THREE WISHES

I had to write an essay on three wishes. I did not find much inspiration in it until the eleventh hour. And even then- So here goes-

Health, wealth and happiness. That's my three wishes. There could not possibly be anything else. End of essay! Then I thought that health and wealth are obvious but happiness is a vast field. It varies from person to person. A partner in life to share the highs and nurse each other through the lows. Family, friends and very importantly an interest. Gardening, odd-jobbing, exercising- a walk around the block of a morning or a super marathon around Oz. Whatever floats your boat and gives you a sense of achievement, satisfaction and a reason to get out of bed in the morning. That's happiness.

As a shedder I've seen some intricate and beautiful pieces of woodwork made by members -their satisfaction must translate into happiness. Barry, our resident(?) cook, prepares lunches for a lot of shedders who may not cook at home or even have anyone at home. They sit around with company, chatting and enjoying their lunches. That's satisfaction for Barry and the diners. Some people get happiness doing charity work, donating perhaps the greatest gift of all- their time.

Which leads me to a true story about an event that led to satisfaction and happiness to all concerned- a lot later- years later.

Christmas eve 1960, my wife Heather had to work serving in an Italian restaurant in Footscray. I drove her in with ten-month-old baby Julie in a bassinet on the rear seat. I dropped Heather off, arranged to pick her up at midnight and returned home.

The rot started to set in when Chooky, my Air Force mate, dropped by about ten o'clock. "What's happening?" He asked.

"Baby-sitting," I told him.

"The beer-hall on the Base is partyin'," he said. "Let's go."

"Okay," I dropped a bottle in the bassinet with Julie and we drove off to our baby-sitters, Dot and Wal. I'd occasionally taken Julie to the beerhall and shoved her bassinet under the table. If she stirred I'd feed her the bottle but tonight the beer hall would be rowdy and may disturb her and being a good dad I didn't want her stirred up. Stirred, she's not a lot of fun!

"Got any money," Chooky asked.

"Heather gave me some money for petrol," I said. "But I've got a quarter of a tank so we'll be right."

We arrived at Dot and Wal's place but all the lights were out. Odd, they're usually up late watching TV through to the end of the test pattern. I sneaked in their back door and heard them snoring. Back to the car, I carried Julie into the house, their bedroom door was ajar so I fed the bottle to Julie and slid the bassinet into Dot and Wal's bedroom. I hastily decamped.

Chooky and I partied in the beer-hall until nearly midnight. Earlier we had checked the car fuel gauge and decided the car had enough fuel so we spent the money on drinkies. We were running late, didn't have time to pick up Julie so we drove into Footscray to pick up Heather. "Where's Julie," she asked.

"Dot and Wal are minding her."

"That's kind of them," Heather said. "They didn't mind?"

"Nah." Well, that's the truth.

The Italian restaurant was booming so we stayed for a little while before heading off with Heather.

Half way home the car stopped. "What's wrong?" Heather asked. I checked the fuel gauge, it showed empty.

"You didn't put petrol in it, did you?"

I thought that was a very unkind thing to say. Accurate but unkind.

Where we stopped was agricultural. No doors to knock on. No passing traffic. Just a horse hanging over a fence watching us. Chooky and I walked over and patted it. It seemed friendly enough. We climbed the fence and as we approached it, it galloped to the other end of the paddock. We ran after it and it galloped back to the front fence. I think we did this a couple of times. Chooky and I worked out two things: the rotten thing had been bored, now it had playmates and it could run faster than us. We climbed back over the fence and the horse whinnied sadly. I wondered what John Wayne would have done?

I can't remember why we were chasing the horse around the paddock. I think we were going to ride it to a service station and get fuel. Obviously that didn't happen. Sadly, I can't remember how we sorted out our problem. Maybe someone stopped and helped us. Heather said she can't remember. I think she chose to forget the whole incident.

Years later I wondered what my wife was thinking watching me and an equally stupid drunk chase a horse around a paddock in the wee hours. I'll bet she wasn't thinking proudly: that's my husband for the rest of my life.

Heather does remember picking up baby Julie in the morning.

Dot said. "Thank heavens! I thought that Santa had left me another baby." She already had three children.

To summarise: Daughter Julie, now sixty four has grown up enjoying good health, and is getting, if not wealthy, very comfortable and seems to be happy with her life and slightly different parents. Second daughter, Michelle: ditto. Heather and I have achieved a good age so we must be healthy. And that makes us happy. We have had our three wishes fulfilled.

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