Glad to hear you are still all passionate about the Pig’s Arms. I suppose in between reading all those lovely little snippets of wisdom, art or trivia you all have time to reflect on many things including life and what it is all ab0ut.
Well, I sure hope there is more to it than moving boxes, bed heads and filling drawers with knives and forks.
We still haven’t found the wheels underneath our settee yet. We had taped them together in order not to lose them but we have. Also my corn pads have gone on walk about again. Still, my toothbrush is safe and waiting for my teeth in a special metal container..
Sorry if I have been a bit slack with responses but we are busy and are also having our grandkids over. At the moment one of our daughters and her son are here and we had some lovely pizza. One regular ‘meat lover’ and one regular ‘Italian”. You just phone up and after 20 minutes they are ready to pick up in a carton box with a nice Napoli-bay scene printed on top of the lid. Inside, apart from the pizza of course, is a special little spacer to prevent the lid from sticking to the hot molten cheese. I wonder how many years it took for that little invention to appear and who was the genius? Talking about carton boxes. I wonder why Ikea hasn’t come out with a fold out coffin a la the “Mount Calvary” model. It could come in a flat pack with its own Allen key. The chrome plated plastic handles neatly packed in its own little bag tucked in between the bottom and top board.
Here an old one for the friday evening.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLjbMBpGDA
Cheers,
Gerard
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Gez, I had to do a bit of homework on this subject the last time Mater took us to the edge.
When my Dad carked it some 25 years ago now, he was “covered” by one of those rip-off funeral funds that he and Mom contributed to – for donkeys’ years. Anyway, what showed up was nothing in elegant dark and sombre wood. It looked a lot more like laminex imitation Queensland maple. Rather cheap and nasty, I felt.
Not that Pater was a man given to dignity or ceremony. Not sure why I expected more – he was a laminex kind of guy, really.
Anyway, my recent research took me to the (I thought) ecologically sensible notion of a papier mache coffin. Saves trees. And curiously costs the same as a solid wood one.
Plus ca change
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My dad ‘Henricus’ was exhibited to his sons and single daughter in a solid coffin of dark wood. However, his hands were tucked away out of sight, not showing his wedding ring. Mum reckoned that the funeral people pinched the ring and was much chagrined about this for many years.
He died in Holland while we were getting pissed on cask wine at the South Coast Bendalong camping ground. We flew ‘en masse’ next day to the funeral with special discounted fares based on ‘compassionate ‘ grounds.
As it turned out he died of a drip, drip blood bowel cancer well hidden from Mum and was still driving his car the previous day. The missing wedding ring and his hands in the cask hidden out of sight rankled Mum but anger kept her alive for many years.
C’est la mort.
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So much pathos there Emmjay and Gerard; I don’t know what to say, maybe we should stop making more out of death than there really is reason to do…
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Isn’t Jim Morrison also buried in Paris ?
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Now, with the advance of years beyond the half century, we fully expect that wisdom and experience will guide us to calmer waters and ease us into a nice and comfortable latter part or even, with the luck of robust health and benefit of not smoking anymore, to old age. We paid our dues and the mortgage man is now finally sated. The credit card we will still keep on sailing with, just in case of the unforseen, the failing car or broken and worn washer-dryer, a trip to Venice or even Chile’s Santiago.
Having steamed through that post mortgage, and for some, post marriage years, we have now travelled to the beginning of an advanced age with the cheerful Newsletter and Senior’s card in the post. The Seniors Newsletter has holidays for the advanced seniors at Noosa and a plethora of advertisements for those handy battery operated electric little carriages with shopping tray at the back.
It is time now to have one more go at something, perhaps golf or, dread the thought, bowling with cricket gear in white and with men wearing neatly pressed pantaloons but suspiciously bulging when bending to bowl. Once more, we listen hear and hum the forlorn ‘Le piano du pauvre’.
I am nothing. I exist. Only in the generous eyes of others.
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The mausoleum comment reminds me of the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise . I spent a very pleasant day there with a lovely group of people.
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Did you stand in front of Oscar Wilde’s grave and say, ‘hello?’
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The graveyard at Brayton is one of those lovely forgotten and forlorn bush places where in the past, swags could easily have been rolled out with bushies camped in between the contented and silent stones. It is surrounded by an old fence that leans higgledy piggledy now, but even so, were then hand hewn with posts and rails that survived fires and hungry ants, rammed in hand dug holes decades ago by men now buried there. It keeps out the curious cows but not the incorrigible wombats. Argyle eucalypts with leaves so silvery and fragrant keep guard and give shade to all those dearly departed country souls. The view from this burial place is so beautiful and to die for. The surrounding paddocks carry the black stumps of bushfires which wiped out the settlement many times over, including Post Office, Church and local single class school. The graveyard is all that Brayton now is.
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Beautiful imagery Gerard. Thank you.
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“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time…
And all our yesterdays have lighted
Fools the way to dusty death.
Out! Out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow;
A poor player who struts and frets
His hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more…
It is a tale told by an idiot,
Full of sound and fury;
Signifying nothing.”
(Bill Waggadagga)
🙂
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Remember the days when trams had “conductors” entertaining the crowds?
Who were those “crowds” and where were they going?
Bill Waggadagga-MacBeth’s profound observations about life’s insignificance had inspired me -back int the 70s, I think- to take that metaphor for life off the stage and into the daily routine, insignificant, if one is to measure it by the place of its origin and the place of its destination. It’s a trip from nowhere to nowhere conducted by no one.
In other poems, of course, I’ve reversed that view. Both, origin and destination might be Oblivion, but like Kavafis said in his Ithaka, it’s the trip that is significant, not the destination. Homer’s Odysseus didn’t stop in Ithaka
for the rest of his life, even though he was homesick enough for it, to reject Circe’s and Calypso’s offers. He took off again… He just had to be on a tram!
The Tram
The tram runs like the exposed
Philosophers run and
Like the priests with
Their acolytes and like the whores
And like the
Brain-blood of the
House-trapped house-
Wives and of the boss-
Owned husbands.
From the depots of oblivion
And back
Again
It receives, as the boudoir
Cistern receives, thoughts of all sorts
And
Intentions from all directions and
Uncouthly, chunders them out
Again, stop by stop
All the way to the Depot.
“Move along the tram, please,
Move along, please, there are
Others waiting to get on. Next stop
Oblivion!”
Cap askew and money bag glued to his
Belly this chirpy
Conductor moves
Sideways up and down amongst
Pinned crabs.
And the tram runs on.
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That’s a very nice arrangement of words, thanks Asty
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Well, thanks Gerard, but you really ought to thank William Shakespeare (Bill Waggadagga!)… He wrote ’em, not me…
And atomou’s Tram poem was a pretty good arrangement of words too, I thought… Thanks Ato!
🙂
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Dear asty, I’m confident Gerard was aware of whose words you were giving us; nicely arranged words, are…nicely arranged words, no matter if it was/were you or Shakespeare expressing them…
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“I wonder why Ikea hasn’t come out with a fold out coffin a la the “Mount Calvary” model.”
Perhaps they were just waiting for your suggestion, Gerard. Yo!
🙂
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Asty, damn it, MY Ikea is gone, not fair… we went to Randwick ‘Supercentro’ last week looking for office shelving and had to go Freedom instead. Found some nice chrome plated ones , came in boxes and were suprisingly easy to put together, no Allen keys needed…
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You had a prefabricated ‘Ikea’ coffin, Helvi? And it was stolen, you say? And now you’ve had to replace it with a ‘Freedom’ coffin instead? I see…
Well, I’m glad you had no problem assembling it Helvi… I can only suppose you were a Girl Scout?
😉
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Asty, wrong on all accounts; I’m NOT into coffins, I’m into bookcases, and as I have not found any pleasing ones at Ikea or at Freedom, I’m forced to go to the antique shops…I’m finding out that they are the way to go, if you want the quality and the right price…
The bought Freedom shelves were for ‘the office’, the room where the computers and anything taxable are kept 😉
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Ah bookcases! Now you have my sympathy! I was only teasing about the coffin, Helvi.
I too suffer from a dearth of bookcases; and the resulting ‘horizontal surfaces disease’ is woeful to behold… You’re right about secondhand bookshelves too… but I’m holding off buying any new ones ’til I move into my new place… wherever and whenever that will be!
‘Til then I guess I’ll just have to live with horizontal surfaces disease!
😉
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There is nothing like a day at a nice graveyard. I remember taking the grandkids to the one at Brayton, which is a totally neglected piece of bush overlooking distant hills.
A creaking gate and some slabs ajar through the ravages of time, fire, and incorrigable wombats. Kids on knees peeping under the slabs wanting to see bones but with no torch they could only see them with eyes of imagination.
The kids loved it.
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Ban all coffins, I say!
Close down all cemeteries!
Take down all monuments and turn all mausolea into cafes!
Have no graves!
Donate all body parts either to living people who need them or to medical science and incinerate the remnants.
Do like the Zoroastrians and other religions do: live the corpse for the vultures.
or toss them into the oceans.
Join my BND (Bury No Dead) Party!
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Amazing how Freud messes with one’s brain!
That should be “leave the corpses for the vultures”
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The mausolea at the Rigoletto graveyard were so monumental you could sublet them to the house-less living…
Australia , being so dry, does not lend itself to well-kept lush graveyards of my native Finland. In Russia they become local meeting places (in summertime), or even coffee lounges and restaurants…people have to take their own food and refreshments with them tho. I rather like that…
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I think I started the BNDP myself about 18 years ago. The only time I had a say in anything of this nature was when my Dad died. He was cremated up north and I had the remains posted to me. I kept the light blue box in my pantry for 4 years to make up for time we never spent together. Then one day it seemed right to break the box and scatter the ashes under a special tree. Trouble was there were no ashes, more like white gravel. Apparently the Zoroastrians don’t have enough vultures handy to keep up their way with the dead and now have to bury them.
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An involuntary image recurs in my mind’s eye in the Cairns cemetery that has ground level plaques so their presence is not immediately tangible, and in it the handful of people at my parents’ burials with on each occasion a stretch limo of a hearse parked on the neighbouring drive. The area is otherwise a giant’s desert of brilliant green grass dotted with spare avenues of elegant palms as tall as the sky.
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sands, it’s the sort of grave my father is buried in and, thanks to my sister, a whole lot of the family will be buried upon or next to him. I’m the only one who’ll be dissected by the Melbourne Uni Anatomy Dept -after my organs have been dispersed to whoever has need for them.
Just a simple plaque with his name on it and space on the plaque for mum’s name in due course. More humble but still a selfish use of earth space. To my reckoning, at least.
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BND! I joined as soon as I heard about them! You heard it here, babe!
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Right! Now that there are three members in the party we can get ourselves a number of committees going…
Thunder and lightning. Enter all three members of the BND.
1st Member:
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
2nd Member:
When the hurlyburly’s done;
When the battle’s lost and won.
3rd Member:
That will be ere the set of sun.
1st Member:
Where the place?
2nd Member:
Upon the heath.
3rd Member:
There to meet with Macbeth.
1st Member:
I come, Graymalkin.
All Members together:
Paddock calls. Anon!
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
…of this cemetery!
Meeting adjourned till ere the set of sun!
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sandshoe, I will not be joining BND, I love idea of a well-kept grave site, relatives and friends bringing their Begonia plants, and disposing dead flowers, watering, weeding, meditating on their losses, remembering their loved ones when polishing the gravestones…
It’s about respect ; our culture is defined by how we look after our departed.
We have plenty of land in Australia, and as many want to keep this country ‘small’, we’ll have plenty of acres left for our dead, and their graves…
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I love the grave sites in the bush especially H. with the wrought iron fences around the stone and reading the inscriptions. In the heat and the big ants, the way the ants scuttle across the stone and in an out of the crevices of the granite rocks I have seen sometimes stacked against an ancient bottle to keep it upright next to the tablet. When we find them randomly they are in some places the only evidence to meditate on of the workers, miners… there is one somewhere I remember in particular on the old road into Port Douglas in Queensland that is just visible from the road and I have, indeed found them in the bush itself unexpectedly.
They are lovely things.
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Where my relative is buried in the graveyard near Edinburgh Castle the stone is missing and I have been reminded to communicate with a project recording the burials there that I know and as well the detail he died of smallpox in the Castle in that interim of the Crimea War.
He is unsung and his two younger children were “lost boys”, not that I knew of that and that I would find one of them, but only remembered my father telling me a little about his grandfather’s brothers. So much can now be discovered from the internet and I spoke with a volunteer in Glasgow at the beginning of my search. Marvellous.
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But never on a Sunday.
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…no more Krispy Kremes for you then, Big M!
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Ha Ha Ha. This week we celebrated that god-aweful franchise going into receivership.
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Your comment, Big M, made me think of a Krispy-Kreme consignment that is the remaindered allotment ascending on a pallette to a ‘better place’ as Krispy-Kreme’s were the stand-out biscuit in God’s eyes. Their awe saved them.
I’m thrilled I still have a life. 🙂
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So who actually packed and lost the wheels? Have you looked under the settee – taped flat to the bottom perhaps.
Definitely in a safe place I’m sure. I do hope you are both fit and well after so much moving.
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Viv, it’s only a spare settee, temporarily parked in the bedroom; it’s a very heavy one, so when it was re-upholstered, they put little casters on it for easier handling…(for proper vacuuming)
When we moved from Balmain to Brayton, we had to buy some extra furniture as the room were extremely large and needed a bit of a padding…
The farm had fantastic shelving for books and other things, so now we are on the look for some nice bookcases; saw some good ones at the local antique shop, old English and French, but I’m leaning towards a very well-built American oak cupboard…I’m measuring the place today. It’s not going to be big enough, but I can always keep some books in the bedrooms.(I’m not giving anymore away!)
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Well that is okay then – the settee is not a priority. Good luck with the bookcase search. Too hard to give books away
because as soon as you do you find you need it. We have a huge book overflow and have three double cupboards in the
garage full of books and journals plus a lot of academic papers which might come in handy.
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Haha! Academic papers which might come in handy, says vivie! So I thought, too and kept mine for years, until Mrs Ato asked if I really thought I’d ever use them again.
“Nah,” I said, so we tossed them.
Then I started working on the classics again. “Bloody hell,” I often said to myself, why did I ever throw all that good work away?” Then I realised that I’ve learnt more by doing fresh research. I am now very happy I had chucked the old stuff. Bloody good exercise to study again and a much fresher and more up to date info at my disposal.
But of course, that was my area of interest.
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Trouble is that hubby’s old stuff is as recent as 2000 and it now includes daughters’ undergrad and honours and
doctorate etc etc. It is a living thing.
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I have been pleased what I have learned from the tete-a-tete about papers. I did think on my expose of my ‘scraps of paper’ begging as I am, now, to be able to pack in cartons for moving just their words. Matching their dimensions for a snug fit. To get lighter. I could then toss the paper, its scrappiness out of sight, into the recycling. 🙂
I dare not discard these scraps. Thanks, piglets!
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Gerard, why do you need wheels under your settee?
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Good question Lehan.
The settee came om caster wheels. We took them off as otherwise it would not fit through the doorway. We never had any settee with wheels but quite liked the wheels on this one. Sometimes, in a moment of exaltation or even mild excitement we would push down with our feet onto the floor and the settee would go on a little ride across the tiled floor.
Much joy comes from those kind of little things.
You paint nice paintings Lehan. A free spirit doesn’t come easy.
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Great thought , Gez, flatpack coffins, with a couple of extra Allen bolts for us fatties!
Love Louis! Love Ella! Great stuff.
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Everybody loves Gerard’s writing, eh and me too!
Me too, Big M, I’m Sachmo’s and Ella’s! Me too.
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