It was two years ago in the sauna at Melbourne’s Brunswick Baths. I had just done ten laps in the fifty meters Olympic Pool. There were just the two of us in the sauna and he said to me, ‘Are you a tourist mate?’ I replied ‘I’m a Brunswick Boy.’ And he said, ‘Brunswick Boys Don’t Wear South Sydney Shorts’. I said ‘What?’ Then he stood up and he opened the door to go out I said ‘And I go for the Sydney Swans too.’
Sitting back home in Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, I was
thinking about how I would have been on the train to Melbourne from Sydney tonight if
it wasn’t COVID19. Then again if it wasn’t for the pandemic, I would have been
on a plane to Europe in a week, spending two months visiting France, Belgium,
Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Portugal, England, Scotland, Wales and
Ireland. The trip to Melbourne six or eight weeks away. The trip to Europe will
be two years away.
Brunswick has four postcodes. Brunswick 3056, Brunswick
Lower 3056, Brunswick South, and Brunswick West are 3055. The last two postcodes are in lockdown along with the eight other Melbourne postcodes. Three
hundred and thirty thousand people are in lockdown and I wonder if that man who
called me a tourist to my hometown, and pool where I learned to swim
fifty-eight years ago is one of them.
Australia could have had gone for the eradication of COVID19 but
the politicians went for containment and it wasn’t helped by that cruise ship
the Ruby Princess being allowed to dock in Sydney. And tonight I feel for my
hometown I haven’t lived since 1981and we all know COVID19 does not show respect
for postcodes.
1 comment:
In the meantime, I have read "some things" of yours and thus acquired quite good knowledge about you, especially about your attitude and opinion on politics, justice, ethics and morals.
I share your attitudes and appreciate people like you very much, people with common sense, with feeling, but also with backbone - people who are needed nowadays more than ever. I thank you very much for your multifaceted commitment!
I came across your contributions and books "by chance" - in the course of researching my family tree. We are distant relatives (my mother's name was Emilia Pola-Tognolini). Your grandparents and their 13 children are included in my family tree - but what I don't know (but would love to know) is which of their 10 boys you come from, and what your mother's name is.
If you have the time and inclination to tell me this and exchange thoughts with me in between, I would be very happy. My name is Enrico Pola, I live in Switzerland and my email address is donalop@bluewin.ch - Best regards to Australia and see you soon!
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