A Shearer's Tale.

 

ARNIE Y

IE YA A Shearer’s Tale

Arnie scooped up the last of the leaves from the pool. He walked across the yard  and placed the scoop against the small  shed. He was followed by Lambchop, the pet sheep. Arnie had acquired Lambchop about ten years ago, the same time that he and Ella had started acquiring grandchildren.           

The backyard pool was also acquired to entertain his two daughters and their families, which now extended to six grandchildren. Lambchop was a firm favourite with the grandies. Lambchop was also very good at keeping the grass in check around the pool which was in a fenced off area in the end bottom third of the  half acre block.

Arnie was 84 years old. He used to be a shearer. A very good shearer. His father was a shearer as were his three brothers. When Arnie left school, he naturally became a shearer, too. Arnie worked in shearing sheds throughout Western Australia. When he was fifty-nine, Arnie’s back and right wrist told him it was time to give the shearing game away. Within a few weeks he was working for the shire as the groundsman for the local bowling and tennis club. He really  enjoyed that work and was given a big send-off by the bowlers and tennis players, and the local councillors, when he decided fifteen years later that working five full days a week at age 76 was a bit too much.

A few weeks later Arnie and Ella picked up what he called a ‘dream “ job. They worked for the local abattoir, washing the workers blood-stained  clothes in industrial washing and drying machines and then using a pressure hose to clean the entire work area. They used to start at four o’clock in the afternoon and be finished by 6-00PM. Before they headed home, they folded the clean dry clothes laid out clean work clothes to be used the next day.

When he walked into the kitchen, Ella said, “Hello, Love. I’ve just put the kettle on.” Arnie picked up his copy of the morning paper and sat in his lounge chair waiting for the tea to arrive. He was halfway through reading the paper when the telephone rang in the kitchen . Ella called out, “Arnie, it’s Joy, from next door. She wants to talk to you.”

Joy told Arnie that a young fellow was shearing sheep in the next street. In South Guildford quite a few residents had sheep to keep the grass under control in their large blocks.

“Yes, Arne,’ said Joy, “he’s got his utility with shearing gear rigged up. When I saw him about twenty minutes ago, he had three customers lined up. I think he shears the sheep for nothing if he can keep the fleece. I thought you might want to take Lambchop along.”

When Arnie first got Lambchop he used to shear him once a year with hand shears. However, his aching right wrist made that an increasingly painful job. So, Arnie placed a rope around Lambnchops neck and off they set to walk the hundred and fifty meters or so to meet the enterprising young shearer.

As Arnie rounded the corner, he saw the shearer and his ute. He was shearing a sheep while two ladies stood nearby with their woolly pets. Arnie joined the queue. He watched the young fellow as he went about his job and his mind wandered back to his days on the boards and of the thousands and thousands of sheep he had shorn. He even remembered being at the Royal Show doing exhibitions shearing back in the fifties.

When it was Lambchops turn to be shorn Arnie said, “Hey, young fellah. I’ve been watching you shearing these sheep. Could I have a go at shearing my own sheep”

The young bloke looked at Arnie and looked at Lambchop. “ Ah. Erm. I dunno! Do you reckon you can handle it? It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“Well,” said Arnie, “what if I start off. If  I’m no good you can always stop me and take over.”

“Yair, I suppose that’ll be OK,” was his dubious reply.

Arnie took hold of the shears. He quickly pulled Lambchop between his legs and began sweeping long blows that had the fleece peeling off like the skin off a banana. In just under two minutes Lambchop was well and truly fleeced and Arnie was handing the shearing piece back to the young shearer.

“Hey, Mate!”, he exclaimed, “You’re really good. D’yuh wanna a job?”

Arnie placed  the rope over lambchop's neck. As he walked away, he smiled and said, “No, thanks, Mate.  I’ve already got a job.”

 

 

 

Putting on the SIDE.

 

“What’s in a name?

That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Well, that was William Shakespeare’s opinion and it is true, a rose would smell as sweet no matter what we called it.

But what if we called roses, “Snottygobbles”?

Would my wife, the love of my life, feel delicious shivers to the core of her being if I sent her one dozen yellow snottygobbles? I think not. They may smell as sweet, but I will not expect her to rush to the phone to brag to her friends about it. So, despite Shakespeare’s poetic observations, names are important.

Big business spends big dollars paying marketing experts to devise catchy names and phrases for their products. Film stars, models and other public figures change their names to give themselves a more acceptable public persona. Let’s face it, nobody cared much for a lanky fellow called Marion Morrison until his name was changed and he became an American film star folk hero known as John Wayne. Bernard Schwartz was just a cheeky kid in the Bronx. He became a sex symbol of the 1950s and 60s as film star, tony Curtis. And Reginald Dwight didn’t get half as much fan male as he does now as Elton John.

Adolf Hitler’s father was an illegitimate child who took his mother’s maiden name, Huttler, which later transformed into Hitler. Adolph's father was actually sired by a man named Schiklegruber. So, if Adolf's  father had not been an illegitimate bastard, young Adolf (who we all know was an absolute bastard) would have been called Schicklegruber, too.

Political scientists are still arguing whether the German people would have marched off to war on a frenzied wave of Nationalism, shouting out, “Heil Schicklegruber” whenever their Fuhrer appeared. Maybe they would have just all fallen about laughing at him and World War 2 would never have happened.

Names are important, which is why it is a shame that whenever the Director-General of Education in Western Australia, or any other Department of Education Directors want to broadcast policy directions and planning initiatives they do so by using a teleconference video link from the School of Isolated and Distance Education. That’s S.I.D.E. for short. So,  official pronouncements from the very top could be said to be a SIDE SHOW!

Now, I am quite proud of education in Western Australia. I think it compares with the best in the world and we do so over a vast area. When our leaders tell us important policies via video link it is a very important event.

 It should not be a side show. What can we do about it? What can we do about S.I.D.E? Well, we could try to form a different acronym and switch the letter around a little bit.

Isolated and Distance Education is I.D.E.S. Considering what happened to a great Roman leader on the Ides of March, I doubt any DoE leaders would want to be associated with I.D.E.S. Distance and Isolated Education is D.I.E.S. Obviously and acronym much too terminal for advanced educational thinkers with dynamic policies.

The only real solution, Shakespeare not withstanding, is to change the name of S.I.D.E. completely. Trust me. It will still smell as sweet.

May I suggest that S.I.D.E. becomes the Technological Educational Regional Resources Institute For Improved Curriculum. That’s T.E.R.R.I.F.I.C for short.

Then, when the Director General of other Directors have a teleconference it won't be a SIDE Show it will be a TERRIFIC show.

Or as Shakespeare once almost said,                                                                                                           "What’s this video link Biz?                                                                                                                    That, which in the D-G shows,                                                                                                                      With a better name, how sweet it is?”

PS. I wrote this story in 2000, nearly a quarter of a century ago. I realise that video links may now be a thing of the distant and isolated past.                                                                                                            The story was published in WORDS, the quarterly magazine of the WA Primary Principal's Association, in  the August 2000 edition.                                                                                                      Recently, I heard that there is now a growing desire within SIDE to change its name.

What a TERRIFIC idea.