Re: Pat Ritter. Books
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2015 9:39 pm
'His Life Worth Living' - Page 14:
A few days later I found work at a place called Kia Ora near Gympie. The train journey took six hours, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles. I met my future boss driving a Ford Truck. I'd never seen a vehicle like this before. An old truck with a wooden floor and sides, wooden seat and a plank of wood about two feet long which jutted out each side so four passengers fitted. The hood, a canopy sheltered the driver and passengers with a curved wooden shield in front. No windscreen and travelled at speed of twenty to twenty-five miles per hour. The journey most exhilarating.
We arrived before dark and shown my quarters, a wooden extension of the garage, which housed the truck. The walls weatherboard unlined and roof weatherboard. A narrow bed and mattress and some blankets, no sheets. My work started next day making cases for bananas, yes; I worked on a banana farm. Other work, chipping weeds on the banana plantation and chopping firewood for the kitchen stove. That stove had an appetite; the missus of the place insisted she only wanted scrub oak. To get this I drove a horse and cart about half a mile, fell a tree, chopped into sections and loaded the wood onto the cart and returned to the farm. Over the next few weeks, I chopped each section into pieces cut to an exact length to fit into the stove.
I never used a hoe on or before this time so the boss showed me how to use these tools. Sometime later, I worked away on another property and someone remarked, 'you're left-handed'. I denied this and told this person the boss showed me how to do the job. He ed and repeated I was left-handed. Ever since then I have been ambidextrous. I learned to milk cows, this was easy except when the cow moved and kicked the bucket over. No bails to secure the cow, just squat down beside her and milk. Both cows were very quiet. I remarked to the boss one day the season was autumn because a huge gum tree had no leaves. He looked at me strangely and said the tree had been ringbarked and been dead for years. Stupid me.
TO DOWNLOAD THIS BOOK: CLICK HERE: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/591980.
A few days later I found work at a place called Kia Ora near Gympie. The train journey took six hours, a distance of about one hundred and twenty miles. I met my future boss driving a Ford Truck. I'd never seen a vehicle like this before. An old truck with a wooden floor and sides, wooden seat and a plank of wood about two feet long which jutted out each side so four passengers fitted. The hood, a canopy sheltered the driver and passengers with a curved wooden shield in front. No windscreen and travelled at speed of twenty to twenty-five miles per hour. The journey most exhilarating.
We arrived before dark and shown my quarters, a wooden extension of the garage, which housed the truck. The walls weatherboard unlined and roof weatherboard. A narrow bed and mattress and some blankets, no sheets. My work started next day making cases for bananas, yes; I worked on a banana farm. Other work, chipping weeds on the banana plantation and chopping firewood for the kitchen stove. That stove had an appetite; the missus of the place insisted she only wanted scrub oak. To get this I drove a horse and cart about half a mile, fell a tree, chopped into sections and loaded the wood onto the cart and returned to the farm. Over the next few weeks, I chopped each section into pieces cut to an exact length to fit into the stove.
I never used a hoe on or before this time so the boss showed me how to use these tools. Sometime later, I worked away on another property and someone remarked, 'you're left-handed'. I denied this and told this person the boss showed me how to do the job. He ed and repeated I was left-handed. Ever since then I have been ambidextrous. I learned to milk cows, this was easy except when the cow moved and kicked the bucket over. No bails to secure the cow, just squat down beside her and milk. Both cows were very quiet. I remarked to the boss one day the season was autumn because a huge gum tree had no leaves. He looked at me strangely and said the tree had been ringbarked and been dead for years. Stupid me.
TO DOWNLOAD THIS BOOK: CLICK HERE: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/591980.