Cow Boy

I guess if there’s one defining, no best make that two, words to describe the most influential force in my life they would have to be “cow boy” The astrologers and numerologists would I’m sure find great potency in the fact that we arrived at ”Aintree” precisely on my seventh birthday, and left almost exactly seven years later. The child psychologists would want a piece of this action saying something like developmentally these are the most important in the Childs life.

Indulge me then as I try once again to inhabit the mind of this pre pubescent to pubescent boy. First memories are of being monstered by the cousins, three big farm boys, who had come to share the farm with us. The youngest was approximately the same age as my elder brother and he and my brother were the closest possible playmates. Of course as is de rigueur for threesomes they ganged up to form an exclusion zone and I probably spent a lot of my time crying into my mother’s busy apron. I remember once my cousin threw a stone to discourage this sniveling brat and it hit my shoulder, bounced up to hit my head cutting me in both places. Boy was I able to score some brownie points though of course such points did not serve me well, Its difficult learning to be a peer rather than a child and for me this learning was going to take some time yet.

The farm, as it turned out , would not keep two families and some time later my cousins and their mum and dad left for I know not where, leaving only one cousin, the middle not the stone thrower, as a farm hand. With him I formed a close relationship like that of an older brother and as time passed the roles of my real brother and I became more defined, I was to become assistant to my father whilst my brother would assist my mother. This was right up my alley. I was apprenticed to my father with a supportive older mentor/ brother/tradesman/cousin, milking cows, chopping wood, feeding calves, pigs and chooks with dogs and horses for friends. I’m not sure though how my brother felt, the rationalization was that he was approaching the final years of school where he was doing well and he needed time to devote to that and piano lessons that he had begun. I never thought about it then but compared to my deal I guess he could have felt pushed aside.
At first we school kids, me, brother, cousin would cross the creek on a fallen tree down from the pig sty’s, (no I lie before the flood at the end of a terrible drought when we first arrived I could leap across the creek) and walk about two kilometers to the main road to catch the school bus to Lismore, carrying those hopeless cardboard Globite cases which we put to good use at the bus stop as seats and on the way home as broody magpie protection.

I hated school, every day of it. When I search my memory for a high light the best I can come up with is when Fanta in that wonderful Michelin man bottle hit the tuck shop and when some orchestra visited and we all stood in the assembly yard in the burning sun while they did their best to entertain us. Most memorably was the French horn player who demonstrated with a length of garden hose, a funnel and his mouth piece that the horn didn’t need to go round and round to sound like that. There is one other memory and that is the time after exams and before the end of term when the brothers got us to polish the Vinol floor with one of those polishing machines you have to keep balanced or they’ll take off, loads of fun.

I’ve got plenty of bad memories though. Memories of classes of fifty plus, of canes that flayed all day, of the certainty that you’d get it, of brothers announcing “anyone who hasn’t been caned yet come out and get it now” Of brothers who weren’t much older than you who thrashed you and got a hardons, difficult for the poor bastards to hide in those frocks. I guess it wasn’t a ball for them either, fifty plus farm boys some of them pretty big too. I remember one, Millgate, called out for the cane, refused to put out his hand, silly brother, Old Pops, tried to force him, they ended up wrestling on the floor. Old Pops had a heart attack and died a couple of month later.

Lots of bulling too, very difficult to develop ego, don’t stand out, don’t do anything different, but ego won’t give in easily. One time I made a fart machine from fencing wire and rubber bands like a Shanghai with a steel washer that could be wound up. You sat on it with an exercise book as a sound box under, and when you lifted your cheek just as you do to fart the washer would spin and drum against the book creating a very loud and authentic fart sound. I let it rip as Pops was finishing period one time, the whole class cracked up, and Pops pulled that old I’ll punish everybody till the culprit owns up routine and I had to cop six but it was worth it for a few hours of glory.

By the time I was leaving that school at fifteen the cane had become so much a fact of life that I had lost all fear of it, I’m sure it still hurt as much but I just took it on, and its greatest deterrent, the fear, was gone. When I went to the next school, Christian Brothers, they used a strap not the cane, but they didn’t use it, I couldn’t believe my luck, I think I got it only once. Of course we were seniors and the class sizes in civilization were much smaller.

Life on the farm didn’t provide many opportunities for socializing the one big exception being the bus ride too and from school. Now as I’ve said at first we used to cross the creek and walk to the main road, but as time passed a different scenario developed where Hugh, who was then twelve, would drive our old dodge Ute the three miles from our place to the main road picking up all the other kids who lived along the road on the way. We didn’t go all the way to the intersection though, stopping at the church next to the bridge about half a kilometer short, and walking the rest of the way to help hide the uninsured and unlicensed illegal bus service. Now in those days in Australia the ethnic divide was still between Catholics and Protestants and Catholics were the wogs, though luckily for us real wogs, most of them Catholic too, were starting to turn up. On the bus, the big bus not Hugh’s bus, we Catholics were well in minority and owing to joining about half way along the route we suffered the further indignity of rarely finding a seat or at least only finding the seats the Protestants, who we called the Publics because they went to the public schools, chose for us. The Publics loved to play games. One game was to crouch the girls, another was to pull the then button up flies of the boys open, the prurient expressions of pre pubescence. The publics had the deck stacked as they would have had to commit murder for a bus transport issue to have any consequence at their school, whilst a negative transport report would mean six of the best every day for a week for us. I tried my best to keep my head down, keep a low profile and stay cool but ego eventually had its way and one day when the perfect opportunity arose with the nasty ringleader I ripped his fly completely open just as he was disembarking the bus outside his school. He turned on such a song and dance it was most gratifying for me but he thus gained the attention of the bus driver/owner and that night he, the driver, called my dad to report on his juvenile delinquent pervert son, ah the injustice. In those days we had just got the phone, a party line we shared with Bolands, and we probably got one call a month so you can imagine the gravity of such a call, for the whole family. My dad bless his soul got off the phone, asked me for my version of events and never mentioned it to me again.

As time wore on the residents of West Nimbin Road as it was then called badgered the bus owner to put in a link service down our road and this was eventually provided by his wife in a VW Combi. Now she was no suffragette or women’s libber, she had liked her previous life as a housewife, she resented this new role that had been thrust on her and she took it out on us. For those who got on her bad side by being loud or raucous which somehow, though it defies all logic I did, she had devised a unique punishment. She would seat you between herself the driver, and the drivers door. Try to imagine a greater punishment. Squashed against this fat smelly foreign woman and unable to communicate with your potential playmate peers, gross.

Despite the shortcomings of bus travel it was none the less one of the few chances to socialise, especially with girls. School of course was boys only and those who know me are aware that I regard single sex schools as only half an education. I don’t have very clear recollections of the girls on the bus with the exception of Kay. Kay Boland the next door neighbor. The most beautiful girl I ever met. Probably the most beautiful girl who ever lived. Milk white skin, jet black curls, ruby lips and blush, and startling blue super intelligent eyes. Yes she is probably the template against whom I have measured beauty ever more and I can’t recall ever having touched her. I’m not saying kissed or held hands here I’m saying touched like accidentally bumped hips or sat next to in a confined place, even with all those bus trips.

Her brother Rex was my best friend and we would spend hours together doing boy things that involved horses, dogs, water, mud, chickens, birds eggs, and the like but I can remember only a few rainy days when Kay joined us for play and they were memorable. I particularly remember one time when we played that game were you had to search for something and you are guided by being told when you were warm or cold. Whatever it was she had it in the pocket of her shorts. Now at that time I would have described her dress sense as akin that of Li’l Abner’s girlfriend Daisey Mae, but for the benefit of a later generation like that of the girls in the Dukes of Hassard. I’ve already said I don’t recall ever having touched her so I didn’t find whatever it was. I just couldn’t believe she wanted me to put my hand in her pocket. What a timid all boy’s school sucker. When I was twelve or thirteen dad mum and the rest of the family went to Sydney for a week or two in winter when the milking herd was low leaving me to run the farm. Whilst I spent the days at our farm taking care of chores and smoking cow dung in a corn cob pipe (I actually did that I was obviously very much under the influence of Al Capp’s characters) I fed bathed and slept at the Bolands. Kay and I would stay up after all had gone to bed playing board games by the hurricane lamp (no electricity) during which yours truly would be in a state of extreme high tension. Still no touching but I did get to check out and try on her dirty undies which were collected in the bathroom for washing. Ahhh First love. When we ultimately left the farm for good I stayed on to complete my Intermediate certificate and was set up in town at cousins place. I was a little surprised that this was to be the case rather than back at the Bolands as before but no one wasted time explaining anything much to me. Now as I reflect on it I’m certain the adults saw that the touch was surely coming.

Farming was very tough but I thrived. When the last of the cousins left I inherited his horse, the most beautiful, the most spirited, plump bay filly called Red Wings. She only wanted to run, and would do so all day if not tightly reined. She went to full gallop as soon as you put a foot in the stirrup and you’d better be clever to mount her. Now many would not find in favor of these characteristics but I loved her and I like to think she favored me. Along with her I inherited the more responsible position of 2IC in which I was probably like a cocky chick trying to look big by fluffing its feathers. Days always started before sunrise with a cup of sugary tea and my first chore was to find the naughty cows that had hidden from my father during his earlier round up in the dark. In order to be sure that they didn’t also fool me I would first stand atop a large fence post and count the herd and establish who was missing, With this information I would ride out to the Top Paddock. In winter it would be bitterly cold and foggy with frost on the lower paddocks, it was miraculous to break through the fog blanket as we went higher, into beautiful warming sunshine. I must admit that although I would have stayed in bed had mum not prodded this first chore was the best imaginable compensation and I really appreciated those naughty cows.

In spring an additional duty was to bring in cows that had calved the previous night with their still wobbly offspring. Some ancestral memory of wolves or wildcats caused these cows to conceal their calves, often in just a depression where surrounding grass would provide an effective hide, and go some distance off to graze and try to look nonchalant. The trick was to imitate the bleat of a distressed calf, which even the canny older cows who knew it was me could not ignore for long, eventually going to the calf and giving away the hide. Now to a farmer livestock’s capital, just as lumber is to carpenters or motors are to a mechanic, and as such are usually regarded with unemotional respect, however I often felt guilt at taking advantage of these poor cows in so vunerable a state.
This cowboy round-em-up stage of the morning over it was down to the drudge of milk, clean, feed calves, and shovel shit till all was done or on school days till it was time to clean up, have breakfast and catch the bus. As anyone can imagine this breakfast coming after two plus hours of considerable physical activity was approached with some gusto. In a normal sitting there would be porridge or cereal always topped with All Bran and sugar and milk and cream followed by two fried eggs and three fat sausages and three slices of high top white toast and for the still peckish another sausage and toast. When I went later to live with the cousins in town I really thought I might die of starvation on the two slices of toast and jam, have another if your still hungry, breakfasts.

Home from school, more milking, washing, feeding and shoveling shit usually till after dark and finally treat of treats the shower, a lesson in democracy, my two brothers and I with our dad and one twenty liter drum of warm water with a tap and shower rose in the bottom. Under you go and get wet, turn off the tap and lather for all your worth then turn it back on and rinse. The first time I showered in our new home in Strathfield where the pressure of the water was as likely to peel your skin to say nothing of the heat and duration, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. After dinner you only needed to open a homework exercise book to fall into peaceful sleep.

Non school days provided a host of cowboy/2 IC entertainments. Dip day when the whole herd would be driven into the dip yards and forced to take a swim of about thirty meters through a vile chemical filled (mostly Arsenic) trough. Nothing wrong with that except it was over too soon. A much bigger and more intriguing event at the dip yards, though unfortunately a one off, was the de-horning of the herd. Now don’t ask me why this was done I was either too young to be told or too stupid to remember what I was told. I was certainly unaware of any problem with cows having horns and I suspect to this day that it was just that someone had invented the de-horning tool, a glorified bolt cutter with a guillotine action for you tradies, and everyone thought it would be a hoot, and it was for anyone who didn’t have horns. I have this theory that if you show a bloke a tool he can’t wait to use it, as if tool itself justifies its use. Another tool I witnessed for the first, and only time, that day, was a cattle prod which only reinforces my hoot theory. The cows were driven through races till they were single file where with stout beams they were prevented from forward or backward movement More tricky timbers were used to immobilize their heads and the horns were lopped, not without gushing blood that soon congealed to the delight of flies. Now as I’ve previously indicated cattle do not lack personality, they can be naughty, all of our cows of milking age, up to one hundred and twenty of them, had names and were easily identified. Now the chief, the No.1 Bull, who was called Bellington, was well aware of his status and had lots of attitude. When the lads tried to herd him into the race he would have none of it eventually after dodging and weaving for a long time he just came to a stand still and would not be moved. At this up stepped Pat Boland, yes father to my fantasy, as short and as lean as a three strand fence post, and said leave this to me. Taking a long length of rope he traced it out in a pattern on the ground around where Bellington stood. Eventually when satisfied with his loops, he got four or more of the biggest farm boys to commence pulling in opposing directions. As the loops tightend they rose and forced Bellington’s legs together till at last he could not support his great weight and he collapsed. I’m not sure how they secured his head but soon they had his horns off. Ropes were carefully loosened and in a farmyard manner, , remember that prod, he was encouraged to rise but he would only lie there and sulk “Without My horns” he seemed to be saying “There is no dignity I will die here” “No you won’t” said the father of my love and he asked the vet/whoever who had come from town that day if he could have his newspaper. This he scrunched up and lifting Bellington’s tail placed it under where it connected to his spine right over his asshole “anyone got a light” this old cocky said and with the proffered matches he lit the Northern Star in Bellington’s bum. Well of course he rose and surprisingly went on to have a great deal more progeny despite these great humiliations.

As you see it’s a boys own adventure out there with horses, dogs, guns, I haven’t mentioned but I had a single shot .22 Lithgow rifle at hand most times with which, I’m ashamed to say, if it moved I shot it, or tried to I wasn’t the best shot or it wasn’t the best rifle or both most likely. Local prey, rabbits and birds mainly were pretty leery and for good reason I guess. Crows had a bounty on them and I’m sure they knew it. They’d probably seen the wanted posters. Whilst relative plentiful they were no fools and could recognize a gun at quite a distance. They knew we were dangerous and if that wasn’t enough they were nine tenths feather proof for which can be found in my record for clipping feathers and having old crow fly away Ark Ark. It wasn’t until years later in Tokyo that I really appreciated the intelligence of this bird which in that non threatening urban environment would tolerate humans at arms length. The bounty on these creatures was no doubt derivative of their historical significance as birds of prey, and certainly they would feast on the eyeballs of dead stock which didn’t improve their image with farmers. However I think it was their audacity that made them real outlaws. I recall in the first few years of farm life we planted crops of corn as stock feed. Crows would actually hop along the furrow behind the planter eating the planted seed, and maintaining always an eyeball contact so that if noticed they could scatter too fast for any dire consequence on their behalf. Later as the crop grew and ears of corn developed, we devised all manner of deterrent including carbide guns that fired at regular intervals, windmills from jam cans that created a discordant sound and of course scare crows, all to little avail. One more creative attempt to rid ourselves of this pest was derived from the wives tale cum myth that a white or ghost crow would scare all others to kingdom come. Some of the cousins trapped a crow with the lure of an egg in a rabbit trap, overkill to be sure, but the resultant and bloodied one legged crow lived long enough to fly, ark arking, in ever decreasing circles, in a white bed sheet suit made by my dear aunt, and lo and behold all the crows disappeared, for at least a couple of days. Unfortunately in their absence the Rosellas, far more plentiful, took over the crop destruction duties, and finding it to their taste stayed forever more.

Now I’m glad to have been able to mention Rosellas in this light because it helps me to rationalize that these were a much more common target for me and my Lithgow .22. It wasn’t much fun missing crows, and rabbits were tricky requiring more planned expeditions. Rosellas on the other hand were plentiful, weren’t as leery as crows and seemed to have a better body to feather ratio. Now when you shoot /execute/exterminate a previously living being you can bathe in the glory of what an excellent shot/hunter you are. The crack of the rifle, the smell of cordite and the vision of the falling prey are like taking drugs. Going to collect the fallen prey on the other hand, especially when it turns out to be such a small and miraculously beautiful bird or fluffy and doe eyed bunny can be a big come down. The emotional ambiguity of being able to touch and view this wild creature, that you have just killed or almost killed, it’ll die soon, it’s so beautiful, how good a hunter am I, oh I wish I hadn’t, moment. Small prey such as this is easily forgotten once discarded but larger beasts may prove harder to dismiss.

Prowling like feral animals, three seeds that in time could have grown into the flys in Lord of the Flies, one of them a Daly who’s father loved nothing better than to blow up logs with gelignite, spotted a critter up a tree. It moved, ever so slightly, so we shot it of course. It didn’t fall from its perch, we must have missed, shoot again, another volley that must have hit, it moved slightly but still didn’t fall, what could it be. The .22 is about the smallest caliber bullet, possibly the smallest I’m no expert. As such it has a correspondingly small charge so it’s really suitable for only small critters. If you’re cheap, and we farm boys were, you can purchase shorts, instead of longs, which have even less charge. Guess which we had. Volley followed volley and we began to wonder, what we were shooting at. Others, and you readers among them, might have wondered this sooner but not we flies. We were never in doubt of the protocol, shoot first ask questions later, but now we had begun to ask questions. It was a bear, a brown bear, no it’s not an ape there’re no apes in Australia. It’s a brown bear like a grizzly, needs to be shot, no not a koala, no koalas around here. Well maybe theres no grizzlies either but it’s too big to be a koala keep shooting. By this time the poor beast laden down with half a kilo of lead in its ass was loosing its grip and slowly falling while never quite letting go. As it got closer it did indeed turn into a koala and we flies turned into the cowards we were. It reached the ground and bared its worn leaf munching teeth, hissed and spat and although it was too badly wounded to be any real threat we were suitably threatened and wished we weren’t there, ran and talked and walked in circles of confusion guilt and fear. Koalas are protected. It’s a crime We’ll go to jail. We’ve got to put it out of its misery. How. Shoot it . We’ve shot it. Shoot it in the eye. Shoot it in the mouth. I honestly don’t know how this was resolved but I know I never told anyone about it even though I knew I wore it on my face for all to see.

I probably didn’t go round shooting things so much after this. I know as I grew older the novelty was wearing thin but I still would have treasured the rifle itself, and my right to use it as sacred. There is however one more tale to tell that relates to the rifle and I shall call it The Executioner. As I said before to farmers animals are stock just like cans of fruit on a supermarket shelf there to be exploited till no longer of use when they are sold to become dog food, blood and bone fertilizer or whatever. Even your beloved horse becomes glue and pet food however in this country there seems to be no market for surplus to requirement dogs (no not even the Chinese restaurant) Farmers needed cattle dogs, they were workers not pets like city dogs. That didn’t mean that they didn’t spawn litters like city dogs do nor did it mean they couldn’t work their way under your guard and become your best friend. When they were no longer of use though which in the case of pups was often immediately they had to be dispatched. It was relatively simple to put pups in a bag and drop them in the creek to drown but when a mature dog was no longer of use the method of dispatch was normally a bullet. Minor floods were a favored time for these executions as the carcass could be thrown in the engorged creek to hopefully be transported out of sight and mind. For some reason, most likely to learn a lesson and pass a right of passage I was the designated executioner. I’m certain that my dad did not pressure or demand but put the proposition in such a way that I volunteered of my free will to perform the task. So it was that I would lead an older dog usually a bich, one or two of who’s recent litter we had chosen to replace her, down to the swollen creek where it was no great difficulty to place the mussel of the gun against her unsuspecting faithful skull and dispatch her as they say in the military. I do not blame or disparage my dad for giving me this charge, I’m sure he thought he was providing me with invaluable education for the life I looked set for in those times. I’m sure I never liked the job and was often in turmoil about its process but I did I’m sure appreciate the confidence my dad showed in me to perform the task and that I was given such great responsibility at so early an age. Cats also bore litters that were similarly dispached and sometimes grown cats had also to be gotten rid of. These were more circumspect and wiley than faithful dogs and not as likely to stand still as the barrel of a rifle was put against their skull. For this reason it was more reliable to place them also in a hessian sack and drop them into an engorged stream. I remember once dropping a mature tabby in a sack into the stream only to witness the sack resurface and the cat to tear it apart and swim ashore. I was so frightened, sure that it would come straight at me and with the same violence I had seen as it tore out of the sack, tear my chest open eat my heart and tear off my face that I ran without a backward glance. Amazingly this cat resumed its old position in the household and seemed to bear no grudge and as I recall no one ever tried again to dispatch it.

It was a hard life to be a dairy farmer in those days and I suspect probably still is. Cows had to be milked twice a day every day of the year. Cows calved in spring which meant in the height of summer when it was hottest, when it was Christmas, you were milking your largest herd, around the hundred mark as I recall. Four to five hours work in the morning and then do it again in the afternoon. Try going to the beach, over an hours drive away on poor roads between milkings to give the kids a treat as we did. Try driving home at three, due west with the sun in your face having been up since five or earlier if you’re my dad, with the certainty of another four to five hours work ahead before you could finally eat and die in bed to start again well before five next day, day in day out whatever that means. Only in mid winter when you were never warm unless sitting next to the kitchen stove, with the herd reduced to ten, I think we went down to six milkers one winter, was there some respite from the monotony though then there were all the tasks summer didn’t allow time for like mending fences pulling or poisoning weeds and preparing fields for crops, to be fitted in between the two ten cow milkings.

When dad asked me one day what I would think if we sold up and moved to the city as if I had some choice, I enthusiastically agreed, what could be better. A couple of months later after one of those magic mornings when Man and Horse (me and Red Wings) merged into one excited beast on our morning roundup plunging down gullies at full gallop shouting and grunting to capacity, thrilling in life on the brink without fear I remember telling my dad that it didn’t matter if we didn’t sell for this was the life I would always want. Of course my opinion didn’t matter, I was only one among many to care for and I suppose my expressions that morning only made my fathers burden greater though maybe he also drew strength in the recognition that his son had experienced a moment of great, I feel adult clarity, a moment I’ve come in later life to recognize as so rare and ephemeral.

It’s hard to feel adult at least it has been for me. I don’t think adult came to be default mode for me till very late but I do recall exhilarating experiences of it from time to time and this may have been the first. I’ve found growing up / older to be an agreeable experience. Apart from the knowledge which arrived with puberty, that I could no longer wrestle with girls, or that I needed their consent and co-operation to do so, I never missed childhood. I was anxious as most are to reach adulthood with its status and privileges. At those times of reflection such as birthdays and anniversaries I might have wished to have made better decisions or choices but I would never have sacrificed age and its accompanying experience to go back and give it another try. Not even when I made grievous mistakes did I ever consider sacrificing valued experience for another chance.