THE USELESSNESS OF HOPE

Burdened down by the task of seeking out gifts for our kith and kin some of us may not be that generous to others in their time of need but if we can’t give we can act.

I believe it was around this time of the year when two young people Joseph and Mary arrived in Linton to look for a place for the girl to give birth. Every room was full even at Luth’s Store and Saloon but a kindly lady allowed them to utilize the back shed with the cats and dogs while Mary went through the most painful time of her life. It may have been a miraculous start but without benefit of an epidural she would have gone through a hell of a time. You could imagine the difficulty of that glowing halo emerging.

“Hallelujah!” She cried when it was all over, “thank God for that” and the baby probably just looked up at her and gave her a knowing smile. To make matters worse three strangers sauntered into the stable where a star had guided them (maybe it was Kylie Minogue) and they thrust upon her gifts of beer, red wine and chips with gravy. That tradition of giving gifts lives on to this day, the miracle of birth may have become a ho hum everyday event but Christmas gift giving only comes around once a year.

A lack of housing also still exists and many young people, some of them unmiraculously pregnant, are forced once again to take shelter in sheds and garages. Because of this severe shortage of housing donations to charities only give them hope, nothing else, just hope for a better day ahead, as not even established religions dedicated to the baby born at Christmas can work the miracle of a permanent roof over a persons head.

In a day and age when governments spend billions on the useless gifts of war, and making cutbacks to swimming lessons for refugees, we should be pressuring them into a concerted effort to house its own citizens rather than make others homeless in another country. What good does it do our homeless for Australia to evict, with gunpowder, a family in Afghanistan? Should we not pressure our politicians to give Australia the ultimate Christmas present by declaring an end to war and thereby build all our citizens the shelter they deserve. Of course that is dependant on whether any government can get a three bedroom weatherboard built for less than $2 million a piece.

Faith, hope and charity are words just skatter-gunned around by our governing elite when its time to elect them back into power. A way forward, a growing nation, a new way and not even ‘it’s time’ achieved anything, not even ‘no child will live in poverty after 1998’ managed to pry money from the hands of greedy self-centered ideologues in the Temple of Canberra. If he were alive today I’m sure Jesus would have called for a double-dissolution.

The rich get richer while the poor get poorer and its time we began to pressure all levels of government to stop spending money on useless baubles, like fast trains, release appropriate land with appropriate infra-structure and build a future with bricks and mortar. A gift that will keep giving until the next Lord screams his way into the world.

AS SMOOTH AS SILK

Much to the dismay of some of our readers as to how we find out what goes on about town we do sometimes have to admit that we too make some silly mistakes. One of our more recent episodes, and I use the word we to disguise who we are really talking about, was the day that we repaired our own ride-on mower. Rather than take it down to the expert living near the Sports Arena I decided to have a go at it myself.

The first thing to do was to turn it on its side and watch the petrol spill and stream towards the lit incinerator, of fire I seem to never learn. After that little panic with mop, shovel, sponge, towel and lots of kicking up of dust I was able to also stop the oil from pouring out by shoving a rag down the filler pipe and securing with masking tape. The seat decided to part from its position and the mown grass redirector (whatever its offical name) split assunder. So much for getting the machine into a position to work on it.

Needless to say I did manage to get the revolving thing holding the blades off and I was then able to see to the bearings thing that spun the thing that held the blades that cut the grass. I sometimes amaze myself with my correct usage of technical terms, for example I know a ‘litter’ is both a mess and the thing what stops the wall from falling down on a door.

To cut a long story short I completed the task and righted the machine. I waited at least 24 hours for all the liquid bits to settle back to where they should be and started the mower. Fantastic! As smooth as silk, never sounded so good, perfect balance.
Off I went to cut grass. Trundled along for a while but could not figure out why there was no grass shooting out the back of the mower. Stopped and put stick under to see if blades spinning. Nothing happened. There were no blades on the bloody spinning disc.

I went back to my outdoor workshop with the knowledge that nobody sore my mistake and this time by driving the mower half up on to the trailer was able to crawl underneath and attach the blades. Why did I not think of that before?

OK! Off we go again. A bit rougher riding this time but at least the grass was being cut. To my dismay after about a minute or so I saw out of the corner of my eye what appeared to be an unidentified flying object shoot across the ground towards where the dog had been pooping itself just seconds before. It flew low and was taking the tops off the longer grass as it went finally slamming into a dead tree stump. The mower suddenly ran smooth again.
I stopped the mower and I ambled over to the foreign object to notice that the entire undercarriage had given way and allowed the spinning blades to take off across the ground at a terrifying speed. It was at that moment that I uttered several words that required censoring, jumped back on the mower and promptly took it down to the mower mechanic.

To his dismay he heard me say ‘you can keep the @$&^()*^%# thing’ and stormed off home.

THE FILM SEQUAL TO TAR AND FEATHERS