CONTACT terrell@neuage.org

17. tickets to USA

Christmas  1991 Victor Harbor  with Sacha  and Leigh

This was our first house we had two Christmases in a row at and we put up a large tree and decorated it as well as the house. In the afternoon I drove Sacha and Leigh to North Adelaide to their mother and spent Christmas afternoon alone. I was not upset or lonely or feeling sad, spending Christmas alone. I had two great boys, and I was doing my university degree and now I was involved in a radio station, and I thought my children’s stories were coming along quite well. I was studying astrology and I did not have a lover or a job or much of anything, but I was relatively happy. I knew in a few days I would be officially free of my debt to Australia. I had planned to move in the middle of 1992 to the States and put the children into school at Shenendehowa and I would find something to do. We still had several boxes packed from when we lived on the farm at Mt Compass though I knew I would have to throw out most of our stuff because the clothing I had bought for the boys for a New York winter then would no longer fit.

I went for a long walk on Christmas day around Victor Harbor and out to Granite Island. Puppy and I walked along the beach, through the town, and sat on the beach and watched the sun set. I knew the future would be great.  Leigh would one day be a baseball player and Sacha was looking like he would play basketball and maybe be a successful surfer. I was in no hurry to find love and figured I would wait until my children were grownup and out on their own before I would consider getting involved again. I did not feel like forty-four, I had no idea what I was supposed to feel like. Society says one should have more possession than I had at this age. But I felt very physically fit. After all I could beat my two boys and a couple of their friends in basketball.  Four or five of them against me.  Of course, they were all under ten but still I could beat them. I went to the gym quite often and I just felt good. I took lots of vitamins and herbal supplements and even meditated. I had not gotten stoned for years and I did not drink much alcohol, mainly, because I could not afford to buy anything.

I collected the children the day after Christmas, Thursday, and I knew this was a special day. Exactly three years earlier I had gone bankrupt. In the morning, I rang the court office that oversaw bankruptcy and discovered that as of today I was no longer bankrupt. It was clear that I had no money to pay off any of my debt. I had been on sole-parent pension for three years and even though I had a car, worth a couple of hundred dollars, I was considered to have no assets.

We checked our mail because so far, we had not received a card from my father or brother or sister or anyone from the States. Sacha was not at home at the time we checked our mail as he was at a neighbour’s swapping Christmas stories and showing off whatever new toys he had. We had one piece of mail in the mailbox, a card with a letter and a check from my father. I almost passed out when I looked at the check it was for $10,000 US. Both Leigh and I were jumping around yelling that we were rich. I read the letter; my father had sold his house in Clifton Park and had moved into a caravan/trailer at Martindale Court, which was not far away from his house. He had divided up the money; giving ten-thousand each to the Clifton Park Methodist Church, my brother Robert, me, and ten-thousand for each of the children was put into a trust account for when they reached 21 years of age. The rest of the money was toward his caravan and whatever else he would need for the rest of his life. He said that he was now 85 years old and would not be alive much longer and he wanted to divide the money up whilst he could. His wife, my adopted mother, had died several months earlier and he no longer wanted to live in the house he had with her.


I just returned an hour ago from visiting him, he was doing fine. He even made a strange statement, “How is your book coming?” This was strange as I never told him I was writing a book and there is no one else who would have told him. He will be 101 in a few weeks. Written Sunday, March 19, 2006.

I felt bad for my father when my mother died. She had been in a nursing home for a decade, and she had no recollection of who was visiting her and I felt she had died years earlier. Maybe it was because she was not my blood mother or because I never felt very close to her growing up but whatever the reason, I did not mourn her passing. Robert was very upset and he went to her funeral.  It was out of the question for us to fly to New York for her burial. I sent money for flowers and spoke with my father. At 85 he had lost his wife. Years earlier he had gradually lost his brothers and sisters. His sister had made it to 100 and had died about the same time as my mother. My father still had my brother though he was not close to my father, and he did not visit upstate very often, and he had me in Australia and the two children. He had two terrific grandchildren.
Clifton Park Methodist Church New York 1960
Clifton Park  Methodist Church

Leigh and I were so excited and went off to find Sacha. We stopped at a used car lot near our house. Our car was barely running, and we needed a new one. We looked at cars and saw several that were less than ten thousand dollars and for a moment we had decided that we would spend the whole lot of money on another car. Then Leigh said he thought that his grandfather had sent the money for us to go and visit him. That was it. Instantly I knew he was right. We found Sacha and told him we got this money and we were going to New York. We were all so excited. I have had a lot of amazing timing events in my life but this was really off the scales for synchronicity. The cosmos had brought it all together for us.  The day my bankruptcy was cleared we got a lot of money.  A few days earlier we could have lost it because we were not to have any large sum of money and if we did it would go toward what I owed. My father had sold his property and sent them the money not having any idea that I was ever bankrupt.

 

Leigh and I were so excited and went off to find Sacha. We stopped at a used car lot near our house. Our car was barely running, and we needed a new one. We looked at cars and saw several that were less than ten thousand dollars and for a moment we had decided that we would spend the whole lot of money on another car. Then Leigh said he thought that his grandfather had sent the money for us to go and visit him. That was it. Instantly I knew he was right. We found Sacha and told him we got this money and we were going to New York. We were all so excited. I have had a lot of amazing timing events in my life but this was really off the scales for synchronicity. The cosmos had brought it all together for us.  The day my bankruptcy was cleared we got a lot of money.  A few days earlier we could have lost it because we were not to have any large sum of money and if we did it would go toward what I owed. My father had sold his property and sent them the money not having any idea that I was ever bankrupt.


I rang Lesia. She said “no”.


I filed a court order the next day on Friday asking the court to let me take the children to the US.


1992

I finally got my day in court and Lesia was adamant that we would not go. Basically, all the judge asked Lesia whether my father was elderly or not and she agreed so the judge gave us the go ahead. We got the order made back in July 2nd, 1986, saying I could not take the kids out of Australia reversed and I was given liberty to take the children to the States during February and March of 1992. I had to hand the children’s passports back to the court when I returned but we were free to at least go. I thought once we were there and had established a home we would come back, and I would get a court order allowing the children to move to the States permanently with me.

 

18. random world experiences

About Terrell Neuage
PhD

Terrell Neuage at Kerala beach, February 2025

Terrell Neuage, (dual citizen USA/Australia) is a South Australian/New York poet, writer, and digital artist known for his evocative poetry and extensive research on conversational analysis in on-line communciations (including communication in the AI era; from sharing information to making sense of it). His best-selling autobiographies;Leaving America (Before the After) & Leaving Australia (after) – exploring life as a hippie, brother in a California Cult (Holy Order of MANS) as Brother Terrell Adsit, Astrolger (40-years) to non-believer, and adventures in Australia, single parent, tofu manufacturer/street artist, China, the USA & fifty+ other ountries. From high school drop out, Shenendehowa Central School, Clifton Park, New York at age 16, back to school at age 44 (BA & Masters from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia) to PhD from the University of South Australia at age 58 to knocking on your door at age 77.