I got myself a second try at an art exhibition, this time at the beachside resort village of Port Noarlunga art gallery at the Community Arts Centre. Port Noarlunga was settled in the 1840’s and the town was old and quaint. Before the white people came and had a bit of a slaughter the Kaurna Aboriginal people, the original inhabitants of the region lived peaceful there for thousands of years.137F There was a romantic atmosphere to the area and I thought this was the place for me. I advertised on my growing amount of Internet pages and I put posters everywhere I could find a place to post a poster between Port Noarlunga and Adelaide and even north into the Adelaide hills. I had banners proclaiming, “a textual feast by the sea”.

Kris and I spent a day decorating and putting up picture-poems. I had large canvases and small pictures, and I showed for the first time my newest work of art – plastered clothing. Kris gave me several articles of clothing, a couple of expensive designer dresses, her daughter’s first communion dress and along with tee-shirts and pants I slashed the clothing with a razor blade then put them into a thin mix of plaster and hung them outside on my clothes line in a stiff breeze and when they dried in their strange excruciating shapes I used Sacha’s spray paint tins and coloured and lined and wrote words and verses on them. My best piece, Kris’ expensive (she said it was over a thousand dollars) designer dress I placed a sign underneath reading “graffiti goddess of Hackham” and we suspended her from the ceiling as an angelic shadow over my show.

I had a gallant opening with banners and music and balloons and food (tofu cheesecake) and wine and Kris and I drank and ate by ourselves until we could not drink or eat anymore and it was clear no one was going to come to the opening, and then we left. Being that it was the week before Christmas I thought surely I would do a brisk business. I went early to open each morning and added more picture-poems – new ones, freshly constructed the night before, that were even better than the ones already there and in the four weeks I did that, the two weeks before Christmas and the two weeks after – I had one customer who bought five but she did not have any money with her and she said she would pay me in a few days. I ran into her at a shopping mall a few months later and she paid me.

Being that it was the week before Christmas I thought surely I would do a brisk business. I went early to open each morning and added more picture-poems – new ones, freshly constructed the night before, that were even better than the ones already there and in the four weeks I did that, the two weeks before Christmas and the two weeks after – I had one customer who bought five but she did not have any money with her and she said she would pay me in a few days. I ran into her at a shopping mall a few months later and she paid me.

Leigh's Baseball

Leigh was doing extremely well with his baseball. In January of 1997 the under 14 Australian National Championships were held in Glenelg which meant that I could go and watch Leigh play in a national tournament. At the same time as Leigh was getting so much attention Sacha was getting less. Everything about my two sons was so different I often wondered what I was doing to have such different boys. Even in music and worldviews they were different. Whereas Leigh was a fan of the Beach Boys Sacha liked hip-hop and heavy metal. When the Beach Boys came to Adelaide, Leigh and I went. A week later I went to a concert with Sacha to see Metallica. I was the only adult at Sacha’s concert and Leigh was the only adolescent at the Beach Boy concert. My concern with hip-hop was Sacha’s favouritism of gangsta rap with all its sexist negative lyrics.

03 January 1997
17 Lynn Place
Hackham 
South Australia 5163
Dear Dell  (note I have taken out sections of this letter)
…I banned him from listening to hip-hop, all that negative rap crap.  So he moved out of the house and in with some warped characters.  That was in October.  After one week there, it all fell apart.

(I have deleted the next section from my letter to Dell to protect people. But suffice it to say life for us all came terribly unstuck.)

What a day that was. I was with Leigh at a baseball game.  He was awarded MVP for the day’s game.  We were in such a good mood and got home about 7 PM. Leigh and I talked about what American professional team he should sign with - he was 13 and there had already been interest from several Major League Teams. We got the phone call soon after that. 

(Not in letter to Dell just explaining omissions. Again, to protect my son and others I cannot put this section in. I am just comparing the difference two sons can have on one day.)

So 1996 was rough for me.  Leigh did well.  Sacha did too he just had this one bad moment at the end of the year. He did have recognition during the year for his graphic arts, and he was commissioned several walls to do murals on. I did manage to get halfway through my Master’s degree and this year I will be finishing my master’s and doing a post-graduate degree in computers (software development) then hopefully in a couple of years I can make some money. I also nearly completed a novel, TRYTHIS, the biography of my children.  A portion of the first chapter I have on the Internet.

Sacha  – --

Section deleted from the original ‘Leaving’ to protect.

Southern Districts Adelaide South Australia Hawks Under-14 baseball

What happens in life or in some people’s lives is that an event can be life changing for good or bad. We all have these moments. Some seemingly within our control and some not. What is important is that Sacha has a wonderful and fulfilling life. He just visited Narda and me today. Narda and I live in Adelaide at the moment (April 2015) and we are travelling around for ten-days in a little pop-up caravan that we recently purchased to discover whether camping is for us or whether we are too old (I am 67 and on chemotherapy so feeling a bit worse for wear). We drove over to Melbourne and are staying at the Frankston Caravan Park for a week. Sacha is doing so well and making a great impact on society. So whatever was so terrible about twenty-years ago is so long ago. That is what life is about; we are either getting through something or starting something that we are sometimes looking forward to being the other side of.

1978 - 2005 - 2025 - camping

Meanwhile, back in 1997 I was going through the Family Courts once again to assist Leigh with his baseball career. Leigh was improving rapidly with his baseball and there was talk of him making the Australian National Under 16’s teams that would be playing in the U-16 World Championship games in Fairfield Heights, Illinois in July 1998. In June of 1997 I put in my affidavit to get the court to give Leigh permission to travel interstate and overseas to play. Lesia put into the courts, what I thought was, a highly negative and wrong portrayal of me. Earlier in the year I received permission against Lesia’s wishes to renew Leigh’s passport. I was now going to the court to be granted the sole right to make decisions with respect to Leigh’s baseball career. Lesia had put into the court that we had to have joint signatories before Leigh could go on any trips. It was clear, based on past situations that we would never agree on what he should go to or what tournaments he should be in. Lesia’s position was that Leigh should concentrate on his chooling.

She even had him tested to see how well he was suited for academic life and he was rated in the top ten percent of people his age in all categories of learning. In primary school he had received recognition for receiving a “credit” in a national math thing putting him amongst the top five percent in Australia. I agreed that he should concentrate on his schooling but that he should go to every tournament he could. Leigh had said many times that his career was baseball and he was not going to get himself signed by a major league team if he was not visible and good. There seemed to be no common ground, so I went to court.

Australian National Under 16’s teams that would be playing in the U-16 World Championship games in Fairfield Heights, Illinois in July 1998. In June of 1997 I put in my affidavit to get the court to give Leigh permission to travel interstate and overseas to play. Lesia put into the courts, what I thought was, a highly negative and wrong portrayal of me. Earlier in the year I received permission against Lesia’s wishes to renew Leigh’s passport. I was now going to the court to be granted the sole right to make decisions with respect to Leigh’s baseball career. Lesia had put into the court that we had to have joint signatories before Leigh could go on any trips. It was clear, based on past situations that we would never agree on what he should go to or what tournaments he should be in. Lesia’s position was that Leigh should concentrate on his schooling.

She even had him tested to see how well he was suited for academic life and he was rated in the top ten percent of people his age in all categories of learning. In primary school he had received recognition for receiving a “credit” in a national math thing putting him amongst the top five percent in Australia. I agreed that he should concentrate on his schooling but that he should go to every tournament he could. Leigh had said many times that his career was baseball and he was not going to get himself signed by a major league team if he was not visible and good. There seemed to be no common ground, so I went to court.

Leigh hated this; it was bad enough that his parents did not get along but that they fought in court so he could do what he wanted was upsetting to him. I had even set up with Wirreanda High School that he would miss practice and tournaments if his grades failed away. Later in the year when he took the Australian wide math’s test, he received a credit, putting him into the top ten percent of students his age in Australia. He had slipped from being in the top five percent to being in the top ten percent in math for all of Australia. Really how much math does a baseballer need? [What do you do with an elephant with three balls? Walk him and pitch to the giraffe!] Three strikes and you are out, four balls and you walk to first base. He was a full-time scholarship holder with the South Australian Sports Institute and had been since the year before. He was the youngest ever to be given a full-time scholarship for baseball at the Institute.
Leigh had two different possibilities for his life. He was either going to sign with a major league baseball club or he was going to try and obtain an American university full time sports scholarship and he knew that to achieve that goal not only did he need to be good at sports but he also need to do extremely well in school.

Lesia tried to get Leigh to sign a paper giving her joint care of him and threatened that if he did not sign it she would never see him again. He told me this in the car one Sunday when Kris was driving us to a baseball game and she was as surprised as I was. Lesia had tried to get Leigh to sign a paper saying that the things I had written in my affidavit to the court were untrue. Leigh had a lot of guidance, and I felt he was doing incredibly well for his age or for any age. Being a full scholarship holder with the Sports Institute he was under the guidance of the Athletic Career and Education Program (ACE). Through ACE he was appointed a career counsellor who worked with him on his goals both educational and sporting.

30. <title>Terrell Neuage Memoir: 1997 - Family Life, Baseball Triumphs, Court Battles, Early Internet, and South Australian Adventures</title>