The Little Places in the Big Place are gone....But the memories linger on...

Driving up to do a spot of fishing with my mate Roy to Rushworth a small old gold mining town in North Central Victoria we enjoyed a chat as men who have known each other for a while do. There is an economy of words with much that is unspoken telling as that which is, the relationship is as one of a hand to an old glove on a cold winters day.

Roy is a retired School Principal and Inspector of schools we were driving back into country that he has known for many years. His family originated just up the road on hard farming country. The trip was filled with tales of past adventure and misadventure, of old girlfriends and lost opportunities, of cars and long, long roads, of farming and the land, of schools and their occupants, of good times and bad, of dreams and hopes.

Roy amazed me with his knowledge of the area and his deep love for and sense of belonging which oozed out of him as does honey out of a jar. The journey to and fro was one of nostalgia and memories of a time when the cars were slower, the roads narrower and thoughts meandered untroubled by digital interference. A time when Gay meant happy, and Friends meant someone you knew more than most. It was a time for me when I was transported back to a past long gone disappearing as my own child hood turned into something else. Roy has that way with words long practised in a class rooms over a lifetime and which convey an image of what was, what is and what can be.

The fishing was a great experience without being over endowed with fish. (see Kyneton Angling Face Book page)

What amazed me we chatted was all the changes that Roy noted along the way. The towns, hamlets ,schools that has disappeared or shrunken to a size that was unrecognisable. In the space of fifty years a once thriving district filled with people, schools and small farm lets, villages and hamlets, was now a lonely stretch of high way reaching through a mostly empty land of large grazing or crop paddocks, interspersed with fallen down buildings.

Only Roys incredible memory of things that had been and things that were now gone showed the reality of what once had been. Even the people that had once inhabited theses places were still alive in his mind.

Is this good or bad? Neither really it just is! The reality we drove through that day has been faced by old men before. Change is as inevitable as time itself we cannot beat it or stop it and who would want to. Let us enjoy the memories, enjoy each others company and enjoy trying to make our futures and those we love as best as they can be.

Note: John and Roy have been friends for many years on various community and civic projects and through their joint membership of Rotary. They do not agree on many some things but manage to get along on most. They are both passionate Essendon Bomber supporters who have suffered through that clubs unfortunate recent history. They are mates with all that implies nothing more nothing less.