Those were the Days my Love
January 24, 2012
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You thought it would never end, but while it might still be some years away; end it will.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KODZtjOIPg
I remember those first memories as if it was yesterday. That of holding my mother’s hand, except it wasn’t mum but a strange lady in the soup kitchen of Rotterdam 1944. In the confusion of many mums and many children with metal buckets waiting to be filled, I had taken a mum’s hand which wasn’t my mother’s. This was my first moment of total panic and of freaking out. It was resolved within seconds but the forgetting of this, never. How odd, that links to mothers are so important that the comfort of holding a hand can leave such lasting impressions. I mean, I was holding someone’s hand and it was only when looking upwards I became aware of the hand not being my mother’s. So what was the big deal? Perhaps during those war years with cold winters and gnawing hunger, filling buckets with soup was the primary concern by mothers with skinny children. I am sure my mother hadn’t deliberately let go of her skinny son’s hand. The metal bucket that my mother carried was green as was the little kerosene cooking stove that she used to prime by pumping. It was my right hand that my mother had let go off.
The years rushed by and then we married, we had our first, our second, our third child…. Vasectomy…. Enough now of pro-creation. Dr.Barbara Simcock of the Australian Family Planning Association performed the operation. ‘Make sure you keep using condoms for at least the next 6 weeks,” was her sage advice. Here take some, they are multi coloured and they glow in the dark, she added before tending to the next man who I had briefly met in the waiting room. He had a beard and looked a bit anxious and pale, but he also had four children. Then after six weeks I had to take a sample to the ‘semen expert’ who would try and detect if any life ones survived since the operation and the use of those coloured condoms (glowing under the bed sheets). The butcher who had watched a channel 9 TV segment on my vasectomy said triumphantly;” I saw you on the Telly yesterday, you had it cut off”, ha-ha ha…” Your usual two kilo of sausages?”
Those were the days, forever and for more. Those were also the days of the tribal rock musical ‘Hair’ with its’ Age of Aquarius’ with long hair and tentative first bong trials and errors. We rolled the bong and felt real ‘with it’ especially after having, for the first time ‘ever’ in public, seen the lineup of nudes at the Hair musical at Kings Cross theatre. The first display of pubic hair IN PUBLIC! It had trouble getting through the sensors. One condition of allowing the nudity was that the actors were to stand frozen. Nothing would be allowed to move or dangle. Police on horse-back with batons drawn were outside the theatre. Any body part moving and hell would break out. The actors were also not allowed to undress on the stage. The problem was resolved by the actors getting undressed under a huge canvas sheet. When the moment arrived that the whole audience had waited for, (with baited breath) you could hear a pin drop. The canvas sheet would be hoisted up, et voila, real live nudes. Standing, in situ, like a set from Madame Tussauds Wax museum. Eroticism came in modest form during those times.
The show was hugely popular and went on even longer than ‘The Sound of Music,’ which was not quite as erotic.
Tags: Condom.Erotic., Hair musical, Kings Cross, Mary Hopkin, Nude, The Sound of Music, Vasectomy Posted in Gerard Oosterman | Edit | Leave a Comment »
Six weeks after your spaying, you’re lucky Gerard, I had to wait three months befor I got the all clear. The Acquaris clip was a ripper.
‘…Channel 9 TV segment on my vasectomy.’ So banal, really.
Sandshoe, you are just jealous, not EVERYBODY gets interviewed on Channel Nine about their vasectomy
He’s famous, our gez!
Helvi, o, yes, I am now. I thought starkly lit blue ground sheets draped over the redundant areas, a kind of ordinary run-of-the-mill turn-out…
Gez out cold. I clearly missed the interview. Should be a re-run any day.
I stood at the back of the Kings Cross theatre to see ‘Hair’. It was offered. Somewhere I have a photo of myself in the pastel blue sweater I had on with University of Queensland scrawled in white on the front. I was excited to get a spot. I was so free of a drug or drugs to be positively pristine. 18. Outside the theatre numbers of GIs on R&R from Vietnam wandered the Cross. The shop fronts were draped with flags of the good ole US of A. It looked like a movie set, made me thoughtful. I was a Pol Science student. That song ‘I met a boy called Frank Mills right here in the front of the Waverly… ‘ stuck in my mind, know it word for word. The vigour of the dancers. It was the second-most transforming experience of my life.
No, no intrigue. I went to my blog noticed VL comment and approved it. I hadn’t told H so….Thanks VL for commenting on my http://oosterman.wordpress.com
I wasn’t aware of it.
I am now though.
Maybe I should start one? …But in whose name??
VL, put up all your Pseudonyms and you have a blog, nothing else needed..: )
…a directory?
A nice reminiscence Gerard… sort of, “How Tame Was My Valley…”
Where have you been?
“I’ve been everywhere man, I’ve been everywhere…”
Nah… nowhere really… just haven’t had much to say lately…
Hey! I made a comment and whizzed off to another blog??
It went to gerad’s blog.
Anyways it wasn’t very profound and is stuck in the moderator’s in tray. Who’s the moderator? Helvi?
Anyway it is a good story. OMG, this is like groundhog day, except that I can’t remember what I wrote.
What are you talking about, VL? Me,a moderator…LOL. I believe it’s Emmjay, if someone gets nasty, here or anywhwere, I stay away or move to a different story.
Well Helvi, somehow I clicked on gerads’ blog. I didn’t know that he had one. I made a comment and it appeared (on my browser), as being modified.
It couldn’t be Emmjay–he doesn’t moderate gerard’s blog surely?
VL, I thought you were talking about this story here at pigs arms…
I am Helvi, I am.
Let’s go through this slowly….My email notifed me of a new story. I clicked on it. It took me to a blog that I didn’t know existed. I made a comment, expecting it to appear here!!!
However, obviously, my computer took me to a different blog: gerard’s!!
I guess, that if you look on his blog, it will stilll be there!
VL, all clear now, the story is in TWO places, and you did not know that, and I did not know that you were unawre about OOSTERMAN TREATS…
Just got back from a very wet walk. Surprisingly, Horners was open, so I bought some damper with wattle berries. It was still warm and tasted delish with ginger marmalade; it complemented my, Nespresso, Vivalto Lungo.
Ready to do nothing now. Ha ha. All of The Austaralia Day events are cancelled here because of the weather. The rain has stopped , giving some temporary respite, but the ground is all sodden. And the rain is redue (my own word).
In my experience, VL, these unexplained glitches are usually caused by a PEBKAC or ID-10T error .
Mmmmm, I see. HOWEVER, that doesn’t excuse T2, from popping in and then ignoring me. he could at least yell out Hoy!
VL, be nice to asty and he will greet you
Kidding again, I know you two are friends.
HOY!
Sorry Vee-Ell, certainly didn’t mean to ignore you!
Lovely song, sang by the very lovely Mary Hopkins.
I remember Mary singing it to win an ‘Opportunity Knocks’ show… written for her I believe, by Messrs Lennon and McCartney.
Nice to see you here, asty
Hi Asty, hope you will stick around. Missed you badly. Reminiscing is a luxury I enjoy.
Miss you from here asty. Just adding my voice.
Nice to be missed… I’ve needed a bit of a break lately but will try to get back into the swing of things soon.
