Foxy,

Asking me how tall I am is getting a bit personal.

I'm a happily married man and OLO is a family show so let's keep it platonic.

I remember how isolated from world, or even national events we were in the 40s and 50s, before tv came to this country. Having no car or tv, life was reduced to a small world revolving around close family, school and for my mother, work. We had a radio, which mum used to listen to the popular serials that were broadcast then but rarely any news items.
It was a time of innocence for most children. What porn and violence existed was very well hidden, we were free and safe to roam around our local bush land and streets, we stared at the funny clothes worn by the post war immigrants, wondered why all the old Italian grannies always wore black and made tentative overtures to kids with strange names and even stranger lunches at school.
Values were very different. Men generally didn’t leave their wives and kids. My family was one of the few and we were stigmatised as kids for having no father. Most girls didn’t have random casual sex and those who got pregnant ensured they didn’t get pregnant again outside marriage.It was taken for granted that if you didn’t have a job you went out every day looking until you found one.
Sport was an aural event unless you were able to attend the match. One of my greatest joys was being able to watch cricket and tennis on tv after only listening to it over the radio. We all read books, played stimulating games like chess, scrabble and monopoly.
The average family recycled clothes, patched them and handed them on. White goods and electronics were used until they were so broken they couldn’t be repaired any more. Holidays were something special, certainly not an annual event and only affordable for those with higher incomes.
There was no Medicare or loans to get into uni, limited welfare, very limited social housing, no help for abused or abandoned mothers, no help for disabled, no rebates or supplements for pensioners, and parents were held responsible for the raising and behaviour of their own children.
Harder but simpler times

Mr O,

You were the one who brought up the subject of
being related to me. A blue-eyed cousin?
Therefore my question about height is relevant
and believe me - its certainly platonic.
I didn't ask for more
personal details - because - frankly I'm not
interested.

I suspect that you're not from the Baltic region at all.
Just a troll - and a stirrer. And your obsession with
the Chinese is a very "Ruskie" leaning - dating back
generations.

Well for me, I was born in July of 1941, I guess I don't fall within the exact parameters of a 'baby boomer'. Our family came from very much an English and white South African background. My paternal grandfather fought in the Anglo-Boer War and my maternal, WWl.

My parents struggled all their lives, coming up through the depression, and WWll. They always ensured there was bread & butter on the table if not much else. I left school, at 15, my parents always wanted me to pursue a more genteel lifestyle and join a Bank. None the less I tried many different jobs, but none suited. At 17 I joined the Military, with the aid of their signature on the paperwork, and the rest became history as they say. Serving first on the Malay/Thai Border, against the Chinese Communist terrorists, and later South Vietnam fighting amongst ourselves, so it seemed anyway?

Afterwhich, the police force (in NSW) and there I remained until I retired, after reaching the lofty heights of a Det. Sergeant. My story is not that dissimilar to many others, but far less remarkable, within my demographic, save from ages 15 to 17, I could've very easily ended up, wearing green, out at Long Bay Gaol, then khaki? Still, I didn't, and so that was that.

o sung wu,

You will go down in history as the first person on OLO who said that the High Court would have no option but to acquit George Pell following the comments made by Judge Mark Weinberg.

You had the foresight to see it for what it was. Obviously an intellectual capacity acquired from your experience as a detective.

I have lots of foresight as a sociologist especially re China but everyone thinks it's because I'm just crazy. Although I see Scott Morrison is ramping up Australia's military preparedness in readiness to a threat from Guess Who.

A little expansion on the lifestyle.

Living in the 3 completed rooms of the house dad was building in Bathurst in 1952, we ate rabbit once or twice a week. These I supplied, either by digging them out of their borrows, or shooting them. Yes at 12 I had my own 22. A single shot, with broken extractors, a farmer had given me for helping out. You had to dig the spent round out of the breech with a knife.

Yes at 12 I had a hunting knife on my belt, for digging our those spent cartridges, & cleaning & gutting the rabbits. I also had my paper round, & a cleaning job in town a couple of nights a week, to pay fro things like football boots, the folks could not manage.

Another earn was selling programs around Mount Panorama race track for the then annual Easter race meetings, both motor bikes & cars. I was pretty impressed with the formula 1 race cars, & their wealthy gentleman drivers, particularly the big Largo Talbert, which won the feature race. It lapped the track which took me 17 minutes to ride my bike around in 3 minutes flat.

It never occurred to me that a kid from the wrong side of the river could ever aspire to race a motor car, we couldn't even afford a road car yet after the war.

Such was the growth in Australias wealth that I was back there in 1963 racing my Morgan +4 normal road going sports car, winning my class & lapping in the same 3 minutes flat. 5 years later I would win the Formula 1 feature race driving a Brabham Repco for one of Australias top teams.

Such a thing for someone of my background was totally unthinkable in the early 50s, but by the late 60s was pretty normal. Yes in some ways the old days of the homogeneous society post war was a better place, but the much richer society makes all things possible for anyone who has a real go at it in the 60s & today.