Western Walkabout: 40-45 years
…At work, at lunch times, I played darts with my friends in the social club amenities area. I was really unfit, and my clothes hung on me. I didn’t look good at all and many people at work told me so…
Continuing his autobiography, Richard Harris tells of facing up to the need for a mid-life epiphany.
Now that I wasn’t commuting to the university to study, I looked around for things to do and seized on archery. I went in for this in a big way and became president of the Yokine Archers.
Yokine shot on a Sunday, when Alex was at work at the West Australian. I used to take Leon with me. The line up at Yokine on Sundays was almost as big as a state title event.
I bought a Wha-gok, a Korean bow, initially but traded it for a Yamaha YTSL, a take-down double recurve which came in a briefcase. This was a 36lb draw but a very fast bow, and when I lengthened my arrows, the extra draw added to the punch. In next to no time I started shooting perfect ends, meaning all six arrows in the gold.
I looked at various job opportunities and went to Canberra for an interview with a federal department but did not like it there and wasn’t offered the position.
When I returned to Perth, I suggested to Alex that our house in Kelmscott was wrong for the way we lived. We were both working in the city, which meant a 20km commute each way at peak hour daily. Also, the house had been planned for three children and these did not come.
I suggested we should go for a more rational house, tailored to the way we live, and this led to a decision to build at Parkwood, which halved the distance to work and was closer to schools and universities.
I used to refer to this new home as a totally rational house, which would be perfect for Alex and Leon if anything happened to me. The house was compact, well organised and could be run efficiently without spending every weekend in the garden or cleaning up. Also, it was full of nooks and private areas where we could all study or write.
I was still in middle age crisis mode and decided I didn’t like my body. It was too slobby. Alex bought me a calorie counter by Alan Boruschek, and I studied it relentlessly and dropped my weight from about 14 stone 2 lb in the old language to 10 stone 7 lb, which was lighter than my weight when I left grammar school.
The weight loss left me with little strength and no stamina and I couldn’t drive the car longer than 45 minutes without a break. I was smoking about 70 cigarettes a day.
At work, at lunch times, I played darts with my friends in the social club amenities area. I was really unfit, and my clothes hung on me. I didn’t look good at all and many people at work told me so.
Clearly, it was time for an epiphany and this needed an external trigger because I was so flat there was nothing in me.
