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Now in my decline from a time back then I remember the days in a life when I was ten, when we lived in a shadow much greater at the foot of the mount and its dormant crater. Where we’d climb and to the top race like Hillary and Tenzing up the south face, then on our backsides slide to the rocks below from whence the lava used to flow. Behold the old white house at 89 Owens Road - the grass I with an old push blade mowed, and where from my upstairs bedroom I saw the spring terraced flowers bloom. Where outside we played cricket all summer long and inside were the masters of ping pong! In our living room my family and me saw a moonlanding and a war on TV - on our black ‘n white set watching My Three Sons, Gunsmoke and Bonanza with my toy guns, or maybe playing canasta soon as I was able and even a séance on the coffee table, where spirits from the spirit world did roam and truly spelled out to our guests “go home!”. When my birthday cake burned ten candles and I wore short pants and Roman sandals. Meeting my mate with the sign on his door who lived above the corner shoe store, with my duffel bag down Valley Road talking past the shops on the way to school walking - spending my lunch money licking my lips eating aniseed wheels and jelly tips! Listening to my transistor radio all the while tuned in to 1480 kilohertz on top of the dial - the hip happening sounds of Radio Hauraki in the gulf on a pirate ship called Tiri. Till through the gates of my teacher and jailer, Mrs Furner, Ms Gaiqui, and Mr Taylor, and catch a glimpse of a vision in a cotton dress - the girl of my restless dreams I confess. Before the bell sounded its morning ring we’d be flying on the moari swing, or games on the courts or a tag to yield playing bullrush on the football field. And behold, in class on his guitar my teacher playing folk songs and exhorting like a preacher singing “where have all the flowers gone? young girls pick them every one…” and “Oma rapeti…rabbit run, run, run” or playing Maori stick games just having fun. Drawing carvings and birds that can’t fly, reading tales of Hinemoa and Tutanekai. Weaving flax and hand tricks on a string into diamonds and parachutes hanging. In single file kids marching from the school with our towel and togs to the pool - Eden boys and girls at the starters end dive in for a prized 50 metre certificate to win, then gather the class in the projection room and gaze in the ceiling the stars illume, where our Milky Way mural hung so surreal as we sat and watched an old movie reel. But soon fun would turn to palpable fear when all the class trembled to hear - read to the children who were quiet as a mouse was the dental list for the Murder House! Alas a fate worse than death, the whining drill to bore and clean and to mercury fill, where the needle sometimes dulled the pain yet the screams of boys and girls remain. After school in hat and uniform arrayed I marched in the army of the Boys Brigade, and on weekends roaming the neighbourhood in search of adventure as best we could - climbing the hill to the construction site of The Pines apartments at a great height. On Guy Fawkes night from my pocket lighting my firecrackers and my skyrocket - armed and dangerous ready to throw with Double Happy red packs lit to blow. And on nighttime mission on dark ninja patrol detonating milk bottles whoa! Fire in the hole! Or off to the Crystal Palace to catch a flick lest my poor mother test my arithmetic, and Eden Park where the mighty Auks play host sitting with my mates behind the goalpost - with my dad and brother at the track in the birdcage and hearing the whips crack, at Ellerslie in the Ladies Stand or Alexandra Park with my Best Bets for my picks to mark. And on the Sabbath beneath cross and spire in Sunday School at old Greyfriars. Until the day my time comes to an end I’ll remember way back when I was ten. Written: January 2016 Pics above: My home when I was ten and picturesque Mt Eden.
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