Bill! You mentioned Leo's in S'kilda. When I was a bum hitching around
Australia 50/48 years ago, I was broke and not elegible for social
payments, so I used to scour S'kilda beach for cool drink bottles before
the kids got there in the morning, then cash them in. I could buy a
hamburger without onions or any sauce for 13 cents. Most days Leo's fed me
for whatever money I had - one meal a day. My girlfreind was a dancer and
was rehearsing for the Shirley Bassey show - but didn't get paid until the
show started for the rehearsal time! She was out in Oakleigh - two train
trips away, if I remember it right. Didn't have the fare very often so did
a lot of walking! Oh, the 'good old days' have long gone. S'kilda's a flash
joint now ...
Andrew
On 22 May 2013 16:56, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Max, I like 'disunited nations' and particularly the final tearful image.
> Football-wise, The St Kilda Saints no longer play or even train in St
> Kilda. They
> used to be infamous in the 60s for having an extremely muddy ground which
> only they could master and where they defeated teams way above them
> on the ladder in terms of ability. The name of this oval now escapes me.
> Their home ground now, shared with other teams, is the one with the 'lid',
> Docklands or whatever sponsor's moniker now denotes it. Have you partaken
> of spaghetti at Leo's on the foreshore? One of the few restaurants largely
> unchanged in the past forty years.
>
> Cheers,
> Bill
>
>
> On Wed, May 22nd, 2013 at 10:25 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > St Kilda
> >
> > Googling 'St Kilda'
> > as this chap idly did
> > having moved to a flat
> > in St Kilda Road -
> >
> > clicked on 'images',
> > and what came up? -
> > that warm bayside
> > street-life suburb:
> >
> > delicatessens,
> > disunited nations
> > of bling boutiques and
> > 'ethnic' restaurants;
> >
> > raucous Luna Park;
> > a garden-plots commune;
> > rows of phoenix palms,
> > pony rides beneath them;
> >
> > walks to the pier cafe;
> > fairy penguins at night
> > in breakwater crevices,
> > protected native rats.
> >
> > The fierce home
> > of a football team.
> > Heat wave ending
> > in sea-borne cool change.
> >
> > Also: a barren Scottish
> > island, ruined cottages -
> > their word was 'sheilings' -
> > painful vacancy
> >
> > of depopulation.
> > What might they share,
> > have in common?
> > Those islanders
> >
> > emigrated here?
> > Hardly. History
> > mentions a schooner,
> > 'Lady of St Kilda'
> >
> > anchored by this beach
> > setting ashore its
> > British cargo and folk.
> > Migrants' mixed luck;
> >
> > the need of naming
> > a place whose naming
> > by Aboriginals was lost
> > when they were moved on.
> >
> > Gippsland, to the east -
> > that's where crofters
> > dislodged from Scotland
> > moved in, dislodging
> >
> > those Aboriginals.
> > Elbow your way now
> > through the evening
> > throngs of St Kilda -
> >
> > moving on,
> > moving along,
> > living in an absent-
> > minded present -
> >
> > are the old disruptions
> > done with, buried? -
> > unknown, untold,
> > disremembered?
> >
> > At the board-sports HQ
> > there's a webcam scanning
> > West St Kilda Beach,
> > tide and sky, night and day.
> >
> > From home you can watch,
> > if they're out, the tough young
> > wetsuits sailboarding,
> > windsurfing, kiteboarding -
> >
> > decide whether to join them -
> > or take the dogs down
> > for an off-leash romp,
> > present in the present.
> >
> > At the moment there's
> > just one figure trudging south
> > and raindrops on the webcam lens
> > like an eye-witness's tears.
> >
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
'Undercover of Lightness'
http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html
'Shikibu Shuffle'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-press-shikibu.html
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