Dunedin, New Zealand, my city - my people

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Thursday thumbnails...

Cook up...
Tonight is the Thursday night in the month when my wife goes to a women's tea. I go home via the supermarket. I generally buy some steak for tea and some specialty beer. I have a nice strong dark beer tonight. I cook my goodies up and enjoy my meal listening to either country music or old music... tonight is "Solid Gold Sixties". I have the house to myself so I can have the music loud.
North East Valley Church of Christ Table Tennis club.
I am listening to songs like "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" (Manfred Mann) "A whiter shade of pale" (Procol Harum) "To sir with Love" (Lulu) "Oh Pretty Woman" (Roy Orbison) etc. As I listened to them My mind went back to a Church hall in North East Valley. We had a youth group there. It all happened probably about 1962 -63 when my brother and I and a couple of mates (we were quite young teenagers) decided we would start a table tennis club in the church hall. My dad had told us if we wanted a club then we should stop griping and do something about it. He helped us get timber and knock up frames with hard board on (the balls never bounced really good on them) and buy or resurrect the cheapest nets we could get and bats with sand paper on them! (Good grief) He asked a distant relative who in his youth was a table tennis champion to come and teach us the game. So started the North East Valley Church of Christ Table Tennis club. There were to be no girls, just us guys on a Saturday night playing table tennis. Well that didn't last long and we had girls coming along. There was a hasty meeting of the church elders and a man was appointed to come to the club to chaperone the activities of the club. We branched out into various other games. We played Table Cricket.... a great game. We had various other social games which gave an excuse for the boys to have girls sitting on their knee. The club grew. Members from other denominations, and no denominations would come, it expanded till regularly our numbers each Saturday night went to around the 40's. We had supper each night, the minister would come in and take some sort of devotions and after that we would get out a little portable record player and play these songs. We sometimes jived a bit but mostly just listened, laughed, and sang. ... until the neighbours complained about the noise and the elders visited us to have a chat. (Compared to today's noises our little single speaker turntable and 45 RPM records made very little sound. ) We often gravitated together and wandered the neighbourhood as a gang after lunch on Sunday afternoon. There was an older lady who sometimes would make mouse traps and have us for Sunday evenings. (Mouse traps were bread with marmite and cheese on, toasted under a grill) When my Dad died in March 1964 one night between death and funeral this same lady invited the teen Brown kids for an evening and invited all our youth group mates and we just sat amongst our friends and felt their awkward love. None of them (like most adults for that matter) knew what to say, but they were there for us. It was special. This 60's music brings back the memories of that club. It was special.
Chaplaincy talks and calls.
This week I have not been feeling 100%. I have been fighting the flu but have never got bad enough to stop working. I can't tell you what the conversations and phone calls were all about but I have had heaps of "in-depth" conversations with people. I have felt that people have accepted me and seen me as someone they can talk with. I have come home each day exhausted and worked consistently from morning till dark, but it has felt worth while. That has been good for me, even though some of the stories I have listened to are sad and demand further follow up action. I have felt useful to real people, not just keeping an out of date institution alive. Long may this last.
Christmas Day dinner...
I have started to send out invitations for our Community Christmas Day dinner. Today I got news that Marlow Pies bakery company have agreed to cook our 26 legs of lamb again this year. That is always a relief to know. It will happen. I better get on with my work, it is 8:35p.m. and I have phone calls to make. Life is OK at the moment.

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