The Great Aussie Long Weekend
I just opened a book of stamps. I’m not into stamps, I’m no poindexter.
I just had to mail a letter. But they leapt out at me and hit my nostalgia button.
These stamps are a representation of the Australian “Long weekend. You can’t help but reminisce about the good old’ days.
As kids, we were always shoved into the car to travel for hours to a an inland Lake to enjoy summer sports like kayaking & canoeing, building sandcastles and wrestling with the biggest Bull Ants since prehistoric times. Or we would head in the other direction for hours to a creek known as Fishermans Bend, where we would camp and fish. My sister soon got a reputation as the girl who would go off with six fishermen and come back with a red snapper.
The booklet of stamps takes you through the decades of how we spent our long weekends.
The 1950’s looks old and very “straighto magrato”. Yet, it has a kind of grandparent, mothball charm about it. A time when the whole family, friends and the next door neighbours would go off and holiday together. The more the merrier. Lots of kids out playing together, having adventures, discovering new places with no worries about the old Perv who lurks around the public toilets with sweaty boiled lollies in hand.
The 1960’s shows a more solitary scene. These guys have decided to holiday as the nuclear family. The car makes an appearance. As by now most families have their own automobile. Camping has become very fashionable. And speaking of fashion… did Dad always wear such high pants? (They say as a man gets older the higher his pants go… by the looks of dad, by the time he’s 80 he’ll just be a pair of pants and a head!)
It looks as though it’s a great time for family bonding. Mum and Dad have cottoned on to the benefits of child labour. “We’ll have all the fun kids, while you unpack the car and set up the tent… now get Dad another beer from the esky.
The 70’s … what parents? What Family?
It’s all about hanging down on the beach, surfing, picking up chicks, getting’ a bit of action in the Combi van. “If this Vans a rockin’, don’t bother knockin’. All this at the ripe old age of fourteen. In the 70’s that’s how old you were when it started to twitch.
The 1980’s… this is where it all starts to look a little NQR. The Boat House trip. Dad’s got the fishing rod and looking like a total Noof in his beige fishing hat and matching outfit. Kids are bored shitless and sick of Dad’s antics and are plotting his “accidental” boating mishap, as society is going straight down the gurgler at this decade.
Mummy’s pissed and on serepax, so Yippee! We’ll just stick our walkmans on and listen to “Tainted Love”.
The 1990’s is a frolic in the snow. Showing that you need to be rich to go away for the long weekend.
And the decade of the Millennium doesn’t exist as no one has time to go away anymore and if you did…Would it be with Mum’s new Family or Dad and his 20yr old girlfriend?
Ahhhhhhh… the good ol’ Aussie long weekend.
