Dallas-Morning-News-ladlitter

All that came out of that envelope was a single sheet of paper. No colour-coded reams, like the other guys were sifting through. I wondered what the hell was going on, so I started reading. It was a terse, badly typed standard letter that went something like this:

Dear Mr and Mrs Litter, (scrawled in biro)

Your son Lad (again with the biro) will not be offered a place in Form Five for 1976. His behaviour and attitude during the course of this year have not met the standards we require at Cheap and Rundown Inner City Catholic Boys College.

I will be available by appointment should you wish to discuss this. However, this decision has been made after careful consideration, and the school is convinced that Lad would be best advised to seek educational opportunities elsewhere.

Yours Faithfully,
Br. Vindictican

I wondered whether this was too pissy to post about. Then I had a look through the Lad Litter archives. And came to the conclusion that this might just be the equivalent of a Foreign Policy White Paper by comparison with some of the complete piffle I've churned out on this blog. Plus, it gave me a pretty good excuse to use the title of my all-time favourite film to head up a post. Evocative, no?

I'm on Facebook. I have the security settings on Friends Only, but my name and profile image are searchable. I'm not on it all the time like some, but I do attend to it by putting up the odd smart-aleck comment on my wall and the occasional patronizing and by-no-means-heartfelt "like" on friends' wall posts. It's the nature of the medium, boys and girls. Facebook, where the shallowness glows wanly through even the densest layers of mock-sincerity.

But I'm not really as cynical about Facebook as all that. No, if used for niceness and goodness instead of meanness and rottenness, it works pretty well. Except for the people who seem to think you're important enough to send a friend request to, but that you lack the critical cachet needed for them to actually reply to any message you might send them.

But as I said, it's not like I check in on Facebook all that often, just now and then. So it was something of a surprise to find about a month ago that I'd received a message from someone whose name I didn't recognize. The message wanted to know if I was the same tall Lad Litter with long blond hair who'd gone to a particular inner suburban high school. She identified herself by mentioning that she'd dated a mate of mine from those days. I told her I remembered her well, but not to leave the porch light on for any long blond hair.

I also let her know that I hadn't maintained contact with her old boyfriend for long after school had finished and had no idea where he might be. That didn't seem to faze her, so we exchanged messages about current events and figures in our lives and briefly and superficially discussed my reluctance to engage in any cavalacade of reminiscence about that time. It's been quite a lovely correspondence.

But back in 1976, she used to wait in the mornings at the Mt Rd tram stop at the top of my street. I'd cycle past on the footpath on the other side of that busy road. She was on her way to the Catholic girls' school in North Melbourne and used to wait there with a friend. We'd be looking at each other as I rode past, the two girls and I, but without any interest, just awareness. Some mornings I'd wave to them, but I can't remember if they ever waved back, or just rolled their eyes. If it was eye-rolling, someone had given them sound advice.

It was such a small part of all our days that I'm sure none of us gave it much thought at all. Besides, they looked a couple of years younger than me too.

Late December of that year seemed replete with balmy, well-lit evenings and it was my ritual to walk our dog across the park out the back of our place, south along the Moonee Ponds Creek valley, and have a cigarette in one of our kitchen window’s blind spots. Once I'd crested the low hill that put me in Travancore, walking through the naturalized aniseed, I met a bloke I knew on his way to see a mutual friend and neighbour of mine. We smoked and then headed back in the direction of my place. As soon as we'd retraced my steps over the hill, we saw two girls sitting having a chat right in the middle of the park.

Our path was going to take us close by them, but before any awkward encounter could take place, my dog Tiger had sidled over to make friends. The ol’ tail-wagging icebreaker was in top form and seemed to be demonstrating an aptitude for social graces that would elude me for quite a few years more. It was about then I realized it was the two girls from the tram stop. And they’d both turned out to be very attractive.

My Facebook correspondent, Leslie, was tall and with long straight brown hair parted in the middle. It’s a look that just always seems to work. As well, she seemed graceful and smart. Her friend Lisa was a stunner. Maybe a bit Mia Freedman-ish with a dash of Sigourney Weaver, although both were unknown in 1976.

But they seemed okay with our gormlessness. So it was nice to learn a couple of weeks later that Lisa had met this guy she really liked. Yeah? It was my neighbour, whose girlfriend lived in Lisa’s nearby street who told me this. He’d heard it from his girlfriend. And his girlfriend reckoned the guy was me.

"This is sooo boring."

I turned around and it was Sophie Lee, then host of the linking segments between Bugs Bunny cartoons shown during kids' viewing time. The joke around at the time was that as much as the cartoons had universal appeal, Sophie had her own male-dominated fan-base too, and was dressed to keep them interested.
"What are you here for?"

"Oh, I'm one of the contestants on Sale of the Century today."
"Well, why aren't you taking the tour with the rest of them?"

"Um, I - I did it last week and they said I didn't have to do it again, so I'm here watching TV."

I gathered some inspiration for this from a recent post over at one of my favourite blogs: Mooiness. Marcus was musing about whether tolerance for other peoples' idiosyncracies was the key factor in determining whther a newly-formed relationship could last. And wondered if the too-quick identification of a "character flaw" in a potential partner was a subconscious escape clause. I'm paraphrasing, and I'm not sure if I've done justice to Moo's excellent post, so you can read exactly what he had to say here.

But in my case, it was 1985 and I was 26 and about as single as you could get. A colleague was having a fancy dress party and when I arrived early as Angus Young, there was only one other guest there: this beautiful Asian girl who was wearing an I Dream of Jeannie outfit that came very close to making me forget all about Barbara Eden. We spent a fair proportion of the evening talking together and somehow ended up getting in touch shortly afterwards to organize a date. I was through to the semis.

She lived out in Keilor Downs and when I got there she was not quite ready so I chatted with her sister, also a stunner, and then we went next door so I could meet her folks. That's right, her folks lived next door to the house where the two sisters lived. Dad was of Malaysian Chinese origin, and had worked for the RAAF in Malaysia and then emigrated. Mum was English. They were really nice people. We spent quite a long time talking with her folks and they made it clear in a subtle way that Helen, the younger of their two daughters, was unaccustomed to going out with blokes and that I was being afforded quite a privilege. None of which bothered me. It was a first date, so it was bound to be something of an exploratory expedition for all concerned.

We had dinner at a restaurant in Fitzroy and she was really lovely. But very shy, and although obviously intelligent, not terribly worldly. Like she'd been a bit sheltered. All of this was okay. I wasn't exactly the playboy of the western world myself, and although clueless in a great many ways, flattered myself that I understood how we don't all march to the beat of the same drum.

I dropped her off back at her place, had a quick cup of coffee with her and her sister and went home. It had gone well, (albeit a bit more G-rated than I'd have liked), and I was keen to continue.

So I thought it was great when she rang me the following Friday to see if I wanted to go out to the pictures with some friends of hers. We met up at the house in Pacoe Vale where the three friends lived, two guys and a girl. This particular evening did not go well.

There was far too much umming and ahhing about what film to see. I kept quiet and left them to it. Threw in a suggestion or two but these were not taken up. The debate dragged on and on until finally they settled on The Breakfast Club. I'd never heard of it and asked who was in it. Turned out it was a Brat Pack movie. Fuck. Oh well, it was a night out.

We arrived at the Greater Union cinemas in Russell St in the city with a bit of time to kill. I suggested we pop around to the Carlton Hotel in Bourke St for a couple of drinks. More debate. I found their dithering frustrating, and I think it showed. And the film was shit. I know director John Hughes passed away yesterday, but I didn't think much of this film at all, so I'm taking his many eulogies with a grain of salt.

There was more indecisiveness about what to do after the movie so it ended up being a date-that-pretty-much-wasn't. And I decided not to pursue things with Helen. We were heading in different directions. As much as I liked her, as lovely as she was, (and she was lovely on all levels), I couldn't imagine hanging around with her friends and she was clearly very family-oriented. The prospect of spending long nights in front of the TV at her folks' place (at anyone's folks' place, including my own!) was one I didn't relish. There was just the matter of the party I was having at my place in a couple of weeks that I'd told her about.

During the leadup to this party, I didn't contact her. She resolved everything when her phone call got me out of the shower before work one morning to tell me announcement-style that she wouldn't be coming along. I said that was fine, but asked her why. Because she didn't want to go out with me anymore. I told her that was fine too, and wished her well. Quite a nice, mutually satisfactory ending. Rare? In my experience, yes.

It was a shame, but it was looking too much like I'd be dating a shy teenager, and that just didn't suit me. And I'd also say there was probably a good deal of me not suiting her involved too.

But the funny thing was that a couple of years later, when TLOML and I started dating, I found a lot of similarities between the two of them. Some differences too. However, on reflection the big difference was to do with me. Because for TLOML, I was ready to make some kind of commitment. I think also by that time, I was thinking it was more about her than her surroundings.

The rest is history.

But just by way of a coda: some seven years later, TLOML arrived home from work one afternoon after we'd been married about a year wanting to know who this Helen was. I didn't connect initially, but it turned out Helen was this beautiful Asian replacement teacher who'd filled in for her the day before and in the note she'd left TLOML, mentioned that we'd dated and asked to be remembered to me. Helen was doing replacement teaching while she was on family leave, and I managed to piece together that she'd married a pretty cool bloke I'd once worked with briefly and they'd had a baby.

I think that makes four happy endings, all up.

Would it be presumptuous to apologise? For the nearly two months spent without a post here? Yes, I think it would, but I'm going to anyway. I'm going to assume that you, y'know, like me as a friend.
And alright, taking it as a given that you'd probably rather I put the odd piece up a little more frequently, I'm sorry. And I also apologise for neglecting all of your fine blogs. Okay, I have been a bit busy elsewhere. But I don't think you'll be consoled by the fact that there are seven posts saved into drafts that consist entirely of titles and labels and not much else.

This blog is having something of an identity crisis. It's become a whole lot less anonymous than you'd think. Or rather, it's author has.

Lad Litter is a construct. No, really. Based on me. Based on the writing of people like Nick Hornby. An attempt to write, or post rather, in an approximation of that style commonly known as "lad lit". Hopefully, stopping short of the bad case of the cutes some efforts of this type in literature and the cinema seem unable to avoid. But probably not.

Everything here is true to me, though. No factual inventions. Just a few minor rewrites of the actual dialogue that don't change the intent. It's a construct alright, but it's one I feel is of my own making and reflects me.

And I think it's at the very least remarkable that my Facebook page, by comparison, looks and feels like more of an invention than what you read here. There's a kind of high school hierarchy about Facebook that I don't think is terribly evident across the blogosphere. And wouldn't you know it? Everyone seems so much cooler than I am.

I'd completely forgotten what a fucking nightmare being a teenager was. Facebook brings a bit of it back. And I feel a little uncomfortable about it.

So I'm wondering if it was a mistake to get into it. Okay, maybe not. You can ignore the popularity contest aspect of it and just do what you want to do. And don't do what you don't want to do.

But I used the Friend Finder and became Facebook friends with a couple of bloggers. And it's unexpectedly a little discomfiting. No reflection on these bloggers. They seem pretty self-assured and comfortable with who they are both in and out of the blogosphere. And with good reason too. But to be combining Lad Litter with my Facebook persona (because that's what it is, a construct or a perception, only using real, or realistic, names and details) just feels a bit funny.

I think what's happened is, Lad Litter and I have collided, like a future self meeting up with a past self in a really good time travel scenario. Or that Simpsons episode where Bart and the other kids go to Shelbyville and come across their equivalents. Okay, probably not nearly as exciting, interesting or amusing but, you know what I mean.

So there are two issues with this: oh, and it's not a fucking identity crisis, by the way. I do exaggerate.

No, there are two issues here: the nature of Facebook and the persona you create there; and Lad Litter getting mixed up in it.

Should be worth another draft post. First the title....there. Now a label. That should be okay. Whew! I'm knackered. But I think I might be onto something. Yeah. I'll come back to this soon....

I know I'm supposed to be on a work-frenzy driven hiatus but damned if the need to blog doesn't strike at odd times and subsume all in its path. You know exactly what I mean.

This week’s level crossing accident near Kerang was horrendous. You just expect to be safe on a train and would have no trepidation about catching one, no jitters like you might experience before a flight. My sympathies to those who lost loved ones and to the many injured and their families. I hope something is done to make level crossings safer. It brought to mind an incident from long ago when I was involved, albeit peripherally, in a level-crossing accident near Heyfield in East Gippsland.

A couple of nights ago, I Googled Heyfield and sent this in an email to the Heyfield Family History Society:

In April 1975 my fourth form class went on a camp to Mt Tamboritha in East Gippsland. The school owned a chalet deep in the densely forested mountains there. It was a bush hut really. The word chalet was always uttered with eyes pointing skywards by students who'd been there.

On the last day, one of the teachers was going to be driving the school’s Land Rover back and asked for four volunteers to accompany him. Not fancying the lo-o-ong bus and train rides back to Melbourne, I put my hand up and was picked with three others to bounce unrestrained on centre-facing bench seats in the back.

After coming down the winding, precipitous dirt road, with logging trucks whooshing past at high speed, I remember the relief at being back on the wider, safer bitumen as we passed through Heyfield. Just out of the town and approaching a near right-angle bend to the left, we were overtaken at speed by what I recollect as a white 1971 Holden Kingswood sedan. We could see a longish, rusty red goods train approaching from the west up ahead. “He’s trying to beat the train,” someone said.

When we rounded the bend a short time later the train was proceeding slowly through the level crossing about 500 metres ahead and the white car had stopped. We thought he’d pulled up but as we got closer we noticed steam coming from the car’s radiator. He’d hit the train and bounced back. The train was slowing to a stop.

The car was occupied by a man in his 40s who was unconscious but groaning. We couldn't tell the extent of his injuries but his face was unmarked. I can remember the teacher speaking to him to reassure him that help would arrive soon. We were unable to open the car doors and the teacher felt it would have been unsafe to move him anyway as the steering wheel and column had been forced right up against his chest by the impact. The front of the car and engine compartment were pushed in too. He must have been shopping as groceries were strewn all over the road. I remember turning the ignition off and the guard from the train walking slowly back to his van and then walking back even more slowly carrying a fire extinguisher so we could spray the engine as a precaution. The fire extinguisher didn’t work.

The teacher spoke to the occupants of the next car to arrive and they turned back to town to get help but I seem to remember leaving the scene before the arrival of police or emergency services. I think it might have been a case of the train moving up slowly to clear the crossing (the car was not tangled up with it at all) and us not staying because we hadn't actually seen the impact and so were not technically witnesses. I forget the rationale behind the decision to leave. It was a long time ago and I was only 15.

From time to time I have wondered whether or not the poor fellow survived. I hope he did. He was around about the same age as my dad was then so it was a nasty shock for me and quite close to home. The teacher and my classmates were also shaken up by it. He looked like a family man on the way home with the week's shopping.

I understand that this would no doubt be a sensitive matter for friends or relatives still living in the area and I apologise if this enquiry might upset anyone. Please use your judgment and take the matter no further if this is the case. I just wondered if you or any long-term Heyfield residents might have any recollection of the incident that I've described.

I also understand that this is something of an unusual request for information especially after such a long time. I think what sparked it was this week’s disaster near Kerang and a coach driver I had a chat with earlier this year who told me he grew up in Heyfield and was surprised that I knew where it was. I told him why I remembered Heyfield but this chap was not living there in 1975 so didn't know anything about the accident.

The email bounced back.

Just as it did when I sent it to the Heyfield Resource Centre.

I’m still wondering.

I've been tagged for the Eight Random Things About Me meme by Go Away Please. I believe her when she said she has led a very interesting life.

1. I started playing cricket again at the age of 44 after a twenty year absence and love it more than I ever did before;
2. I have the hots big time for TLOML. Many of our conversations consist of me trying to chat her up;
3. My favourite movie of all time is Out of The Past (1947);
4. My all-time favourite novel is I, Claudius (1934);
5. My all time favourite TV show is Get Smart (1965-70);
6. I have nearly died twice: once when I was having my tonsils out at the age of three; and again after another operation at age nine;
7. TLOML and I attended the same primary school. I remember her, and it really doesn’t bother me at all that she has no recollection of me;
8. Moe, Larry and Curly are much better sons to TLOML and I than I was to my parents;

There you are: a little autobiography; a little romance; a little PostSecret.