Interesting conversation

Last night I went out to dinner with friends of my parents. It was interesting crowd, largely made up of a peculiarly 'country' sort of folk. In their late middle age through to the not long retired, mostly off property, rough and crude in many respects but also insightful and knowledgeable and very entertaining.

Most were raised on property - be it as the owners daughter, a managers or labourers kid. The 'townies' are the kind you only find in small town Australia. Not quite the same as 'off property' but from a time when every small town kid grew up with guns and firecrackers as a staple part of childhood, who had no indoor plumbing, a kerosene fridge and no tv. Snakes, spiders, possums and all sorts of other animals featured large in their childhoods - often as target for the air-rifle or the 'bunger gun' (a bicycle pump tube adapted to fire marbles using a 'penny bunger' as the charge). Now, city kids of the era certainly weren't as cocooned from the realities of life as todays are, but they certainly aren't quite the same as their country compatriots.

Last night I sat across from a former state Labor Party member of parliament. And clearly they were a Labor crowd (not too common in the conservative heartland of the bush). Politics was certainly discussed, but much more heavily featured were reminiscences of the good old days. School boy antics, animal stories, the hilarious bluntness of the 'call a spade a spade' elderly 'bushies' who linger on today.

Most city folk today (certainly those under 40) would struggle to believe the stories - but to one who grew up in the bush, you dont doubt it (of course, you make room for exaggeration, no snake/crocodile/dog is ever REALLY as big as the legend). In the absence of fireworks, my generation substituted pilfered explosives from the mines, cartridge powder from parents gunsafes, and petrol to blow things up or power projectiles. We discovered all manner of animal cruelty (visited on ferals only - toads in particular but feral cats, dogs, peacocks and mice also featured, and were quickly dispatched after the initial ill-considered attack), attempted to kill ourselves weekly through the use of implements including bicycles, shopping carts, firearms (usually homemade) and fire.

Childhood in the 80's and early 90's in small town Australia was truely a wonderful thing. When the whole town knows who you are and where your mum works, there is no need for parents to keep tabs on their kids all the time - someone is always watching and some cranky old biddy is always ready to ring your mum to report your shortcomings. It was a world where doors were seldom locked, children safely roamed the streets and crime was pretty low.

Today, its very different. And I blame those that took away all the fun. Try making homemade projectile launchers out of a bicycle pump today and see how many charges the cops will lay - regardless of how non-existent the damage to person or property. All the old bike tracks we used to try and break our necks on in the name of good clean fun have been bulldozed because of safety concerns. The gun laws now make it impossible to take the kids out for weekend target practice at the range, let alone out hunting for feral's or shooting up tin cans in the back paddock. They also seriously hamper the use of gunpowder for its other fun childhood purposes.

So all the fun, slightly naughty/dangerous things we used to do as children have been quashed. So instead, today's batch of bored kids drink, do drugs, steal, damage property and generally make nuisances out of themselves. A lack of harmless destructive outlets leads to harmful destructive behaviour - who would have predicted that!

When you consider how many of the past generations have successfully made it to adulthood without major accident or injury, regardless of the dangerous behaviour they enjoyed, you have to wonder just how dangerous it was......

Bring back childhood fun I say!!!!!