The living is easy
‘Summertime, and the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma is good-lookin’
So hush little baby, don’t you cry …’
George Gershwin’s lyrics to Summertime
My earliest recollection of summertime as a kid was a long trip to Adelaide from Melbourne with my parents and older sister in summer. We were having a house stay with a lovely English couple and their young daughter, whom my parents had met on the P&O ship coming out to Australia.
I was about five and it was all terribly exciting as our family of four were crammed in a tiny car and travelling for what seemed an extensive distance. It was.
Melbourne to Adelaide is approximately 730kms but it depends which way you go. I can’t recall the route but the Morris wasn’t exactly a speedster. And on the way home it had a nervous breakdown and refused to go any further.
My father fancied himself as an intrepid adventurer so everything in our kit had to have a purpose. He saw himself as Hemingway-style hunter and owned a lot of camping equipment so he could go wild boar hunting in New South Wales. His buddies were all macho males and they shared an obsession with red wine, retro muzzle loaders, expensive firearms and explosives.
Dear old dad had been headhunted by the Australian government. He was a highly skilled British chemical engineer specializing in explosives. He liked to blow things up. At a later date this would include his first marriage followed by another two unhappy marriages. We were his first family.
To my mother’s horror she had to return home on a speeding express bus with the cream of New South Wales farming communities onboard. She couldn’t fail to notice that many passengers had coolers of booze under their feet or in the luggage racks. Seeking distraction from the boredom of the endless highway most folk ate, drank, smoked and cackled all the way. In the midnight hours they fell out of the bus and refueled with greasy fried food, coffee and cold milkshakes bought from truckie’s refuel & rest stops. I loved the bus and its wacky swearing, half-cut passengers.
After our inglorious trip home on the bus my father bought himself a glamorous, restored vintage Citroen complete with running boards. It was the sort of stylish gangster car that featured in old Hollywood movies. The broken down Morris never made it back to Melbourne and probably finished up rusting in a country paddock somewhere near Adelaide.
When my father had to head into the shops after work, my older sister would sit next to him in the Citroen holding his sherry glass at the ready. She also and shifted the retro gear lever at his command. No kidding – this was the sort of driving behavior you could get away with back then. He also liked to nonchalantly smoke a cigarillo or slender cigar as we motored along sedately. The Citroen was fitted out with an excess supply of ashtrays and lashings of genuine soft leather.
The Citroen acquired a reputation in our industrial suburb as being choice and stylish. Subsequently my father was asked to drive a neighbor’s daughter to the church for her white wedding in his splendid automobile. He obliged and refused to be remunerated for his trouble. Dressed in his best tailored London suit he looked suave and handsome. Even I noticed the bride was more ecstatic about his polished British charm than was seemly.
Anyway, back to Adelaide. We slept along the route to Adelaide in a couple of two-man tents. For the first time I got to appreciate just how enormous the sky is when you’re out of the city and camping in the bush. Everything was wild and beguiling at night with the constellations twinkling and strange animal noises seeping through the darkness.
The food seemed exotic as it was being cooked over a campfire in oblong aluminum pans with folding metal handles. There were a lot of eggs, tomatoes and sausages and unusual but tasty concoctions served up on tin plates.
It was the sort of food we never had for dinner at home. My mother was a wonderful cook and she prided herself on her fine European cuisine and Indian curries. But I’d had it to the back teeth with Pork Vindaloo and Coq au Vin. Hot cheese jaffles and scrambled eggs on slightly burnt buttered toast became my thing. Everything tasted of the smoky campfire. It was great.
But the biggest thrill was when we got to camp in the dunes of a magnificent surf beach. All night I could hear the surf breaking on the shore and the wildlife creeping, slithering and sneaking through the long grasses. Night birds cackled and swore and unknown animals screeched, howled and partied. I wasn’t scared – I was thrilled.
My parents had fancy camp beds but I was happy as a clam with a narrow inflatable bed and a musty sleeping bag. I didn’t know at that stage the inflatable had a tiny puncture and I’d end up at 3.00am on the hard cold ground.
Well before the sun rose over the sea I was wide awake and prepped. Barefoot and wearing only my new Xmas shortie pajamas, I quietly slipped the tent’s zip open and took off. I knew neither parent would bother trying to find me. Being obsessed with their domestic dramas, they’d taken the easy way out and I’d morphed into a free-range child.
I ran down a dune and there it was – the beach. It looked just the way it had in my picture story books and I was enraptured. I ran and ran along the shallows before collapsing in a heap. And still the surf raged, seagulls screeched, the sea sparkled and the sun warmed my sandy, bare legs.
Nothing could ruin my joy – not even when I became aware that some unknown insect was sinking its vicious fangs into my bare flesh.
It was the first of many Australian summers and already I was hooked.
photo: a warm summer night on Port Phillip Bay.