OLLIE’S ADVICE AND MALENY STUFF
OLIVE’S SEVENTEENTH POST.
Olive
Good morning everyone. Mike is back from his trip to Brisbane and so we can get on with it, the blob I mean.
I am supposed to tell you that because I am 107 and don’t see very well, he does the typing, gets the photographs, all that sort of thing. But I tell the stories!
I had quite a time with Katya, his wife, last week while Mike was gone. She rang me in a panic about their daughter, Ellen, and I had to help best I could.
The other thing that’s happened is that a parcel arrived from Pat in America with the pendant that she promised me.
This is Pat’s blog. http://gatherings100.blogspot.com/
But please, everyone, don’t think I am asking for presents. My room will be full, and already I don’t know where to put things. So, the best present is just a message from you on the blob.
Here is Pat’s pendant. Isn’t it clever? It’s really lovely, Pat. Thanks so much!
And here’s the Pendant round me neck on the ribbon Pat sent.
Mike
Thanks for looking after Katya, Ollie. I think it’s good she phoned you when she was worried last week.
Olive
She told me she couldn’t reach you, Mike
Mike
I was at a house near Maleny and the mobile didn’t work.
I think it’s amazing, Ollie, that you take an interest in our family at your age. You could be off in the clouds but you’re plugged into everything. We do like it.
The main problem is the school. The school Ellen goes to is not very challenging. There’s no homework to speak of.
I’m just going to have to spend more time with her especially in English, getting her to write better, for example. We are going to do stories together.
Olive
Get her to read books. Reading is the best education going. I mean that, Mike!
Mike
Don’t you think we try? Of couse reading is everything. That’s how you pick up the music of a language.
That’s why we haven’t fixed our TV. The TV went on the blink two months ago, and we just left it, all because we want her to read more.
Olive
I used to read all sorts of things. Comics, cheap little books that I’d get for a penny. I reckon reading pulled me through a lot of me troubles.
Mike
Really?…..Anyway, we are constantly on about reading and she does read a bit.
Olive
I used to read and read. Mum would say, “Where’s Olive?” and Billy would tell. (Billy was the baby I saved from the orphanage. More about that story another time.) He would say……………
“She’s got she head stuck in she book in she closet.”
Mike
I like that! Never heard that before. Billy was just a toddler was he?.
By the way, here’s a photo I found. It’s Billy grown to a strapping man beside your Mum and young Barnie, your own boy.
Olive
Yes, Billy was a toddler when he saw me reading all the time. He went on and on about it ….”She got she head stuck in she book” ……….
….And, Mike, what were you doing in the place you went to, by the way?
Mike
Maleny? You’d love Maleny, Ollie. It’s a hill town on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.
It’s about an hour north of Brisbane and just inland from where the Steve Irwin’s Zoo is, the crocodile fella who died.
With its rolling green hills, it used to be mostly dairy farming but now a lot of city people have retired there.
Maleny has three book shops and more co-ops than any other town in Australia. A very co operative friendly place all round.
Anyway, two years ago they invited me to show your film, All About Olive, at their little festival.
Then, last year year, Susanne Haydon, the Maleny Film Society’s local livewire, asked me if I’d help them make a village movie, a story film.
Here’s the community hall they use as a movie theatre. That’s where you were up on the big silver screen, my dear Ollie. Lots of applause at the end, I can tell you!
Anyway, in a moment of weakness I promised to help them make a real story film, a feature, using the locals as actors and bits of their lives for the story.
Here’s Louise coming up the red carpet at the premiere of Maleny’s very first feature film, made on a shoe string. Louise plays a scheming daughter. That’s Woody her son beside her. He’s got a small part too.
But the star is Sue Stevens playing herself with great talent.
Sue is just turning seventy and (according to the plot) her greedy in laws are trying to get her into a retirement village so they can sell off her property, a lovely big Queenslander. (That’s a type of Queensland house, one with verandas all round it)
This is the Queenslander and Sue coming home.
This is Sue looking very suspicious as the role requires.
Well , Sue fights back, becomes friends with an Emu farmer, Peter, and and scares her sons in law into all sorts of strategies. We called it; Even Emus Need to Dance.
(www.evenemusneedtodance.com
Here’s Peter and one of his birds.
There are lots of Emus in it and Sue really does dance with them. Here she is in action. She had no fear of them for some reason.
Olive
It sounds quite interesting. What’s going to happen with it?
Mike
Probably nothing. It was made for Maleny and the town loves it…..
Anyway, theres’ a connection with your blog. I was up there doing the movie and one day I stopped in front of a dress shop. Maybe I was looking for a costume for Sue. There was a skimpy black dress outside on a hanger.
The fabric reminded me of your special occasions dress-the one you’ve got on in the top photo here- so I photographed it, hanging there outside the shop. I didn’t ask permission, just Click!
Later, when we designed this blog, we used the dress fabric to make the nice emboidered strip down the left side. They never knew.
I went back this time to find the shop and tell them. Here it is, in the bottom of this building.
And here is Rosie who owns the shop, standing outside. It’s called the Cherry Plum Tree.
Olive
That’s a nice name
Mike
Anyway, I decided it was time to tell Rosie how her fabric has gone all the way around the world.
Olive
Fancy that! She must have been surprised.
Mike
She was. At first she could not undertand what I was saying. Maybe she thought I’d pinched (stolen) the dress.
Amazingly, when I described it, she still had the same dress out the back. I was hoping it was truly old with lots of history to it. Some special story for your blog.
I could picture it being worn by some slinky cigarette girl the night Diamond Tooth Tom lost his house in a poker game at the the Eldorado Hotel, something like that.
But sheepishly, Rosie told me the dress was made in China, and recently too. Ughh!
Rosie had a Son with her with the curious name of Banjo. I was quite interested in them both, actually. Intelligent looking boy, a reader, I’d say.
Olive
Banjo, Banjo Paterson! Maybe the boy’s a poet. (Ollie is talking about one of our famous bush poets, and here he is! Banjo Paterson. )
Mike
Yeah, it turns out Rosie comes from the US, though she has no accent. She’s from a town called Bisbee in Arizona. Bisbee was once the Wild West, she says , with forty saloons in one street called Brewery Gulch. That impressed me and almost made up for the dress being made in China.
Olive
We should send her one of my certificates. After all, we might do her some good. ………….
What happening with Johnny the lettuce man, Mike?
Mike
I phone Johnny almost every day and am sworn to secrecy… those lettuces you see here, are all gone, by the way.
I can only say that things are progressing. The emails from our blob readers have had an effect, and a few more to Gosford Council to Mayor, Laurie Maher, would not hurt at all, if someone still wants to write.
Write the Mayor an encouraging note in support of the Lettuce man (after hanving looked at the 2nd and 3rd posts to know what you are talking about)
to laurie.maher@gosford.nsw.gov.au Copy it to the general email goscity@gosford.nsw.gov.auI think Johnny will have something to tell us quite soon.
Olive
What about the Avoca Beach theatre? How’s that going?
Mike
We are waiting for the Minister, Frank Sartor, to make up his mind. He’s the one who can knock the development on the head.
Of course he will let them make some changes, he has to, but we are hoping he will not let them build four storeys in that 2 storey zone.
I’ve made up a postcard of our demo. on Avoca beach, the one you couldn’t come to, with our slogan. “No 4 on the 4 shore, that’s 4 sure!” We’ll send postcards to Frank.
I might also do another postcard with you being carried in your beach chair if you agree, as the oldest patron, and get folks to send that image to Min. Sartor as well. Do you agree?
Here’s the photo we’d use in that case, Ollie.
Or perhaps this one….
Or even this one of you in front of the dear old place.
Here’s a few things you missed. Ollie. The 50th birthday of the theatre, for instance. That was in 2001.
….and best of all, the outdoor screen which operated for one glorious summer. All this history, that’s what we’re supporting
Olive
Of course. Anything for the theatre. I used to go there every week with me girl friends, you know. Can people write about that too?
Mike
I think it would be good if people overseas did write to the owners of the theatre, Norman and beth Hunter, and say that thy’eve seen photos of their lovely oild theatre and that if they ever come to Australia, they will surely come and visit the place.
One of the strengths of the theatre as it now is, is that it’s a tourist attraction due its warmth and charm. That’s what we fear will be lost when it’s swallowed in modernity. The letters should, of course, be friendly and polite.
The aim is to surprise the Hunters with foreign support and show that all round the world people are caring about their own special places, rich in memory and charm.
This is a world wide movement in which we help each other. For instance, I’d gladly write to support some similar special site in another country, gladly! Wouldnt you Ollie?
Olive
Of course I would!
Mike
The address is. Norman and Beth Hunter, Avoca Picture Theatre, 69 Avoca Drive, Avoca Beach NSW 2251. Australia.
Here are the people you’d be writing to. Here’s Norman Hunter. Norman’s father built the theatre in 1951.
……and his wife, Beth, you’d be writing to her too.
On other matters, we are getting some lovely photos sent to us and I think we should show some of them if you agree.
Three women have sent us photos from three very different parts of the world. There is a young girl in Norway, Jane, who has sent a fantatic photo of the Nothern lights over her town.
It looks like a painting, doesn’t it?
Olive
Oh, that’s lovely!
Mike
And here is her town, Hammerfest, in summer. It claims to be the most nothern town in the world. It has wonderful hiking trails and lots of natural gas, apparently. The name, Hammerfest, means a rock to which you moor boats.
Olive
It looks a very clean place.
Mike
I am sure it is, and here’s Jane herself. Thanks Jane!
Olive
Yes, Thanks, Jane.
Mike
Now, after that, we have an interesting pair of contributors. We have Karen who owns and runs the cattle station, Culloden, where you used to cook in the thirties. (Readers can find all the stories about that period back in the earlier posts.)
Well, Karen has really had fun helping with your blog. This is what she says in an email.
“I felt really excited reading the comments on the blog (some readers had praised her for a rather poetic letter she sent to you, Ollie)
I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would end up doing the things I have done lately. I have become addicted to the macro setting on my camera, thanks to you, Mike.”
So I’m going to put some of her photos, her macros and the flat flat landscape she lives in up there in western Queensland, on the blog.
Buit I am also going to intersperse them with photos from a very different world. Emanuela lives in Northern Italy, near Turin, and she has snow capped mountains all around her. She tells us she took these excellent photos herself.
But first, here’s Karen herself to give you an idea of what she’s like. It’ s grainy but you can her see a bit, a skinny cow girl type, she is!
Olive
I was skinny too, thin as a rake!
Now, here’s Karen on her quad bike to remind us how flat the country is around Cullodin.
Compare that scene with Emanuele’s marvellous mountains
Now, a spider from Karen. She’s having fun with her macro, as she said.
Olive
Oh, I don’t like spiders!
More Italian Alps from Emanuela.
Olive
That’s better.
Here, Karen has discovered the beauty of barbed wire. Yes, the macro lens does show us a new way of seeing things.
This falling snow outside her window from Emanuela has the same tones as Karen’s photo, but is so much softer.
Olive
How lovely!
Karen’s caught the texture of her wild grasses beautifully
Emamuela ends the photos from the two women with falling snow outside her window, deep and silent.
Olive
Well, those was very nice.
Mike
Next time can I show you some places I like? I like rustic spots.
Olive
That will be alright. Till next time, then
Mike
And I want to ask you about something very serious. That massacre at Virginia Tech.
Olive
What on earth could I have to say about that?
Mike
We’ll see, Ollie.
Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
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15 Responses to “OLLIE’S ADVICE AND MALENY STUFF”
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April 27th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
I don’t know if you both realise how much your joint posts are looked forward to - this has got to be one of my favourite ‘blobs’.
I spend a lot of time talking to my Dad, who was born in 1932. Its fascinating to get a sense of the journey through history that we are all a part of, and its something I am passing on to my children.
Olive’s tales are a welcome addition to the tradition of oral history, and now written in ephemeral but somehow permanent electrons. (Which Olive will probably think is a very wordy way of saying stories of the past written on a blob;) )
Here in Australia, we have a very very ancient Aboriginal history, and a much more recent settlement history - we are thus young and ancient. Our sense of identity is based on these histories, and I have always felt its such a pity we don’t know more. Olive helps redress that a bit. Sure, the big stories of history are recorded, war, politics, and the like, but people like Olive tell the even more interesting, and just as important and vital stories of everyday life. It makes the dry facts of history live around the details, adds flesh to the skeleton of facts.
I am wordy tonight, aren’t I?:)
Well. why should you not be wordy if you feel like it, dear Timelady? I like your idea of having an ancient and young history at the same time.
Our white history here is just the blink of an eye compared with the Aboriginal story of course. Yet still it’s important to us newcomers because it’s all we have.
As for the blog, I don’t know if we are getting the balance right between past and present. But I think that it’s interesting that, as well as having a sympathetic memory for the past, Olive is involved in the present.
She advises those who are worried like Katya, and she takes an interest in local issues as well. I think that’s great. I suspect, too, that it’s her secret to long life. Mike the Helper
April 27th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
What an interesting post, Ollie and Mike. It covers lots of subjects but I do love the one on Maleny…one of my favourite spots in Queensland. The scenic drive through the Blackall range goes through a couple of other lovely places too, Montville, where there are wonderful markets and Staplyton at the northern end of the drive. I hope you got to see them.
Just got to see Montville, Robyn. They have preserved lots of lovely buildings. Of course it’s also very comercialized. I sought out the quieter nooks up past the school under magnificent spreading figs. Mike the Helper.
April 27th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
how do
April 27th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Hello to you both! Olive, you’re a very interesting lady and I look forward to your blobs. My grandmother passed away before i could ask her of her memories but I like to hear yours.
I found your blog through an email from innocent drinks and now myself and my fellow students in the college, UK, love to hear your latest tale.
Take care and thankyou for sharing
Hi, Elisksa, It sounds, from your name, like you are a foreign language student in the UK. is that right? We’d be interested to hear more about your college and your story if you want to tell.
As you can see from the comment below, so many people are thinking about their own relatives and stories they might have missed hearing or recording when the read about Olive. This makes the work worth while. Mike the helper.
April 28th, 2007 at 3:23 am
Finding a new blob post here is like opening a present on Christmas morning!
Thanks for putting them together Mike, and thanks for just being you, Olive! The pictures and the casual, back-and-forth conversation, let alone from a gem like Olive who’s had 107 years to accumulate stories, insights, and wisdom, are exactly what make this blog so, so valuable to me.
Also enjoying the “tie-in’s” with other locals and their stories, but somehow Olive is always involved - she’s such a magnet, isn’t she? We really are all members of the human family.
This blog is like a breath of fresh air - good on yer!
(…and I agree that reading is like oxygen. I’ve always read a lot, from an early age, and couldn’t imagine not doing so…)
Hi, Robert, so glad we are not disappointing you. You praise has been so constant, that one fears there must come a point when we run out of something or other.
Robert, by the way folks, designed and delivered Ollie’s endorsement certificate, the Gracious Olive Riley document which you can find a few posts back. One will be going to Rosie’s shop in Maleney on Monday.
Robert has also been very active on behalf of the lettuce man, Johnny Bosco, writing and even getting answers from Gosford council.
It might seem strange, but I do think this interest coming from such an unexpected quarter, indeed from around the globe, is having a curiously effective impact on this local council who for th first time ever find themselves under foreign scrutiny. We know about Global warming, Is Global caring something we can start here in strangely compelling ways?
Can you imagine the council management meetings? “Well, this week we had four letters from Italy, six from the US and three from Croatia about the lettuce farm at McMaster’s Beach, the one we closed down. What do we say to these people?”
Mike the helper.
April 28th, 2007 at 6:02 am
I also look forward to your blobs, Olive, and I consider it a treat to find a new one. I love all the photos that Mike put here this time, especially the Alps and the snowy pine trees.
My daughter is in Melbourne today, on business, and she was in Brisbane, Surfer’s Paradise and Sydney earlier in the week. I can hardly wait to see her photos, Olive, and if I can, I will send you some of them. Have a good weekend.
I hope she got a moment to see some out of the way places, Kenju. Surfers is monstrous. Awful high rises that have obliterated a charming beach town, covered it in concrete. Much of Australia is now hard surfaces and glitter. But we don’t chose to show such places on this blog. We are into the low key, the colorful and the folksy places and their people. Mike the Helper
April 28th, 2007 at 7:34 am
Hello Olive,
Congratulations for your blog. It is great.
phil from Saint Nazaire France
Thanks Phil, write to Gosford Council if you have a moment. Mike the Helper
April 28th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Hallo! I was write in your blog and you want if only I have you foto of my town Chełm (Chelmen). Sorry, but I do not can it in the comment. What is your adress e-mail? I send it to you in e-mail. Ok?
I have send you my email, Sylwia. Mike the helper.
April 29th, 2007 at 7:44 am
O Olive you have a lovely smile!
And I love your blob!!
Thanks, Gledwood. Do come again. Mike the helper.
April 29th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Fascinating as always! I love the embroidered fabric strip down the side, and like you , I assumed it was from something old and filled with history. It just looks that way doesn’t it.
The pictures were incredible, especially the Northern Lights. That’s something I would love a chance to see. I also enjoyed the contrasting phots from Queensland and Italy, although like Olive I don’t like spiders! Can you send me your email address? I would love to send some pictures from my area - we have some lovely views of the ocean here.
Also, I would really love to hear the story about the baby Billy who was saved from the orphanage, whenever you have a chance to post it.
Dont worry Christina, Baby Billy is on his way. As for the photos. I’ll send you my email address and you can share yours with us.
I’ve just done a new post and am a bit tired. My lucky blog partner is sound asleep, I’m sure. Mike the helper
April 29th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Hi Olive and Mike — lots of interesting pictures and information about the theatre and the lettuce man. Enjoyed learning about Maleny, the new movie and the emus. My children and I were always fascinated with the emus at zoos in Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California USA.
Mike mentioned a comment from Rosie in “Brisbee, Arizona.” I think the town is called Bisbee. We drove there in the early 1970s when it was an active open pit copper mine called Lavender Pit. I’m sending you a link so you can see a picture of it on this Wikipedia web site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_Pit
You can enlarge the picture of the Pit. It is so big and deep, when we stood on the roadway above looking down, really gigantic trucks were driving around and around on those roads you can see coming up the side, as they came out of the Pit. But when they were in the Pit they looked like toy trucks, they were so small-looking because the Pit was so deep. Soon after when the price of copper got cheap, they stopped mining there. Now it’s just a tourist attraction.
I would like to see your film “All About Olive” and share it with some older people, a few over 100 yrs, and one I believe is age 105, that live in a retirement community in a small town near where I live east of Los Angeles, California.
There are other groups of older people nearby who might be interested in seeing it, too.
Maybe Mike can email me here: Joaredalongtheway@gmail.com
about what’s involved in getting a copy to show these retired men and women. Is it on DVD? I’ve already talked with someone there who has expressed interest in it and will meet with another person there in a couple days and will tell them about it, too. I sometimes do some work there.
Jo Ann/Joared
Jo ann. I will correct the Bisbee spelling. It is surely the same place. I love the image you conjure up of tinker toy trucks at the bottom of the vast pit.
I have a vivid memory of a place called Central city in Navada. I was travelling through and in some sort of saloon, saw a juke box, one of the first I gathered, which used a mechanically played violin.
Little emery wheels descended on the strings spinning fast, and made them sound.
There will be a DVD on it’s way to you from BC in Can. very soon if you give me an address in the return the email I’m about to send you. Mike the helper.
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Love your blob -I also heartily endorse your early comments re the value of reading and not only because I work at the Maleny Library! By the way we have a copy of Even Emus Need to Dance.
I also live near Montville and would like make mention the most beautiful primary school in Australia - the Montville State Primary School. With about 120 kids enrolled it is tucked up high on top of the range canopied by huge figs and supported by a very caring community and P&C. Ditto for the Montville Village Hall and ST Mary’s Church and Hall.
Cheers,
Michele
November 26th, 2007 at 2:02 am
Hi Olive and Mike, I was looking on the net for pic’s of the northern lights and I found your page. I should tell you that im an american soldier from Puerto Rico and I im in Afghanistan. I must say your I love your blobs. Just reading everything you both wrote took me on a journey of wonder and amazment. I dont travel much and wh
November 26th, 2007 at 2:09 am
Hi Olive and Mike,
I was on the net looking for pic’s of the northern lights and found your page. I should start by saying that im an american soldier from Puerto Rico in Afghanistan and being here I really dont have many reasons to smile but I must say something about your blobs got my attention. I really loved them, I was drawn to your words. And I would really like to thank you for giving me a couple more reasons to smile.
December 7th, 2007 at 1:48 am
Dear Mike and Olive,
I read the Sun article today and I cannot tell you how happy it made me feel. I too work in television, and applaud the the Australian networks who commissioned a series featuring truly inspirational people such as yourself. I only wish we could do the same in England. Sadly, it would appear the powers that be here, think if your old your past it. Olive, you prove above and beyong anything else, that being older, is the new being young!!
Keep up the good work.
Wishing you a very merry Christmas
Laura
Manchester
UK
xxx
laura, that is a great way to put it. May I quote you on the blog? being Older is the new being young? Mike the helper