“You got off lightly with your badge (C8), Jim Pollit,” reckons Barry Riley of Woy Woy. “My late wife used to threaten to get me one that said ‘If Found, Please Return to the Home for the Permanently Bewildered’.”
The badge favoured by Barrie Restall of Teven would be worn by him when attending scientific conferences: “It reads ‘We Have Charts and Graphs to Back Us Up So F--- Off’. It proved to very useful to end discussions with pedants.”
Speaking of pedants (C8), Ilse Dittes of Forest Lodge thinks they should look on the bright side: “At least an ‘added bonus’ could mean two free gifts.”
Con Vaitsas of Ashbury has “just attended a funeral at a Brisbane cemetery where we parked in what has to be the most bizarre name given to a street at a necropolis, ‘Rock ‘n Roll George Ave’. An older local relative told me it was named after local identity George Kyprios who is buried there. George would constantly drive around in a 1952 FX Holden blasting rock ’n roll music.”
“I was a part of the spit and polish brigade in the RAAF,” recalls Andrew Mowat of Beecroft. “We didn’t set fire to our Kiwi Boot Polish (C8) like Richard Lee, but we did apply it very thickly, polishing it to a brilliant shine with ample spittle. However, you had to walk/march cautiously in case it cracked before morning parade and inspection, then quickly change to another less perfectly polished pair before breakfast and hope you weren’t caught. I’ve gladly left that regime behind.”
“Talk of odd food alternatives (C8) reminds me of my father’s creations,” writes Brian Richardson of Macmasters Beach. “Once a Vegemite jar had been scraped ‘clean’, he would fill it with tea, add a generous amount of pepper, shake and drink it down. And the tea was cold!”
“I recently found my autograph book from the ’50s,” informs Jan Howton of Sawtell. “My 18-year-old grandson asked ‘what’s an autograph book?’ My Dad had the first entry with ‘There are three sides to every story - yours, the other fellow’s and the truth’. Someone wrote the usual ending ‘By hook or by crook I’ll be last in this book’. [This featured in my autograph book, too, along with a coaster with Kamahl’s inscription - Granny]. Unfortunately, some were very politically incorrect and one included the ‘n’ word.” Signing off.
Column8@smh.com.au
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