Something about Harry
I peed on him when I was young.
He was 20. I was a babe in arms who whizzed upwards, spraying Harry in a golden shower of youth.
Since the baptism by urine we have been friends for five decades.
I lost a brother but I gained one in Harry. The absence of a common umbilical chord is supplanted by a family tie to the land that spans generations. Nowadays, when Harry meets Simon, I don't always feel an urge to cock my leg in his direction but that does not stop him recounting the story to everyone within earshot.
From an incontinent infant I transited through life's early stages: a cosseted city kid and spotty lad with soft hands to carefree student and hardened bachelor boy. Every holiday I chomped at the bit to get to Harry's place, a farm, six-hours' drive northwest from Sydney. He's seen me rise and fall through life, and on a horse.
Tuned to his wireless and the ABC, Australia All Over with Macca has nothing on Harry. But it should.
He'll tip his hat, open doors for woman and call a young girl "dear". Oh no! Oh yes! He'll buy you a beer, wear a tie to the shops and ask questions of others but always tell his dog to "get behind you bastard". He'll lift a finger not in anger but from a steering wheel to acknowledge passing traffic in the bush. His devotion to humans, plants and animals is innate.
Glancing skywards he predicts the weather and follows jet trails, not to China, but for moisture signs in the hope that one day it will rain. Frosts are cursed as are malignant storm cells that destroy crops, especially at harvest time.
My bond with Harry is an elixir of life and mothers milk to my adult years. Ours is a friendship that has endured, like the fertile dark soils that support prime beef and produce a bounty of prize-winning wheat, oats, sorghum and barley on the property.
Together, over the years we've split timber, cleared paddocks of rocks, carted hay, marked lambs, mustered cattle, planted trees, sheared sheep and cut wheat, mended fences, milked a cow, chipped weeds and swatted flies. We've even fed the chooks.
He's buried my Akubra hat in dirt, covered me in cow shit, put stones in my boots and hidden chilli in my sandwich. He's even made me try to remove a lamb's testicles with my teeth (to demonstrate the way lamb marking was carried out in colonial times). I've grasped a hot wire on an electric fence and felt the volts fizz through my body, much to his amusement. 'He's a joker through and through' so they say.
With the strength of a Santa bull he can toss a bail of hay or lift a sick ewe into the ute with ease. His calloused hands repel pesky burs and splinters but his skin has succumbed to relentless hours spent under the sun.
My visits to the farm are few now but that does not stop Harry from filling my car with petrol, the boot with eggs, meat, firewood and enough manure to ensure a gas-powered journey back to Sydney.
Comments
Post a Comment