Luke wrote: Well that was pretty good fun. Thank you so much for coming along and making it so. Yes we ran out of food and the neighbour shut down the d-floor at 11pm and one of the tables caught fire but…. worth it I think? You’re the best, don’t go changing. Unless it’s out of a saggy lockdown tracksuit and into some great good times. xo Luke

FYI High Street today is back open to trams and traffic – makes this moment pretty special:

A photo from Chris Twining – thanks, Chris! – of Dad’s last leap year celebration in the Fitzroy Gardens with Rosemary, Lawry, MaryAnne, Joe, Julie, Salv, Chris and Tony.

What a fine group of folks.

Today is Sunday 5 September 2021.

Fathers Day in Australia.

Our second one without Salvatore.

Here’s a couple of photos that Anna has found while clearing out dad’s office area in preparation for setting up a bedroom for Greta on that side of the upstairs.

In this shot, a couple of happy fathers: Lawry Twining and Salvatore Caleo. Somewhere, probably, in the Northern Territory. LT says: “Possibly Mt Leisler near Kintore just near the WA border. Or it may be in the Gibson Desert just over the border in WA.”

Anna thinks that this is the 1989 trip, the one on which Salv grew a beard with which he disguised himself, and surprised Maria Dimmattia when he came back into the pharmacy. Zebedee thinks that Salv looks like Justin in this shot.

And there he is with his beloved white Landcruiser, the predecessor to the Prado. Like Joseph says, hoo boy, those shorts are SHORT.

Salv at the beach at French Island where most of the blokes had a swim before driving the Prado onto the barge to return to Corinella at the end of Zebedee’s Initiation Island in 2019.

Monday 16 August was the 14 month anniversary of dad’s death. Friday 20 August was the most recent fire at five during this sixth ever lengthening Melbourne lockdown. Flowers are budding on the almond and jasmine. MaryAnne took the above photo and wrote the below words:

One recent day Anna brought outside her technical magic music box and played the Paul Kelly song: ‘If I Could Start Today Again’.

And there on the green grass Salv so often mowed and cared for, it seemed poignant to be playing that song on the very spot where we farewelled his then stilled and spent body.

He did love that song and I have a strong memory of him listening to it playing as he sat at the bench…. possible fixing a pair of glasses or attaching elastic to them.

The grass, the song, Anna playing the song, and all of you are my strongest tributes to him. 

Lockdown love to everyone: I am about to research exactly how many queens there were in the bible: not many I’m guessing.

** here’s a link to Pauls Kelly and Grabowsky doing the song together**

If I could start today again

All the kings and queens in the Bible
They could not turn back time
So what chance have I, of a miracle
In this life of mine?

I only want one day
To unsay the things I said
Undo the thing I did
24 little hours

Oh God, please wipe them all away
And I promise I will change
If I could start today again

I know I’m not the milk and honey kind
Today I proved it true
When the red mist falls around my eyes
I know not what I do

Please give me back today
And I won’t say the things I said
Or do that thing I did
Every minute, every hour
The replay’s just the same
And I can’t stand the shame
Oh, let me start today again

I only want one day
One lousy day, that’s all
Of every day that’s been before
Since time beganI know my prayer’s in vain
But for a second, I’ll pretend
That I can start today again

Since time beganI know my prayer’s in vain
But for a second, I’ll pretend
That I can start today again

MaryAnne wanted this to be posted for the Banjo verse and the drawing. If you go to the June 16 2020 entry, you’ll find Anna reading ‘The Man From Snowy River’ to dad on the last day of his life, and Greg did you read out ‘Clancy’ on the the one-year anniversary? On zoom from Geelong? or another time?

And boy oh boy good, Salv’s Osso Bucco was excellent also.

One pictures the little Mallee school room, all hot. Surely if you get this book as a prize, you get it in December.

So he was second in Grade Four. Second what? Best?

I don’t think so, RG Clements.

He’s what? Nine? About to move to Melbourne?

The book is published in 1946 by FRANK CORK, Theatre Royal Building, Hindley Street, Adelaide, and it’s printed by THE ADVERTISER PRINTING OFFICE.

Pictures by Trevor Clarke and words by Ian Mudie, a South Australian writer.

Mate of Colin Thiele and Miles Franklin.

Author of the poem ‘My Father Began as a God’.

‘Quite a number of younger men (and older ones too) ride them regularly in and out of town despite the popular taunts of “Monkey on a gridiron.” ‘

I came across this quote this morning, Sunday 25 July 2021 (as mum pointed out, five months to Christmas! Heck.) in the book Melbourne Street Life by Andrew Brown-May (Australian Scholarly Publishing 1998). This quote comes from around the year 1900, and what it made me think of was the fact that Salv would refer to bikes every now and then as ‘grids’. I never pressed him about this, imagining it to be some weird transposition of the word ‘bike’. But this quote suggests that maybe it was a shortening of the term ‘gridiron’…

Discuss.

This is what I wrote on 18/6/21

And reread last week……..

18/6/21

It rains

On this day last year 

It did not rain:

It was cold and bright

And allowed us to sit in a circle outside

Around Salv’s decorated coffin:

His body now cold and still

But still on his property

On the very grass he had mown so often

Beside the house

We had bought in 1970

And in which we had grown to know each other.

Our refuge, our dwelling place

Our shelter from the storms of life

And now suddenly ended and over for Salv.

On this bright hard day 

Last year

We farewelled you with words

And music….

We had never done this before –

This was not a rehearsal

This was the final day.

We stood

We sat

We spoke

We read

We sang

We burnt your years

And then we hoisted 

You upon our shoulders

And made our way to the gate

Eager and ready to bear the load

Of your once vital body —

The longest journey

Carried willingly on our shoulders

Not wanting this last journey to end

But knowing there was this final journey

That had to be made:

The music swelling into the street

Did I hear it?

Or was I concentrating on my steps

Anna behind me,

It was unnerving

It was serious

And yet it was the right thing to do…..

To carry this man to the ends of the earth.

The sadness kept us steady,

Our bodies gladly accepted the task,

And yet I cannot now say

Where my mind was on that day:

One foot in front of the other

One foot at a time,

Not too fast,

We walked with an inbuilt reluctance

As if our feet were fixed in the earth

As if we knew you would not be back this way 

Again:

The full measure of this final salute

This final tribute

Rose up from our feet

And weighed with solid measure

And we transferred you 

From our shoulders 

Into the arms of the waiting grandchildren.

In a gesture grave and loving

As if it was completely natural

These older taller grandchildren

Received the coffin into their waiting arms

And continued the journey

This one last journey

To the waiting car 

As if this had been planned since the world began.

How is it we were able to accomplish all this?

It was surely a mystery

Which had its own righteous rhythm,

Is it that we – in spite of ourselves –

Recognize the seriousness of death

And its heavy heartbreak of sadness

There is no coming back –

This is the moment,

And looking back over the previous 86 days

We each had faced a moment

When we knew this was a final journey,

And we were close by

For all the final moments

Although we did not know them then

The final meal

The final shave

The final song

The final smile

And penultimately

The final breath

And then the utter stillness

Of a body no longer needed

Of a heartbeat slowed and stopped

Of eyes closed,

Mouth open

Feet and hands growing cold.

We had each passed our final moments 

With him and now carrying him

Was mere ceremony:

It was what we owed him:

He who had carried us all

On our many journeys

Shouldered now by us

As we carried him reverently 

To the gate: where his grandchildren -like angels-

Stood ready to carry him to his own car.

From feet and shoulders

To arms outstretched from the next generation

We tearfully farewell this one dear man

Whose life gave us value and joy.

Never would the gate open again

To such a spectacle

As on that one bright winter day: 18/6/20