I am 74 years old and remember the days when I was 6 years old. I remember my father just returned from WW2 and my mother who used to win the mothers' 100 yard dash at my school sports day. They waltzed gracefully together at the local dance.
If both were alive today, my father would be 105 years old and my mother 94 years old. I remember all the old black sedans that survived the 1940s and driven around by our neighbours in our farming district.
I remember the portrait photos of soldiers from WW1 hung in our local school - Frank Cash was standing with his feather plumed hat - KILLED IN ACTION. What a waste.
All has changed. All my uncles and aunts are dead as well as some of my older cousins. There are cousins in old people's care homes, one in the United States with Alzheimers Disease.
My elder daughter is 50 years old and been a dentist for longer than I was a teacher. My elder son was a lieutenant-colonel in the Army Legal Corps, one rank higher than his father before he retired.
My family moved to the farm in 1952, I find out recently it was to help my father overcome his PTSD from the war.
I still remember every gully, ridge line and tree on the farm. I was too young to think that there were families working the farm 100 years before. Someone planted the huge trees and the silos that are probably still there. I can stand on ridglines and recall the valley below.
It is not our farm any more. It never was our farm. We were just occupants for the duration. Nothing on the planet belongs to anyone. We are just custodians until we die. I still walk around our farm in my dreams.
The land has probably been subdivided into allotments for housing.The creeks are probably polluted from hundreds of septic systems. No more fish and yabbies to catch to take home.
All of the adult farmers in our area in the Samford Valley are probably now dead. Nothing ever stays the same. My generation is the next cab off the rank. My children are not far behind.
We were once told there are more people alive on the planet today than ever lived through the ages.
What is the future for the next generations when the temperature rises and the planet burns?
Whole nations have to make decisions about energy. There has not been a very long duration between the start of the industrial revolution and the present day.
No comments:
Post a Comment