WHOOPEE! 76 COMING UP.

LONG, LONG AGO, IN THE LITTLE TOWN OF CLARE, in South Australia, around 4:30 AM, on Saturday, May 29, 1937, I began my journey.

It seems that I am a country lad at heart.  My folks had a small farm some 12 miles north of Clare and I lived on that farm for the next four years, long enough for me to have some memories of my humble beginnings.  My folks were what we, in Australia, call 'little Aussie battlers'.  When I was born Australia was still in the grip of the Great Depression, farming was hard, and there was little cash.  Two years after the Second World War began, my father gave up the battle and rejoined the Army. He moved his family (my mother and two sisters) into Clare where, I am glad to say, I had a generally happy childhood.  This despite that we were at war and everything was in short supply, with petrol and food rationing well to the fore.  In fact, a polite form of swearing when things went wrong, was to burst out with, 'Well, wouldn't that rip your ration cards!'

The enduring lessons of my childhood were to save, rather than spend; waste not, want not; that it is possible to be happy with very little.  My father was away for seemingly long periods and I cannot recall seeing him more than three or four times for the duration of the war.  The second time I now recall with tongue in cheek.  I had returned home from school to find my mother speaking with a strange man in uniform in the front garden.  Who could this man be, I wondered.  Gradually, the thought crept over me that he was, in fact, my father!

I think that folk of my generation grew up in the best of times.  There was little about which to worry, once the war ended and friends and relatives returned home from active service.  One of our family friends who had worked from time to time on the farm had been for three years a prisoner of war in Germany (he missed the last boat out of Greece).  Through the Red Cross, we knew he was alive.  When he returned he had lots of stories, many told in a droll fashion as only Aussies can affect, of life in the Stalags. But the great thing was, he was now home.  My father got de-mobbed and my brothers returned from service in the Navy and Air Force and then there was a new 'normal'.  My father never returned to farming.  Eventually, the farm was sold to a more prosperous neighbor.  My folks went into a series of small business, general grocery stores and we seemed to move about every two years or so.  No longer a country lad, I now lived in the suburbs of Adelaide, the state capitol and center of population.

Despite so  much change, I went to excellent schools and had very good teachers whom I greatly admired. Soon I was in High School, then University and Theological College.  I got an excellent grounding in the basic sciences, then in history and philosophy. I was, and remain, an extremely curious person and it might be said that it was not quite the best choice to enter a theological college.  However, it also has to be said that I really enjoyed the work of a pastor. Until, that is, I was overtaken by a serious attack of atheism!  I eventually solved my vocational problems by taking a further degree in Psychology.

It may be that psychologists, despite their formal training and knowledge of human nature, do not make the best of fathers. Perhaps, though, the constant change of my first two decades did not really fit me out for a settled life. Of that I have had two marriages (both to very nice and admirable women) and lived with two other women, equally good and admirable, my first wife recently aptly remarked, 'Perhaps you are not suited to marriage!'

I have been fortunate to have, in my mid-life, to have done quite frivolous things (examples, flying various sorts of aeroplanes, learned aerobatics, skied and cycled a good bit, sailed a bit, and traveled to interesting places.) I have managed not a few distinct careers (five of six at last count).  Despite a somewhat mercurial existence, I have managed to acquire good friends who seem to endure me and even to appear glad when I come by.  My children, bless them, manage to love me, or seem to and six beautiful grandchild carry some of the genes that ride about in me.  Well done, genes!

Nowadays my atheism appears to be in remission but I am not quite sure what has replaced it.  Certainly, despite appearances (I attend the local Episcopal Church with faithful regularity), it has not be a case of revival of orthodoxy.  I think it has to do with the search for what it is to be a 'good person' and a conviction that this beautiful universe is also spiritual and that there is great joy in contemplating seriously its regularity and perfection.  And, since I am made of the same stuff, it must be that there is a spirituality to be found within.

On his 70th birthday, my father drew me aside and said, 'I have had a full life and I am well pleased with it.'  I thought, 'What a thing to be able to say that of oneself!'  As it turned out, he was to be dead less than a year thence.  I suppose that, if not in my last days, I must nonetheless concede that the longer one lives, the closer is the end of it.  I have settled a bit but I sense there is lots more in store.  My father's words continue as a beacon to me, an invitation to live as best I may.

And so may it be for you who read this little bit of autobiography!