I was
a little dubious as I knew some of the boys from the Agricultural School…
Actually, I was convinced it was going to be awful and that there would most
likely be some minor sexual harassment on the dance floor.
And
then we walked in… There were hay bales placed in decorative piles, the boys
were wearing school uniforms and worse, worst of all, country music was
playing.
That
was the beginning and the end of our indoor group socialising. From then on in
– we took it outside.
Cut to
later that year…
I’m at
a ‘house’ party, (and by house I mean I am standing in a paddock). I am
standing around with the same boys from said Agricultural School and the
potential for minor sexual harassment has now crossed over into reality.
There
is nothing quite so romantic as getting felt up in a paddock behind a cow shed
while the temperature hits an extreme high of four degrees.
When
people think of growing up in the country, I am sure they imagine horse riding,
milking cows and breathing a lot of fresh air, but for me, I look back and
think of riding illegally in cars, getting drunk in paddocks, smoking weed in
public parks and sleeping in (or getting felt up behind) shearing sheds.
For
someone who grew up ‘in town,’ I sure did spend a lot of time in the great
outdoors (well… paddocks). We camped without a tent, lay by fires, wrapped ourselves
up in sleeping bags or sat around drinking goon when we’d told our parents we’d
gone to the movies.
During
Year 12, my entire year camped out on the Sports Captain’s paddock. Think
ninety teenagers, several utes, a few tents, bolts of tarpaulin and me trying desperately
to keep warm in a sleeping bag on the wet ground.
Even
though we constantly complained that living in the country was boring and there
was nothing to do, we entertained ourselves by wandering through the bush or
sitting by campfires watching shooting stars or kissing that cute boy we
fancied.
Despite
all that time spent freezing my proverbial off in paddocks, I wouldn’t trade
any of it. Paddocks became something of a place for us, our place. A place to
explore, to conquer, to escape into…
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