19. 87-year old father comes to Australia alone from NY

June 15, 1992

Dear Dad,
Received Leigh's package - I hid it until his birthday.                                                                                                                
If you look on the inside of the road map book you will see the differences to the states (not many highways). We plan to travel from Sydney up route 1 along the coast to Brisbane then west at Brisbane to route 71 at Cunnamulla then south into New South Wales (page -1), route 71 south through Bourke, then at Nyngan we go (p. 4, a-11), west on route 32 past Cobar, Wilcannia to Broken Hill (page 4), (also page 2 & 3 shows route 71 south to Bourke & over to Broken Hill - then to page 31, upper right - route 32 - to Peterborough then we'll see how much time we have left where we'll go.

Don't worry - I don’t know my way either, so you won't be lost alone, we'll be lost too. (I bet you didn't think that one day you'd be driving around Australia in a camper van with your grandchildren?) If we stay on paved roads we should be o.k.

Actually, I think if you can, hire the caravan for four more days, from there (it would be cheaper) - that would get us back to victor on Thursday, then we'll stay here two-three days see the area, then go to kangaroo island (page 32) for two days and Monday head toward Melbourne on either the coastal route (route 1 which goes around Australia) or inland (route 8) (page 33 - 22,23,24) to have you at the airport Wednesday.

If we have the extra days with the caravan we could spend a bit of time in a few places, Sacha wants to go surfing, at Surfers Paradise (p.5 0-11). I don't know about that yet, but the kids want to go to ‘Sea World', near Brisbane, and several other places, plus I have business in Brisbane.

Anyway, it will be an adventure, maybe even fun. We should have $700 saved by then to spend, we're looking forward to it & so should you.  Love us

August 23, 1992

Dear Dad
Thank you for the money. I paid for my membership fees into the Australian Journalist Association now I have a media pass. Whenever there is news I may be there.
We are fine - busy - the usual. We're all excited about this trip. Could you send me your itinerary for the trip? I think we'll rent a car in Sydney on Thursday from the airport and stay at a hotel nearby, pick you up Friday AM back to the hotel and let you sleep a few hours - shower then Friday afternoon go into Sydney. They have a monorail there the kids want to go on - and we'll take a boat ride in Sydney Harbor. Saturday we'll collect the van and head north. There are three or four theme parks in the Brisbane area - I told the kids to pick one place. They're going back and forth daily but I'm pushing for Sea World. The other two are Dreamland (like Disneyland) and Movie-world. Sacha wants to go surfing on the Gold Coast; though (just between you and me) I have never seen him stand up on a surfboard. He has one but hasn't gotten the grasp of it. Of course, to his friends who have never seen him in the water - he is an up-and-coming great surfer. I hope he outgrows this surfing craze soon mainly because of the sharks and there are a lot in the Queensland waters. I would like to get further north and see the Barrier Reef. Do you have the van for one week or two?

We'll take a few days’ trip over to Kangaroo Island while here. There is so much to see - could you add a week to your visit? I've saved up two thousand dollars for the trip (though I'll spend a good portion of it today for our tickets to Sydney.) I still owe you $1300 from what you sent to us in Eugene. Without that we would have been quite stuck - I sorted out with the bank back here - they got my accounts mixed around.

Anyway - I have a list of things I'd like from the States - not to put you out - and if you don't bring things that is o.k. I'll swim to New York and get them myself. My shopping list is: sneakers- the ones I bought the boys are holding up great, because they are leather and well made, however, their feet are growing too. So, if you see a sale on Nike or Reeboks, they're usually 30-50 dollars there and about two hundred here. But the 30-dollar sneakers here just don't last because they're vinyl.        I want them for Christmas presents for the kids. Size 7 for Leigh and size 9 for Sacha. They like white basketball sneakers and by Christmas they would have outgrown what they have. Leigh wore his all over the States - Europe and every day here. His were the Nike (air-Jordan) and they're no longer white but the leather is still excellent and the same with Sacha's who likes pumps - how silly, but they are well made and would last for the next year. Also, we saw that wooden baseball bats were only 7 or 8 dollars at Toys 'R Us and here they are 40-50 dollars so if it is possible Leigh wants one (32 inch) he has two metal bats but no wooden ones. He also needs baseballs which are about $1.60 at Toys 'R Us and about $8 each here. He brought back five but has lost three. One on the school roof, one down a drainpipe and one we just don't know. Probably out to sea. Also, I would like the Sunday or is Saturday New York Times - the main large one. Not much but we're easy. Love us.

September 3, 1992

Dear dad
Not, far to go now.
Just thought I'd send this brochure on K.I and some stickers for your car. We'll go to K.I for at least two days
It isn't far we'll take the ferry over and rent a car there i think that. is the cheapest - and stay at a caravan park one night.
With all the millions of things we've asked for Leigh wants to know if you can pick up USA Today Baseball Weekly. They sell it everywhere -airports etc.
I feel sorry for you spending six hours in Chicago. It is a huge airport - so don't go too far - it is easy to get lost especially with two little kids - I did it in 1986 and this year. If you could send me your flight schedule I may be able to have someone visit you at Chicago (Carol Ann you visited her and I and her child in Eugene in 1969) and in Los Angeles my friend I've known for 20 years if he is in town that day will visit with you and help you get to your international flight.
Also, could you check your insurance policy? Does it cover theft/loss of property? If not, I will get insurance here as I want to rent a video camera for the trip and they cost over a thousand dollars here (in the States, they're much cheaper) but I want to be sure it is covered by insurance. If your insurance would cover it could you check on how much? The insurance policy here only covers for 500 hundred dollars on any .one item.

Also, could you tell me if you know what the camper van includes? Does it have cooking things? Ask the travel agent what size it is and what is in it.
I'll try not to ask for anything more before you come.  Love us     
   
September 9, 1992

110 Victoria Street Victor Harbor
South Australia 5211
Dear Dad,
Probably the last letter before you leave.
And you don't like computers? I rang United at Sydney airport and they had your name and your flight online instantly. I needed to find the time you were arriving in Los Angeles (8.07pm and leaving 10.23pm). I wrote my friend, Daniel Bushnell (310-395-4272) who I was in the Order with in Syracuse and Baltimore - and the kids and I stayed with him earlier this year. I don't know if he'll be in town, but I asked him if he was if he could meet you at the airport and keep you company for a couple of hours. He is one of my best friends and I know if he is in town he would. You must change from the domestic to the international in Los Angles- United has their own terminal-we saw it when we were there. If you stay in that area it would be best. The airport is so large it even has tunnels from one section to another - the kids loved running through them when we were there.

I asked Carolann Benson (you visited us in Eugene in '69) who lives near Chicago airport if she could spend Wednesday afternoon with you. You are there six hours, and Chicago airport is big and busy too. Don't get hungry there - it is the most expensive airport to eat at in the world - I know. Take a couple of sandwiches. The kids and I were starving as we were stuck there for six hours because the airport was closed due to radar failure in March. We asked for the cheapest place to eat there and it cost us about $30 for a burger chips etc.

You can check your baggage on in Albany and not see it again until Sydney so that is useful. Just have your camera and if you buy me any newspapers pack them before you leave. However, I would like an In-flight magazine from United -they're free and are on the back of the seats. The plane you'll fly on from Chicago is a Boeing 747 -400 they are huge inside. We flew in them to London, and New Zealand. They take good care of you and give lots of food. The kids must have drunk ten gallons of coke - I slept but they roamed the plane all night. They show movies - it is a 14-hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. Going back, you will have to go through customs. And coming to Australia they will give you an immigration card in-flight - it is simple just write down your passport number (don't forget your passport & credit card) how long you'll stay in Australia - and whether you have anything to declare which you won't. Do not bring any food on to the flight in Los Angles. There is a fifty thousand dollar fine for bringing food into Australia or flowers or plants. This is an island and there are a lot of infections not here, like foot-and-mouth and rabbles, etc.

I know I've asked for a million things, but Sacha has been collecting little sets of airplanes on each airline. They sell them in-flight; they're listed in the magazine under 'duty-free shopping' and there are usually four for about $1.5. He will pay for them with his own money that he has saved for this trip. (he made $20 yesterday- in Victor the first one to report a whale sighting-a new whale- to the whale watch centre gets $20 and he saw one blowing into the air and ran fast to the centre and was the first report it. If he had noticed that the whale had her new calf with her he would have gotten $30.) He has airplane sets from Qantas, New Zealand, British Airways, American, but not from United. We've never flown that one.

Also, if you could check if insurance covers renting a video camera - I don't know if we will rent one. $180 for four weeks is a lot - do they rent them there?
I will call you Monday afternoon-about three-four pm-her -Tuesday. If you have any last-minute questions. We are all excited.
Love terrellsachaleigh

We flew to Sydney and stayed overnight not far from the airport. By six AM we were standing at the entrance gate. My father has told us often that he first saw Sacha standing at the end entrance and he was so happy after flying so far that we were there. We rented the largest mobile home available and headed out over the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Our mobile home had a shower, kitchenette, television, and it really was a home on wheels.

We arrived in Surfers Paradise in the middle of the night and Sacha was sitting in the front with me and my father and Leigh were asleep. It was quite a site. We had been driving for many hours in close to total darkness then all of a sudden from the top of a hill and around a curve we saw the lights of the Gold Coast. We spent that first night at a campsite and the next day in Brisbane we got the van lights fixed. We were told we should not have been driving at all at night. These things do not seem to affect me though. I just plough forward and hope for the best in life. If I take out a kangaroo or two along the way or miss a curve or suddenly discover that I have lost this or that or the other thing well tough titties. The whole bloody universe is a lost cause to begin with. From Big Bang to Big Crunch – does it really matter that at some moment in that space/time thingy that I did not have lights working on a van back on earth in 1992?

Kangaroo and dad My father, age 99, still has this photo on his wall and every time we visit him he talks about ‘that kangaroo’. (he lived until 102 still with this photo behind his bed)

We spent three weeks travelling through Queensland, then through Victoria and South Australia before getting to our home in Victor Harbor. Nothing remarkable happened and everywhere we went people were amazed that my father was 87-years old. To me though, I may as well have had three children. I did everything from cooking to cleaning to driving to sorting the three out. They all complained - a lot. They were either hungry or tired or wanted to go someplace someone else did not want to go. My father insisted on going to church on Sundays and the kids wanted to go to amusement parks and climb mountains and swim. My father wanted to see historic stuff. My step-son who travels the world heaps says every once in a while that he is having an ‘old-shits-day’ meaning he is looking at historical stuff somewhere.

One of my father's favourite moments was "engaging" with a group of kangaroos. He fed them bread and petted several. For a decade later he kept this photo of himself petting a kangaroo on the front of his refrigerator and when he went into a nursing home at the age of 98 in 2003 he put the photo over his bed and he loves to tell the story about the time he was with the roos. He will be 101 in two weeks and there is not a visit that passes without the roo story.

Camper Van

Our first Sunday together the children and I were asleep, and my father woke us up, he was dressed in suit and tie wanting to know where the nearest church was and why weren't we up and ready to go? We wiped our eyes and trudged on down the road to the nearest enclave of alleged alien Methodist inhabitants. As bad luck would have it the bloody bells of a church in some dumb ass little town were tolling as we arrived (in the dumb ass little town). We were warmly greeted, as any new customers would be – more bodies for the Lord and more cash for the coffers. It was the typical long-winded - out of tune – sung, praise-the-Lord capper one would hear in any typically the same as situation. On the way out of the church my father let everyone know that he was from New York and we were whatever it was we were.

One of my sons claimed the twenty-dollar bill he had acquired was a bill that was lying on the floor and in fact he thought it was ‘just a fiver’ at that. A likely story to give when faced with a silver bowl full of cash being passed in front of him as the congregation mournfully sang, “Just as I am – take me Lord….” Or some such nonsense. Maybe there was a subliminal message in the song that sounded like “just help yourself to the bloody cash …” Who Knows?

Overall though it was a good trip and there was no major drama. We drove through Dubbo Zoo and past some historical places though I cannot remember what they were about. There was something to do with Ned Kelly and some big fucking river and lots of Outback. It would make a great movie. Actually, if I ever finish writing up this thingy I will write a script for a movie.
Characters:

• One old man: 87+
• One nine-year old
• One eleven-and-a-half-year-old
• Me: I would play me – there is no one who could do it better
  

Four characters driving around Australia in a caravan. Sounds stupid but considering that most movies are stupid I am sure I could write this up to be less stupid than 91.3% of the other Hollywood movies that are in existence. 

When we were at our home in Victor Harbor I had a friend take us to her church on Sunday and we all pretended we went there regularly. I do not know why I never told him that I thought his religious trip was crap but at his age it seemed best to just let things be and let him believe what he wanted to do was what we did naturally and regularly, and we would just go on with our lives pretending everything was different than it actually was. I think we spent five days at our home in Victor.

The children stayed in the mobile home with their friends, and it became the local party central for the adolescents of our neighbourhood. I stayed out of it except when we needed to drive somewhere because I felt more akin to my rusty Ford than I did to the growing adolescent ghetto in the van. The thing was quite a mess by the time we were to leave. The toilet was backed up, though I forgot what happened, except that it no longer flushed and for our own health and safety and senses we kept the toilet door closed. The children had taken up cooking or some such thing. I was not allowed inside for a few days as there had been a coup of some sort or it was ‘secret children’s business’ that kept me out or perhaps the smell of the non-flushing toilet. Whatever it was I let them have it for a few days then we all did a big clean up and left town.

When my father was with us in Victor, we drove the mobile home around because our Ford had fallen into disrepair. I am not sure what was wrong with it but the motor did not work, and it was quite clear that it was diseased with an incurable cancerous form of rust. I had been unable to purchase a new motor and the slowly widening holes from the cancerous rust were slowly transforming my Ford into some alien possible-life form.

One afternoon when we all went to Goolwa on a particular sightseeing day, we took the ferry across to Hindmarsh Island and on the way back we were behind a car with a “for sale” sign in the window. Thinking that it was a sign (a cosmic sign, I probably even did some bloody stupid astrological chart on it) I rang the number and bought the car soon after my father went back to the States.

We drove my father to Melbourne in our large caravan home, put him on a plane back to Clifton Park, turned our mobile home in, and took a flight back to Adelaide.
Unfortunately for me I only drove our ‘new’ car around Victor on the flat roads and never took it up any hills. The car seemed to run fine, and I paid the two-thousand dollars that the person wanted for it believing and trusting in people as I do, that all was, as it seemed to be when the going was good. The day after we paid for it we drove to Adelaide and on the way back, going up the steep Willunga Hill toward Mount Compass the car “threw a rod”, as they say. Some piece of metal went through the motor from the drive shaft or something like that.

Before that lovely event happened, early in the day of our first trip into Adelaide with our “new car”, we realised there was no power in the engine and we would learn later that only two of the four cylinders were actually working. It was dark when the car died on Willunga Hill. We had to walk for close to an hour to a petrol station in Willunga to telephone the Rosalskis to come and rescue us.

We had the car towed to Victor the next day and it cost another thousand dollars to get the thing up and running again. By then we hated the car, but it was all we could afford.

There are those times. Those times that it is just all too much. I have them frequently – the overwhelming moment. When I was stranded at the bottom of Willunga Hill, in the dark, with Sacha, age eleven, and Leigh, age 9; with less than one-dollar in my pocket, and we all were hungry and home was on the other side of the mountain I just did not know what we were doing in life. I did not have a job. I had started my schooling only a year earlier and that was barely on track as I explain in the next section.

I am at that moment quite often. Only the reality is different – the metaphor is always the same – I am stuck in the dark at the bottom of a mountain trying to sort out how I will get to the other side of it.

I am always hungry, though not for food. I am not hungry for spiritual truth either, that is all bullshit. Today I noted that when I was born there were about two and a half billion people whilst today there are more than six and half billion. There are four billion more people today than when I came to this planet. I use to feel a bit significant in the scheme of things but now there are these four billion fuckers farting in my space. Surely this puts a hole in those cosmic theories of reincarnation. Maybe as David Icke goes on about there is an alien group preparing us as their harvest. We were just planted her eons ago and now that there are some seven billion of us we can just be all scooped up for the aliens’ perverted acts. Hopefully some group sex is involved.

There are more people alive now than all the people that lived up to a hundred years ago combined. There is no way everyone could have lived multiple lives. If each of these six billion people had lived five times before that would mean, there would have been thirty billion people come and gone. Nothing supports the fact that there have been such large numbers of humans on this planet in its history. Perhaps we create ourselves once we gain enough consciousness to go forward. Eventually I suppose some form of humans will live for thousands of years with nanotechnology and all that it has to offer. We are all just fodder for the future and nothing more. When we die only those who knew us personally will carry us forward until they die then eventually all memories that we ever existed or passed this way will disappear like dog shit in the sand.

Looking at “recorded history” is depressing. What happened before then? Only a couple of thousand years ago when there were millions on the planet, when life was a different struggle to stay alive than it is today, humans had feelings but we have no idea what they were or who had them. Then the bloody breeding and increases to survival set in and humans tried to pass on their miserable lots in life through art and songs, plays and writing. Now we write blogs and wikis and webpages thinking some passing mindless moron nomad will give a shit about our life long enough to sign our guestbook.

There was a time when survival meant having enough to eat or a place to protect oneself from the elements of nature. Now survival is having enough money to pay for enough entertainment to snuff out any moment that could be used to ponder what we are doing here.

20. Terrell's Poems come to Adelaide

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.