Chris,

I think China treats the rest of the world as a bit of a joke.

I just saw a news item where the Pentagon is highly critical of China staging large scale military exercises in the South China Sea this week.

Parasites!

You may be buggered if you know o sung wu, but not as buggered as the people running the show.

We don't even have enough engineers to man the landing craft of our 2 big assault ships. We can get our men, their trucks & tanks almost anywhere in the world, but getting them off the ship may be a bit more difficult.

My son resigned from the navy when they tried to give him a crash draft to one of our turbine powered frigates, 3 days before it was due to sail for a tour of the gulf.

He had never even seen one of those turbines, let alone trained on them, but was going to be responsible for running one in hostile waters, thousands of miles from home.

Buggered if I know either old mate.

G'day HASBEEN...

I think you and I are from the old school, where good training was paramount. I recall you couldn't even get an Army licence to drive a ute, without undertaking half a dozen courses, training you to do so. Same with small arms.

Your son being deployed to the Gulf on a ship powered by turbines, without first undertaking a squillion course to do so, is utterly amazing. What's happened to our once proud Navy? I have great fears for this country, if we don't wake up soon, it'll be too late, and the metaphoric horse will've bolted if he ever was here at all?

It's really interesting reading the various posts
and learning so much about each other on this forum.
I'm so glad that so many have chosen to contribute
and share their stories. I wish I could hug you all.

When my mum's health deteriorated with dementia - and she
had to go into a dementia wing of a nursing home. We
visited regularly and got to know so many people and their
families in the dementia wing. I ended up working as a
volunteer there part-time so that I could help out.

Now of course as we're all in lock-down that job has
stopped. Mum passed away a few years back. But I still
think about many of the people I'd met there.

There was a Greek man _ Charalambos - everyone called him
Harry. And Georgios - George. Their faces would light up
when they saw me and I'd greet them with "Yassou".
(hello).

They called me "Kukla", Which I found out meant "doll".

We all got along beautifully - to the extent that they
preferred to sit with mum and me - rather than sit
separately. I always brought fresh fruit for mum - and
there was always enough for sharing. Also - singing was
a favourite past time. Beautiful voices, and Greek songs
enjoyed by everyone. And Harry even did a "Zorba" dance
for everyone with me once.

Dementia did not stop any one from enjoying themselves.

I first encountered the poetry of Al Zolynas many
years ago in "Lituanus", the Lithuanian multi-disciplinary
academic journal presenting and examining various aspects
in Lithuanian culture and history.

Authors are invited to submit scholarly articles, "belles
lettres", and art work. Manuscripts will be reviewed and books
are accepted for review purposes.

Zolynas is a Lithuanian-American. Therefore it was with
great pleasure that I opened his most recent work -
"Near and Far: Poems". Many of the poems involve a nostalgic
and knowing gaze at the past, whether the author's past as
an immigrant boy, or the more distant past of his ancestors'
life in Lithuania.

I thought this poem would be appropriate to this discussion:

An Old Story.

Across from the house
where I grew up
lived an old couple
whose shadows slowly
passed behind windows
as we children
played in the street
crying out in our joy and wonder.

And here I am now
half of an old couple
behind winter-windows listening
to children play in our cul de sac
as a dark sky
deepens and settles
and I swear I can hear
my own voice
calling out in the street.

Again I want to say that I am a firm believer that our present
is linked with our past.

As Zolynas puts it so well:

"I come from a tribe of nature worshippers, pantheists,
believers in fairies, forest sprites, and wood nymphs,
who heard devils in their windmills, met them in the
woods, cloven-hooved and dapper gentlemen of the night,
who named the god of thunder, who praised and glorified
bread, dark rye waving waist-high out of the earth,
and held it sacred, wasting not a crumb, who
spent afternoons mushrooming in forests of pine, fir, and
birch, who transferred Jesus from his wooden cross,
transformed him into a wood-carved, worrying peasant,
raised him on a wooden pole above the crossroads where he
sat with infinite patience in rain and snow, wooden legs
apart, wooden elbows on wooden knees, wooden chin in wooden
hand, worrying and sorrowing for the world...

These people who named their sons and daughters after amber,
rue, fir tree, dawn, storm, and the only people I know who
have a diminutive form for God Himself - "Dievulis",
"God My Little Buddy".

Any wonder I catch myself speaking to trees, flowers, bushes ,
these eucalyptus so far from Easter Europe, or that I bend down
to the earth, gather pebbles, acorns, leaves, boles, bring
them home, enshrine them on mantelpieces or above porcelain
fixtures in corners, any wonder I grow nervous in rooms and
must step outside and touch a tree, or sink my toes in the
dirt, or watch the birds fly by".

I feel a strong kinship with Al Zolynas. We're kindred spirits,
as I'm from the same tribe.