The other day my wife and I took our grandson (15 months) for a walk along the beach near the town where I grew up. Now I need to add that my family gets weary of me telling them about all the events that happened to me in or near this town. Then the roads weren’t paved, the street lights went out at midnight and we could leave our doors unlocked etc. However, now I have a new generation to pester!
Grandson and Granddad
The beach we walked on was the one I cleaned every summer during my High School years. From 5 am in the morning to 10 am my mate and I wandered along the beach with our buckets collecting the detritus of the previous day. If the wind was right we also found the loose change that had fallen out of pockets. The coins would sit on little mounds as the sand would have been blown from around them over night. On a good day this would increase our income by 10%. Later I got a promotion to toilet cleaner. This meant I had to clean 13 toilet blocks along this stretch of coast line but I got to drive the old Land Rover from block to block!. My final step up was garbage collector. Then I had reached the pinnacle of my career! Today the rubbish tip has become a golf course and I think to myself, I helped build that!
My favourite story from my time working on the foreshore was when I was preparing the tracks along the campsites before the influx of summer holidaymakers by removing excess sand using a tractor with a scoop. Hooning around a corner with the bucket in the air I
Old fashioned telephone lines- Google images
collected telephone lines snapping quite a few and interrupted a few conversations. My boss was initially livid but later thanked me because he had been asking the PMG (telecom of its day) for years to have the lines placed underground – which happened because of my youthful foolishness.
The road between my town and the next meandered for 3 kilometres through sand dunes and tea tree. Our town having been a Methodist resort was “dry”. No alcohol was sold within its boundaries. The town next door was under no restrictions. So this route was rather popular at the end of the day among certain gents. However the problem was that Victoria had a “6 o’clock” closing law. All hotels had to stop serving alcohol by 6 pm (this was repealed in 1966). So drinkers had to scull (Aussie vernacular for drinking) their beer as quickly as they could. For the drinkers in my town this made the homeward journey rather interesting if not hair raising.
One of our neighbours, we’ll call him Claude, terrified the locals and the streets in our town were very quiet, children pulled inside and dogs tied up, when we knew he was coming home.
Now I have a grandson it is incumbent upon me to instill his family history at every opportunity.
Travels from Ur 
My mum, now a sprightly 97 year old, has always entertained each generation with life tales – “Tell us another one, Nan”. A few years ago we persuaded her to start writing them down. My sister and I set to, to type them up and craft them into some order, and I self-published them. (http://www.lulu.com/shop/edith-amy-pierce/from-everton-vale-to-rivington-pike/paperback/product-4458205.html) So there’s a project for you! Have fun with your littlies, they aren’t little long!
My wife has started doing that from her side of the family. I suppose I need to do it too!
Not just your grandson, but your whole ‘village’ should have access to your stories, to know that people like you are a person like them, that crazy actions belong to living as much as the routine and the mundane.
LOVE!