Thursday morning I wasn’t too too sorry to be packed up and
headed out of Karuah. There were high wind warnings for the coast, so like the
fool I am I assumed heading inland would get me out of that weather. But the wind
stayed heavy as I took the M1 to the A15 to the B84 (foreshadowing: Bingo!) and
the sky all around me was the strangest shade of brown—I kept thinking it was
some kind of weird haze and popping up my sun visor to make sure that I was
seeing brown, not gray, but brown it was and fun fact: riding a motorcycle through
a dust storm is NOT an amazing experience.
Still, I was hoping I could get out of the weather so I continued
on to a place called Sandy Hollow, where I thought I would pick up the Bylong
Valley Road, which is another notable MC road in the area. I also needed gas
but it turns out Sandy Hollow isn’t a place, per se, so I turned around and
went the 11 or so km back to Denman, which is sort of a place at least in the
sense that there is a gas station. The wind was—I cannot say this enough—so unpleasant
that though it was maybe 12:30 when I got to Denman I saw a couple of motel
signs and said f this, I will make Denman my new home until these dust storms
go away. The Bylong runs roughly parallel to the Putty and I knew enough by now
that I didn’t really want to take on a road like that in this kind of wind.
One thing I like is when a motel is connected to a pub and so
if the reception desk is unattended (and it is) there will be a sign directing
you to the bar and then the nice people behind the bar can give you food,
drink, or a room for the night. Not in Denman, however, as there is apparently
railway work being done in the area and every room in Denman was booked. I was
told workers were being housed as far away as Singleton (sure) and driving in each
day and what are you DOING that you need 200+ people to work on the railway? Aren’t
there any machines in Australia??
So there I am in this pub in Denman and it’s sooooooooooo
windy out and the sky is completely occluded with dust and I ask where the nearest
town is that might have lodging and the bartender does that thing where you
puff up your cheeks with air and make a face like, yeesh, I do not have good
news for you.
Lady Luck then smiled on me, offering up two gentlemen who
happened to be having lunch and overheard my conversation. Garrie and Darrell
were on their way south and offered me to tag along as there were sure to be
rooms where they were staying in Kandos. I hesitated a minute, knowing that
meant the Bylong, but weighing my options I didn’t see a better one—I had to go
somewhere and the g-d railway workers were clogging up everything from Denman
to Singleton.
A note about taking up with strangers: I usually keep to
myself, but every once in a very blue moon, some situation arises and I size up a person or
people and then, contrary to my nature, happily throw my lot in with theirs and
honestly the worst story I have about doing so was terrible only for my mother.
This is a digression but I have owed my mother (another) apology about this for
lo these 22 years so, mother, let’s dredge up this terrible (for you) memory!
When I was a sophomore in college I took the train home for
winter break and in shocking news, Amtrak was all fubar and I ended up being
stuck overnight in NYC. Amtrak was putting us all up in hotel rooms and somehow
(pre-cell phones, people) I managed to call my mother and let her know. Don’t
worry, I said, I’m rebooked on the 6:15 am train the next morning so I’ll see
you in Albany at 9! (Spoiler: hahahaha, nope.) I remember this so distinctly
because it was a HUGE pain in the ass as I had with me a giant duffle bag, a lacrosse
stick, my French horn, and an oversized box containing a xerxoed copy of the Bucktrout
Manuscript, a Civil-War era ledger I was in the process of transcribing for
some faculty member in the English department. This made navigating Penn
Station even more fun than Penn Station usually is, which is to say not very
fun at all.
A weird fact about Madison Square Garden, which sits on top
of Penn Station, is that in addition to hosting the Knicks and some kind of hockey
situation and concerts and the dog show, it also plays host—at least then,
maybe still, I have no internet at the moment so I guess I’ll never know—to a
rodeo. Which is how I met up with these cowboys who insisted on helping carry my
assortment of possessions to the hotel. Y’all know I’m not one to say yes to
this kind of help, normally, but by this point I was over pretending that a
giant duffle bag, a lacrosse stick, a French horn, and the Bucktrout Manuscript
were in the category of “No, no, I’ve got this,” and these cowboys were so
sincerely kind, and since they had never been to New York City, once we’d all gotten
our luggage in our rooms there was nothing for it but to go find a bar where we
could drink 2,987 gin and tonics and I could eventually get home at 4 in the morning,
sleep through a good dozen or more phone calls, and finally be awoken by someone
from Amtrak who had finally tracked me down so my poor, poor mother, who had
been at the Albany train station when my train had come and gone without depositing
me, could finally discover that I was alive, just with a gin hangover and in a
hotel room in New York City instead of, you know, home. Hahaha, mother—wasn’t
that an adventure?! (I am not sure I have ever mentioned the gin and tonics
because I was underage but the cowboys were 21 and while I regret putting my
mother through that I will say we had a super fun time and I am pretty sure
this is what Oprah means about the power of yes: meet up with a couple of friendly
strangers and, yeah, what the fuck, follow them on their motorcycles through a
dust storm to a town called Kandos and hope there will be an extra room at the
inn.)
And that is how Garrie, Darrell, and I came to Kandos and
there was an extra room and once we
agreed cocktail hour would start at 5 (Darrell, solicitous: “Do you take a
drink?” Me, firmly: “Yes.”), I had a lovely hot shower, got cleaned up, and
thought to myself there was no possible way this day could be so remarkable as
for it to actually be Bingo night at
the Kandos Returned Services Community Club. BUT IT WAS.
Before we get into the Bingo, I’d like to go back to the
dust storm again for just a mo—it had been very unpleasant riding through that
weather by myself, but it was somehow less so when there were two bikes in
front of me. Darrell is on a Tiger Explorer 1200, which is a big bike, and
Darrell is a tall, broad-shouldered, solidly built fellow; Garrie, the mischievous one, was up front
on his Kawasaki 900z. I couldn’t see Garrie much as we kept well-spaced since we
were riding not just in a dust storm (have I mentioned it?) but on the Bylong
Valley Road which requires a bit of attention in good weather AND has long
stretches with a lot of potholes. Though it was disconcerting indeed to see
Darrell being blown about by the wind—he and his bike had probably 400 pounds
on me and mine—I felt better with those two cowboys than I had by myself. It didn’t
lessen the wind gusts but when we finally got off the bikes and I made them
laugh when I deadpanned, “Well, at least it wasn’t raining,” I was very glad
for their company and maybe even a teeny bit for the dust storm that threw us
together.
Garrie and Darrell are next-door neighbors and when Garrie
corrected my spelling of his name, Darrell said, “Really? G-a-double-r-i-e?” Me
in, surprise: “Haven’t you know him for twenty years??” Darrell, in protest: “Well,
I don’t write to him.” A pause, then Darrell: “Really, Gaz: G-a-r-r-i-e?
Why’s that?” Garrie: “Don’t look at me, mate, that’s just the way it was in
[redacted, the year of his birth].”
These guys ride together every Sunday and then go on a three-
or four-day trip every so often and so they’d scoped out Kandos on a previous
visit. We met up in the parking lot at 5 on the dot and made a beeline for the RSCC,
where I am now a temporary member.
Darrell taught me how to order schooners of their preferred
brand of beer which you do by saying “Rushshhes” without moving your lips. We
reviewed the Bingo prizes and Garrie advised me I should have a strategy worked
out as there wouldn’t be time to stand around, hemming and hawing—I needed to
know exactly what to go for. His advice was the applesauce.
Bingo didn’t start until 7 but by 6 there were already ladies
(and eventually one gentleman) flocking to the table and getting themselves set
up. We had a prime location at the end, closest to the prizes, and Darrell, the
sweet one, said with some concern, “Oh, we might be in somebody’s seats,” and Garrie
said happily, not moving, “Of course we are!” I’m pretty sure we were the only
people at the table having drinks and treating Bingo like a non-serious event
and it is to their credit that the fine folk of this town (population 1500) put up with us.
We were assigned the nicest woman in the entire world, Delma,
to explain everything to us, and she did, very thoroughly. She was so earnest,
so sincere: Darrell asked how long she’d been playing and she said brightly, “Since
1974!” She was going to play a block of 10 cards at a time—Darrell and I tried
just two each and Garrie claimed he’d “forgotten” his glasses so he provided
color commentary and had to buy the next round of Rushshhes since Darrell and I
were sweating over our cards they call those numbers so fast! Del told us her record
was 18 at once, but that was only because, and I quote, “a woman here had a
heart attack and so I had to look after her cards and mine.”
I came extremely close to dying while trying to keep a straight
face at this and I could see, out of the corner of my eye, Darrell and Garrie both grinning at me slyly, waiting
for me to break, but the good news is the woman who had the heart attack was just
fine, and I, too, survived.
Delma, it transpires, is also a darts champion (that’s her,
D. Smith, all over the board) and a real threat in lawn bowling as well. Her father,
her brother, and her sister had all worked at the mine before it closed; I
asked the guys later what they thought Delma had done and they said without
hesitation she had surely stayed at home, been a stalwart member of the church
society, and never missed a Bingo night or a meat raffle or a darts game at the
RSCC. They’d warned me in advance that Bingo at the RSCC in Kandos was going to
transport me back in time, and Delma was right there waiting for us in 1975 rural
Australia, with her kindness, her openness, her advice on how we should use our
“daubers,” and damned if that woman didn’t win a lot of Bingo prizes. She took
the toilet paper first, then the hand soap, and finally, I think buckling under
pressure from Garrie, she went ahead and got the applesauce, too. She was
exactly as Garrie said, the salt of the earth.
The gentlemen bought me a dauber of my very own, in the “Mango
Tango” colorway; Darrell’s was “Mystic Blue.” Here’s Garrie with our daubers, and
an excellent word to describe him, as should be immediately apparent from this picture, would be “incorrigible.”
Darrell and I both got pretty into our games, of course, and
when I would look over at his cards to see how he was doing he’d fend me off—“don’t
pinch my numbers”—which is not how Bingo works but I completely understood the
instinct. Some games are followed by a Full House game while some are not; once
Darrell kindly reminded me not to tear off my sheet as there was still the Full
House to be played and I am ashamed to say I snapped at him, “Oh, I know,” because I only had like 3 empty
squares on one sheet and was certain my time was about to come. (My time never came,
but I have my elegant Mango Tango dauber as my consolation prize.) The lady who
called the numbers had a marvelous, hypnotic voice, and she would say “Fifty-five,
five five; six, six only; thirty-two, three two; eleven, one one” and then
Garrie and Darrell would whistle. I found out later that the people in Australia
are SO committed to being nutty that in addition to the guys being known as “Gaz”
and “Daz,” there are nicknames (?) for numbers
so you whistle at eleven because they are lady’s legs; hearing 88 means you say
“two fat ladies,” 33 is inexplicably “two little fleas,” one is the “bottom of
the house,” and this goes on forever maybe try getting that railway work of out
the way before you spend all of your time on whimsy, Australia.
We were so immersed in the Bingo and the Rushshhes that by
the time halftime came and we made it back to the pub adjacent to our motel (roughly 7:45 pm) the
kitchen was closed. The “pizza” place was our back-up plan but they were closing,
too, so we had no choice (literally) but to hotfoot it BACK to the RSCC and eat
there. Garrie had said originally we’d avoid doing so because the food was “sus”
(me, to Darrell: what did he say? Darrell: sus.
Me: huh? Them both: sus! As in suspect!
Me: …) and he wasn’t wrong about that, but we at least had something for dinner and got to see Del had won the applesauce
after all. We’d given her our books when we left at the halftime and she was
kind enough not to tell us whether one of our cards had been a winner. Post-dinner
and with heartfelt goodbyes to Delma (she hugged me!), we adjourned back to the
pub so I could continue asking them questions. Thankfully they both knew a lot of
things about Australia because this place is only getting MORE confusing to me.
We had a spirited debate over whether one could make yarn from the fur of wallaby
or even a kangaroo; I finally got them to agree that if you can get yarn from
possum, you must be able get something
from macropods. I think this was the point that Garrie leaned over the table,
looked me in the eye, and said, “What are
you?” Garrie, I’m just a lady riding around on a motorcycle looking for the
holy trinity of alpaca/possum/wallaby yarn.
I missed Thanksgiving back in the ol’US of A, but I got lots
of pictures from the fam and sent my love home. I feel like I’m cheating a bit
since I live in the future and I’m already on to Friday while they’re having
tofurkey, but I hope everyone gets to enjoy the holiday and some days off, and even
if I’m not celebrating back home, I am still so so thankful for so many things,
not least of which are the ones I love, the ones who mostly love me back, and
pictures of my lil’niece Junie making her screeching face. Screech on, Junie!
Garrie and Darrell were kind enough to invite me to ride on
with them today, Friday, but I woke up to wind so blustery it sounded like the
ocean and since I don’t have to go
anywhere, I decided not to. We had a companionable breakfast and
then I hung around in the parking lot while they geared up and headed out, and absolutely
I was a little sad to see them go. The winds should ease by tomorrow morning,
though, so I figured I’d laze around, do the laundry, read some books, and
stalk my new best friend, Turbo.
He comes with a warning sign and two different people who
work here have cautioned me verbally about getting too close to him but so far
it’s sunshine and roses between us.
Still, I’ll leave town before that changes, and like the cowboys,
the motorcycle guys, and my relationships—however brief—with sooooooooooo many
cats all the world over, Kandos is a memory I am already glad to have and a story
I won’t soon be tired of telling. And to Gaz and Daz, thank you, gentlemen—you are the true salt of the earth, the perfect
rocks to come upon during a storm. 😊
Pictures!
The RSCC was…quaint? Weird? Both? Garrie challenged me to decipher this
sign, and I’m agreed with him that it’s a bit
esoteric.
As a PSA, here are the various things you can do to get banned
from the RSCC:
Our motel had, weirdly, a giant aviary filled with rosellas.
The motel also had lovely roses and a very firm look-but-don’t-touch
policy.
My father has sent me on my fair share of snipe hunts over
the years and Garrie had a similar twinkle in his eye when he promised me there
was a museum in town. I didn’t believe him but, Garrie, I did in fact while
away whole minutes here and it was…weird.
There were things like this all around, with no explanation.
There were old ledgers I was just allowed to look through (this
brought back memories of handling the original Bucktrout Manuscript wearing
white cotton gloves).
There was a player piano, mother:
And then somebody was
doing some seriously fucked up shit with the mannequins.
It was a bit poignant to be able to see what’s left of the mine
operation in the distance from the back of the museum. The closing of the mine
and the quarries pretty much killed off Kandos and many other towns like it,
and since it just shut down in 2011 the scars are still readily apparent in all
the boarded-up store fronts in town. Garrie and Darrell told me all sorts of
stories about how mining has affected Australia and I won’t try to capture that
complicated history here, but their stories reminded me of ours about Appalachia
and other parts of the country and goddamn, y’all, we need to figure this shit
out.
However, clearly Kandos does not have a lock on weird
museums as I (covertly) chased this guy into the grocery store to prove.
On my way back to the motel from doing laundry and stalking people I happened upon a community bulletin board and these were hands-down the two best, and I hope they never meet.
Turbo and I spent the afternoon lounging and reading Naomi
Novik’s two non-Temeriare books, which were wonderful, and when I tried to capture
his walk of shame he wouldn’t leave and so I have a cat now.
Finally, I found out at breakfast this morning—Darrell told me this in a completely matter-of-fact way--that Garrie had asked for the handicapped-accessible room specifically so he could bring his bike inside overnight, which he did, because why leave your motorcycle in the parking lot when you can have it in your motel room with you? Garrie said the only downside was the little red alarm light was flashing and annoying him so he had to get up and “throw a jumper over it.” Motorcycle people = lunatics, all the world over, and I am the better for it.
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