Perth is a funny old place really, it has a certain character that brings to mind bore water staining, 'boondies', bull ants and the ubiquitous bogan.
To the visitor, many parts of Perth must appear as though they are rusting - fences, walls, kerbing and indeed, whole primary schools. As a kid I remember feeling quite repulsed by bore water stains and I would often wonder why people used this water if it turned everything a rusty brown.
I think the underlying love affair with bore water is the Perthite's need to defy the odds and maintain their little patches of green in suburbia. Essentially, most of us live on a large sand dune and by rights we shouldn't have lawns at all - But tell that to a Perth person and you're nothing but a savage. The dryest state in Australia? To hell with it - pass me my Pope sprinkler and let me go to work! While Melbourne lawns are left to die in summer due to water restrictions, over here it's all systems go.
Speaking of sand dunes, Perth is also the home of the 'boondie' - hardened pockets of sand (mainly of the yellow variety) that are thrown like snow balls. I have a bad memory of being hit in the eye with a supposed 'boondie' that turned out to be a real rock covered in yellow sand. I've been off them ever since.
Bull ants? Big black bastards with ferocious pincers that hang out at popular picnic spots waiting to crawl up your inside leg as you try and keep the bush flies off your snaggers. Enough said.
And the bogan - not native to Perth, but a key feature none-the-less. Begins life as a prolific boondie thrower and progresses to driving purple Valiants in a looping fashion around popular urban meeting places.
Anyway, must go and listen to Little Johnny Howard doing his best Sergeant Schultz impersonation at the Cole enquiry - that little bloke just cracks me up! And Lexie Downer - ooh, don't you want to pinch those little ruddy cheeks just right off his face!
4 comments:
Very nice! It appears you're the victim of a spammer. Reminds me of the first time my comments were graced by Mr. anonymous. I didn't know whether to be annoyed, or gratified that someone, somewhere was aware of my blog's existence.
As kids we found other uses for the sand that constitutes "sand boodies" than the manufacture of projectiles. It was also great for making marble tunnels and car cities--like having wet beach sand in your own backyard. (Unfortunately, as we would discover from time to time, local cats had their own uses for this sand, too.)
Aahh - boondies - I thought maybe I imagined these. :)
The best fun was when someone in the street was building something and there was a boondie mountain to hang out on - with all the rest of the kids from the neighbourhood. I remember they mostly stayed in place for years - until they were gracefully eroded away - don't remeber them ever being put to serious use in fact
annie
Ahh, the good old boondie fight...now that takes me back to my childhood. I'll give you a quick rundown...
I grew up next door to an aboriginal family in the eastern suburbs of Perth and there were two brothers, one my age and one a year and one day older than his brother. In the course of our day, in between kicking the ol' pill down at the local reserve & pretending to be one of the local WAFL footy legends of the day eg, Ron "The Roo Dog" Boucher, "Basil" Campbell or Phil "Magic" Narkle, if we found one of those great mounds of yellow sand it was like Christmas, Easter and the WAFL grand Final all rolled into one!
The unwritten rule was: ONE MINUTE TO GET AS MANY BOONDIES AS YOU CAN AND THEN IT WAS ON! The trick was to get as many massive boondies as you could and break them down to smaller, more manageable ammo during the course of the ensuing battle. If you were unlucky enough to cop a rock or wear one in the eye, tough luck. In fact it was deemed to be the height of humour at that point in our lives.
We even had a guy that went to the same school as us and his nickname was Boondie because his last name was Stone. I wonder what ever happened to him? Did the pressure of society turn him into a diamond or did he succumb to the elements of adulthood and slowly erode away?
Oh yeah... me and my two aboriginal friends grew up and became bogans. One of them still has a mullet.
Ha, you used part of my Urban Dictionary definition of Boondie. Awesome! Yes, how cool were Boondie fights (the 'oon' making an 'un' sound)? While living in Nollamara -'74 - I remember our entire street once getting 'yellow sand' delivered for lawns. It was all out war, at least until our Dads got round to spreading out the sand.
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