Child of Joy...Street.
We are past the longest night and spring is on its way, at least that what I think it's saying? Our resident thrush perched at the top of the highest tree on the section, a spindly young hoheria that fits the bill. Dad would have been out there listening, he loved birds & their songs.
Built me an aviary when I was 10. I think the deal was I got to be the caretaker and he got the songs? "A good way to teach the lad responsibility" and a subtle introduction to the birds and the bees that will make up for his snoring at the Father and Son Night at school. My focus split between the ambiguous explanations and slides on the screen and the occasional racket sitting next to me?
Before the aviary if we weren’t out on the porch listening to and looking for birds we were out there after dark looking for the Russian satellite. There was only one so you couldn’t miss it.
Nights on end when conditions were right, there were two dots looking up into a sea of dots for another dot drifting above the Southern Pacific.
Dad had a happy knack of being at the right place at the right time.
On the sideline of the hockey games I played every cold Saturday during the winter with the obligatory “just pop in for a quick jug” at the local on the way home while I sat in the car warming a Fanta.
Taking me into Cromb & Merritt and buying me a second hand split cane fly rod and reel for Xmas when I was twelve then up to the Waipara river to catch an unsuspecting little brown, on the fly, on almost the first cast.
Or being on hand to look after Nanna, his mother in law Gladdy when she came out of hospital having been diagnosed with diabetes. Injecting her with insulin every day. “got room for a little prick sweetheart?” would lighten the routine and get a chuckle.
And bugger me, when all the ducks lined up, a chance for us to wave at a Russian satellite . No cold war in Joy street Shirley.
If it didn’t turn up as planned, we would go back inside content, having heard ruru and little owls who built nests in the trees around the 13th hole of the golf course that our place backed onto. A short par 3, me dad and the birds. Lucky for some.
It’s August and I’m still hearing from good authority that spring is just around the corner.
Dads gone, 25 years ago January past and I’m on the other side of town now, nestled into the slopes of an old volcano. A light dusting of snow dropped on Te Tihi o Kahukura last night and still the thrush is up at sparrows fart telling all that this is his patch and inviting any hens within ear shot to take a chance.
I wonder if he still has an English accent or have his ancestors, roosting with the locals, korimako and riroriro, left him with a southern drawl?
Heralding from Gore, Southland himself, that would put a smile on the old man’s face.
Me & Dad, Blackball circa 1958
