Tomorrow is March. March, a time to remember my Grandma who was born in March and also died in March. Below is a tribute and celebration of the life and legacy of Elsa Anna Gross (nee Basedow).
Australia 1960s
Remembering Dad–100-Word Challenge
Games days, Central Australian pilgrimmages, his garden, golf, table tennis…always having to win. These are the things that spring to mind when I remember my dad. Last Monday, he would’ve turned 97 if he hadn’t left this Earth for a more perfect life in heaven in 2012.
Another defining memory of Dad was his cars, except for his first one, a Gogo mobile, the rest were cheap, second-hand and the “that’ll do for the time being variety”.
This week I look back at the memory of one of these cars in the 100-word challenge.
[Driving around Adelaide these days, I see many classic cars. Brings back memories of our family cars from my childhood…]
Bathsheba
After 50 years, I have discovered the significance of our Holden FC’s name.
My dad was called David. In the Bible, there’s a King David who has an illicit affair with a woman he spies in a bath on a roof top. Her name, Bathsheba. Bath-she-ba; an apt name considering the circumstances of their meeting.
Did Mum think that when Dad bought this car, this silver-pointed beauty was his “mistress’?
Similarities: Both Davids were master of their realms. Both Bathshebas, not new, used, yet beautiful. And both Bathshebas became parked in their David’s palace, in a harem, their love shared.
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2019; updated 2022
Feature Photo: Bathsheba in our Backyard © L.M. Kling nee Trudinger) 1969
***
Join the Journey into Central Australia with the T-team, led by my Dad, Mr. T.
Click on the links below:
The T-Team with Mr. B: Central Australian Safari 1977
Trekking with the T-Team: Central Australian Safari 1981
Remembering Dad–Picnic at Brownhill Creek
Happy Hunting Ground
[Picnics on special days have been a “thing” for years. Not sure when this experience happened, but it was a picnic all the same.]
Dad leaned on his shovel and with a wrinkled handkerchief patted sweat from his head displacing the few strands of hair masquerading as a “comb-over”. Then with grunts sounding as if he were puffing billy, he attacked the garden bed. With each load of soil, he groaned, puffed and wheezed, demonstrating how hard he was working. A closed cardboard box sat near the cauliflower patch, a counterbalance to the growing pile of dirt the other side of the hole Dad created.
‘Daddy, what are you doing?’ I asked strolling across the lawn to Dad.
Dad grunted some more and then flung a heap of soil into the mound behind him.
‘Daddy, why are you digging this deep hole?’
Dad stopped digging. ‘Huh?’
‘Daddy, what’s this hole for?’
‘Never you mind, Lee-Anne.’ Dad must think at six years old, I’m too young to know.
‘But Daddy, I just want to know.’
Dad tapped the box with his boot. ‘I’m sending puss to her happy hunting ground.’
‘Wilma?’ I asked. ‘But Daddy, why are you digging a hole, Daddy? Are you digging your way to Wilma’s happy hunting ground?’ I had visions of my cat chasing mice in China.
Dad glanced at the box and cleared his throat. ‘Oh, er, no, not really. Just a bit of gardening, dear. Now, run along and get ready for the picnic.’
Ah! A spring picnic at Brown Hill Creek. I loved picnics with Mummy, Daddy and Richard, my eleven year old brother. Brown Hill Creek in the Adelaide foothills had paths lined with eucalyptus trees, and a creek filled with yabbies and tadpoles for Richard and me to hunt. I imagined Brown Hill Creek as the perfect “happy hunting ground” for cats.
‘Is Brown Hill Creek Wilma’s happy hunting ground?’ I asked.
Mum, her mousy curls covered with a scarf, poked her head out the door and called from the porch, ‘Hurry up, David!’
‘Yes, dear,’ Dad said and with huffing and puffing, dug with increased speed.
I jumped up and down and flapped my arms. ‘Hooray! We’re going to Wilma’s happy hunting ground!’ Then I ran back to Mum standing in the back porch. ‘We’re going to Wilma’s happy hunting ground.’
‘Yes, well, I suppose,’ Mum said her blue eyes averting mine.
***
All the way to Brown Hill Creek, I filled the stale air in Bathsheba, our Holden car with my constant babble. As the only blonde in the family, it was my calling to be the family entertainment.
‘I bet Wilma loves it at Brown Hill Creek. There’s so many birds…Mummy, do all the cats go to our picnic park when they go to their happy hunting ground?’
‘Mmmm,’ Mum replied.
I took that response as a “yes”. ‘Mummy, why did Wilma go to her happy hunting ground? Why didn’t she want to stay with us?’
Mum sighed. ‘Wilma wanted to go. It was her time.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Are dogs there too?’
‘Wouldn’t be a happy hunting ground for cats, if dogs were there too,’ Dad said.
‘Maybe dogs go somewhere else.’ I tried to think where dogs would go. ‘Like where there’s more trees, I guess.’
Richard shook his square head topped with brown curls. ‘Why do you always talk so much, Lee-Anne?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Anyway,’ Richard said, ‘Wilma is—’
‘Shh!’ Mum glared at my brother and narrowed her eyes.
‘Gee, Brown Hill Creek must be full of cats,’ Richard muttered.
‘Oh, goody, when we get there, the first thing I’m going to do, I’m going to find them all,’ I said.
Richard rolled his eyes and shook his head.
***
Clouds shrouded the sky casting Brown Hill Creek reserve in a pall of grey. Dad manoeuvred Bathsheba into the gravel carpark. Richard and I then scrambled out. While Richard checked the water-levels of the creek, I gazed up at the lofty branches of the gum trees. Was Wilma up there? The leaves rustled in the breeze.
Mum found an even patch of ground near the creek and spread the rug. Dad lugged the wicker basket loaded with cheese and gherkin sandwiches and a thermos.
‘Richard, would you help carry this?’ Dad asked as he held a bag containing a spare set of my clothes. A picnic was never complete unless I fell into the creek at least once.
I raced along the path and began calling, ‘Wilma! Wilma!’
As the distance between my family and me widened, Dad yelled, ‘Don’t go wandering off—we don’t want you getting lost—again.’
‘I’ll go with her,’ Mum said.
‘Wilma! Wilma!’ I sang.
Birds twittered in those lofty branches. I looked up and called, ‘Wilma! Wilma! Here puss, puss, puss!’
A kookaburra cackled.
Mum pointed up at a bunch of blue-green leaves high in a tree. ‘Hey, look!’
‘Wilma?’
‘No, look!’ Mum said, ‘A koala.’
‘What’s a koala doing here? I thought this was the cat’s happy hunting ground.’
Mum took a breath and began. ‘Wilma’s in a better place than this, she’s—’
‘Hiding?’ I peered in the scrub. I parted the stubbles of grass by the side of the path. I looked behind tree trunks and logs. ‘Wilma! Come Wilma!’
My brother strode up the path and stood next to Mum. ‘You have to tell her, Mum.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘You won’t find Wilma here,’ Richard said.
‘Wilma’s gone dear,’ Mum said.
‘Dead, Lee-Anne,’ announced Richard.
‘No! Richard, you’re wrong. Dad said Wilma went to her “happy hunting ground”, I said straining my voice.
‘Richard’s right,’ Mum said. ‘Wilma’s happy hunting ground is in heaven, not Brown Hill Creek.’
***
We ate our cheese and gherkin sandwiches in silence. If I wasn’t talking our little family usually ate in silence. Mum sat me on her lap and wrapped her arms around me as I forced small bites of sandwich past the lump in my throat. I looked at the creek frothing and bubbling from good spring rains. The yabbies and tadpoles were safe from my jar and net that day. I was in no mood to hunt them. My spare set of clothes would stay a spare set for another picnic. I decided to break the silence.
‘Will I never see Wilma again?’ I asked.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Mum said. ‘But you have Barney, Wilma’s brother, to be your special cat to look after.’
‘Why does Lee-Anne get a special cat?’ Richard asked.
‘Well, you’ve got Timothy, Wilma’s other brother, he’s your special cat,’ Mum replied.
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘So Wilma’s in her happy hunting ground in heaven,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Dad said. ‘Wilma’s in heaven.’
And I imagined Wilma stalking through a hole from our world and into the next; her happy hunting ground in heaven.
***
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016; updated 2020; 2022
Feature Photo: Picnic at Brownhill Creek. Photo taken by David Trudinger 1964
***
Want more, but too impossible to travel down under?
Why not take a virtual journey with the T-Team Adventures in Australia?
Click here on Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari 1981…
And escape in time and space to Central Australia 1981…
Out of Time (2)
[So, continues the development of the Survivor Short Story “project” in the War On Boris the Bytrode series. This time, back in time, following the adventures of middle-aged mum, Letitia…]
Out of Context, Just out of Reach
As the doors began to close, a flash of white grabbed the lift doors, wrenched them open. The mean nurse, rushed in, huffing and puffing. Letitia steeled herself, half-expecting her to make another comment related to her cleaning ability, but she ignored her. The nurse smiling, instead turned her attention to the tall blonde golfer.
‘I’m sorry, doctor, someone must have moved her without our authority. You know this hospital, one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing,’ her apology dripped like syrup.
‘That’s okay. But interrupting my round of golf?’ he sucked in his breath through his perfect set of teeth in a way that seemed unusually familiar to Letitia. She studied him as he casually pointed the butt end of the club towards the door, willing it to open.
‘Oh, I’m sorry for the inconvenience.’ The nurse grovelled. Letitia mused at the dramatic change in her demeanour; she had morphed from ostentatious superiority to humble submission. ‘But Doctor, you will return after your round of golf to assess the patient.’
‘You’ll have to find her first.’ The doctor’s golf club levered the doors open and without a glance behind him he strode out into the ground floor lobby and disappeared through the double doors leading to the outside.
Letitia scurried out of the lift leaving the nurse to descend to the basement. While in the lobby, she pretended to dust and clean the light fittings and fixtures. Once the elevator doors were firmly closed behind her, she ditched the cleaning equipment and raced through the entrance doors in search of the doctor. She had remembered. Was he her IGSF doctor friend, Joseph? Or someone else familiar, from her past? Whoever, he must know where Fritz was. She chastised herself for being so hasty and escaping when she should’ve been patient waiting for the IGSF to sort her situation out.
As she stepped through the double-glazed sliding doors she blinked. Confused. The busy street in a haze of humid summer heat was not how she remembered the station in Antarctica. Classic Holden and Ford cars running left and right roared past her. The tunnel of three-or-four-storey buildings arranged in many shades of grey competed with the brilliant blue sky above. She squinted and strained her vision for a sign and some sense to her whereabouts. A sign at the corner of the street read “Argyle Street”. She could discern the ominous presence of a police station over the road just past the traffic lights. She decided to walk swiftly in the opposite direction. Letitia had no intention of being labelled an illegal alien.
With her head down and eyes fixed on the paving of the footpath, she kept on walking, and walking. Escaping the hospital. Evading the police. But clueless on how to find the golfclub wielding doctor. She pushed herself forward in a random direction vaguely aware of crossing streets filled with people and traffic, until confronted by another set of glass doors. She pushed open one of these doors walked through, almost colliding with a desk.
A lady’s voice asked, ‘May I help you?’
‘Oh, sorry!’ she mumbled in surprise.
‘May I help you?’ the woman shrouded behind the glass pane and counter repeated.
Letitia gazed around. People, men mainly inserted little leather books under gaps of similar glass panes at the people behind them and seconds later collected wads of notes.
‘Must be in a bank,’ Letitia murmured. ‘Er, any chance for a…nah, don’t worry, oh, I forgot my, er-um, passbook,’ she garbled. Memories of her life in Australia in the 1960’s began to emerge as she escaped the bank and into the sunlight.
Letitia wandered along a cobblestone footpath. When she looked up. A fish and chip shop. The kind that offered steak sandwiches and hot cinnamon donuts. The place was hopping with people lining up and spilling out onto the pavement. The aroma of cinnamon donuts freshly formed out of the hot oil, made her empty stomach growl. She dug deep into the pockets of the cleaner’s uniform hoping in vain for forgotten coin. The pockets were deep, yet like her stomach, they were empty. She stood in the middle of the lane and watched with envy the happy contented faces of shoppers as they sat at alfresco near the wharf sipping coffee from paper cups and stuffing their mouths with cake. The seagulls that scavenged nearby were being more well fed than her. Gulls growing fat on surplus chips and unwanted beef sandwiches. She wished she were a seagull. No one would want to feed a stray middle-aged woman dressed in a lime green cleaning suit.
A family of four consisting of mum, dad and two small children organised themselves and vacated a picnic table near Letitia. On the small wooden table flanked by well-worn bench seats, were leftovers. The sandwiches were half-eaten, and the chips slathered with tomato sauce lay discarded in amongst the white wrapping paper.
Letitia darted at the table and greedily planted herself in one of the metal chairs. She began to reach for the sandwich and then thought out aloud, ‘This is ridiculous!’ She then became conscious that a man with white hair and large nose seated at a park bench nearby was staring at her.
Utilising the cleaning disguise to her advantage, Letitia reached down and adjusted the white hospital runners, tightening the shoelaces. Upon completing that diversionary task, she rose from the table and as a cleaner would do, gathered up the barely bitten bread, and half-full cups of coffee and chips with sauce, and purposefully headed for the over-flowing grey metal bin.
Acting as though she was loading the rubbish into the chock-full bin, she instead siphoned the uneaten food into the pocket of her trousers and hid one left-over paper cup of coffee under her arm.
Then, keeping her lips pursed, she casually strolled to a small grassy patch behind an oak tree and under its shade, surreptitiously opened her stash. The beef patty sandwiches were still soft and warm although they appeared twisted and squashed from being jammed in her pocket. She crouched down on the lawn and admired the thin white slices, the limp lettuce, the grilled-on cheese, and the processed beef. In normal circumstances she would not touch white bread such as this. Such food was filled with carcinogenic chemicals and pathological fats. But this was no ordinary occasion. Letitia was literally starving. She had spent possibly up to a week in snow and ice without food and in her stint in hospital, had seen no food. She had been running on adrenalin and now that had stopped, Letitia was famished. Boy, the burnt crust looked inviting!
Letitia bit into the soft slice and savoured the blend of sugar, oil and salt mixed with reconstituted portions of beef, lettuce and cheddar cheese. She sculled the coffee. It was cold and bitter, but she didn’t mind. Too hungry to mind.
She mowed her way through the first “steak sandwich” and greedily progressed to the next. In the back of her mind, she knew that she should not be gorging myself and that she would regret it. However, the wonderful, ecstatic sensation and pleasure of eating was too over-whelming, too powerful for her to resist. Ah, the joys of feasting.
Letitia was so focussed on food that she became unaware of the world around her. All that mattered to her was food; food was all that mattered to her.
A tap on the shoulder almost made her choke on a lardy lump of meat. Her head bolted upright with shock and fright.
‘Letitia, is that you?’ A lady’s voice accompanied the shoulder tapping. Her voice sounded familiar.
Letitia swung around to face this gate crasher to her food party. The tall woman had an oval face, with blue eyes framed by straight golden tresses. The woman’s identity to Letitia remained just out of reach; with the place and time out of context, her name eluded Letitia.
‘There you are, Letitia! We’ve found you!’ She smiled and hugged her. ‘It is you! Fancy meeting here in Hobart of all places! How many years has it been?’
A few weary workers emerged out of the tired warehouses near the wharf and soon disappeared down the street. ‘So that’s where I am!’ Letitia muttered.
This twenty-something blonde fixed Letitia a confused expression. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘Oh, er, I meant, of course I remember you! How could I forget? Surely, it wasn’t so long ago.’ Letitia did not want to appear peculiar. She hugged her back. On the other side of her shoulder, she puzzled over who she could be. And how her counterpart in this Out-of-Time World was connected to this woman.
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2021
Feature Photo: Poatina golf course © L.M. Kling 2010
***
Tru-Kling Creations 