Monthly Archives: June 2015

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RIP

Category:Community,Compassion,Family,Neighbour,Peace,respect

Loitering one night recently I found out that one of the men i used to sit and have coffee with had died.

Today we held a memorial service for him, along with some of his mates I get hangout with from time to time.

This man died alone in a toilet cubicle, he carried all his possessions in a small backpack, which he carried every where. he was a person who said very little and who asked for nothing.

There was much about him we did not know, he had grandchildren, who he had never met, he had family who loved him. He, for what ever reason, lived a live which we may not understand

He was not popular,trendy,famous or well known, BUT he was loved and will be missed by us all, who knew him.

RIP Joffa.


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SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE AND LISTEN!!!!!!

Category:Bubba,LISTEN,respect,STORY,streets

A recent conversation on the street went like this.

Giday mate ( Australian greeting) what do you do for a living?
I loiter with intent, I replied, and you?

I am a mercenary in South Africa Game Parks, shooting poachers, came the reply,
I love the travel and the adrenalin rush!!

I was then offered a pouch of tobacco and papers to roll a cigarette, which I politely refused, as I prefer cigars!!

Its a bad habit anyway came the response, that and amphetamines have been my downfall exclaimed the stranger!!

We chatted for a little longer and as we parted company , it got me thinking about the strangers story.

Did it matter if it was not true? I figured it didn’t , what was important, was the fact the story was true for him, and it was important for me to listen to it, allowing the stranger to be heard.

Sometimes we are not good at hearing others stories, believing our own are more important.

I recently, heard someone exclaim that they did not understand people leaving church because they had been hurt by it, ‘no one has been hurt more by the church than me’!! they said, and I still believe in it and attend.

Responses like this stop others from telling their story, because it seems no longer important!!

If we fail to listen, we fail to care.

While the strangers story may not have been true, he was allowed to tell it and maybe just maybe its the only time someone gets to hear it.


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country life

Category:Community,grief,Hope,Hospitality,respect
Growing up in the country it was assumed life was ‘the way it was meant to be’.
A poem to that effect was written glorifying life in ‘the sticks’ this as a response.


Clancy Williams, GPO
I had written him an e-mail, which was lacking in some detail
Sent to where I’d met him in a shop in Bendigo. 
But they said he’d left the district, and was working now in Burke St
I could reach him just by writing “Clancy Williams, GPO”.
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone to live in that great city where the life and rhythm flow
With his fingers never dirty, taking tea breaks at 10.30,
And at night he’d go to meetings or perhaps attend a show.
He’ll be off attending concerts, or hear buskers sing in Swanston
He’d go cruising down the freeway, or read papers on the train
And there’s always friends to greet him, or new folks who’d like to meet him
And a thousand shops to choose from where the prices don’t cause pain.
I am stuck up country farming where the labour’s quite alarming
It gets harder every season but returns are staying low
I now work machinery only, for the farming life is lonely
And the dwindling local township is the only place to go.
And in place of friendly next-doors, all I hear are distant chain saws
As the hungry forest workers fell another noble tree
And on weekends local football, ends in swearing and a pub brawl
And the young blokes screech their utes up Main Street on a drunken spree
[Optional extra verse:
Now God may have his reasons
But he’s buggered up the seasons
Just can’t get a rainfall when the crops need one to grow
When the stock leave, there’s no drovers
Just worn-out truckies popping No-Doze
If the drought keeps on it won’t be just the sheep that have to go]
We’ve more accidents and injury but our health provision’s stingy
For the government makes cutbacks that the townsfolk never know
And our children are so needy, and the homestead lawn gets weedy
But the farmer has no time to talk; he has no time to mow.
And I sometimes like to fancy I could do a swap with Clancy
Join the 9 to 5 commuters where excitements never slow
While he faced the lonely backbreak of the rural people’s heartache
But I doubt he’d fit the country, Clancy Williams, GPO.
Written by Geoff Leslie, April 1999

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A song

Category:Hope,Love,Neighbour,Peace

Well my friend, well I see your face so clearly 

Little bit tired, little bit worn through the years 

You sound nervous, you seem lonely

I hardly recognize your voice on the telephone

In between I remember

Just before we wound up broken down

Drive out to the edge of the highway

Follow that lonesome dead-end roadside sound

We’re all in this thing together

Walkin’ the line between faith and fear

This life don’t last forever

When you cry I taste the salt in your tears

Well my friend, let’s put this thing together

And walk the path that worn out feet have trod

If you wanted we can go home forever

Give up your jaded ways, spell your name to God


All we are is a picture in a mirror

Fancy shoes to grace our feet

All that there is is a slow road to freedom

Heaven above and the devil beneath

Willie Watson
Ketch Secor
Blood Donor Music