrative.

Notty was one such character that came alive as I wrote the story.  At first it was my intention to make him immensely disliked by the reader, but as the story progressed,  Notty became somewhat of a hero.

My greatest  joy in writing is to see the characters develop personalities, and at times push the story their way, and not in the manner I first intended.

If some reader should see a resemblance to an actual event in one of my yarns, they could well think, 'That's not that way it ended'.  So, bad luck, in my yarn it ended the way it ended.

The Hand Around Dog: A story in the making is about a designer dog of the Outback.

Long before the designer dogs of today, the labra-doodles, the bull terrier crosses with a Shitzu called a... use your imagination, came FRED a dog designed to do one thing efficiently, and  that was to kill.

Not one particular person owned Fred, and as needs arose, he would be passed around to different blokes to carry out a bit of pig hunting, or kangaroo culling, and to even  pull down a rogue bull or two.

Naturally, great consideration must go into the breeding of a versatile dog such as Fred and following is his Pedigree:

From The Hand Around Dog

"I have a bit of paper that explains Fred's breed lines ... Do ya' wanna' hear em?" Timmy O'Reily asked.

I averted my eyes from Fred, hoping that I wouldn't look him in his yellow and very mean eyes. Fred was not going to get any chance of making the excuse that I challenged him.

Every so often, Fred would test the high-tensile chain to see if it was still holding, and when he gave his best pull you could hear the 'ping' as the toughened steel reached a peak near its capability of tension withstanding.

"Ere' it is ... to start with he was the pup of an American Bull Baiting dog, or Pit Bull over a Rhodesian Ridgeback bitch and a pup from this mating was crossed with an Irish Wolf Hound ... "

There is no doubting the Irish Wolf Hound bit, as the Irish Wolf Hound's most recognisable attributes were on full show every Fred turned his back to us. Not unlike a postman carrying Mallee mail bags.

"Ya' Listenin'? snapped Timmy. "Then, accordin' to this paper, that Irish Wolf Hound cross pup, a bitch, was bred with a Great Dane, then a bitch from that litter was crossed with a big red Greyhound who looked like being a world beater until he had his leg broken by a rival owner. Now, the final touch, of  which Fred is a direct descendant, was a pup from that litter was crossed with brown hyena, just to give him jaw muscle".

"Sounds like the original breeders were serious about the result," was my knowledgeable comment, then another thought came to me, slowly "Do you reckon they got what they wanted in Fred?"

"How would I know, Pete? All I know is I got what I wanted, sumpin' to cull a few big roos out of the front paddock.

"All right Fred, " Timmy told the dog, "Settle back an' I'll bring ya' a couple of roos fer' supper."

I love the laconic expressions that seem to ,only, come from those true blue Australians of the Outback and in a more varied localized variety from folk of the cities.

A typical example is asking someone if they "Have lived here all their life" and they answer "Not yet".

I once said to a Gunnedah farmer, after a good fall of rain, "You would be happy now with all that recent rain".  His reply brought me down to earth.  "It only rained rain, it didn't rain grass".

Probably the best I have heard is a bloke in a pub, trying to get a free beer who accosted a new customer with a overly pleasant greeting, and said, "Are you staying for a beer, Mate".

The bloke said "Yeah, I might have time for a couple".

"Good" says the bar fly "Make mine a schooner".

With that the bloke looked at his watch and hurriedly came up with:  "I just forgot, I've gotta been down town in a couple of minutes,I'll catch up with you later", and off he went.

The usual disappointed look befell the hapless cadger as he sadly said, "I've know that bloke for forty years, and he ain't changed.  He is that tight that if he cut you a slice of bread there would only be one side in it".

We have got things moving now.  Most of the slow start is in line with my  learning curve, which is almost flat-lining.

I would like to discuss how others approach their story writing and I will talk about how I go about writing my stories.

So ,pull up a log, make yourself at my place and let's have a chat.

Old Pete

From Pete's head to Amazon

Just recently Pete and I were having fun imagining what one of his characters might have gotten up to after the end of his story. I could clearly picture her in my head. Pete responded:

"So there you are, you know one of my characters as if she is a real person in a real situation. How do you think I cope with a mob of 'em in me 'ead?"

I told him he probably laughs a lot.

Peter Rake has been telling stories to himself since mid-last century. After the heydays in outback Queensland were over, he started crafting them on paper. Now his stories, and one novel, will be published on Amazon Kindle by ePublisher, MetaPlume.