SELF DESCRIPTION

I am a 77-year-old man. I am old and full of years. When I was born in Australia in 1946 I was a baby Born into a population of 7 million people. In fact, the population have only just checked over to the 7 million mark.

I was born in Geraldton in Western Australia at a place called Nazareth House. at that time Geraldton was a medium-sized Country Town – of course these days it is a regional city.

Nazareth house, my birthing place has now been turned into Nazareth House, a place of retirement offering care to the aged.

I have been wondering Whether I should make contact with Nazareth House management, with A view of going there to end my days in the place where my life started. I ponder this quite often.

I still have all my hair, now white.

I’ve grown a beard – in fact my beard has been on my face since 1975 and I grew it because I was suggested to me by aboriginal person at my place of appointment as the school principal that I should grow a beard because I look too young to be a principal. So the beard is there and there the beard has stayed.

I am no macho man, my skin is ageing, I have a benign cyst on the right hand side of my nose and it’s been there for the whole of my life for it is a blemish with which I was born.

Why I don’t drink alcohol and have sugary drinks very sparingly, I am horizontally enhanced – which is politics speech for being rather fat.

I’ve chosen to respond to this question in a fairly roundabout sort of way and have desisted from going into anything to do with other than superficiality is. That may be because I really don’t know myself very well.

As a child, I was fascinated by dinosaurs, and if given the chance to bring one back to life, I would choose T Rex. I can’t quite put my finger on why this particular species appeals to me, but perhaps it’s because I remember hearing about Tyrannosaurus Rex in primary school.

Additionally, I have collected a few poems about dinosaurs, and this genus seems to be a common feature in them. While there may be other dinosaurs with unique personalities, I feel that Rex’s are more familiar to humans than any other species, real or imagined.

Despite initial claims that dinosaurs were merely figments of imagination, the discovery of fossilized remains has proven otherwise. Dinosaurs continue to capture the imagination of young people, as seen in the popularity of films like Jurassic Park.

However, I must admit that the fear instilled in me by the dinosaurs in that film has kept me from watching any others in the series. If I had to choose a favourite dinosaur poem, it would be one that I cut out of a school paper when I was younger and pasted into a book, where it remains today.

69 years old, yellow and musty.

In earlier posts, I have outlined the fact that, while travel was a key part of our lives from the 1970s until nearly 2000, the desire to travel as tourists and visitors has all but evaporated.

If I was given two tickets for travel, I would accept them, and then gift them to two of my grandchildren, enabling them to travel and enjoy some aspects of the world. To assist, I would support them with travel expenses to meet accommodation, side trips and entertainment costs.

As we enjoyed travel when younger, I want to offer this opportunity to two of our grandchildren so they can enjoy other places and learn, as we did, about life beyond Australia. They deserve the education, enjoyment and challenges provided by travel.

Like many of the questions posed on this site, I’m finding it difficult to get my head around the best way to respond. That probably comes from the time I have spent on this earth, together with the fact that “fortunately”, I continue to be blessed with quite a good memory.

I have been called many things over the years, some complimentary and others rather scarifying. Among these callouts have been a few nicknames.

My thoughts on this? Also confused by the fact that I have used many pseudonyms When writing for various publications over the years. These have generally been in the material sent to imprinted in Newspapers.

I would add that at no time when writing seriously on crucial issues, have I used a pseudonym because one needs to be genuine and attach their name to issues-focused correspondence and papers.

The nickname I use most is one identified on my blog and with several other memberships. It’s probably not a proper nickname because it is only semi-detached from my Christian name.

The identification in “Nick” is “Poor Old Henry”, Often written as showing or as one-word “pooroldhenry”. It is a nickname I use for often answering the telephone as “poor old Henry”. I also use it in other contexts.

The exciting thing about using this nomenclature Is the responses it gets from those hearing it.

“You’re not poor!”,

“You’re not old”,

“poor old Henry” – (with a disbelieving look)

“POOR OLD HENRY!!” –

th expostulation)

“Poor old Henry” – (with some semblance of sympathy).

And so on ….

HEALTH TO THE FORE

“Take care of your body; it’s the only place you have to live,” attributed to Jim Rohn, emphasizes the significance of prioritizing and caring for our physical bodies. (From a LinkedIn post by Dr Caroline Hong 28 July 2023)

It was a coincidence that Doctor Hong’s Paper came up on the same day that this question was posed. I am a member of the LinkedIn community and always scan through is on the site each morning. There is a certain congruency between The quote and the topic.

As a 77-year-old man, I often wonder about where my physical and mental health is going to go and how it is going to evolve in the years of life I have remaining. Along time ago, I never thought I’d get to 77. My ambition earlier in my life was to get to the year 2000, at which time I would be 54.

I have not really been all that particularly conscious about Health. However, there are certain things from which I have refrained or used and discarded when they were likely to have an impact upon my health. I thiknk my abstinence from these practices, with giving up on them have been helpful.

I have never used social drugs, and in my youth was not tempted toward marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or any other social drugs. I have tribute that in part to the upbringing offered to me by my parents and also to the application of common sense.

While working in a remote community in the Northern Territory, where alcohol was disallowed, I took to smoking cigarettes for relaxing purposes. I took my first puff at the age of 26 and gave the habit away when I was 29. During that period of time I never smoked a lot but nevertheless did inhale nicotine and other noxious substances.

Unfortunately, I did indulge in alcohol for a period of time. During my 30s 40s, 50s and into my 60s, I drank alcohol. After retiring in 2012, it came to me and drinking was not wise and that I might be consuming too much alcohol. So one day in February 2013, I gave it up. That was on on the spot decision and I have not consumed alcohol since that time.

(I must say that with cigarettes in Australia now costing about Two dollars each, and with a schooner of beer giving you a little change, if any, out of $10, I think I made a very wise decision. I have saved countless thousands of dollars.

In general terms without going over the top I try to be circumspect about my style of life and everything I do.

HAVE TV, WILL TRAVEL

The title sums up my future travel plans.

In an earlier post on a similar subject, I outlined some of the places my family had visited from the 1970s onward. Our last trip (the first without our children, who were now growing up) was to the UK.

From that point in time onward, The only time I’ve travelled anywhere has been to do with work, study or for medical needs.

Fast forward to 2023, I can say with absolute confidence that I’ve travelled nowhere other than for medical appointments (including a couple of diagnoses taking me to the southern states).

My vision via media of the way airports are always so crowded and dance with people, why my awareness of the fact that planes are constantly delayed. Flights cancelled, and knowing how crammed cabin space is for passengers these days, makes me not want to travel anywhere.

Airports are bustling with security and more crowded than any place on earth, making one feel like a sheep or a goat being drafted here and corralled there.

Once in the air, sitting in an economy seat with ever diminishing amount of legroom in space and it’s ever pressing closeness to the seat in front (usually accommodating someone who wants to put the seat back as far as it can go) makes one feel like a battery hen in a cage. You’re stuck.

When you get to where you’re going, it’s hustle and bustle and haste. It can be so hard to do what you want to do when you get there because other things have cropped up along the way, not the least bit in emergencies of weather and environment.

That’s why these days, when I want to travel, I turn on the television set. Television takes you worldwide in either a factual or a fictional sense. You can revisit history through programs developed to revisit times from years and years ago; You can catch a glimpse of the future through the eyes of those who develop cinematography that stretches beyond our century and into infinity.

I love travelling – in front of my television set

WITH THE PASSING OF TIME

Forgive this post for it’s on uh long side, but illustrates exactly from with society has come into clear I would like it to return.

I wrote it sometime ago but it certainly still very current. It reflects upon my past life as a school principal and what I thought then and still do.

———-

Written when I retired in January 2012

Once upon a time, a principal reflected on what was (2012), what have been (1970) and what had happened between times. A little voice in his head told him to think as much as possible about “balance”, “pros” and “cons”, “challenge”, and “celebration”. Determined to move toward even-handedness he began to reflect on the four decades of his educational experience.

He thought about the waves of systemic leadership that had rolled over the system. There was the “Moresby mafia” followed at intervals by domination from other States, Territories and arrivals from overseas destinations. More recently (2009), the ‘Queensland Cowboys’ had succeeded the Western Australia ‘Sandgropers as system leaders. The Northern Territory was undoubtedly hybrid.

He thought about Jim Eedle, the Northern Territory’s first Secretary for Education, after the NT Government took portfolio carriage for education. Eedle said (Katherine, March 1979) that “schools are for children” and “structure should support function.” He thought about how the structure had now assumed skyscraper proportions with the children somehow in the shadows.

He thought about the back that many children were children who seemed to lack the first-hand care and nurture a parent should offer. It appeared this was less forthcoming with the passing of years. Increasingly, schools were asked (indeed required) to take on primary matters of children’s upbringing. He wondered and was sad that ‘loco parentis’ was now so mainstream.

He worried that with the passing of years, a preponderance of weighty issues had grown into school curriculum requirements. Lots have been added, and little dropped. He wondered how teachers could cope and was concerned the children would be overburdened, and staff become disillusioned. The educational pathway seemed increasingly cluttered and overgrown.

He was concerned that written reports were no longer short, concise, explicit and individualised. Instead, they were long on hyperbole, being stereotyped, jargon-riddled statements. They had become increasingly wordy but, essentially, said less and less. Notwithstanding the enormous amount of teacher effort devoted to their preparation, he felt they said it meant little to parents.

He worried that, over time, children had become more self-centred. “I” and “my” were pronouns and possessives underpinning their belief and value systems. He yearned for those times past when it seemed children were well-mannered and cared for others. “Yes please”, “thank you”, “excuse me”, and “may I” were fast disappearing epithets. That he felt underpinned a loss of character.

He wondered where safety and security for children had gone. In the 1970s and 1980s, children could play outdoors in a safe, secure environment. Come 2012 and parents no longer felt the children were safe. The threat for young people was felt from cyberspace to the street. There was a feeling that children needed to be wrapped and cosseted – but not by parents. As primary caregivers, they were too busy at work to offer personal nurture.’ Minding’ at Outside School Hours Care centres was the in thing.

He wondered whether, in an enlightened age, children feel ‘used’ when their schooling futures were discussed in a way that likened them to pawns on a chessboard. He wondered whether children appreciated being ‘objects’ for limited academic testing (Four May Days each year). Did they feel that overall and holistic educational needs were considered necessary by Federal Politicians setting State and Territory educational agendas?

He wondered about modern communications. Were the children of the 1970s not better speakers and listeners because face-to-face communication was alive and practised? ‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’, texting and the new ICT tools of the twenty-first century reduced the need to gain and have confidence in speech and speaking (including listening). He was concerned that literacy skills were going out the door. What would happen to thinking?

He wondered about the wisdom of straying too far from the scriptural adage, “Spare the rod and spoil the child”. While responses to poor behaviour should not be brutal, was not accommodation in 2012 on what was unacceptable in 1970, simply encouraging children and young people to push the envelope? Were not the elders abrogating their upbringing responsibilities and being ostrich-like?

He was sad that keys, security, guard dogs, dead latches, CCTV cameras, high fences, barbed wire, crim safe mesh, sensor security systems and floodlights had become the installation order. It seemed that in 1970, nights were for sleeping. Forty years later, nocturnal malevolence seemed to prevail. He wondered where ‘Where Willie Winkie’ had gone.

He wondered about gender equality. In the 1970s, children deferred to adults on public transport when entering doors and joining queues. Similarly, men deferred to ladies, the young to the old.

No more!

He wondered why it was that in 2012, chivalry was dead!

He was concerned about ‘pace’. In the 1970s, things moved more slowly. There seemed to be less to do, yet crucial tasks were completed. There was a simple serenity about the way things were done. Time off work WAS time off work.

He pondered tranquillity. The separation of priorities enhanced inner peace. Family, work and recreation had occupied degrees of importance in that order. Come 2012, the imperative of ‘work, work and work until you drop’ had pushed family and recreational pursuits onto the back burner. Was that not poor prioritisation?

Did the ‘new way’ promote happiness and inner peace?

He wondered about the future. As a young educator in 1970, he had looked to the future with confidence and rosy anticipation. Come 2012, and looking back, he wondered why system realities had sullied his vision.

◦ And revisiting this piece of writing eleven years after it was developed, he still wonders.

Henry Gray OAM

When I am working, particularly when sitting down and writing I sometimes have the radio on listening to my favourite channel 104.9, or ABC102.5, or Slim Dusty, The Seekers and other favourites on a CD player.

But while I am working most of this be at Radio or CDD his background and half the time I don’t hear it, let alone listen to it in the true sense of listening. That means that I can’t necessarily recall what it is I’ve listened to because whilst I’ve listened I haven’t heard.

What I do listen to when I am working is my conscious mind, which often visits issues both past and present to remind me of history, how I manage things in times past, and how I might tackle contemporary problems and current issues.

I’ve outsourced the tasks I undertake, I think that I’ve had more solutions to problems or more ideas about directions I should follow going forward whilst hanging or packing clothes on the line than any other forum in which I manually operate.

Sometimes good ideas come to my listening to my mind while I’m digging, gardening, watering, picking fruit, Vacuuming the floor, and carrying out other tasks. But for some reason picking clothes on the line seems to be more conducive to listening to my brain and then following through on suggestions it makes to me while I am listening, and in any other forum of activity or sedentariness.

Over the years countless solutions to problematic issues and countless suggestions over tackling tasks have come from me listening to my mind while working.

That listening has also caused me to come up with good ideas about constructing approaches to education and learning within the schools in which I was with the Principal.

My working self self thanks my thinking self for listening to myself.

I SHOULD AVOID ‘GO TO’ COMFORT FOOD

This question reminds me of the fact that so often I wish I could be like some of my past colleagues and others I know, both historically and at the moment.

I’m thinking of people I envy because of their metabolising processes. I envy the digestive priorities established by their gastrointestinal makeup.

These people all have one thing in common. They could eat like pigs, Drink like fish and were as thin as whippets. That is just so counter to what happens to me. If I can smell food at 20 m, I start putting on body weight and fat.

I don’t drink alcohol, go for soda water, drink only cool drinks with zero sugar content, try to eat a fair bit of protein, and don’t go over the top with carbohydrates (meaning that I have given up eating biscuits or at least 95% of the volume of biscuit I used to ingest).

I try very hard and generally successfully to avoid eating between meals. For breakfast, I have a cup of coffee and generally don’t eat any food until lunchtime.

Granted, as a retired old man I don’t do the domestic or work-related activity that used to be the case, but I don’t sit in Italy on my tail and I’m not a permanent fixture in a reclining chair.

When I eat my comfort food – which is either hazelnut-laced milk chocolate or a cherry ripe or two – I feel somewhat discomfited; I shouldn’t be eating what I like because it will make me even fatter than I am now.

This leaves me somewhat of a quandary; My body enjoys comfort food but my conscience tells me I should be avoiding eating it.

What at to do And what an awful juxtaposition. On the one hand, I really enjoy my chocolate, but on the other, I feel as if when eating it, I am sinning.

FAVOURITE GAME

This is somewhat of a difficult question for me to answer.

I have never played cards (the standard pack) in my life. I wouldn’t know where to begin on analysing a pack of cards or beginning to understand any of the games played with them.

Video games are not my thing. I’ve never had a video game application on my phone, iPad, or laptop. To me, video games are a waste of time and miss use of technology. I know that not everybody will agree with me on that particular perception, but we are all different from each other.

Once upon a time I used to played board games – but that was as a child. Included were “Snakes and Letters“, “drafts”, “Chinese Checkers“, “Monopoly“, and “Test Match“.

At one stage when just a little boy, I can meet remember being mesmerised by “Pink Up Sticks”.

As I merged into adolescence and young adulthood, any desire to play board games disappeared and has never returned.

I sometimes wonder whether not playing these sorts of games has somehow or other stunted my character or deprived me of investigative undertaking and lateral thinking opportunities.

But that’s the way it is.

Food preparation is not my thing. For many years I was hopeless when it came to preparing food, cooking or doing anything associated with kitchen creations.

In more recent years since I retired from full-time work, I have become a little more dipped in the kitchen, but you would not call me a creator. I have a little imagination when it comes to creating dishes.

Part of that is probably because exotic dishes do not appeal to me at all. There is no way that I could cook a cake and sweets from the point of creation is a complete no-no for me.

My favourite food is meat and three vegetables – the traditional Australian dinner born in the 1940s and 1950s. I have not transitioned into modern times when it comes to food and I’m never happier than when eating a meal of the “Traditional” food I have described.

It probably comes to the point where I am only good at creating one or two semi-traditional and nutritious dishes. That I can create anything, thanks to my wife, who has been patient in the teaching of food preparation to me.

I would like to add that my wife is an excellent creator of cakes and other wonderful dishes.

I HAVE learned to prepare two dishes.

Rissoles

Kilo of mince

2 eggs

2 French onion soup sachets

2 Tomato paste sachetes

Bread crumbs

Make patties, crumb then cook them

Cook 6 or 7 at a time in the frypan at Heat level 7

Cook for 6 or 7 minutes before turning for 6 or 7 minutes

When cool put six into a container with cooking paper separation and freeze.

This gives an immediate meal at the time of cooking and at least two meals to put away.

One kilogram of mince makes 18 patties, two kilograms makes 36 patties.

Lamb and Barley Soup

Ingredients

Two or three lamb shanks

Barley packet/grain mix

Celery half celery 10 sticks

3 onions white and little

Beef Stock 6 packs

Carrots 3

Cabbage quarter or half

Crockpot lamb shanks with stock until well cooked.

Remove from crockpot and pour stock into basin.

Reduce onions, celery, cabbage and carrots by blender in turn. When they have been reduced to a semi liquid state, pour into cooking pot.

Refrigerate the stock to allow fat to settle on top, then skim it off beforev adding to the cooking pot.

Lightly blend the meat and add it, the fat reduced stock and the pre-cooked barley/grains into the cooking pot.

Put barley and other grains/ seeds into crock pot, add stock and cook until soft and edible. Then add to the cooking pot.

When cooked, ladle into containers with sealed lids. Allow to cool, then freeze until ready to use.

The good thing about these preparations, is that food being prepared is good for some weeks into the future.

Now, for my next culinary adventure… !

FELINE FRACAS AND CANINE CACOPHONY

We do not have pet cats or dogs. However, we share with cats on the prowl looking for birdlife or lizards to eat. They come at night, and if they successfully catch prey, then you hear all about it from the commodity of noise that results.

One of the occupations in which we had to indulge when first coming to live in our present house, we had encounters with wild cats – generally domestics that have been let loose into everlasting freedom by their owners – which used to create havoc. It costs us to hire cat traps from the City Council, then catch the cats and take them to the RSPCA. They were generally euthanised, and I felt obliged each time to offer a substantial donation to the RSPCA to look after these unwanted felines.

In a similar context, we’ve had to put up with a nuisance of dogs ever since we moved into this house. We don’t have dogs, but we indeed share the cacophony of noise raised by the canine pets of nearby householders. At times the barking is quite incessant and certainly does not enhance my appreciation for these four-legged friends of man.

Occasionally, we have had stray dogs take refuge at our place until removed by authority. On one occasion, I was required to dispose of a dog to the RSPCA. The reluctance of the group to accept the animal was somewhat tempered by a donation of $400.

Many years ago, when we lived at Angurugu on Groote Eylandt, our daughter did have a pet cat named Tinker, which had been given to her by an aunt. This was just before we set off on the journey from Perth to Darwin, A trip of around 4000 km by car. The cat most certainly made its presence felt during the trip.

It went AWOL in Darwin, and I thought that was it. However, the landlady of the motel where we were staying found the cat and airfreighted it to Great Island, where it was restored to our daughter.

Next door, fellow teachers had a dog – from memory, a pit bull. This was an aggressive dog that, on occasion, gave Tinker a hard time.

However, the cat came out on top. There was a dreadful commotion outside our house in some bushes one morning. We rushed out in time to see that Tinker had dropped from a tree onto the back of Chops, the dog, as it trespassed onto our property. The biting and the scratching that Tinker offered to Chops paid back a good deal of the angst he had caused the cat to that point in time.

Dogs and cats. We don’t have them but we sure share those in the neighbourhood.

TIME LOST

I read once that of all the commodities available to people, “Time“ is the one that is available to everyone in equal terms of measure. It matters not who you are or where you are, The apportionment of time is constant we are all blessed with the same amount.

Everyone from parents, to partners, to children, and to bank managers, to the drivers of buses, piles of planes, taxi drivers, and other providers of utilities help in various ways and at various times to make us conscious of time.

Teachers, workmates, sporting coaches, work managers, leaders and followers make us conscious of time.

Stopwatches, Wristwatches, chiming clocks and other devices offer us timely reminders. So too, microwaves, electric jugs, refrigerators and freezers (when we leave the doors open), and washing machines, along with other devices are all designed to make us time conscious.

Nevertheless and notwithstanding the myriad of reminders we have to use time wisely and make every minute count, time can be wasted and the wasting of time is something I believe impacts upon us all – at least from time to time.

Not in any particular order, the following “activities“ or otherwise make me realise that my indulgences, according to this, or oversights have caused me to lose time.

Watching football on television – when I realise hours have gone by since I got up and did something.

Sitting in a chair and dozing off, particularly after a meal; I can wake up from my snoozing and find that at least 90 minutes have elapsed with what has been planned remaining undone.

Getting caught up in activities that delayed me from going to the post office, shop, or some business enterprise until it was too late because they are closed for the day – or even for the weekend.

Becoming so involved with the telephone conversation that I don’t realise that an hour has slipped by during the period of our discourse.

The time I spend attending to personal hygiene and ablutions can get away from me, particularly if I don’t have the radio going to remind me of the time.

The unconscious passing of time if I’m driving somewhere become interested in the radio program, stop to listen and possibly text the station with a question or a roof or a response.

Time is a guide and should be respected as such; however, it should not dominate our lives to such an extent that we’re on the go the whole time, never have time to relax, and don’t enjoy the company of others because we are too busy watch watching, and put more priority in time then we do on dealing with people and spending time with the ones we love.

MORE THAN APPREHENSIVE ABOUT ‘THE VOICE’

At the moment in Australia, we have a controversy between “Yes“ and “No“.

The Australian government in its wisdom has decided to hold a referendum later this year, requiring people to vote yes or no to the question of enshrining an Aboriginal (Indigenous) I Voice to Parliament in the Constitution.

The voice would be a body that could advise the Australian Government and possibly its Departments on how policies having an impact on Aboriginal Australians would play out if bills became law.

Today, the Australian Electoral Commission has released the pamphlet that argues for the ‘Yes’and ‘no’ campaigns. This pamphlet will be circulated physically to every house in Australia at least two weeks before the referendum date is set. However, the documents are now available online from the Electoral Commission and also through various newspaper outlets.

A major issue raised by the no campaign and seemingly felt (if voting intentions being polled are accurate) by a majority of Australians is that the Voice is a concept without any structure.

So Australians have been asked to vote yes to the concept and the recognition of the Voice in the Constitution. The shaping of the Voice and the way it will operate will be determined by parliament beyond the referendum if the yes vote gets up.

The subject of “The Voice“ was first announced at the Garma Indigenous Festival in East Arnhemland in August 2022. The Prime Minister who had recently been elected (Anthony Albanese) announced that an organisation called “the Voice“ would be brought into existence to give Aboriginal Australians a better opportunity to be heard and to say what they needed to legislators.

Many of the things that the Voice seems to be wanting to look at, have been dealt with over many decades with some success but a lot of failures. At the end of the day, people have to be persons who want to help themselves; it cannot be all done for them. Without going into the whys and the wherefores, I am going to be voting “no“ for the Voice because I do not believe in voting for something which is an aspiration without shape and substance.

The Voice has been presented with about as much substance as a holograph or the bare bones of a skeleton without any coverage of what it’s going to do, how it’s going to look, how it will be chosen, what its representation will look like. That will all be left to the future.

The Australian Government is asking people to vote yes to the voice as a concept and it will not become an entity until that is provided for in parliament beyond the referendum.

This whole issue is a constant worry to me. It concerns me greatly and will continue to into the future.

Now is not the time to go on with pros and cons for that is not really what the topic asked. But yes, I have deep and ongoing concerns about the voice as being a way forward into Australia’s future.

Note, if anybody is interested in material about the voice that has been handed down through the Australian Electoral Commission office and in our newspapers, feel free to request in a reply to this post on my blog. I would be happy to send you this material.

NOTHING IS MORE CERTAIN THAN UNCERTAINTY

Today’s topic is certainly challenging. We live in an age of uncertainty, never knowing what is going to happen from one day to the next. That uncertainty is that the global level has a regional context, impacts upon countries, and influences outcomes in the states, territories, And local government areas. (That’s looking at it in an Australian context).

Against this overriding awareness of not knowing what is going to happen from one day to the next, what is going to happen between sunup and sunset, what is going to transpire overnight, there is the thought of what things are certain.

When it comes to politics, economics, weather events, the behaviour of countries through their leaders, and so on the panorama of uncertainty widens and deepens.

I think of what my mother and father used to say to me when I was a boy; you do not know the end from the beginning. That lack of knowledge can be on a short-term and long-term basis.

So against the backdrop and an overhang of uncertainty, I would posit from the viewpoint of my life as Henry Gray, the following certainties.

1. I will always love and respect my nuclear family.

2. I will always be thankful for how my wife and I were able to bring our children to a place of care, responsibility and respect for others in this world.

3. I will always be glad for having learned that what I should do in life has been helped by my learning about what not to do.

4. I will always be thankful to my parents, particularly to my Father, who taught me the wisdom of avoiding debt and having the means to go forward without having to borrow against future income. I will value forever the fact that he taught me the importance of saving and that intern I was able to pass that on to our children.

5. I will always appreciate the prime minister of the time the Honourable John Howard, for introducing ‘values’ into the thinking of Australian schools through the education department of the various states, the need for a focus on values that support life and living. These principles were valuable to me as an educator and indeed reinforced what we had always tried to do as parents and teachers. This action gave certainty as to what should be very important educational parental priorities.

6. It’s certain that as the world evolves, queues for service in Stores and businesses will, notwithstanding the advent of modern technology, continue to grow longer and longer.

7. Sadly, there is an absolute certainty that crime, domestic violence, damage to property and attacks on people – both physically and through the use of social media – will continue to grow and probably exponentially.

8. I believe there is an absolute certainty that there will be very little abatement of pollutants that are turning the world on its climatic ear. There will continue to be a great deal of talk and a lot of posturing but very little meaningful action outcome.

9. People of all ages and all over the developed world will certainly continue to escape reality (or try to) by escaping into a fictional world of entertainment or immersing themselves in a total sense in following sports, the arts, theatre or other activities that defocus them from the realities of day to day living.

10. I am certain that uncertainty will continue to dominate the pathways we all tread in life’s world.

UNDER A TOADSTILL

The “adventure“ or “security“ conundrum reminds me very much of part of a nursery rhyme I learned in the early 1950s.

It starts “under a toad still sat a wee elf, Out of the rain to shelter himself.…“

Looking after oneself and keeping oneself safe and feeling secure is something that drives the motivations of many people.

Part of that security can be anonymity; but in this modern age is there really any such thing as anonymity, or a private life? It seems that constant surveillance by devices makes that almost a farce. The one thing for sureIs that George All well in his text “1984”, underestimated just how invasive the world would be calm.

I do not feel anonymous. In some respects every day is an “adventure“, for we are up against forces some visible and others not, which seek to distract us, manipulate us, and in other ways cause us to experience disequilibrium.

It’s in this context of uncertainty, that I seek and value security for myself and our family. While risks have to be taken – they are part of organised adventure like travelling overseas or going on holidays – they need to be calculated.

Security is something I want to feel – but does it exist in these modern times?

DINNER TIME

Everyone who responds to this question would have a different set of priorities about whom they would like to invite to dinner if guaranteed that the invitees would be able to come.

Some think about historical figures, others of contemporary persons, while others again use their imaginations and think of a guest or guests who are fictional, mythological, or “influencers born in the imagination“. And example of the latter would be that I could, if cast into the mythical realm, choose to invite my comic hero, The Phantom and his wife, Diana, to come for dinner. I would even provide succulent hay For Hero, his horse and a juicy raw steak for Devil – not his dog but a wolf.

That, of course, it’s all in the realm of imagination.

Going back through history, I can think of people like Enoch, and Elijah, who, according to Holy Writ, were translated to heaven without seeing death and having to endure the end point of mortality. I would ask them how they came to be so good and if they could advise me on how to get good and do the right thing all the time.

In more contemporary and “living“ terms, I would invite Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenski to join me for dinner. My purpose would be to try and work with these two leaders to try and resolve the impasse and the gulf standing between them, with a view to ending the Ukraine invasion by Russia. Anything I could do to help end this terrible war would be a priority.

All these scenarios are unreal and could never happen.

The people I would invite to dinner, given that we have three children, their partners and our ten outstanding grandchildren, would be our family. This would be such a joyful occasion for my wife and me because these days, our children and their children are spread around Australia.

We’ve always been a close family, and we admire how our children are bringing up their children to be good, upright, contributive citizens.

Our family blesses us, and it would be wonderful to have them all together So we could share a wonderful dinner and reflect upon the times in which we have lived and bonded together.

AGE DEEPENS EXPERIENCE

I often wish, and have for the last 20 years from the time I was in my mid-50s, that “I had the experience of today in my youth of yesteryear.”

Without a doubt, the lessons one learns become deeper and hopefully more enriched as well and gets older.

As a young man, I was far more reckless and less thinking about my actions than later in life when I paused to reflect before acting. Giving deeper consideration to matters and being less hasty in action outcomes comes with reflection on past experiences.

In my years of dotage I often reflect upon the fact that had I, when younger, taken advice on some matters that were offered to me by older people with greater experience, that I might well have made wiser decisions that was the case. But I was reluctant to listen to some of those who had considerably more years of experience and awareness of situations then did I.

As one of the senior people in this world, I look and see decisions being made with the same lack of thought that burdened me in younger years. I could have made decisions that were better, had I listened to advice. As a senior person, I appreciate the frustration that people who offered support felt – particularly as they knew what the outcomes of my non listening and non-advice taking would be.

So now the whole thing turns through 180 degrees. It’s a case of the situation being one that goes round and round, round and round. The young become old and the young in their place don’t listen to the olds any more than happened when I was young.

It’s true to say that age deepens experience, but whether that experience is going to have any transition into changing things for those coming through is very questionable indeed. It comes back to the point of “I wish I had the experience of today in my youth of yesteryear“.

SLEEPING AND WAKING

As an advancing septuagenarian, I find there are two kinds of sleep. The first is that sleep one has at night when going to bed and then waking up again the next morning.

I try to go to bed by about 1030 each night and aimto wake up and get up about 7 am the next morning. Sometimes the latter does not succeed in coming to pass but it often does. The exception is that on Thursday mornings with the rubbish trucks coming by our place from 7 am (we are the first in line for pick up) On Thursday’s I jump out of bed at 6:30, get the bins ready and put them out. Putting them out and leaving them overnight might make sense, excepting for the fact that dogs and people can come along and go through bins, pulling them over and strewing rubbish all over the road.

Being old, however, and retired, I find that there is another sleep pattern that creeps up on me. It usually happens after lunch when I’m sitting, having eaten and watching the news on TV.

All of a sudden I can wake up and find it’s two hours later. After dinner at night, the same thing sometimes happens if I’m watching a program.

During my scheduled night time sleeping, I often dream; it is rare if I don’t and many of my dreams are very very vivid and remembered the next day. The majority of my dreams focus on fixing up schools where I’ve been asked to go in and tidy things – as was the case on occasion during my professional life as an educator. There are other dreams as well that stand out. No night goes past when I don’t dream.

Juxtapositionally if I doze off during the day as described I never dream.

So I suppose you could say I have a double approach to sleeping but sleep is important.

As a young man, I could skip sleep and had to at times in the interests of work and professional development – but that’s another story.

As an old man, I can assure all readers that sleep is critically important. I could no more go without adequate sleep than flying in the air.

SENIORS NEED STRATEGIES

As a younger man, and when carrying out tasks, I often did one thing at a time I completed one job and then another and another and another and another ad infinitum. The one task would be started and then assembled before the next task was started, and so on.

This method was undertaking tasks cumulatively. Working like this was fine – although it was full of time – when I was at the jail, Feet didn’t mind running up and downstairs to our elevated house and so on.

As I’ve become older, to minimise the effort required in completing tasks, I have learned to do things concurrently. While I’m getting the breakfast porridge, the jug is boiling for a cup of tea, medications are being laid out, the rubbish bin has been checked and, if necessary, emptied, and the washing is put on in the washing machine, as I take the rubbish down to the bin. It used to be that I accomplished a few tasks and took a long time to complete them. Doing things cumulatively means getting through multiple functions in the shortest amount of time and then having time for other activities. This methodology of managing time for task completion is a strategy that stands by me and works well.

My comfort in daily life is also aided by not going over the top and rushing at things like a bull at a gate. If I wanted to wipe the walls of our house to remove dust, 30 or 40 years ago, I would have gone from start to finish in one hit of the best part of the day and be tired and unable to do anything else when the task was done. This also meant that other tasks that needed attention and put on the back burner.

A strategy that works well for me and adds to my feeling of well-being about daily life is Time Management. I set myself a task to do over some time, which may take some days, but I don’t go all out to get it done and fatigue myself. So it takes longer to wipe down the walls of the house, but I haven’t got to the point of collapse with exhaustion. I have had other things that I’ve been able to do, and I’ve been able to enjoy some relaxation at the end of that time.

Doing things concurrently and setting a time agenda are two strategies that work well for me, methodologies that I did not consider until it became apparent that I needed to change some aspects of personal management.

THE FUTURE IS BLEAK

I find it very, very hard, and it almost impossible to feel optimistic about the future.

Truth be known, I am very, very worried about the future. I look and think about what lies ahead with fear and trepidation. I more and more think of the fact, that in these times of uncertainty, we are living day by day and month by month rather than year by year.

Everywhere around the world there is danger, uncertainty, conflict both passive and active – with voice and with weapons. I wonder where it is all going to end, and to my way of thinking Armageddon is very real.

Things are getting away from humanity.

Within my heart I hope against hope that the future will hold good for our children and for their children. It matters not so much for me because I have lived a full life, but for our children and particularly our grandchildren there is a lot of life ahead if circumstances allow a future.

Increasingly we’re talking of war and conflict. It seems that the inevitability of a major worldwide war is almost upon us. There is hardly a place in the world where conflict and physical skirmish all the way through to the Russian – Ukraine war are not taking place.

In most of the “liberated“ countries of Africa, there is Civil War, famine, major illness, and displaced populations of people numbering in their tens and hundreds of thousands. There are countless boats overcrowded with refugees, trying to flee across the Mediterranean to Greece, Italy, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and all the other countries of Europe. Within those countries with the huge and mixed populations there is also danger civil disobedience and upset.

China and India are hugely populated, Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and other countries of Asia and Southeast Asia are so and full of people at one wonders if there is any open space left at all.

Here in Australia we only have a population of 26 1/2 million. But that number is growing by hundreds of thousands of migrants every year. While Australia is a vast country, about 90% of it is uninhabitable meaning that our C boards from Cooktown in Queensland all the way around to Geraldton Western Australia are overcrowded with dense. populations.

We are faced in Australia with a growing divide between the affluent and the poor. I debt along with Want and spending is on the rise and destitution and economic frailty is evermore manifest.

Be at north, south east or west, in Australia regionally throughout the southern normal northern hemisphere of crime is ever more prevalent, people are ever more selfish and the decent qualities of humanity ever more disappearing.

Environmentally, water saver more polluted, human waste and byproducts evermore contaminating, sea levels are rising, the Arctic and Antarctic are in meltdown, the world is getting hotter, bushfires are raging, floods, pestilence and earthquake along with hurricanes, cyclones, tsunami’s, loss of natural vegetation and habitat, extinction of species, and the grinding down of our planet, Does nothing but cement thoughts of gloom and doom.

I would like to think that there is hope for the future. However, that is becoming evermore hard to see and a future that’s positive seems to be shrinking into the background becoming a little more than a pipe dream.

TREAD CAUTIOUSLY ON ‘LETTING GO’

For every one of us in both personal and professional terms, there are at times conflicting situations which confront us. Sometimes those situations reach a critical point because no one is prepared to compromise. It is in these sorts of environments that one-upmanship and brinkmanship arise. When no quarter is asked or given, the estate of him pass is reached and the fallout can be damaging. These sorts of scenarios often lead to people attacking each other quite mercilessly; those attacks upon personality may be verbal, in written form, and aggravated 100-fold through the use of popular media.

There can be a conundrum in all this. On the one hand “letting go“ might deflect conflict and LA concern – but on the other if principles are sacrificed and key issues ignored that creates problems of conscience. It can also smack of hypocrisy if key beliefs are surrendered for the sake of some populist outcome.

Throughout my working life and beyond I have found that “letting go“ works well if the focus is on the message and not on the message and not on the messenger.

Social media these days are bounds with hundreds of thousands of examples of people scarifying the personality of others through trolling and through a deliberate desire to hurt people through what they say.

(It is partly for this reason that I have never held social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and other accounts of this nature. Too many people are hurt sometimes to the point of suicide by what people write about them where the issues are ignored but the attackers on the person and the personality. I prefer professional sites.)

My take on letting go for the same of preserving relationships is to always concentrate on issues, and not to make messengers the target of critical response. Lofty ideals can be maintained if this is the focus.

Play the ball and not the person. That is a sure way of preserving respectful relationships.

SLIM’S MUSIC WILL NEVER DIE

One thing I abhor Is the modern day screech of so-called music that somebody like me who grew up in a different era finds irksome. The screeching and squealing, body swaying tactics of presenters, words that cannot be understood, and altogether garish spectacle is not something that turns me on. Neither will I confess to being enamoured C2 by The Beatles, “The Rolling Stones“ and various others who were born in the 1960s.

Folk and blues music came a close second to my favourite genre and often embedded into my psyche of appreciation. I loved “The Seekers“, “ Peter, Paul and Mary” and a few others who came close.

But without a doubt, and I can say this quite unreservedly, my very favourite form of music was the Country and Western genre. I have enjoyed the music of many Country and Western artists over the years.

While I was Principal of Angurugu School on Groote Eylandt (in 1880) the celebrated husband and wife C&W singing duo, Rick and Thel Carey came to our community and conducted a concert in the grounds of our school. That is an event I still remember.

There are many Country and Western singers I really appreciate and whose music I like. But without the shadow of a doubt the person who is head and shoulders above the rest for mine is Slim Dusty. I really gel to his music and singing. Although he passed many years ago (with his wife and singing companion Joy McKean recently passing) I still enjoy his music on CD. His music makes up the bulk of the collection I have.

Country and western music lives in my soul.

SOUTH-EAST OF “DOWN-UNDER”

During my lifetime and with my family we have enjoyed holidays and quite several places around the world. We’ve also had a jolly good look at our own country, Australia.

All our holidays have been significant and all have been both challenging and enjoyable for various reasons.

In many respects a holiday of six weeks that we shared in New Zealand, the country southeast of our home in Australia, “the land down under” was the most remarkable.

It was in 1978 when they were children – now all in their 50s – of tender years. We flew from Sydney to Auckland in New Zealand and hired a “Freedom“ campervan for our holiday of just over six weeks. We spent just over three weeks touring around the North Island of New Zealand. We then shipped on a car-carrying from from Wellington across the Cook Strait to Blenheim on the South Island. The rest of our time was spent traversing the north, west, south and part of the east coast of the South Island. In so many ways it was a terrific holiday.

On Christmas Day, we were at Rotorua staying in a motor car park and my wife cooked the most delicious Christmas dinner in steam-heated pipes that attached to the pools in which people could relax. I think that was the best Christmas dinner I have ever eaten for it was juicy, 100% tender and cooked.

The places that we visited are too numerous to mention but I do have a good recall of where we went and what we did.

Geraldine on the South Island of New Zealand was especially unique, for the town had a taxidermist industry supported by some of the locals. I found that to be very intriguing. Another memory, somewhat more frightening but memorable was a drive across a plateau to the east of Christchurch with winds whipping across from the Canterbury Plains blowing our campervan every which way, as we went down to the Port of Littleton. From memory, it was in Littleton that we ran into a really interesting home industry, with vehicles, animals, and other objects carved out of wood.

I was fascinated by Twizel a mining town inland and accessed by a road that runs parallel to the water course generated by glacial melt coming from Mount Cook. The water was clear, icy, and somewhat transparent blue with cold.

One of the highlights of our trip was going to a place called The Bluff, some kilometres to the south of Invercargill. It was and is the most southerly point on the South Island of New Zealand from memory, about 46 degrees south. I was sad because the signposts at the Bluff had been pulled down, possibly by miscreants.

Just over six weeks after arrival in Auckland, we flew out of New Zealand, homeward bound to Australia from Christchurch.

Spending just over six weeks, primarily in the campervan, was an experience that I believe helped to make all five of us very close as a family. To this day I remember the trip as one of the most enjoyable on which we ever embarked.

IS ANYONE REALLY?

I often wonder if anyone is really an expert on anything. This wondering comes in part from personal experience.

In 1968 before commencing teacher training, I was deemed a novice. In my first years of teaching and school leadership, I was still in the foundational stage of understanding. There was so much to learn and so much to do with that learning.

Fast forward to 2023. I am now retired and in my twelfth year of retirement following a career in education that stretched from 1968 to January 2012. In various publications for which I have written articles. I’m cited as being “an educational expert”.

That’s not really how I see myself. However, as somebody with experience, I am more than prepared to help those connected to education with support and advice – in the same way, I was offered that support in my earlier years.

But to describe anybody in any field as an expert, from myself to others, I don’t think is right.

The ability to learn and to understand in all fields of endeavour is never-ending. There is always more learning, and I wonder whether anybody is ever an expert on anything in the complete sense of knowing.

As our knowledge increases, one of the awareness is that the same much more to learn.

Sometimes I have what might be negative thoughts, and I don’t mean to put wood on anybody. But those who are learned in limited fields, I sometimes think of as “microcosmic specialists“. That is to say they know a lot, indeed a huge amount, about not very much at all.

Learning is important and offering advice and support should be something we all do. But I think to myself, that’s so often those deemed “experts“ and “Gurus“ are that way regarded, because of the discipleship of others toward the things that they say and do.

So maybe the notion of being an expert is a phenomena created about some people by others.

ROMANCE – HOW MANY PHASES

Many years ago I gave a speech that touches on the notion of romance at the Northern Territory A Stepford it was in the prepared speech section and I won the competition that evening.

The subject I chose was “The evolution of relationships“.

I went through four phases calling them courting, camping, nesting, and blanket splitting.

The subject was one that intrigue me because I’d seen those four phases repeated every so often in the lives of people I knew.

I have read about and seen the evidence of very short-term romances. I’m not surprised at the brevity of many relationships. However, in the context of my own life, there has only ever been one romance for me.

Just over 54 years ago I married the lady who I had known for several years and who I love very much. Fortunately, that was reciprocated.

To this day that romance lives on.

My first romance is my last romance, my forever romance.

SINCERITY

Sincerity must underpin all expressions of gratitude and thanks. Gratitude to be genuine, must be from the heart. It must be offered sincerely, unrequitedly and should also come from the person offering the things rather than it being suggested to that person by a third party.

Expressions of “second-hand gratitude“ mean that the person offering the thanks is doing it on behalf of somebody else and therefore it is rather indirect.

As a school principal and throughout the whole of my life, working and otherwise, I have believed in and practised showing gratitude and thanks to others.

Being grateful and thanking people is important in a world where we are increasingly prepared to criticise and condemn and ever slower to appreciate and say thank you for things that have been well done. In other words, there seems to be no trouble in pummelling people with brickbats, but bouquets are given far more infrequently.

Offering a thank you and showing gratitude is something I have believed in and practised.

Over the years my thank you‘s and expressions of gratitude have been oral, in writing, recorded through media stories, posted as Appreciations on LinkedIn and my blog, offered at school assemblies and other forms like Toastmasters and so on.

Expressing gratitude and saying thank you it’s a quality I cherish to this day. Being retired it may be more often in the form of oral affirmation of effort or through myBlog.

Appreciation and gratitude to all people with her mother satiated from a very young age to that of a very old man has been a very important part of my life because it uplifts others and makes me feel good.

24/7/365 THE CONSTANT FOREBODING OF WAR

Without a doubt, the everlasting worry that occupies my mind is the danger of what might happen if and when China decides to the military force against Taiwan.

I have been worried about this for a long time. That concern has been deepened by my reading of Professor Hugh White’s quarterly essay “Sleepwalk To War” published last year. I’ve read his essay and taken account of his responses to what he wrote.

I am concerned that what Professor White has written could come to pass in terms of its most awful prediction. China is bristling about Taiwan and feels increasingly aggravated by Taiwan’s independence.

America is positioning itself to support Taiwan in the event of any military action by China, against the island they claim as part of the Chinese hegemony.

Australia’s increasing ties to America suggest that if the United States says “jump“ to Australia in seeking the support of any action supporting Taiwan against China, Australia will respond by saying “How high“?

Australia self-praises its independence, but I see it as being a country dependent upon America’s support in so many areas of defence. With that comes a requirement of payback if demanded by the major player.

In my opinion, we are still in the era of the 1960s when Harold Holt promised that we in Australia would go “All the way with BGJ”.

The irony of all this is that leave the country recognised as Taiwan as a nation, because of adherence to the “One China” policy. Having the pie and eating it too comes to mine.

I live in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. Darwin is increasingly militarizing and being upgraded from a defence viewpoint by the Australian government and by America contributing facilities and large numbers of Marines for training exercises. The Northern Territory is developing fuel dumps and upgrading defence facilities in both Darwin and at the Tindall Air Base near Katherine, 270 km south of Darwin, to facilitate ground, C, and air military operations.

I make this point because Darwin would be the first port of call for any retaliation in time of war from an aggrieved overseas adversary. The city has cyclone shelters but certainly nothing constructed in any underground way as bunkers should they become necessary to avoid air or drone strikes.

Along with many other countries in the world, Australia talks of peace but is preparing for war. I worry not for myself alone, but for our entire family and our community as a whole.

A GREAT TEACHER EARNS RESPECT

Authority is attached to every position in which people operate. It doesn’t matter what the businesses, from manufacturing to dealing with people, for authority is universal.

I believe there are two kinds of authority; it doesn’t matter what occupation you have or position you feel or job you do, either one or the other of those “authorities“ identifies the person in the position.

There is “ascribed authority“. That is the power attached to the position by the system, whether private or public, under which the person is employed. The source tells the person what can or cannot be done and how that position should be filled in terms of outcomes.

The second is “acquired authority“. This authority is what the person in the position requires or gains from how they are perceived by those with whom they work. It is the regard held for the person who is in the position by those with who they are working.

A good teacher meets the teaching obligations prescribed by the teaching authority and the school. Such teachers are meeting the obligations imposed at the system level, which satisfies the ascribed authority attached to the position.

But that is only half the story, and, I believe, the small half.

A great teacher is a person who meets system requirements but also aquires authority bequeathed to them and based on respect and appreciation held for how the educator identifies with students, parents and the community at large. These teachers are “people-oriented “. They are not just there to do the job and teach according to the curriculum but rather to meet the needs of every child or student, personalising that teaching toward them to meet their needs.

These teachers offer challenges to students and have high expectations for them. They are also empathetic, caring in a strong pastoral way and willing to help students who need assistance. That help aims to give students confidence to make decisions and to appreciate what they are doing as being for their benefit. It’s not a case of taking over and doing the students work: Rather, being there as a guiding hand supporting students as they go forward.

Finally from an Australian viewpoint I believe that A Great Teacher is one who teaches with recall to The Melbourne Declaration of Education agreed by all Australian Ministers of Education and Directors in 2008.

That declaration urged educators be aware of the need for “holistic education“, education taking account not only of academic progress but offering children and students a chance to grow in a social and moral/spiritual sense. So academic achievement is entwined with personal growth. And that personal growth takes account of perceptions and awareness the children and students should have not only for themselves but for others.

Great teachers, I salute you.

THE MOST DREADFUL OF SURGERIES

I have had several surgeries of a significant nature during my time on Earth.

Some of these operations have been carried out successfully, while others have been less satisfying in overcoming the issues that surgery was supposed to correct.

The most dreadful surgeries that ever happened to me Took place at the Royal Darwin Hospital around a decade ago.

It started with me developing acute pain in my left hand lower side. I went to my GP, and he told me that I had the onset of appendicitis, and I was sent (under my own steam) to the RDH.

In due course, I was triaged, but no beds were available, so I was stuck on a bed in the passageway opposite the emergency Treatment room. There I lay for many hours, in pain, and able to listen to doctors trying their best to revive patients in that emergency room – often because of self-inflicted situations.

What did not help my cause was that some learned doctor came past. He declared I could not have appendicitis because nobody in their 60s ever had appendicitis – so it must be something else.

After being moved into a bed in the emergency ward, I was eventually shifted to an upstairs ward to await my surgery.

By now, the waiting had transitioned from one day to the next, and it was getting on in time, with me still waiting in pain for the surgery to be performed.

Eventually, I was taken into surgery and, following that surgery, was moved to the Darwin Private Hospital.

Being in severe pain, I hadn’t processed fully and properly my options when presenting at the emergency department of RDH and in any case, in Darwin, you cannot be admitted to a private hospital before going through a process of referral organised by a surgeon.

It transpired – at the time and be known to myself or my wife – that the surgeon whose name was on the board above my bed was, in fact, not present during my operation. My understanding is that he wasn’t even in the hospital at the time.

Given the growing urgency of the surgery, The operation was performed by “Fellows” – or doctors in training who is supposed to be supervised in undertaking surgical procedures.

The operation, which generally would have been done laparoscopically, was carried out with my being cut down my sternum and the appendix removed after that procedure.

Going on in time, the upshot of that unusual method of removing an appendix was my bequeathment of a hernia. That Hernia developed because the surgery had weakened my sternum area, Which opened up over time with the Hernia beginning to protrude through my gut.

I should also note that following the operation and before the development of the Hernia, which took place over time, the “Surgeon” who should have been supervising was nowhere to be found.

When I did have my post-operative interview after a few weeks, it was with the surgeon. During our conversation he told me that I had a “small hernia“.

That was somewhat paradoxical because the hernia he was referring to was in the lower part of my body. What transpired however was that the weakening of my sternum due to the operation to remove my appendix, gradually began to come away.

With the passing of some months, it became apparent that I was going to require rectification or surgery to overcome The Hernia that was developing as a result of my appendix removal.

The supplementary surgery allowed for a quarter-size sheet of gauze to be placed across the area where the Hernia had been developing. After this second operation I learned that before the surgeon could insert the gauze he had to do quite a lot of rearranging of my innards because they had been disturbed during the initial appendix removal operation. That created a surgical problem because of these adhesions

This corrective surgery worked for a time, but after some months the hernia started slipping sideways and began to reveal itself because it could not be contained by the mesh that had been inserted

There is more, to this tale, but the story of two surgeries will suffice for this post.