Ah, 'groany gate' sets the mood. That's a humble house rich with memories.
Goodonya, Bill, I can hear the barker at the show extolling the girls' many
virtues!

Andrew


On 1 January 2014 06:12, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thank you, Roger.
>
>
>
> > On 1 Jan 2014, at 3:44 am, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > lovely poem
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]
> >wrote:
> >
> >> No, not eight, at the tents, Max. Other stuff with yabbies and
> >> clotheslines and grandma, eightish, no probably ten, now I think about
> it.
> >> But Vanessa and co plied their wares out front of their tents for a
> brief
> >> moment as a spruiker encouraged onlookers to ante up and head in the
> tent
> >> to see more and of course less. I must have just teened it I suppose
> when I
> >> saw a youth called by spruiker, jump up on platform outside tent and, at
> >> the spruiker's behest, place his open palm on on the exposed flesh of
> >> Vanessa's stomach. Vanessa smiled wordlessly. Gasps. This on the
> corner, as
> >> I recall it, of Pall Mall and whatever that road is that runs up to
> >> Hargreaves Street, right opposite the Shamrock Hotel, in broad daylight.
> >> What went on in the tents I never knew but that out front experience ...
> >>
> >> Thanks also Sheila and Doug, I will look again at those verbs which
> crept
> >> in at redrafting stages after I spoke to my parents and may not warrant
> >> remaining. The verbs, not the parents, who have been married Diamond
> sixty
> >> today!
> >>
> >> Patrick, I suppose I did want to half-hint at something a bit
> Bradburyish
> >> at the end but didn't want to tamper with the tone so stopped it there,
> >> albeit not quite as precisely as your moth closer.
> >>
> >> Bill
> >>
> >>> On 19 Dec 2013, at 6:33 am, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Ah, now he says he was eight.
> >>>
> >>> And back then in Bendigo eight year olds could pay their - what?
> >> shilling? - and be ushered in to see two strip tease acts?
> >>>
> >>>>>> Vanessa the Undresser and The Girl with the Twin 44s.
> >>>
> >>> I'd rather you were down on your knees lifting the flap of the canvas.
> >>> I guess cinema images are supervening here:
> >>> I see young Bill being dragged back by some stern authority…
> >>>
> >>> Max
> >>>
> >>> purely in the interests of social history - was Bendigo and its fairs
> >> replicated elsewhere?
> >>> what a lot I missed...
> >>>
> >>>> On 18/12/2013, at 11:23 PM, Bill Wootton wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks, Max, Pat.
> >>>>
> >>>> It is a slow camera eye but a bit ghostly too, I suppose. I have
> >> revamped the cheeky episode lines to:
> >>>>
> >>>> Fumes from Uncle Rex's Abbots Lager
> >>>> 'soldier' opened by feigned accident in kitchen.
> >>>>
> >>>> hoping to clarify how an eight year old pretended to be opening ginger
> >> beer on a hot day and opened a bottle of beer instead. Admitted the
> >> 'mistake' to Grandma without tasting. The illicit smell! We have a gal
> tank
> >> for water up here on the bush block and my father, a carpenter, and his
> >> plumber brother always shortened galvanised iron to gal. gal pipes etc
> so I
> >> thought gal roof would be OK.
> >>>>
> >>>> Suggestions about re-ordering have been adopted so I move now from
> >> pantry to outside laundry to clothesline to shed which seems better.
> Doug,
> >> tomorrow may disagree, he preferring last week to see more
> fragmentation in
> >> last week's poem at least.
> >>>>
> >>>> A big feature of the Bendigo Show is the Chinese Dragon, with many
> >> (human) legs but what I meant was bugger, as in 'blow' or 'who would
> care
> >> for' such a dragon when two strip tents were in the sideshow and much
> more
> >> attractive to young boys than any dragon, no matter how long.
> >>>>
> >>>> Cheers,
> >>>> Bill
> >
>



-- 
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