Our family always tried to achieve middle-class respectability, and never quite got there. The kids at my school had made up their minds. I was the Trax boy; the school kid who wore the cheapest sneakers. Most of the kids’ families had farms with parents who wore flannelettes – not the untucked Western Suburbs style which smelt of bourbon but the settled, crisp, happily country garb which reeked of ‘contented money’.
These rich come-ins lived on cheap land (well, modest for them) with newly built double-storey houses; driveways manicured by shiny white pebbles – not the sharp suburban asphalt ones which tore your legs to shreds.
When my family’s debt mounted and loan repayments became exorbitant we would sell up and buy a cheaper house further away from Sydney. You could count on the housing market to skyrocket after we moved away. We missed the housing booms every time.
My father had to…
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I drive 72 miles every day and it wears me out…I could not imagine 4 hours and then the 40-minute walk. Sounds like a great father and provider.
Yeh, that’s a bit of a slog.
Well it was 2 hours each way I believe. Yeh, my old man was exactly that.
Mine is 72 miles roundtrip…. so not so bad…I go through a lot of audio books though.
Well that’s not too bad, bad lol. A good audiobook could make it a fun drive.