Singer treadle trauma (C8) is no big deal, reckons Merilyn McClung of Forestville: “Nothing flustered that generation. My grandmother, 103 years old at the time, was talking to me on her landline from the kitchen of her rural property when suddenly she said she’d call me back. When she did, she explained a snake had been looking at her from the top of her fridge and she had to deal with it. I didn’t dare ask how she dealt with it.”
“Ah yes, the old manual exchanges,” reminisces David Swain of Glenhaven. “When I was a boy, we were connected to the rest of the world via a manual exchange at Carroll, a small village between Tamworth and Gunnedah. It only operated nine to five, five days a week. My father told of a time when a family member in Tamworth was trying to reach us early. She could hear the operators: ‘Hello this is Tamworth. I’m trying to get Carroll.’ ‘This is Gunnedah. You won’t get Carroll at this time, Carroll is milking at this time’.”
“On the subject of Bex powders [C8], a cool trick way back in my youth was to carefully undo the folded paper they came in and roll it into a tube,” instructs Roger Lenehan of Eagle Heights (Qld). “With a lit match held at one end, and the other end in one’s mouth, blowing the contents through the flame made a spectacular, though short-lived, flamethrower. Not sure where I got the Bex from, though, as my family were Aspro users.” And here’s hoping you took Bill Clinton’s advice and didn’t inhale.
Barry Galbraith of Cranebrook explains: “The sawdust [C8] was on the butcher shop floor so that in the event of accidentally dropping a cut of meat on the floor, it couldn’t be put back on the shelf. These days you’d never know.”
“Can we create a moniker for Trump in the vein of Ivan the Terrible?” asks Donna Wiemann of Balmain. “Surely Column-8ers can nail it. Maybe Donald the Detestable, Donald the Doomsdayer, or Trump the Tyrannical? Over to you Granny.”
Speaking of the Trumps, Viv Munter of Tumbi Umbi agrees that Melania’s bright yellow sheath dress worn to the State banquet (C8) was pure fashion folly. “She would have earned my total admiration and respect, however, if she’d swapped the mauve belt for azure as per the official colours of the Ukrainian flag.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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