I’ve previously written about Australia’s great leap backwards in time. By electing the Abbott government last year we’ve been sent back to the 1950’s.
More and more I see that happening and it’s frightening.
But, I’m not here to discuss politics – sex and religion are becoming the only topics worthy of conversation these days but I’m not going there either.
As a result of our nomadic existence, and being dependent on people leaving their homes for us to have somewhere to live, we’ve ended up in Rose Bay for about 6 weeks.
The intriguing thing for me is we’re currently living one street down the hill from where I spent much of my childhood.
Remember, I left there more than four decades ago.
It’s a fascinating experience. On one hand it’s still the same while on the other it’s very different.
Many of the buildings are the same, even a lot of the shops and businesses here are still the ones that were here when I was growing up.
Walking around the streets much is familiar. The odd thing is that the area somehow feels new (as is every area we live in for short periods) and yet many memories come flashing back as we take Sancho for walks around the local area.
However, there’s also a sense that time has moved on. A lot of the houses have been updated, some to greater degrees than others. The one I lived in still looks pretty much the same with some improvements.
There are a few people I recognise but they are very few and far between. The owner of the house we’re currently in is someone I knew from school and the boy scouts.
Some years ago I visited my daughter and son-in-law while they were living in San Francisco. While there they took us to a museum, where there was a display of housing styles from the 1960’s. The example they had of a bedroom was like looking at my room. It had the same carpet (bright orange shag pile) the same record collection, the same paper-ball lampshade and lots of other similarities. It was a very weird experience seeing my bedroom in a museum.
Being in Rose Bay is very much like that visit to the museum.
As a child I had a cat and a dog. In this house there’s a cat and we have Sancho. Fortunately, they’ve overcome their natural distrust and have reached an amicable agreement about sharing the house. Clearly, they’re not best mates but they are comfortable in each other’s presence.
So for me, and to some extent Danita, we’ve stepped back into a past we both thought we’d left behind. Interesting times indeed!