Thursday, September 20th .....

Our Rotary meeting on Tuesday evening was a little different.  Instead of our usual get-together at the Bush Inn, we took up an invitation to join local kids at a camp organised by the Edmund Rice association.  These camps are set up for children who might be ‘at-risk’ (a dreadful phrase) or vulnerable or having some social or behavioural difficulties at school.  The camps are funded by groups such as ours, businesses or church committees.  There were about 25 primary-aged children at the camp, each one with a mentor.  Mentors are all volunteers, mostly from high schools.

We met in the hall for dinner, sitting elbow-to-elbow at long tables.  The noise was horrendous, encouraged by the mentors who led the kids in banging the tables and chanting, ‘We will, we will, rock you!’  And they certainly did.

I was impressed with the Prime Minister’s comments in Parliament about the death of her father.  The Dylan Thomas poem she mentioned is one of the great pieces of verse in our language. I found it very moving when she turned the poem around to say:

"The last thing my father taught me was, in the life of a man, there is a moment to go gentle into that good night, and so it was,"

Driving home from a meeting last night I was entertained by a radio show featuring the music of 1972.  Why 1972?  I think it was just that year’s turn.  The announcer was Michael Veitch who has been running the ABC evening show since the beginning of this year.  Sadly, he presents his last show tonight, leaving to join a travelling acting company.  I’m sure everyone who lived through the early 90s in Australia will remember Michael on the D-Generation and Fast Forward.

The top ten songs of 1972, based on record sales are an eclectic mix.  You won’t be surprised to hear that American Pie is on the list and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, but so is Popcorn, an early electronic tune, and The Rangers Waltz by the Mums and Dads (repetitive strict-tempo tune for Saturday night barn dances).  Do you remember Wayne Newton’s ‘Daddy, Don’t You Walk Too Fast’?  It’s on the list.  What were we thinking, buying this stuff?

It’s what’s not on the list which is more interesting.  Gilbert O’Sullivan’s ‘Alone Again (Naturally)’ missed out, as did Benny Hill’s classic, ‘Ernie, the Fastest Milkman in the West, and (shock, horror) John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.  We clearly had a confused sense of what is good in 1972.