my outback version:
no shoes at school
23 kids at school total...grades 1 - 7
Two teachers....then only one...
Then then new teachers daughter
Sports days against the next town...100klms away.
Driving home from a that town to realise we are missing one brother....hoping someone else found him and gave him a lift..and of course they did.
The swing the big kids use on the river...finally getting the courage to jump for it...missed...belly flop.
No part of the river deeper than me. Until it floods...then it's real deep and miles across.
Grocery deliveries once every two weeks.
Corrugations in the dirt roads rattling your teeth as you ride your...uh oh ...lifting your feet above your head as you ride your Malvern Star dragster (with 3 gears on the crossbar) over a big brown snake...dead snake....phew!
No TV...none...no reception.
Walking home in the dark..really, really dark.
Stars...wow...the stars !
River water for everything but drinking.
The taste of tank water. The tingle of electricity when you drink from the copper tap...an earth leak maybe?
Eating grapefruit and mangoes from your own trees.
Collecting agates...visiting opal mines, hoping to find the big black one!
Playing golf on a sand golf course, teeing up your ball on a "burr"....dragging the sump oiled sand of the "green" flat....which was black.
Camping at the yabbie hole, trying to stop your little brother from getting scared...then you hear some wild pigs
Catching Yellowbelly, Blackbrim and catfish. Swallowing a lead sinker and being given castor oil to "remove" it
Jelly Tips, By-Jingo's and whizz-fizz.
The 20c piece superglued to the footpath outside the general store.
Bush fires....Bedouries (dust storms)..the smell of the mulga in winter......
sigh....