I am going to talk about 60 years of my life in in 6 minutes centred on electronic signals
I am not going to talk about my sexlife, sorry to disappoint. I am not going to talk about my politics or religion.
My mother was a telegraphic typist for the PMG at the GPO in bourke st melbourne.
The postmaster general at the general post office. All telephones were owned by the PMG. Pigs meat and gravy we used to say.
My father enlisted in a hall in Glenhuntly, to be an Australian navy coder in world war 2 aboard a battleship destined for Japan, a week before the bomb blast at Hiroshima;
a close call, if not for a code call.
They married in st marys in dandenong rd witnessed by passengers on the number 64 tram heading for wattle tree road.
The Victorian government resumed their slum in phraran for 5000 quid in order to construct high rise commission flats.
The original Victorian workers cottage would be worth a a tad more in inner Melbourne today.
My parents moved to where the gum trees grew and the kookaburra laughed just as I was born….in East Melbourne.
The post war immigrants from war torn Europe were firstly housed in ancient aircraft hangars in Nunawading. Then they joined forces with fifth generation Irish descent Australians like my parents and poisoned the creeks and billabongs, burnt the bush and built white picket fenced weatherboard houses. My parents raised 6 children there.
I was educatedd by Irish Roman catholic nuns in primary school.
ahh Grade 5….. the best 3 years of my life.
As a teenager, I left school and became a Melbourne mod , a sharpie, a stylist, then long haired conscientious objector. Rock n roll ruled my life.
I went back to the earth and turned on, dropped out as a hip hippie and moved to Monbulk in the Dandenongs then to Seven Mile Beach in Hobart Tasmania.
My interweb connection drops out too, nowadays.
I married a hippie bride and we went on the overland trail to Darwin, timor, bali, java sumatra, Thailand, pinang, laos, burma nepal and Tibet.
The hippie bus boarded in Kathmandu bound for London, broke down in the himalayan foothills and we were taken by taxi to howrah railway station, calcutta.
Long distance phone calls made in dr who type phone booths procured funds for a flight back to OZ and on to another Howrah this time in hobart , Tasmania.
I sent my pay packet by wire to a batik business in central java indonesia and then sold batik hawaian handicrafted flowered frocks to Tasmanian female surfers in wet suits at Salamanca Market for 7 years.
I split with my first wife , . The 7 year itch and moved to the USA west coast , in a failed business venture,
I recovered in Bali by converting a Japanese bar into a pub named Bombay Rock, a name my sister stole from sydney rd.
Eventually the bar failed too and I returned to melbourne to drive a taxi and work for Telstra. I met my wife in Telstra and we raised 4 children
We moved from Bath st Kilda, beside the Betty Day building.
to Elsternwick because we could not afford bentleigh 22 years ago.
Telstra sent me and my young family of four to Riyadh saudi arabia and I learnt about the internet from teenage american marines. A message came in by Scud from Saddam. The mail was malicious.
Returning to Australia, Telstra promptly retrenched me with a massive payout paid for by price gouging.
I bought virtual property…domain names like elsternwick.com and the sold them for a profit, for a decade and then went to Paris and had a stroke, spine infection and kidney cancer.
All is good now. The titanium rod in my back and semi paralysis put me in this chair.
I now have post traumatic growth and that has brought me to the here and now with the marvelous members of toastmasters 3185 and the VP , my mentor, Mr Jerry Ma. I I love my family including Bridget my war correspondent daughter in the Congo war.
I love WIFI the french for wifi and wonder when we will have our own toastie wee lan. The german for wifi is wee lan, wee lan is free at Flinders st station.
It is now time to take my leave. How did I fair breaking ice ?
