DAVE WHEELER’S THOUGHTS AND YARNS
This site is non-fiction and has the objective of collecting mainly Canberra/Queanbeyan and districts-based yarns and essays, be they historic, humorous or other, as well as yarns and essays regarding other places I have visited, mostly from the perspective of me, a Canberra boy of 1952 vintage. It also gives me a chance to rave about whatever I feel like. Some of these yarns were not written by me.
When I use the term "yarns", I am not referring to tall stories, as the anecdotes/essays are all true and can mostly be proven as true by living witnesses.
To read what I have collected you can begin by simply scrolling down until you come to the last post I published entitled, "A Canberra boy defends Bruce Lee." Or, as you scroll down you can read the list of 44 anecdote/essay titles, and you can click on the link below any of those titles you wish to read.
You can also download and read free of charge or a need to obtain personal information a 200 page book I wrote entitled, "Tales of a CanberraBoy," by clicking on the appropriate window directly above. This also applies to another book I wrote entitled “A Rationalist's Guide to Life” which can be accessed by clicking on the window next to it.
I rarely post anecdotes nowadays due to my having too many other interests, such as my desire to continue to explore the nature of reality. As I age I find myself distancing myself from society. I prefer to observe the workings of humans and the rest of the observable universe in the same detached way David Attenborough observes what he regards as the natural world. Generally speaking, I spend most of my time savouring life’s simple available pleasures while humanity destroys itself. Make hay while the sun shines!
I reiterate; if you wish to read any of the specific anecdotes/essays that have been written click on any of the following links. Alternatively, you can simply scroll down and read some of the yarns that have appeared after this introduction. Why the blogger.com system has tacked the last lot of posts onto the last post without my authority is beyond my simple hunter gatherer brain’s capacity to understand.
(Within my yarns and essays I sometimes change into coloured italics like I am doing now in order to clarify what I have been saying or to tell a connected yarn within the anecdote/essay I am writing. I change back to normal type when I return to the original yarn).
INDEX OF FACTUAL YARNS AND ESSAYS
(Within my yarns and essays I sometimes change into coloured italics like I am doing now in order to clarify what I have been saying or to tell a connected yarn within the anecdote/essay I am writing. I change back to normal type when I return to the original yarn).
INDEX OF FACTUAL YARNS AND ESSAYS
1/ "A Wartime Crash or Crash-Landing on Mount Ainslie"
2/ "The Establishment of the Turner PCYC"
3/ "She Pushed Herself onto Me"
4/ "Teenage Queen"
5/ "A Fight to the death at the Queanbeyan Showground"
6/ "Robyn From Narrabundah"
Click-http://acanberraboy.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/robyn-from-narrabundah-by-wayne-riley.html
7/ "Paper Boys at a Canberra Newsagent in 1967"
8/ "Canberra Bouncers, Canberra Coppers and an Incident at the Kingo on Xmas Eve of 2011"
9/ "Dickson High Kids Lost in the Mountains in 1975"
10/ "Legalised Child abuse at schools in the Canberra District during the 20'th Century"
11/ "Crace-Canberra's Newest Slum or an Urban Paradise?"
12/ “A Bad Mistake on Mt Majura"
13/ Tony Quinn’s, “A Canberra Boy’s adventures in Thailand”
14/ “A Canberra Boy on an Auckland Building Site"
15/ “The Flower Man"
16/ "A Night With a Dangerous Canberra Cult"
17/ “Give Me Back My Butterfly Swords!"
18/ “A Canberra Boy in Lord Howe Island"
19/“The Search For The Cave on Black Mountain"
20/ “The Murder of Poor Horace Aiken and little Albert Pettet"
21/ “Coonamble Yarns"
22/ “Has Shane Rattenbury Sold his Arse?"
23/ “The Funeral of Alan "Scottie" Sutherland" and "Canberra's old rollers."
24/ “Did Joel Monaghan get a fair go?”
25/ “A Canberra boy visits Jerangle."
26/ A Canberra boy visits Bathurst, the birthplace of Lieutenant Peter Joseph Handcock, a Scapegoat of the Empire.
27/ Dave Wheeler’s youtube videos.
28/ Canberra boys visit Condobolin in 1965-Gold Fever
29/ A Canberra boy receives a hard blow to the head.
30/A Canberra boy reflects on his escapes.
31/A Canberra boy visits a block of ACT Government flats.
32/ Two Canberra boys visit the Philippines
33/ A Canberra boy gets arrested.
34/ Lights out at the Canberra Rex.
35/ A Canberra boy visits a non-existent Casino in Queanbeyan in 1975.
36/ A Canberra boy forwards a 1939 postcard to Mosman and its connection to the Acton Guest House
37/ A Canberra boy experiences altered states of consciousness at the Civic YMCA and in doing so makes an arse of himself twice in one day
38/ A Canberra boy experiences two unfortunate events, one after the other, in one morning.
39/ A Canberra boy recounts an event that occurred while he worked as the ACT RSPCA Inspector in the 80’s.
40/Canberra boys at Commonwealth Park in the mid to late 70’s.
http://acanberraboy.blogspot.com/2018/10/canberra-boys-at-commonwealth-park-in.html
41/A Canberra boy holds up the Riverina Express
https://acanberraboy.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-canberra-boy-holds-up-riverina-express.html
42/A Canberra boy goes for a Sunday drive along Smiths road.
https://acanberraboy.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-canberra-boy-goes-for-sunday-drive.html
http://acanberraboy.blogspot.com/2018/10/canberra-boys-at-commonwealth-park-in.html
41/A Canberra boy holds up the Riverina Express
https://acanberraboy.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-canberra-boy-holds-up-riverina-express.html
42/A Canberra boy goes for a Sunday drive along Smiths road.
https://acanberraboy.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-canberra-boy-goes-for-sunday-drive.html
43/ A Canberra boy visits Corryong. and Citroen Traction Avants
https://acanberraboy.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-canberra-boy-visits-corryong-and.html
https://acanberraboy.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-canberra-boy-visits-corryong-and.html
44/ A Canberra boy defends Bruce Lee
A CANBERRA BOY DEFENDS BRUCE LEEby Dave Wheeler
Before discussing this true anecdote, which resulted in the use of unnecessary physical violence, I would like to say I enjoy a good debate, but only if the subject is of interest and/or of use to me, and only if each party enters the debate with an open mind and resulting willingness to discard previous beliefs if presented with convincing contrary evidence and/or reasoning. The objective of debate should be to attempt to find the truth or probable truth and nothing else. In other words, each party should not be so egotistical or tribal that he/she is unwilling to accept the reality of being checkmated by way of reasoning and/or evidence. To argue with someone who does not have that objective is usually a waste of time.
On top of that, I prefer to use an ancient debating technique involving paraphrasing one's opponent's arguments to the satisfaction of one's opponent before putting forward your own argument or counter argument.
Very few people have the guts to enter a debate in that manner because it means each side is forced to understand the other side's arguments thoroughly, which renders both parties unable to steer the debate away from the issue at hand when the opposing and convincing reasoning or the presented evidence does not support their stance. It means the side that comes up with the evidence and/or reasoning that is absolute and watertight will display having performed the checkmate in such a way his/her opponent is forced to consciously recognise having been checkmated.
And it is possible to checkmate someone with reasoning and/or evidence even if the presented evidence and/or reasoning shows probability as opposed to an absolute victory for the checkmating side.
Most people are scared shitless by the paraphrasing system because it threatens their ego and risks having their cherished beliefs torn to shreds before their conscious minds in a way they cannot consciously escape.
Not name-calling, ridiculing or insulting one's opponent or one's opponent's ideas or beliefs while debating is also of course a necessity, ie one should not label one's opponent as crazy left wing, PC, woke, or on the other side, faschist, loony right, neo Nazi, reactionary, etc. It's lazy debating.
One must keep one's cool, like a boxer should keep his cool to maintain control, and he/she should attack one's opponent's arguments and not one's opponent, as debate has a contrary objective to boxing even if the state-of-mind should be the same. When one loses one's temper while either boxing or debating one gives oneself a colossal handicap.
Getting back to arguments that are useless, I was once at a mate's house when he and his wife began discussing what they would do if they won a lot of money in a lottery, a very common discussion. My mate immediately suggested he would give a certain amount of the money to his brother. His wife immediately objected because she did not like his brother.
The argument about what they would do with money they did not have was starting to get heated until I interrupted and pointed out how ridiculous what they were doing was.
Another one of my eccentric/mad mates told me he had an extremely heated debate with his brother-in-law which almost came to blows. The subject of the debate revolved around the implications surrounding the amount of shit one has on one's toilet paper after one wipes one's arse.
His brother-in-law believed that when little or no shit appeared on the paper after defecation it was a sign of having eaten a good diet, a diet which promotes good health.
My mate did not agree, probably because he always had shit on the toilet paper he used after defecation and he thought he was eating a very good diet.
I suppose it was a subject of debate that was more useful than what to do with a lottery win one did not have and was highly unlikely to ever have, but they could have argued in a controlled non-emotional way and maybe something could have been learnt by one or both of them.
One heated argument that did become physical came about sometime in the early to mid 70's. It was between another eccentric/mad mate of mine called Lizard when he was 16, and an elderly suitor of his mum who was in his sixties.
(Lizard is about 5 years younger than me. I haven't seen him for years. I hope he still has a pulse).
As a background to the argument, Lizard had his dad die on him when he was 13, a time in life when most boys really need a father’s support. His mum was still young enough to consider remarrying, and she had several suitors for a few years after her husband's death. But, Lizard had not liked any of them at the time of the event I will describe. He probably quite rightly thought nobody could replace his dad, and as a result he did not want his mum to hook up with anyone else. Lizard was a real obstacle to anyone who wished to court his mum.
One particular suitor his mum had, who I will call William, was in his early sixties and not short of a quid. He was also in a position of power, as he had a large number of staff under him. He was used to giving orders and not taking them, and was also accustomed to people brown-nosing to him and not talking back.
He would call on Lizard’s mum regularly. Lizard and his mum lived in a nice house in the Canberra suburb of Forrest.
One weekend, while Lizard's mum was in the kitchen, Lizard and William were in the lounge room by themselves watching TV. They did not have deep and meaningful conversations, because, as I have said, Lizard did not like William and the feeling was mutual.
Something on the TV came up about Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali, which resulted in William stating that Ali would destroy Bruce Lee in a street fight. Lizard replied in a contemptuous and disrespectful manner with words something like, "That's ridiculous! Ali would not have a hope against Bruce Lee!".
That got William very angry. He did not like anyone disagreeing with him, particularly a 16 year old kid. And more so because he objected to the way Lizard was disagreeing with him. Lizard was talking to him like he was one of his idiot peers, ridiculing him for thinking that someone like Ali would have any hope at all of beating Bruce Lee. William thought he deserved more respect.
The argument continued and it got more and more heated. They started pushing each other, and it eventually came to blows. The fight stopped only after Lizard's mum came into the lounge room after hearing raised voices and crashing sounds as the furniture was moved around.
By the time she came in the fight had gone to ground. They were grappling, rolling around on the lounge room carpet and bumping into things. She screamed at them, telling them to stop fighting, which they eventually did.
William was way past his prime and he did little to no exercise. As a result he desperately tried to catch his breath after all the action and made noises like a steam train taking off from a station. He probably came close to having a heart attack.
While William attempted to get his breath back Lizard shouted at him, "You're nothing but a stupid old bastard!" William screamed back at Lizard in the presence of Lizard's mum, "I'm not going to be spoken to like that by a boy!" He then stormed out the front door and the relationship came to a rapid end.
I'm not sure how many relationships of his mum's Lizard wrecked, but she eventually found another good husband, a widower whose kids had grown up. He was a well-known Canberran who had a lot to do with the Berra's pre and post war development.
Lizard also liked him, although of course he could not replace his dad.
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