Crib to this selection. Alabama, Anna, Bayswater, Billings, Bonavista, Boomers, Carson, Cecilia, Celsius, Channel, Chelsea, Colin, Cowboy, Crib, Cross, Davis, December, Durham, Eaton, Garbage, Gerrard, Gone, Grandpa, Great, Hall, Harris, Hotel, I’ll, I’ve, January, Jennifer, Latter, Library, Long, Lullabeene, Matt, Mona, Montana, Murray’s, October 10th, Octopus, Ollie, Perth, Plus, Prior, RCMP, Raye, Rest, Roger, Rolf, Saddening, Saturday, Sleep, Southern, StarGarden, Stars, Street, SunArise, Sunday, Sweet, Thursday, Toronto, Town, Tuesday, Wednesday, West, White, Whittaker, Within

Crib to this selection.

Guy Davis - I'm Gone

This is how I felt after I had submitted an offer to purchase on Tuesday, December 18, 2018, how I felt after submitting an application for a mortgage on Thursday, December 27, 2018, and how I have felt after learning the mortgage was approved on Wednesday, January 02, 2019. I am not being chased by any boss-man, but lured to a better life which is evident in Bonavista. I have been asked if I will return to Toronto, to which I reply “Why would I?”. Now I have reached the highway, I’m gone; now that I’ve left Toronto “I ain’t never goin’ back”.

Rolf Harris – SunArise

I remember Rolf and Ollie the Octopus in Channel nine (seven?) in Perth in 1959. We didn’t have a TV, but I could watch it in the Murray Street store window in Bayswater. Prior to that I knew Rolf Harris as the man who sang “Tie me kangaroo down, sport”, and “Six White Boomers”. I was in Southern Cross then, and it was the identical panorama of Bonavista that reminded me of the panorama of SX which greeted me at 6 p.m. on my tenth birthday. Home away from home in an isolated small town. I remember the sunrises in the desert, the kangaroo paws, warming the desert town of Southern Cross from near-zero bone-chilling temperatures at six in the morning to the high twenties (Celsius) by two o’clock. Of course, that was in mid-winter. In summer the mercury would stay above 80F day and night, three weeks in a row,

Roger Whittaker - Durham Town

No, my daddy didn’t go to war, but then he didn’t talk much about his past anyway. Plus I left Southern Cross at age 12 to live away from home, to go to high school. I am not morose at leaving Toronto; there is nothing, really, to bind me to Toronto except my past. Saddening it is that I’ll not see Zoë, Jennifer or Anna at the Yorkville Public Library again, nor will Matt shake my hand Saturday mornings at the Eaton Chelsea Hotel, Cecilia won’t wave to me as I come in through the Gerrard Street doors, and Mona won’t give me my change or tell me that mine is the first smile she’s seen all morning.

Colin Raye - Latter Day Cowboy

Grandpa was in The Great War, but he died 1954/55 when I was too young to hear tales. My heart and soul have been connected to The Old West and the USA in general since we arrived in Southern Cross in 1956; I began reading about Kit Carson and Billings Montana to fit in with my goldfields schoolmates. In Toronto I had three trucking firms as clients and studied truck drivers driving trucks. I spent hours listening to them as I criss-crossed every state of the USA over a period of twenty years. Long-distance truck drivers are well-educated. They spend hours exchanging views on CB-radio, and then spend many lonely hours contemplating (processing) what they’ve heard.

Sweet Home Alabama

I felt that I had arrived home at 15:15 on Tuesday October 10th 2017 when I crested the ridge on Highway 230 and saw all of Bonavista spread out before me. The same view as that at 6 p.m. on my 10th birthday in 1956. Within a few hours five people in Bonavista made me pine for home. At last (as I type this), big wheels keep on turnin’, carrying me not “home to meet my kin”, but to my new home where folks are just like the folks where I lived in my younger years. The skies are no more blue than in Toronto. The difference being that in Bonavista you can actually see the sky and watch the sun pop above the horizon (for horizon it is, being over the Atlantic Ocean) and set beyond that welcoming ridge.

StarGarden - Lullabeene

Now you know what Bonavista sounds like. From my driveway I can hear waves lapping on the shore in the moonlight, people walking to the store or the library, and cars moving at idling speed (no gas pedal needed) through town. Garbage is collected Wednesday mornings only (not 04:30 through to 23:30 six days a week on my block alone). Stars twinkle at night. There is time to chat with anyone in the store. The checkout lady says “I didn’t see you in church Sunday”, and the Town Hall knows that you were “up at the RCMP” the previous evening before you can complete your initial sentence (of introduction!).

Rest calm.

Sleep easy.