I never had a good sense of direction. ( absolutely none). I always blamed this weakness that I had evidently developed during my young adulthood years on my City upbringing.
As a young person if I ever found myself a little bit lost I inevitably reverted to checking out the numbers located at front and rear of passing buses.
Buses as a rule have a set route and standing at a bus stop in a city it seemed a quite a natural progressing to develop a growing awareness and understanding that certain bus numbers stick rigidly to a particular route.
As a youth in the city and finding myself under a rising sun when my only known direction was an awareness that I was heading rapidly towards sobering up. I relied heavily on knowing that the “38 bus” went past my local library and headed up the hill toward, Past the Odeon Picture house, then did a U turn and did the reverse route.
This meant that if I found myself looking at a 38 bus and also a 72 bus, I had a cross reference. The result being that if my wristwatch said 6.45 A.M. I had no problem navigating my way to work.
Emigrating to Australia I found some of Basic rules my father taught me. One of them being my ability to locate the North Star to be totally obsolete. On several occasions I found myself blankly looking at the night sky wondering what the hell had happened to “The Stars”. I will admit it, Southern skies to this day totally confuse me. . . I suspect that some things need to be learned young.
I write this note to excuse myself from an incident that happened when I was working in an outback pub. On one rainy day I received a phone call from a local resident checking the road conditions. “Was it Raining?” Asked the caller. “Yes,” I said. “what direction is it coming from”. “This totally stumped me. “It is coming from UP and its heading DOWN” I said.
When clouds build as the day grow long and the morning sky of blue is gone, glass bottom clouds turned darkest gray top-most silver peaks have fade away and hiding where the sun can’t play
When the last of silver pinnacles have sheltered from the sun when breeze moves in and distant groans begun. It’s time to turn and face the evaporating blow and tastes the essence of every life and plant that grow Each and every sense dissolved into a single aromatic show.
Now is time to taste and savor every creature, outcrop, trees and all embrace the plants and shrubs exploding at the approaching fall and always room to track and follow as rain clouds weave toward in space as open as the sky . . The wettest raindrops in the world.
I wrote this poem several years ago when the earliest forewarning of the incoming storm cut the power off . . I sat dry under the Veranda of The Kalkadoon Hotel and penciled my thought on some paper.
out the numbers located at front and rear of passing buses.