Re: Pat Ritter. Books
Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2015 2:58 pm
Thank you dub for your feedback. Interesting topic. I have this theory about habits or behaviour patterns inherited from one relative to another. Here is the story for today: 'Dynamic OMR Stories' - Story 38:
Travel Used To Be Glamorous
Many moons ago my father worked for Queensland Railways. Yearly he'd been given a free family pass to travel by train anywhere in Queensland. Each year he'd tell us where we'd be travelling, places like The Great Barrier Reef in northern Queensland.
My mind burst with enthusiasm to picture myself viewing The Great Barrier Reef. All the while each year became another promise. We never did travel to The Great Barrier Reef nor any other place. We remained home to spend my vacations dreaming about one day journeying to those far away places. His excuse 'we can't afford holidays this year. Perhaps next year.' Next year same excuse.
Travel was expensive and glamorous. Stories related from the more fortunate friends who travelled with their parents told their stories of adventure seeing different things in their travels. Myself, all I could do was dream and perhaps one day visit these glamorous places my friends spoke about if and when I could afford to.
Also, I lived in a bubble. My life with my family. Attend school, return home, commit to chores, bathe, go to bed and in the morning repeat the same as the day before. The only glamorous travel I'd done was in my head. Studying Social Studies enlightened my knowledge of far away places, too far from my home to ever realise a dream to visit. They grew in my mind so much I would one day visit these glamorous places.
After I completed school and commenced work my boss often told me to travel the world. He'd travelled the seas joining the merchant navy. His story stirred enthusiasm in me to try and travel to visit the places he mentioned. Alas, after completing my apprenticeship I travelled to western Queensland to work on a property.
Dyvenor Downs became my home. Wide open spaces, gum trees almost reaching the sky, a place I thought in all my dreams became a dream of visiting and working on a property. Clear open space for miles, different places, like Dyvenor Lakes. A salt water lake. In my studies early explorers knew of a inland sea. Perhaps they were looking for Dyvenor Lake which contained sufficient water to fill more than a thousand swimming pools.
My first view of a black swan almost took my breath away. Aborigines worked on this property and on a Sunday afternoon I went with an aboriginal friend to steal swan eggs from their nests. We gathered a dozen eggs from different nests. Before we boiled them, we placed them into a bucket of water to find how many were rotten. If they rose to the top, they were rotten. Ones on the bottom were eatable. Boiled and eaten almost immediately. The taste delicious and rich, twice the size of an ordinary chook egg.
People should pay to see this wonderland, I often told the others who worked with me. A team of fifty workers ranging from Manager, Overseer, Stockmen, Ringers and Station Hands. A variety of workers to operate one million acres of lush green Mitchell grasses and mulga scrub. A paradise in south-western Queensland unknown to the many visitors who didn't know the place existed.
I wanted to share with the world my discovery of outback Queensland with kangaroos, wild pigs, flocks of galahs in flight. Silence of bush surroundings. If one could bottle this stress free environment and sell across the globe, one would make a fortune.
Fancy living in a stress free environment, no traffic, no worries only rising in the morning to a glorious sunrise to go to bed at night with a wondrous sunset. Perfect in everyway. Out in the middle of nowhere, no telephones, communication of any type only the telephone exchange from the local post office forty kilometres west of the property. I wanted to shout my findings to the world.
I needed to wait another forty years before this portion of south-western Queensland to be discovered as glamorous, once the grey brigade rolled out across Australia to seek their own searches of places to visit. Now this portion of Australia has been discovered I'm pleased because although travel used to be glamorous, this portion of Australia needs all the visitors they can receive to boost tourism for their economy to keep small country towns in the west survive.
Word count: 727
IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE OF THESE STORIES CLICK ONTO THIS LINK: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/501597.
Travel Used To Be Glamorous
Many moons ago my father worked for Queensland Railways. Yearly he'd been given a free family pass to travel by train anywhere in Queensland. Each year he'd tell us where we'd be travelling, places like The Great Barrier Reef in northern Queensland.
My mind burst with enthusiasm to picture myself viewing The Great Barrier Reef. All the while each year became another promise. We never did travel to The Great Barrier Reef nor any other place. We remained home to spend my vacations dreaming about one day journeying to those far away places. His excuse 'we can't afford holidays this year. Perhaps next year.' Next year same excuse.
Travel was expensive and glamorous. Stories related from the more fortunate friends who travelled with their parents told their stories of adventure seeing different things in their travels. Myself, all I could do was dream and perhaps one day visit these glamorous places my friends spoke about if and when I could afford to.
Also, I lived in a bubble. My life with my family. Attend school, return home, commit to chores, bathe, go to bed and in the morning repeat the same as the day before. The only glamorous travel I'd done was in my head. Studying Social Studies enlightened my knowledge of far away places, too far from my home to ever realise a dream to visit. They grew in my mind so much I would one day visit these glamorous places.
After I completed school and commenced work my boss often told me to travel the world. He'd travelled the seas joining the merchant navy. His story stirred enthusiasm in me to try and travel to visit the places he mentioned. Alas, after completing my apprenticeship I travelled to western Queensland to work on a property.
Dyvenor Downs became my home. Wide open spaces, gum trees almost reaching the sky, a place I thought in all my dreams became a dream of visiting and working on a property. Clear open space for miles, different places, like Dyvenor Lakes. A salt water lake. In my studies early explorers knew of a inland sea. Perhaps they were looking for Dyvenor Lake which contained sufficient water to fill more than a thousand swimming pools.
My first view of a black swan almost took my breath away. Aborigines worked on this property and on a Sunday afternoon I went with an aboriginal friend to steal swan eggs from their nests. We gathered a dozen eggs from different nests. Before we boiled them, we placed them into a bucket of water to find how many were rotten. If they rose to the top, they were rotten. Ones on the bottom were eatable. Boiled and eaten almost immediately. The taste delicious and rich, twice the size of an ordinary chook egg.
People should pay to see this wonderland, I often told the others who worked with me. A team of fifty workers ranging from Manager, Overseer, Stockmen, Ringers and Station Hands. A variety of workers to operate one million acres of lush green Mitchell grasses and mulga scrub. A paradise in south-western Queensland unknown to the many visitors who didn't know the place existed.
I wanted to share with the world my discovery of outback Queensland with kangaroos, wild pigs, flocks of galahs in flight. Silence of bush surroundings. If one could bottle this stress free environment and sell across the globe, one would make a fortune.
Fancy living in a stress free environment, no traffic, no worries only rising in the morning to a glorious sunrise to go to bed at night with a wondrous sunset. Perfect in everyway. Out in the middle of nowhere, no telephones, communication of any type only the telephone exchange from the local post office forty kilometres west of the property. I wanted to shout my findings to the world.
I needed to wait another forty years before this portion of south-western Queensland to be discovered as glamorous, once the grey brigade rolled out across Australia to seek their own searches of places to visit. Now this portion of Australia has been discovered I'm pleased because although travel used to be glamorous, this portion of Australia needs all the visitors they can receive to boost tourism for their economy to keep small country towns in the west survive.
Word count: 727
IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE OF THESE STORIES CLICK ONTO THIS LINK: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/501597.