He got on board the bus, a tall rawboned man with the
sandblasted countenance and oddly rolling gate of someone who had spent many
years outdoors on a horse. His clothes spoke country too, from the battered
hat, neat shirt and clean well worn boots, to the carefully pressed dark jeans
with the cuffs turned up. The bus driver greeted him like a long lost friend,
which as it turned out they were, asking what he was doing in these parts.
Oh I'm off to the show to steward the wood chop, he replied
in a voice that was designed to carry across great distance. I do it every year
In the next twenty minutes one learnt things about the bus
driver that one had been woefully ignorant of... it seems he was a jockey in
his day... well that explained his short stature. The other gentleman had
worked the shows and rodeos that crisscross this vast land. All the
small shows feed into the
annual show in each state including the EKKA in Brisbane.
A place one dreams of
showing a quilt in... it was meant to be this year, but life kept getting in
the way.
They both had been bad boys in their day between the
drinking and the brawling and now they both were constantly chased by their
doctors to remove skin cancers with alarming regularity.
They passed the trip by exchanging stories about people they
knew in common...
Do you remember so and so?
Which one was he?
He was the one that could ride anything... he used to get up
and just lay down on the animal and they couldn't shift him.
Oh he had incredible balance... he just used to lay there as
they bucked and kicked
Yeah, blackfella of course (as though that explained
everything). Well he's dead. Went down a gully and his horse rolled on him.
Damn shame, they don't make riders like that any more
What happened to so and so?
Oh he's still chopping... never seen anyone so precise with
only one arm. His father's still chopping too
His father was the biggest man I've ever seen
Yeah, but he could chop like no one else. It's a dying art,
the young just aren't interested.
No the shows aren't the same. This one used to be a real
country show and the EKKA? It's full of kids who don't know or care where their
steaks come from. All they're interested in is show bags.
It was on the tip of one's tongue to point out that the
children were often very interested in the animals. They were usually in the
petting shed patting their future steaks... but one stayed quiet. As a former
country mouse one knows not to poke the grumpy bears J