The very first instrument he taught me was the recorder. He told me that so many people killed it when they played it.
He was determined I wouldn’t be one of them.
He himself played the recorder, beautifully, along with the tin whistle.
I wasn’t always a very patient student, but I did practice.
Sure enough when I started at Riverside High School, I did a solo of Green Sleeves for school Assembly and was considered the best recorder player in the school. Thanks to my Dad.
The other thing Dad did was not allow us to watch Count Down. We were so curious about Australian rock music, but it was banned in the house.
We did secretly sneak a glance at ABBA now and then. We knew their hits due to a friend of the family who played it to us whenever we visited her house in Devonport.
However, at home we were brought up on a strict musical diet of Simon and Garfunkel, Peter Paul and Mary, Irish Australian Ballads, Don McClean and my Dad’s greatest love Bach. He still loves all Classical Music. He would educate us about folk and classical. I am not sure we were always paying attention.
My parents both loved musicals and so there was Gilbert and Sullivan, Porgy and Bess and South Pacific blaring in the house too. Dad would sing these songs quite loudly in the house sometimes, especially Gilbert and Sullivan.
Today he does a radio program on musicals for community radio.
I loved stealing into my Dad’s record cabinet and pulling the old vinyls out. It used to make him mad though sometimes as he was worried I would scratch his records. He wasn’t to know it would all come out on CD years later. Perhaps then he would have been calmer. Still, I knew music was precious because of how much he cared about his record collection.
These songs and music still ring into my ears today. Whilst I watch and listen to popular music, I can see why my Dad was so keen for us to have an upbringing in music where the song writers wrote complicated lyrics.
But I must admit my children have a little more choice, but thankfully they grew bored with what I found ‘boring music’ very quickly.
I don’t play the recorder any more, but I still play my guitar, and like to write songs with complex lyrics and folk like melodies.
I took my family to Mumford and Sons recently, and thought about how much my Dad would like their music. I must remember to ask him whether he has listened to them, next time I facebook him.
Inspired by the Who Shaped Me project for ABC Open this month’s Pearlz Dreaming blog theme will be about the people who inspire me and there are lots of them!
Recently the Monday online writing sprint group I love to participate in decided to have a writing challenge about Tupperware. We’d been discussing the directions of our posts within the group, and I quipped “as long as no one tries to sell me tupperware or linen here I’ll be happy.”
It was amazing to find some of us love it and some of us just hate it. Apologies to Tupperware, but I have a few issues with you, and as I wrote this piece I realised it wasn’t so much you as tupperware but what you had become associated with.
I wonder what my readers think about Tupperware. I might ask more of the sprint group if they might share their odes here. See we found out not all of us hate Tupperware, why some of us just love it and even give it away as family heirlooms. As for me here is my take on Tupperware.
An Anti Ode to Tupperware
Tupperware, oh why do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.
I hate you for the memories you conjure of rejection and loss. My soul remembers mother’s tears have flown when friends are far and few between.
You live at empty parties full of heartless faces surrounded with little boxes with little lids for little hearts who count each person through the door for the next box they will obtain.
Whilst others naively think at these parties some lifelong friends they might actually find.
I hate you for cost and payment transactions of neighbourhood where there must be something in it for the host; for making friends numbers on a tally board to the achievement of freebies and the façade of social lives where women gather and chatter.
Yet you come in many colours, shapes and sizes, and seal so well and tight, you keep everything fresh and ready for the morning school time runs.
Is it unfair for me to blame you so?
You are so handy for so many and yet you will always have the taint of small minded mothers and their children who used my own mother so.
Tupperware, can I forgive you? Not easily I am afraid, because you are a frequent invitation in a small town where people reach out using you like my mother once did.
Why not simply shop at the bargain store bin, with friends all in a row, stop for hot chocolate and lates? Why seek to make some income from those you call your friends?
Why not have conversations where transactions are nowhere to be seen? Why not have human interaction to understand each other’s dreams?
Tupperware’s my scapegoat, I know it to be so, but there is just no way for me to say I love thee, let me count the ways.
geraldbrazell – flickr creative commons (click on pic to go to link)
We were the motely-get-together-whenever-we-can-choir, from all corners of the globe and all corners of the state of Tasmania, but our choir teacher, Erica, was a talented music teacher who didn’t mind our varying skills and took delight in our different cultural backgrounds.
Erica would help us to find our pitch and tone. She’d do this by patiently singing a note, or if she had access to it, by playing a piano or keyboard note.
We sang mostly at the end of or during breaks in Baha’i meetings when the whole state came together. Sometimes we sang at a wedding if the bride and groom requested it.
I still remember us all being lined up with tallest at the back and shortest at the front. We knew we had graduated when we were in that back row.
Erica herself, was not very tall, had thick rimmed glasses, and very bright twinkly eyes. She had a very tall musical repertoire though and a quick wit.
There were no stars in our choir, we were all treated equally. Sometimes people sang solo as it made the pieces interesting, but that wasn’t that often.
One of the trickiest things we had to do was sing rounds. It helped if you weren’t right next to someone singing the other part so we would try to wriggle a gap if we could or cover our ears. But eventually we got used to it and they sounded so brilliant. They became my favourite thing in choir.
Not every child was keen on choir, and they did try and escape, but for me it was a joy. I loved it and am sure it gave me lots of confidence in other areas of creative endeavour.
One of the things that made it possible for us to sing together, even though we were so irregular, was that we sang the same songs and prayers back in our home communities, or if we didn’t we took them back with us and kept singing them after she had taught us.
Sometimes she played the tunes to us from a tape recorder. Often she would become excited when she had a new one to introduce to us.
When Erica couldn’t take choir, it wasn’t the same. I think she had a lot of patience and no-one else could match it.
One day when I was a teenager visiting Sydney I went to the Baha’i temple there and was mesmerised by the choir that sings on Sundays.
I thought of Erica and our motely-get- together-whenever- we- can-choir and respected her even more, for bringing just a small reflection of that experience into the lives of some small town Tasmanian children.
From Erica:
Thank you for sharing that memory. It is lovely to know that you got so much from it. At least there was at least one child who enjoyed singing, because sometimes one was more conscious of the ones who didn’t enjoy it, as they made it very clear!
I am trying to remember which Baha’i rounds we would have done then – maybe “A Plea for one world”, and certainly “God sufficeth”. I do not remember specifically which songs I would have done with you- perhaps Blessed is the Spot, God is One, Building Bridges – there are so many children’s songs which I have done over the years with the Baha’i children and it was always fun!
Anyway, it is lovely that it is part of a happy memory for you- shows our Baha’i service sometimes has more repercussions than we may realise!
Inspired by the Who Shaped Me project for ABC Open this month’s Pearlz Dreaming blog theme will be about the people who inspire me and there are lots of them!
My first memory is of puppet shows my brother and I would put together behind Sandra’s couch in Devonport, Tasmania. Our family and hers would watch as we unfolded our story. They were for Baha’i children classes.
The next I have is of perching on a small orange car and racing down the extremely steep slope of the driveway of her home. We weren’t supposed to do this, but we did until the parents caught us. My brothers sometimes thought Sandra was too strict, she wasn’t afraid to be like a second Mum when they were naughty, but I liked her for that.
When I first knew her she was a dance teacher, and single mother. At her home was a studio she taught from. I remember when I was little that she always wore beautiful perfume that you could catch the scent of whenever she was near you. She glided along like a dance teacher and often wore vibrant scarves around her head.
She was one of the first Baha’is my family ever knew. She was my first religious education teacher.
She gave us books every year which were for Baha’i holy days or our birthdays. We shared them and read them all. They were often full of important lessons about how to live life, but we liked them because they were so well illustrated and had hard covers.
Sometimes my nearest in age brother and I went to stay with her to give my parents a break, especially when they had a new baby in the house. Our parents trusted her. At those times she played ABBA for us and cooked us fish. I remember having a blue dory at her house and can still taste it even now. We spent a lot of time with her children on those visits.
Her son liked to play violin. Her daughter danced in shows of her mother’s dance school. Her children taught us to play card games like gin rummy. Her daughter when she was older worked at a riding school. She took me there for a treat and I was able to ride a horse for the first time. I thought it was the best day of my life in the whole world, as I was into reading stories like Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty at the time.
We always asked her children, who were a little older than us, to give us dizzy wizzys, where they wizzed us around and around until we felt like throwing up. They were our show rides.
I remember her moving into the mountains to a house in Erriba with a killer tourist brochure view. She had a restaurant there, and my Mum and I went and waitressed there one Christmas to help her out. It was so busy! We slept in the house overnight rather than travelling back to our home. It was a beautiful home made of wood that had a strong and pleasant smell.
I wrote a few poems at Sandra’s Erriba home. The mountain, where that house existed, was often covered in rainbows.
Many years later I saw her again in North Queensland. She was on holidays visiting one of her daughters, who had married an African man and had three children now. We had a long chat about where life had taken us all. My children and her grandchildren were playing and chatting.
At that time she was working at a Baha’i School in Africa, and training teachers in virtues. She was smiling. She had given up most of what she owned and to live a frugal life, but I could tell she was very happy and dedicated to her work.
Just recently I heard her daughter has cancer via facebook. I realise that I need to ask my Mum, who she was always a good friend too if she has heard about this. Perhaps just now Sandra might need a good friend.
What Sandra wrote to me after reading this via email.
Dearest June,
I am deeply touched by the story of your memories of me! It is surprising what we remember and forget… the things you remember about me… colourful scarves…perfume… I have no recollection of this.
I remember going to your place in East Devonport to take children’s classes and I remember being so thrilled when you read your first book, “Blessed is the Spot” when you were about 4 or 5. I remember wondering if the first words that a child learns to read are Holy Words, does that have an effect on the child’s developing intelligence?
And then when you were demonstrating a love of language and beauty, I wondered was this a result of early connection with the Word of God. I remember loving you children very much and always being happy when you came for a visit. I remember having picnics at the Devonport Bluff with your family and calling your youngest brother Baby Paul and watching how accurate he was at kicking a football even at the age of two.
I remember going to visit you in that house on West Tamar Road, several times. And I remember when you and your mum came to help in the restaurant in Erriba. Your mum lent me a soda syphon.
That house in Erriba has had several owners since then, The present owners are Ron and Maggie Burns (former entertainers). They have set up a “Appin Hall Children’s Foundation” (check out their web-site) and converted the place into a respite centre for sick children and their carers. I live next door (about 800 metres away.)
I commend you on this project to record your memories. Perhaps more things will come to you as you write.
Do keep in touch! Lots of love Sandra
Inspired by the Who Shaped Me project for ABC Open this month’s Pearlz Dreaming blog theme will be about the people who inspire me and there are lots of them!
She called me Paisa, respecting my PNG heritage before I fully did.
She was a proud Pom and had perfect Alexander technique poise.
We wrote in purple pens, a purple language, long before I knew of purple prose. Everything was ‘purple’ in our best friend world. She introduced me to Prince. Years later I would ask my eldest son to play me ‘Purple Rain.’
We played croquet as her brother played guitar. She was comfortable in her own skin, a stay up all night talker with a purple passion for life and chatter.
She loved photography and her dark room, and my simple one click, one setting Kodak felt like nothing in comparison. I wished I could be an artist like her. Because of her I first began to dream of photography, a dormant dream that took many years to wake.
At school camp we belted out all the songs we knew under the moon, just teenage girls finding freedom’s voice unafraid of anyone hearing us.
My mum felt she might be a bad influence, but let me write to her anyway when she moved away.
Turned out she liked what some might call bad boys, and wrote me letters of all those she met and pashed, long before I even thought of boys much.
She was every mother’s nightmare. She wrote to me to let me know she ran away from home, a final letter with no return address. I couldn’t write back. She took a moment to say goodbye and disappeared with her boyfriend over and hills and far away.
She was every writer’s dream – the friend who does everything you know you won’t and inspires you to create characters who don’t care what anyone thinks of them.
Everyone needs a friend who makes them unafraid of the world. Who says ‘awaken and dream.’ She was my first real best friend.
She called me Paisa.
Inspired by the Who Shaped Me project for ABC Open this month’s Pearlz Dreaming blog theme will be about the people who inspire me and there are lots of them!
June Paisa Perkins 