Quote:
Originally Posted by leon
Once again i have read your story with interest. 
Alex what an effort,  especially for you, a younger fitter person would find it difficult to keep up, so well done mate, you are amazing. 
Stay well my friend.
Leon |
Thanks Leon...and thanks for giving me an opportunity to go on a rant..you must know by now.
I spent some time yesterday reflecting on some of the things I have done, that really were over the top, when I was younger, that, when I recall I find difficult to think that I was the person doing all these things.
But I then started to think of my influences and the people in my life who provided the examples of greatness that I could try to apply to various situations in my life that demanded just so much more than what we grow up with to regard as normal.
I had a few..my grandfather was a man's man strong and silent capable of so much.
He was a genuine hero stepping forward when every one else backed down against an aggressor..there is a story which I shall not tell only because I think I have told it before here if not you are in for a treat one day..but let me say it is why I will step up when everyone else is running away...his influence.
He was a dairy farmer but started out as a cane cutter which explained why he was unusually strong and an unstopableworker. He fell off the windcmill once ( its the sotta thing you dont do twice) and broke his collar bone but after getting his breath went backnup to finish the job..it had to be done or the cows would have no water...cut out a bad tooth with his pen knife..probably too poor to see a dentist..I reckon you could have hit him in the face with a house brick and he would be concerned that something was bothering you and try to help you out..
Then there was my master solicitor who was the Director of Man Power in the second World War who after a outstanding career as a leading academic retired and thought it would be helpful for his Sons legal practice if he studied law qualified as a solicitor when most others were giving up bowls cause of their old age maladies. I started working for him when he was 91 years old.
If I asked him about a legal problem he would tell me which book to look in , the page number the paragraph and the sub section..now just think of the number of law books in a legal office and realise he did not study these until he had retired...he taught me humility and not to show folk how much you know...and to never lose..we had a case where our client did not give way to the driver on the right the other car hit him and took out three shop fronts being driven off course... now I thought it was hopeless but he pointed
out that the other driver must havecbeen speeding andcas such our client could not be regarded as negligent...on the other side we had the same insurance company andctheir lawyer thought he had an unlosable case so he brought two of the insurance company head dudes to watch how good he was..big mistake..he got woppedbyva 91 year old man who refused to lose...he is always with me...he took me under his wing and taught me so much that losing or giving up is just is not in my vocabulary. He was together right up to the moment he died and I was privelledged to see him only hours before he went...I am in tears ...thats ok but doesn't mean I am weak I know he would be proud of how I have used my life.
The saying talk quietly and carry a big stick was written by someone I expect inspired by that man..
However the chap who really showed me an approach way past normality I met when he came to me with a legal matter and we became good friends.
He lived a life style I had never been exposed to and frankly have never since since.
He really had no money in terms of assets like real estate or shares but lived as if he was a millionaire.
He would say I buy what I want then work out how I will pay for...mmm should have gone into government.
Always a tenant he rented all his homes..one time after moving to a nice home in Wahroongah a well to do Suburb in Northern Sydney he invited my wife and I for dinner to show off his new maid who served us pre dinner drinks and our meal as if in an English castle.
He later moved to a five acre property at Turramurra with tennis court, stables, and pool..a Merc and a mustang for his cars and a cabin cruiser down at Bobin Head.
When I first met him he held down two jobs as a real estate salesman at two separate offices, one in Hornsby and one at Bankstown neither knew he worked elsewhere...at night he ran a cleaning business and one night I went with him to help as his worker had a car accident that day and he really needed help..that was my first lesson in being super human..we started with a little shopping centre at Berowra then off to a floor of offices at Turramurra and the last a big one... the bowling alley at Rockdale on the other side of the city ..he dropped me home at 4 am and both he and I were in our respective offices at 9 am having had a good morning sleep off mere hours...he did this day in day out.
I would say to him things like...
..you know a pest inspection business would be easy to put together all you need is a clip board and a white coat..-that sort of thing and explain what you needed in effect..I knew simply from observing various clients in all sorts of enterprises...and I mentioned a cleaning products business, a lonely hearts club and others over time that I can't now remember..well usually the very next day he would turn up with business cards, letter head a set of books ready to go and in the white coat with clip board ...whatever ...saying ok give me some pest inspections...the lonely hearts thing he went off and rented two floors in the city and in no time had his club packed...sold it for good money to repay the creditors ..another time he got into repossesing cars..we would ( the four of us ..wives included here) be going out to dinner in the city someplace and he would throw a u turn and off after a car calling at his wife to check his list ..full on...-we were lucky he never found one while we were with him but let me say both he and his wife were characters that you could not even find in the movies.
Then there was the guy who wanted me as a partner in his "cleaning business". He knew I was competent with franchises as I had got a name for it in a small way, but that is a whole other story. He had a huge annual turn over...so his deal was he would do a letter box drop and adds in the local paper for a particular area offering house cleaning...the phone would ring and he would book the new client in give them the price over the phone etc..so he filled the diary names addresses prices times..at the same time he ran an add in the Sydney Morning Herald ..cleaning business for sale..$4000 whatever...so I go to his house to watch him deal with a buyer..he spends like two hours having the potential buyer clean his house all the while showing him how to be efficient the products etc and at the end take $4000 and hand him the diary and a box of bottles...he never saw any of those houses he booked in..week in week out ..city to city.
I know so many ways to make big money real quick from all these folk I have watched.
It's not easy..it's very easy.
All these folk who I have been priveledged to get to know taught me there are the ordinary people who do ordinary things and then there are these people that you could write a book about or make a movie and their tales would seem fictional.
And of course my late father, my best mate he was, no tears when thinking of him they don't help you function...so quiet meek and mild you could be decived to think he was a wimp..but pull his chain and believe me no one would stand against him.. his very presence was just unbelievable..when he spoke every one stopped to listen ..commanded respect like no one else I have ever seen..when he spoke he would immediately become leader of the enterprise of the folk assembled for that particular meeting...leadership would be thrust upon him where others chased it...But he is with me even now and my biggest joy is that he was proud of me and loved hearing of my adventures...we were so much alike..you probably dont think of me this way but I am a very quiet person in many respects..I only ever talk here really...I keep everything to myself but here strangley.
Happily I now have a list of tales that will only seem like fiction that I can fall back on telling on rainy days like today.
I hope some of you enjoy these yarns and to those who shake their heads and resent my prescence remember part of the reason I write my stuff is to remind folk that there are people in the world like me and there is a world outside the one you perhaps regard as the norm...and most of all be careful who you judge or underestimate.
Don't forget to vote..I am voting for no more rain.
Alex
