Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, December 17, 2003
WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND
BEING the head of a union inevitably attracts critics - mostly within your own ranks - and I have heard people accuse John Gregory of all manner of treachery. I don't care. He is a mate and real friendship, if not absolutely unconditional, can certainly stretch a helluva long way before it snaps. I first met him in the mid-1970s when he was the president of the old SA Institute of Teachers and I was the editor of 5DN. Apparently some advice I gave him in passing struck a chord and he was grateful. I do not remember what I said - possibly something disparaging about his yokel hairdo or those spectacles that darkened in sunlight and made him look dodgy on TV. Later, when I was unemployed, John found me some casual work at the SAIT. I think he paid me out of his lunch money. To someone on the bones of his elbows and facing career oblivion, John's offer of support, friendship and belief was an act worthy of, well, Ard Thiel. Earlier this year, John gave the eulogy at Ard's funeral, a Mallee farmer and mentor, who was a neighbour of the Gregorys at Parilla Well. When John was 10, the eldest of six children, his father died. John was sent to boarding school at Mount Gambier. Cold, wet and lonely, with not two pennies to rub together, John was wandering around the Mount Gambier Show when he spotted Ard sheaf tossing. Ard gave him 10 bob - something like $25 today. "I didn't know what to say, or what to do, but I knew I couldn't repay him and said so," John said in his eulogy. "Don't worry, lad," he remembered Ard saying. "You can repay me. When you get the chance later in life, you do the same thing for somebody else." Which John did, for me. What Ard also gave him, John said, was a sense of social purpose and justice, and what it meant to give someone a fair go. "Ard taught me a lot of things, amongst them the difference between seeing through people, and seeing them through." John will be reading this now for the first time and possibly not thanking me for it. The stone tossers will be poised. John left the presidency of the Australian Education Union six months early, the cause of much uninformed sniping, to accept a job at the Education Department. In his new position, he was instrumental in arranging for me to visit the Pitjantjatjara Lands recently. Confusion remains over whether the necessary approvals for the trip were properly authorised all the way up the line. John, it seems, may not have complied with every step to the fullest possible extent. Typical. While the bureaucrats were having conniptions, the fact remained that yet again John vouched for me - a risky business in many eyes - and literally put his job on the line on the basis that I could be trusted. Everyone should have someone like John Gregory in their lives. So, John, in the same way that you paid tribute to Ard Thiel, this is my thanks to you. I could not be bothered waiting around for your funeral.
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, December 10, 2003
HAZARD WARNING: CYCLIST AHEAD
TWICE in two weeks, I have come a cropper off my bike, both times through my own fault, it has to be admitted. Now even my dreams are obsessed with falling off, wobbly handle bars and riding back to front. Go figure. I like riding my bike. Going in search of hills and head winds, the pain of tight leg muscles afterwards is almost pleasurable. But the injuries are not. My scarred, pock-marked left knee looks like the craters of the moon. My left elbow is musk pink raw. Left, not right, because on both occasions I fell to the left. The first time, turning at traffic lights, I was looking around to check if my riding companion had made it around the lights as well. Not watching where I was going, my left pedal clipped the kerb. Down I went, thrusting out both hands to break my fall, and the bike cartwheeled over me. The roadside verge where I landed was made of gravel, not grass. Typical. The list of injuries included bruised and shredded wrists, left knee bloodied in five places, scraped left thigh and ankle, and chipped toes from wearing sandals. It was a long ride home, let me tell you. All praise for Medipulv antiseptic powder. The next weekend, cutting across the footpath to avoid a red traffic light, I nearly hit a woman who suddenly appeared around the corner of a building. She escaped unscathed, thank goodness. A pity about me, though. Grabbing the front brake too hard, I toppled onto the same left side. Except this time my brain, with enough instinct to avoid self-harm if possible, wisely decided not to let me fall on the same old wounds. Instead, I hit the ground chest-first at full stretch, which left me with bruised ribs, possibly cracked by the feel of them. The bunch of keys in my pocket also punched a deep bruise into my left thigh. Not a corked thigh so much as a keyed one. The woman I missed was very nice. "You alright?" she asked as I lay there winded under my bike, front wheel still spinning. She kindly offered her hand to help me up. Wincing, I jiggled around a bit and was able to assure her that nothing important was broken apart from my bike, which had lost 12th and 14th gears. "Yew, you're a bit of a mess," she said, looking down at all the cuts and scrapes. "Actually, they're from last week," I said. She walked off shaking her head. The next morning, limping and finding it difficult to breath from the pain in my chest, I had to fly interstate.I kept thinking that a person with suspected punctured lungs really ought not be flying. I knelt on my one good knee to pray for survival, and I am back in the saddle. Any weekend when you do not fall off your bike is a good weekend.
HAZARD WARNING: CYCLIST AHEAD
TWICE in two weeks, I have come a cropper off my bike, both times through my own fault, it has to be admitted. Now even my dreams are obsessed with falling off, wobbly handle bars and riding back to front. Go figure. I like riding my bike. Going in search of hills and head winds, the pain of tight leg muscles afterwards is almost pleasurable. But the injuries are not. My scarred, pock-marked left knee looks like the craters of the moon. My left elbow is musk pink raw. Left, not right, because on both occasions I fell to the left. The first time, turning at traffic lights, I was looking around to check if my riding companion had made it around the lights as well. Not watching where I was going, my left pedal clipped the kerb. Down I went, thrusting out both hands to break my fall, and the bike cartwheeled over me. The roadside verge where I landed was made of gravel, not grass. Typical. The list of injuries included bruised and shredded wrists, left knee bloodied in five places, scraped left thigh and ankle, and chipped toes from wearing sandals. It was a long ride home, let me tell you. All praise for Medipulv antiseptic powder. The next weekend, cutting across the footpath to avoid a red traffic light, I nearly hit a woman who suddenly appeared around the corner of a building. She escaped unscathed, thank goodness. A pity about me, though. Grabbing the front brake too hard, I toppled onto the same left side. Except this time my brain, with enough instinct to avoid self-harm if possible, wisely decided not to let me fall on the same old wounds. Instead, I hit the ground chest-first at full stretch, which left me with bruised ribs, possibly cracked by the feel of them. The bunch of keys in my pocket also punched a deep bruise into my left thigh. Not a corked thigh so much as a keyed one. The woman I missed was very nice. "You alright?" she asked as I lay there winded under my bike, front wheel still spinning. She kindly offered her hand to help me up. Wincing, I jiggled around a bit and was able to assure her that nothing important was broken apart from my bike, which had lost 12th and 14th gears. "Yew, you're a bit of a mess," she said, looking down at all the cuts and scrapes. "Actually, they're from last week," I said. She walked off shaking her head. The next morning, limping and finding it difficult to breath from the pain in my chest, I had to fly interstate.I kept thinking that a person with suspected punctured lungs really ought not be flying. I knelt on my one good knee to pray for survival, and I am back in the saddle. Any weekend when you do not fall off your bike is a good weekend.
