Patonga – Hangin’ Loose Like A Longneck Goose or Lookin’ Fine In Calvin Klein (15.2.2007)
Well the kids hit the deck a-runnin when we arrived at Patonga. Taliah, Bailey and Nat took Indy down for a swim. Donk hopped around, shouting orders like Joey Johns in an Origin match, while Johnny and I commenced on putting the big new, three bedroom tent up. It was one pm on the 6th January and it was a scorcher. It had been less than twelve hours since I’d been downing schooners at Mounties and the sweat was busting out of me at a rate of knots! After about the second hour of hard labour, my head started to tingle and I was looking down the barrel of heat stroke, dehydration and exhaustion (it is simply not a lazy man’s place to be under harness and hungover in the blistering summer sun!). With a little work remaining, I was sympathetically cut loose. I went immediately down for a swim with the kids – it was beautiful! (Johnny continued working till the brink of projectile vomit, before calling it a day, some sixty minutes later).
The next few days were very enjoyable. I’d usually be up fairly early – around sevenish, when I’d crawl out of the tent and find Johnny, Indyanah and Bailey lingering around the tent. We’d walk over to the park on Indy’s insistence and she’d run amok. After several heart-stopping incidents on the playground equipment with an adventurous two-year old (who thinks she’s sixteen!), I realised that Johnny and Donk must have thought me far more responsible than I considered myself! Initially, upon Indy clumsily climbing a ladder for the big slippery-dip, I’d be swinging my head in a desperate attempt to beckon support from her parents, only to find Johnny over yonder, watching Bailey swinging far too high! I realised I was on my own and totally responsible for Indy’s well being (and that her parents trusted me with this!). To the uninitiated, the weight of this responsibility sits very heavily upon your shoulders, though you quickly get used to the duty. In fact, I loved it. In the end, we’d go to the park and play in the morning, then head down to the water and play in the sand together. It can be a very slow and interesting walk, holding an observant and chatty little two-year-old’s hand, marching through a camping ground, heading for the beach.
So most of the next few days were spent lounging in the shade of the coral trees watching the kids fish, swim and play in the sand. A few cold brews appeared in the afternoon, along with some Southern Comfort and the odd bottle of Jump-about (Red wine). It was all so very relaxing and enjoyable.
Patonga for the most part, is a safe and friendly little fishing village, where hard working families tend to look out for each other. (Though Steve Waugh is a recent addition to the local home-owners club – not sure how hard he works these days?). So there is no concern when Bailey runs around to various fishing spots, like a rabid kelpie marking his territory. The girls however, Taliah and Natalie, are a different kettle of fish.
Being fourteen and eighteen years old and having avoided the dreaded Ugly-Stick, they tend to attract a certain amount of attention. It is here that my experience allows me to cast a protective eye and observe (and keep at bay) the sneaky little sons-of-hard-workers who may aim to share the shade of our coral trees for a spell!
Now I’ve never claimed to be a fashion guru, in fact I still see nothing wrong with the clothes we were wearing in the 80’s…….and further, if they still fit, I’d likely still be wearing them today! Though I am aware that certain sections of today’s community may not subscribe to legitimacy of this thought. I see people wearing stupid things all the time that I just don’t get – including those stupid earrings through the eyebrow. Also, the middle-aged women who think they are either artistic or powerfully modern and try to prove this by matching a short, ugly bob-type haircut, with some kind of outlandishly colourful, thick framed, elongated oblong shaped eye-glasses. The actual lens in these ridiculous things is about the size of a coin-slot. I think the image they are striving to project must be “Look at me everyone – I’m ugly and I can’t see shit, but I don’t care, ’cause I’m artistic and femininely powerful!” Newsflash Tegan – you look stupid!
For me personally though, the all-time winner in the retarded fashion stakes, is a little ensemble, proudly carted about by the current crop of up-and-coming young bucks.
I’ve watched them with much contempt as I ponder how this trend could ever possibly have become acceptable in public. That is, these skinny young whippersnappers that hoick their fifty dollar Calvin Klein under-dungers halfway up their guts and then proceed to drag their all-too baggy dacks way down, round their scrawny little arses, to within an angry pimple of falling completely off! “Hey Dane, I got news for you too – you look stupid!”
I’ve watched them dragging their jocks up and checking themselves out to make sure the band sits just so. In fact, I watched one such clown stop on the road upon which he’d been walking (about 20 metres from the coral trees), run his thumbs round the inner circuit of his CK’s, then ever-so purposefully, drag the back of his denim shorts down. He then scrutinised the result like Darrell Hair considering a Pakistani wicket appeal. In the end he was satisfied and recommenced his careless strut past the girls (and the big bloke in the shade, shooting daggers).
Another young cove who’d ridden his BMX bike down to the boat ramp, must have been new to the young-stud game. For while he arrived with his arse hanging out by about the accepted proportion (which appears approximately two thirds of the way down the crack), several times I saw him fight the natural urge to pull them back up, to a more comfortable height. He posed on his bike for the girls, shirtless and tanned but was obviously entrenched in an internal psycho-physical battle between comfort and projected studliness. Goose.
I’m sure many of us can relate to the vulnerability of this young man’s position – I’ve had the elastic go in my tracky dacks on more than one occasion. It’s never easy to maintain your cool when you’re teetering on the edge of indecent exposure and causing a public mischief.
When I was a young fella, the minute someone caught a glimpse of your Bonds reluctantly peeking above your jeans (seriously, who’s gonna lay down a fifty for a pair of CK jocks when you can get a 7 pack for 7 bucks?!), they’d be set upon with all the agility of a peregrine falcon. They’d then be hoisted up that hard, your feet would leave the ground – and everyone would laugh – “Look at the spaz with his undies hanging out, hahaha!”
I don’t know when this look ever became cool? Though, always being one to embrace new trends, I’ve come up with an idea to look cool and be comfortable at the same time! I’m gonna buy a pair of Calvin’s – I’m gonna cut ’em off at about stalk height – and I’m gonna have them sewn onto the rim of my pants. That way, with an all in one garment, I will not only look just as hot and trendy, but I will avoid the insecure feeling of my dacks slipping right off the back of my arse and looking like an idiot!
Anyway, I’m sure Nat and Taliah were never impressed by BMX-Goose and his Road-Runner mate – probably never even noticed them………..
One night Donk (Kerrie) and Natnee (Natalie) got a-little-bit-longway drunk and decided to go for a walk down the creek. It was early am on a run-in tide and they discovered the magical natural luminescence of the freshly arrived plankton, known as phosforescence. In their heightened state of awareness, they thought it might be some kind of dangerous radiation polluting the area. All was settled in the morning, though I do agree, seeing the sand and water light up on a pitch black night really is a sight to behold and a phenomenon that will continue to impress men and women through the ages – though probably not nearly as much as a good pair of undies escaping baggy pants………….