The current pets on planes (C8) chat goes far beyond cats and dogs, as evidenced by the experience of Margaret Hollè of Woollahra: “As a young hostie in the ’60s before much scrutiny on hand luggage, a young man had a moving sugar bag at his feet. ‘You haven’t got kittens in there?’ I asked. ‘Oh no,’ he replied ‘It’s only a snake’.”
“While travelling from Barquisimeto in Venezuela many years ago I was startled mid-flight when I heard what, I thought, was a rooster crowing and chooks clucking coming from a nearby locker,” reports Merilyn McClung of Forestville. “The locals, seeing my bemusement, opened the locker to show me the flyers nesting comfortably with a newly laid egg.”
Some carry-ons can lead to a right carry on. Just ask Geoff Carey of Pagewood: “Boarding a flight in Chimbu, PNG, in the 1980s, once buckled-in, a fully loaded coffin was slid down the aisle of the Twin Otter. Accompanied by the grieving family, it began as a challenging flight only to be further complicated by the onset of air turbulence, which sent the coffin sliding up and down the aisle until the flight attendant put out a well-timed foot to stop it.”
“Bernie Carberry’s story about DA [C8] aficionado Mercy Sister Mary Bernard caught my eye,” writes Robert Jurd of Collaroy. “My kindergarten (1958) teacher at St Philomena’s, Moree was a Sister Bernard. My recollections recall a demure, fair but firm lady. Was Bernie’s Aunty (and my mentor), one and the same? I only ever saw her drink water, or the free milk supplied by the government.”
After Peter Cole (C8) proffered “remember them?” regarding public phones, Leonie Barrett of Tantawangalo wrote in for the first time: “Public phones still exist and are still needed. Especially in rural areas. Few people seem to realise they’re free to ring anywhere in Australia. Help save the remaining public phones by making a quick call to friends or family whenever you see one, or Telstra will say nobody is using them, and we’ll lose them forever.”
Malcolm Johnson of Alstonville has bulk memories of 1970s wine (C8) habitude: “We would purchase red wine in 54 gallon barrels from Rosetto’s Winery, Griffith, collecting it at Springwood station. It was then bottled in long neck beer bottles and crown sealed at 17 cents per bottle. All this ended when casks were invented. Probably saved our livers.”
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