Back in the city, worried about the end, nursing the wounds of age. The doctor says I have an 800% higher risk than normal of having a stroke on my current blood pressure, so I've just had to do a battery of blood tests. Going to start walking to work, doing healthy things, eating better, all that stuff. I never worried about any of these things, never expected to live beyond 30, astonished still about being marooned in the future. Now I'm not that keen to say goodbye.
The world was going to end in the 1970s, and everything backed up the prophecy; the decay of moral standards, the Beetles, who came to Australia all those years ago, were a definite sign of the decay of civilisation, the collapse of moral standards. All those days, they seemed like eternities, parked outside the barber shop, my mother begging me to just go in and get a haircut, what did it matter. Because she knew my father would thrash me, and we were all sick of the thrashings.
In contrast to some childhoods it wasn't so bad, just a nightmare against the deep green of the landscape, frozen and frightened of the big man; but it all spills down the generations, the genetic predisposition to heart attacks, to addiction, the silence of the poor white trash, the lack of engagement, the conviction that whatever was happening out there, it was not for your benefit. So live quietly, simply, cheaply, stay calm and extend your life.
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