Grumpy Old Nasho

My Dad had one also, it was his first rangefinder camera after trying to use an old clapped out bakelite camera that someone must have given him. He took lots of family photos with the Neoca during the 1950s. In his latter years he gave me all the negatives which I still have, stored safely. He developed them himself and they look pretty good. Unfortunately Dad's Neoca was stolen, so, for nostalgia, I bought one as part of my collection, and also as a bit of family memorabilia.

Poppycock Jerry. Traditional Aussies out here in rural Australia are peaceful and law abiding, that's something all new immigrants can learn regarding integration, they won't learn in the idiot major cities. New immigrants should live a stint in the bush before they live in a city. Civilized camps could be constructed to house them in suitable locations. They'd get an education on Aussie values, manners, assisting the elderly without hesitation, friendliness, community co-operation and awareness, respect for wildlife, helping out in bush fire emergencies if any, ready to road assist for vehicle breakdowns, sharing information to bring neighbors up to speed on anything you think they need to know about, respect for other's property and privacy. I'm tied of reading that Aussies commit more crime than immigrants - the books are cooked to favor the far-left narrative. Do you have a mind of your own? The larger the town or city, the more crime there is, never mind who commits it, it needs to be stamped out. We could start with home invasions, then drug dealing, then arson. Why is it that the big cities keep tolerating these crimes? Is it to keep the police employed, or to give politicians something to condemn in front of TV cameras, silently saying "vote for me and my party"?

It might have been a case of "use it, or lose it". Once Cook had planted the Union Jack in 1770, with the French hot on his tail, the Poms may have decided to get a fleet together, regardless of cost, and establish a settlement to consolidate the claim. In respect to that, overcrowding in the Mother Land may not have been the only reason for transportation of convicts to NSW. There were more than just convicts too, in the first fleet, there were hundreds of sailors, soldiers, and families. They made up about one third of the total on board.

We already know Cook observed Venus in Tahiti as a guise to setting out to the Great Southern Land to claim it for England. The "politics" was evident even then. So it shouldn't be surprising that politics played it's part in the transportation of convicts to a far away land. We also know the French were cruising off the East Coast at the time. Is "politics" the right word? It seems like "land grab" is more appropriate. I just wish the Poms had not depleted Australia of all the Red Cedar trees, there was none left for repairing antique Cedar furniture in the 1900s when I was dabbling in selling old furniture.

My Irish Great Great Great Grandfather probably knew all about that, in the 1830s. He was transported to the Great Southern Land and slaved till he was made a free man in 1850. He proceeded to the Parramatta Female Factory to choose a partner, then acquired some land in Cooma NSW. The rest is history. Offspring are everywhere on the East Coast and inland. A few became famous ... even me, I discovered the Feast and Famine Variable.

The Fed govt said there'll be no US bases in Australia ... but look what we've got now, thousands of Yanks and their military equipment stationed up north. Or does every one of them piss off at the end of a joint training exercise? I don't think so.

Yes, it's best to keep out of them.

Yes thanks for the corrections. I was typing from memory and that's in a poor state of repair these days. Gerry's wife was a Kiwi, I used to wonder if he'd ever get married, they must have really clicked when he first met her. He was a bit reserved around women when I knew him, but he had a sense of humor and I don't think he realized that that was enough to get the women in (I should say "girls", we were all pretty young then, in our late teens). It hits me hard when friends lose their lives. Another was a young tradesman, a conscript too, in my platoon at basic training. He was blown up in a crater that the N/Vietnamese had booby trapped, his Dad told me years later when I called him. They ran into an ambush and ran for cover. I read about his death in a newspaper at the same time I was doing kitchen duty that night. It was a shock that took me a week to shake off, a young tradesman dying like that for no good reason.

Of course - Granville Tech. I might mention that a fellow apprentice, who was an avid scuba diver, eventually went to live in Marracoota on the south coast. He more or less started the abalone business down there, which grew tremendously and paid good money, everyone got in on it. He met a woman and got married there, had three offspring. I can mention his name because he and his wife were passengers on that fatal plane brought down by the Russians, so the story goes. Jerry Menke. R.I.P. We worked together for a little while in H/Dehavilland's laboratory as apprentices. We travelled home on the train together. I think he was of Dutch descent hence flying in a KLM plane. You remember that don't you? the plane that was brought down by a rocket. Very sad story.

No, Hawker DeHavillands at Lidcombe.

48 thousand were conscripted, 15 thousand went Vietnam. I knew a bloke who wasn't conscripted, just joined voluntarily and then volunteered to go and fight there. Unfortunately, he was involved in a friendly fire incident where one guy was too far out in front and was mistaken for an enemy combatant ... my mate shot him, sadly. I guess it was hushed up, but I got it from the horses mouth when he was back here at home. For brave acts he performed at other times, one in particular, he received bravery medals from every Western nation involved there ... all but Australia, he went on to tell me. He was not just a little peeved about that.

Just as well. I was already crazy enough with anger from being unable to work in my trade, they wouldn't let me. I went from being a fitter & turner working in a large Engineering factory (Hawker DeHavilland), to being a lowly driver in the idiot Army, as it was then. My trade meant everything to me.

When I was doing my two years conscription, a corporal fired his sub-machine gun in front of us while we were lined up out in the training field getting a lecture about being aggressive towards the enemy. He swung the weapon around in an arc firing as he went trying to get us to pay attention to what war can be like. The bullets hit the ground of course, but an officer standing beside him said nothing. I'm sure this was an illegal act as a basic training method. Many of the training corporal were just back from Vietnam and they were crazed, their minds shot and heading for PTS, if they didn't already suffer from it. What we learned from the lecture was that we didn't want to end up crazy either, and that Vietnam has the potential to make you that way.

If you asked traditional Americans what they thought, you'd probably get a different response. They would most likely tell you that they must suffer a little pain until the United States has been put back into order again. A lot of damage has been done, not by President Trump, but by previous administrations, and now Trump is righting the ship. He's fixed the southern border. He's preferencing local corporations over foreign parasitical companies. He's keeping Chinese influence in the US in check, and he's not afraid to use the military when needed to keep a lid on the proliferation of nuclear weapons ... and miscreant terrorist organizations He's doing all the things that we should help him do, but can't because we're weaker, and we're governed by altruistic "international" Fabian socialists.

Yeah, but that's all you keep sayin'