I met a man in the caravan park at Ross one time, probably in 2010. He and his wife had recently retired (like us) and were taking a year or so to travel around Australia in their van. I asked him if he had a plan or was he just following his nose. He had a plan all right; once he left Tasmania his travels would take him and his wife to as many of the famous 'big things' as he could find. he mentioned the Big Prawn and the Big Banana and expected to hear about others as they travelled around.
I mentioned the Big Merino at Goulburn and the Big Potato at Robertson, though I warned him that the spud might be a little underwhelming.
In my reading this morning, I read about a new Big Thing being built in Carnamah in Western Australia. Carnamah is a town of about 400 inhabitants, one pub, one restaurant and one grocery store. The big attraction, which the town hopes will bring in hordes of visitors, is an enormous replica of the Chamberlain 40K tractor, the machine that helped develop the region into a productive farming area. It's 11.5m high and 16m long and painted bright orange. It cost about $1 million to build.
I suppose there are people who think that 'big things' are interesting but I can't imagine I would make the 600 km round trip from Perth just to look at a huge orange tractor. They probably wouldn't even let you climb on it.
ON YOUR TOES AUGUST 5, 2022
Charles Grantham had joined the Alabama Prison Service when he left school and had now reached the pinnacle of his career: through hard work and dedication he proudly held the position of Governor of Holman Prison. His father would have been proud of him. Throughout Charles’s childhood, his father had encouraged him to strive to make the most of his opportunities.
‘Stay on your toes, son,” he would say, “Who knows when opportunity will appear? Always be on your toes, ready to seize the chance.” When the chance came to stand for election for the job of Governor, Charles received more votes than anyone else and was awarded the job.
Always following his father’s advice, Charles tried to ensure that the prison ran as efficiently as possible and brought in new rules to look after the welfare of prisoners. It was hard, though. Holman was a maximum security prison and the prisoners, for the most part, were a brutal lot.
“It’s not like Shawshank Redemption,” he used to say. Nobody is asking for library books here.”
The guards were little better. To survive, they had to be more brutal than the inmates so every day in the prison was a continuation of an on-going battle between the hard men in the cells and the even harder men in the blue uniforms.
One of Charles’s innovations that had a positive effect was his institution of a Dress Code for female visitors. He had been appalled at the appearance of the wives and girlfriends who came to visit the inmates: tiny mini-skirts, low cut blouses, and so on; there was almost a riot on visiting days when the doors were opened to let the visitors in. Some of the guards resented having to police the regulations but understood the need for them. There had been a couple of unsavoury episodes over the years which no guard wanted to see again.
One day, Charles received a message from the State Governor. It had been decided that one of the Death Row prisoners, Joe Nathan James, was to be executed in early-August, and would Charles make the necessary arrangements. Even though there were over 170 inmates on Death Row, there hadn’t been an execution for years and Charles would need to be on his toes handling this one.
The day of the execution came and witnesses gathered at the prison to ensure that all was carried out as expected. Charles was expecting representatives from the media but was surprised when his deputy appeared in his office to tell him that two reporters had arrived and were undergoing the checks to make sure their clothing matched the Dress Code requirements. Charles was appalled; it was never intended that reporters and other VIPs would be subjected to that indignity but his deputy was adamant; they were visitors like the wives and girlfriends who came every week and shouldn’t be given any special treatment.
It might have been alright but a young female reporter from the local paper was wearing a mini skirt which was several inches shorter than the code allowed. Charles might have overlooked this one infringement but his deputy was taking delight in his discomfort and Charles could not be seen to be making an exception for a pretty young girl.
He met the young lady and begged her to find a solution. He didn’t want to refuse her entry but he might be forced into it unless something could be done. The young woman tried to pull the skirt down to her hips but it was still too short. Eventually, a photographer who was there remembered she had been fishing with her boyfriend at the weekend and still had her rubber waders in the trunk of the car. The reporter was very reluctant but agreed to try them on. She pulled them up under her skirt and somehow secured them so they wouldn’t fall down.
The deputy, enjoying his boss’s discomfort reminded him that his Dress Code also stipulated that female visitors must not wear open-toed shoes and pointed out that the reporter was still not compliant. Luckily, she had an old pair of sandshoes in her car.
Imagine the young woman’s discomfort. She arrived for her first major assignment, well-dressed in fashionable clothes but was not able to view the execution until she donned khaki, rubber waders to cover her legs and shabby sandshoes to cover her feet.
It would be good to say that the execution went off without a hitch after that, but it wouldn’t be true. It took the medical officers three hours of poking around to find a vein for the insertion of the intravenous line for the lethal injection.
Of course, there are some who
might say that the whole execution was a farce; being in jail for 28 years,
surely, was punishment enough.
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