The Summer of ’82 Page 8

  Occasionally another car of hoons would pull up, and you generally knew them. If you had a good car, like a Monaro or a Charger, you would get out and look at each other’s cars. (No one was showing off their Nissan Pulsar.) You’d say things like, ‘Nice duco,’ or, ‘Pop the bonnet – is that a 308 or a 318?’ Basically you were checking out how modified the other car was. Stereos were very important. You would save up to get an Alpine or a Pioneer stereo, studying the brochure and taking in every feature. And then there was the ultimate addition: the graphic equaliser. I still don’t know what it did, but it had coloured lights that moved up and down as your Acca Dacca cassette played.

  Sometimes these meetings were arranged via CB radio. Like the sharpies, CB radio was big in the 1970s, and somehow a few were still hanging around in the ’80s. For a while we had a CB radio set up in our rumpus room. Mark’s prankster skills would come to the fore, as the CB radio world was a weird mix of truck drivers and ham-radio nerds who just loved ‘the airwaves’.

  Mark called himself ‘Globe’, and he was the biggest pest of the airwaves. First he would interrupt a serious truckers’ conversation with ‘Breaker, breaker.’ That was what you said when you wanted to break into a conversation. Most users would say, ‘Go ahead, breaker.’ And Mark would say something like, ‘Hey, guys, I’ve got a really important issue. I’m at the roadhouse and I don’t know whether to get fried or steamed dim sims.’ This would infuriate the CB enthusiasts, who would abuse him, which amused Mark no end.

  Next he would put on a gruff voice and say, ‘Breaker, breaker, we have an emergency situation on the Hume Highway.’

  ‘Go ahead, breaker,’ the truckers would say.

  ‘Nah, this is Globe again!’

  Mark was trolling people before it was even invented.

  It was not uncommon in the world of CB radio for truckies to arrange an ‘eyeball’. That was where you’d meet up and check out each other’s CB set-up, or maybe some spunky ‘YLs’ (young ladies). Seriously, you would go to a car park behind a Venture store, and another car would pull up and you would get out and look at each other’s CB radio. One day we went to an eyeball and a guy rolled up on a bicycle with his CB radio on his handlebars.

  Anyway, before I could get my driving licence, I needed some lessons. I had driven cars before, but only ever in illegal situations. Trevor had left his white HQ station wagon in Mum and Dad’s garage, and while I never dared touch Dad’s beloved HR brown wagon, Trev’s was fair game. Dad had nicknamed it ‘the lemon’, and it did seem to break down a lot. So when Mum and Dad went away, we took the lemon out for a spin. Noddy was usually behind the wheel, being the most experienced illegal driver out of all of us.

  Our favourite destination was the Wantirna drive-in. Normally we would ride our bikes and sneak in, setting up next to a speaker to watch Starstruck or Puberty Blues. (‘Get us a Chiko Roll, ya mole!’) The drive-in was a great place to hang out because, unlike at the cinema, there were no ushers telling you off. It was pure anarchy, where kids roamed free and played on the playground, which sat just below the screen. There was a real sense of community, with people flashing their headlights whenever any nudity appeared on the screen.

  Once, when we were young kids, Mum and Dad took us to see A Clockwork Orange at the drive-in. I still remember Mum pushing my head under a blanket as a giant phallic sculpture rocked back and forth on-screen. Then in Form One my class raised the most money in the Walk Against Want, so we won the great prize of going to the drive-in in a bus to see Rocky. Unfortunately, no one really thought this through: when the driver parked his bus with one side facing the screen, only half of us could see the movie.

  So I had to convince Mum to give me some lessons. I knew Dad couldn’t as his anger would boil over into a road rage incident, involving both driver and instructor. Mum had previously taken Trevor and Mark for lessons, and now it was my turn. Glenn, being the organised one, had already had a few lessons with Mum and by now had racked up about ten lessons with a professional driving school. He was booked in to get his licence an hour before I was. There was no doubt he would breeze it in.

  I got in the station wagon with Mum and she gave me her standard lecture. ‘This car is a dangerous weapon and you will be in charge of it.’

  ‘Yes, Mum, I know. You said exactly the same thing to Glenn.’

  ‘Well, you have to concentrate, and always keep two hands on the wheel.’

  ‘Can we go now, Mum?’

  People weren’t really tolerant of learner drivers. There was lots of tailgating, beeping of horns and the occasional yelling out of the car window. And that was just Dad in the driveway.

  We headed out onto the streets of Mitcham, and for some reason on my first lesson Mum wanted me to try a three-point turn. And she chose a very busy street for me to try it in. No sooner had I performed the first part of the three-point turn than a panel van – sorry, a Sandman full of young men – nearly rammed us. I put the car in reverse and promptly mounted the curb, where I hit a rubbish bin, spilling the contents onto the nature strip.

  If it were up to me I would have floored it and left the scene of the crime. But my mother was a good citizen, so she made me get out of the car and put the rubbish back in the bin. When I went to get back in the car she was in the driver’s seat and the L-plates had disappeared.

  The responsibility of training me was then passed on to Mike Walsh, a professional. He introduced himself as ‘Mike Walsh, driving instructor – not the TV star’. You see, he shared his name with the host of the Midday Show on Channel 9. He didn’t really have to add that bit of information; I already knew that the host of the Midday Show wouldn’t be teaching kids how to drive. That would be like calling a plumber and having Bert Newton turn up.

  I spent a lot of my wages on Mike Walsh. He’d pick me up from the tile factory and then drop me at home. ‘You’re not quite ready for the test just yet,’ he kept saying. As Christmas approached I couldn’t help but think I was funding his kids’ presents. But I had a reason to keep learning: I really, really wanted to drive to Mildura to see Sonia.

  What was it she had said? ‘Come up and see me in Mildura sometime.’ Oh yeah – that time was coming!

  LAST CHRISTMAS

  In the O’Neil household in 1982 there was a general lack of interest in Christmas. Ten years earlier, even five years earlier, it had been a big deal. It was the one annual event we looked forward to, apart from our birthdays. And Easter, which brought at least one Humpty Dumpty Easter Egg each, which we would eat in one sitting (‘Chocolate beanies inside egg!’).

  At Christmas we used to get one present each, and we’d be very happy. One year we all got a different Thunderbird toy, from the TV show which featured puppets. (Their acting was a bit wooden, as Dad used to joke pretty much every time we watched The Thunderbirds.) These weren’t like your modern-day plastic landfill. These were Dinky Toys, made in Britain using die-cast metal, as the box proudly said. I got the Thunderbird 2, the heavy-duty green ship that would do all the earth-based missions. Glenn got the Thunderbird 3, the red rocket ship that did all the space missions.

  Other memorable Christmas presents included my Six Million Dollar Man toy, based on another great TV show. Come to think of it, the guy playing Steve Austin acted about as well as a Thunderbird puppet. It had roll-back skin on its right arm and a telescopic eye you could look through. Okay, it was a doll, but through clever marketing we were led to see it as an ‘action figure’. Some advertising genius somewhere noticed that boys liked to play with dolls just as much as girls, but were ashamed to admit it. Give the doll a macho name and some camouflage gear and suddenly it’s a red-blooded killing machine called GI Joe. I’m not ashamed to admit I loved that Steve Austin doll. I used to sleep with it at night; he kept me safe.

  The 1970s and ’80s was a golden era for toys. Between all the neighbourhood kids we had nearly every board game and action figure, not to mention straight-out dangerous purchases like the Slip ’N Slide.
That was a long strip of plastic with water running down it, and some detergent to make you go faster. You would take a run-up and dive onto the plastic, and slip, slide and break the occasional bone. The perfect location for it was the nature strip, that bit of grass between the footpath and the road. So we’d be slipping and sliding into oncoming traffic.

  In our street alone we could easily muster games such as KerPlunk, Mousetrap, Boggle, Connect Four, Spinning Tops, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Cluedo, Monopoly, Mastermind, Test Match, Chinese Checkers, Guess Who?, Jenga and Squatter. Squatter was the worst – it was an Aussie response to Monopoly. The box called it ‘the Australian wool game’, but buying sheep was about as boring as it sounded.

  Now that we were teenagers and older, our Christmas presents had changed. Mostly we’d simply get a five-dollar note in a card. And we’d often get a Brashs voucher too, which was always welcome.

  At least we didn’t have to go to church anymore. We had grown up going to the local Church of England, and words cannot describe how boring that was for a child … But I will try. Imagine getting up the family at eight a.m. on a Sunday and making everyone put on their ‘Sunday best’. You take them all to a hall, where they sit on hard seats and listen to a man talk about stuff from this old book that even you don’t understand. Oh, but don’t worry – all the talking was broken up with songs. The Church of England specialised in dreary hymns, and there was inevitably one ‘over singer’ who always seemed to be sitting behind you. You know, the one warbling and trilling away. We kids had to go to the Sunday School, where young Christian enthusiasts would try to make the teaching of the Lord funky. Deep down, we all knew it was a Sunday morning and we were meant to be having a break from school.

  Mum and Dad persisted for a while. They even got Mark and Trev ‘confirmed’. That’s where, at the age of fifteen or so, you have several learning sessions with the vicar, and then a ceremony in which you are deemed an adult in the eyes of the church. Thank God my older brothers were difficult and argued with the vicar. You know, things like, ‘If God is watching us, why does he let bad things happen? Like the Falklands War, starving children in Ethiopia and the success of Dire Straits?’ The poor vicar said to Mum after Mark had been confirmed, ‘Maybe don’t worry about the other two boys.’ Praise the Lord – I was off the hook!

  From that point on, we stopped going to church much. We went for the big occasions, like Easter and Christmas, but on those days the vicar would make snide remarks: ‘Good to see the regulars here, and the other people who only come twice a year.’ By the time Glenn and I were in our last year at school, we didn’t have to go to church at all. Hallelujah!

  Christmas Day 1982 started at about ten, when we got out of bed. Our wake-up time had become progressively later as we got older. The Christmas tree looked a little bare without many gifts – there were just a few envelopes. It was a plastic tree Mum bought in 1969, when Kmart opened in Burwood – the first in Australia. The paper decorations that we made in primary school were still hanging off its plastic branches. Each year another bauble would get smashed, so they were now pretty sparse.

  We opened our envelopes and then sat around while Mum slaved away in the kitchen. Mum was a classic 1960s housewife – she was like Betty Draper from Mad Men, without the smoking or the repressed anger. Mum would be working at a furious pace, cooking a turkey, veggies, gravy, a pavlova, a sponge … a lot came out of that humble kitchen.

  Then the rellies would turn up. First would be Nanna and Grandad, Mum’s parents. Grandad would position himself outside on a banana lounge with a cigarette and a beer, and then would hardly move for the rest of the day. Nanna would join Mum in the kitchen, adding her own Christmas pudding to the feast. Uncle Kevin, Mum’s brother who was going blind, would also be there as he lived with Nanna and Grandad. Then Uncle Barry would appear with Aunt Judy and their two kids, Neil and Susan. Finally there would be Mum’s cousins, Beverly and Ray, Coral and Peter, and Uncle George. The dining-room table would be added to the billiard table in the rumpus room, and we’d have Christmas dinner the O’Neil way.

  The conversation always went the same way.

  ‘So what are you boys up to now?’ Uncle George would say.

  ‘Oh, we’re just waiting for our HSC results,’ I’d answer.

  ‘What? Don’t wait for them – you need to get a job.’

  ‘Yeah, I have – I’m working at the tile factory.’

  Mum would butt in, not happy that her son would be seen as a mere factory worker. ‘Yes, but that’s just a temporary job.’

  ‘You want to get a job in insurance,’ Uncle Barry would chip in. He was a gun insurance salesman, best in the district. ‘I can line you up an interview.’

  ‘At your age, I’d been working for five years.’ That would be Grandad.

  ‘That’s the problem with you young people – you all think you’re so smart these days.’ Thanks, Uncle Kevin.

  ‘I told them, it’s not too late to get a trade.’ Thanks, Dad.

  Then Aunt Judy or Coral would change the subject. ‘Do you have a girlfriend yet, David?’

  My brothers would laugh and I’d go bright red.

  Thank God for Grandad, who after a few beers would always play the ‘human trumpet’. No, it’s not what you’re thinking; he would cup his hand over his mouth and make the sound of a trumpet. He was quite good, actually. He would usually give us a bit of Al Jolson and then finish up with some Glenn Miller.

  By the end of the day even more relatives would have turned up: Auntie Elaine, Uncle Stan, cousin Owen … even some of our neighbours would wander over. Eventually the party would move into the backyard, where the kids would end up in the pool and the adults would start arguing, mainly about politics. Despite the fact that Grandad was a wharfie and to the left of Karl Marx, his two sons had turned into the worst thing ever in his eyes – Liberal voters. So it would be Uncle Barry and Uncle Kevin going up against Mum, Dad, us four boys and Herb the ex-wharfie.

  Ah, the O’Neil family Christmas – opening presents, a lovely lunch and then a massive argument, which normally ended with Uncle Kev storming out. Only to realise he was going blind and relied on his lefty dad to give him a lift home.

  Over Christmas Drago and I had a week off from the tile factory, so we started looking for something to do. We decided to head down to the beach and throw a party from Boxing Day to New Year’s Eve. We put out the call to all our mates from Scouts, especially the girls, but all of them declined. So there were only boys going: Noddy, Wookey, Evan, Glenn and me.

  When I say ‘the beach’, I actually mean Mum and Dad’s beach house at Cape Paterson. The Cape is on the south-east coast of Victoria. Most people know where Phillip Island is – keep going past it until you hit Wonthaggi, and then keep going again and you’ll find Cape Paterson. Back then, this area was an absolutely beautiful untouched series of beaches where you could swim, surf and sunbake all day long.

  Dad bought a block of land at Cape Paterson in 1970 for $800 – which begs the question, why didn’t he buy ten more? But as he points out, that was a lot of money back then. In the early ’70s he got some builders to put up a house to lock-up stage, and then Dad did the plastering and painting himself.

  When we were young kids, Cape Paterson was an amazing place. There was just so much to do. Often we’d spend the whole day at the surf beach. There were no tents, hats or sunscreen, perhaps just a bit of zinc cream. Mum would slather herself with Coppertone or Reef Oil (I can still smell that coconut), and encourage us with the words, ‘A tan makes you look healthy.’ Dad would join us in the water and we’d body-surf all day long, while Mum would lie on the beach sunbaking and reading a large paperback like Flowers in the Attic or The Thorn Birds. We’d have a break at lunchtime, when Mum would leave the beach early to prepare a lunch of ham and salad rolls, followed by white bread with jam and cream, or sometimes hundreds and thousands.

  If we got bored of the surf beach we could try the safety beach, which had a swi
mming pool blasted out of the rocks. But mostly we agreed this was for babies, and we were far too old for paddling about. Between the surf and the safety beach was ‘the channel’, a small rocky inlet where we’d spend hours diving and looking at crustaceans.

  Around the corner from the surf beach was the ‘second surf beach’, which only the experienced surfers used. But behind this beach was a big network of sand dunes, where on days that were not beachworthy we would break into ‘tribes’ and attack each other with homemade spears. We did this for years until one year we got to Cape Paterson and found that the dunes had been closed off with official-looking tape. A sign said that ancient weapons had been found in the area, and an archaeological dig was imminent. I hope Indiana Jones and his crew didn’t waste too much time before they realised our spears were made from string and sticky tape.

  The commercial hub of the Cape consisted of two shops – the Top Shop and the Other Shop – plus a kiosk in the caravan park that was stocked with every lolly you could imagine. Debate raged about which shop was better, although mostly we were loyal to the Top Shop. The same people probably owned both of them, come to think of it.

  By the time Glenn and I were teenagers, though, Cape Paterson had become tedious. What was once a paradise had turned into a fun-free zone. We started labelling it Cape Boredom, and the even harsher Cape Dump. What ungrateful little so-and-sos we were. But often it was too windy or cold to go to the beach, so we would spend hours just lying on our lumpy bunk-beds reading Commando war comics such as Achtung! and Knife for a Nazi!

  But as seventeen-year-old boys with no parents present, the beach house represented freedom. And who knew? We might even meet some girls from the local caravan park.