Open Writing

I had been alone for 12 years since the death of my wife and it occurred to me that nothing would happen in my life unless I made it happen.

So I advertised myself in an on-line dating service as a self-funded freelance writer seeking a partner. I enclosed a recent photograph of myself.

About 24 ladies applied. Four of them I dismissed immediately because they were too young. They were all under 24 years.

The others I arranged to interview at my favorite café in South Perth.

I interviewed one lady per day at lunch and the café management soon twigged that something was going on.

I had to explain, and they would stand behind the particular woman and indicate thumbs up or thumbs down.
The owner of the café told me, “ Richard, please stay away from my mother. It’s taken a while to get her sorted out since her divorce. I’ve arranged for her to meet an old school friend and I don’t want you to complicate matters.”

Her mother was a really nice woman. I liked her a lot and promised I would be good and not interfere. However, I did invite her to a dinner at Fremantle with a group of single running friends, and they grovelled at her feet. In the end, the old school friend got her and they went off to live at Mandurah for a life of golf and bridge.

It was extremely difficult to chose from the candidates. They were all really nice women. One of them, a podiatrist, looked at my feet when I was about to get into her bed.

“Richard,” she said. “Do you wear a stiff orthotic?”

“I do,” I said. “It cost me about $500, most of which I recouped from Hospital Benefits.”

“It’s not suitable,” she said. “I can see by your feet – it’s too stiff and it’s clawed your feet. You need one that’s more flexible. If you like, I’ll get one for you.”

I was most impressed with her. Unfortunately, the relationship did not endure. At the time, I was the WA marathon champion in my age group and was running two marathons a year. She thought I needed to be more relaxed and maybe smoke a little pot with her.

That I would never do. I’m just too rigid to adjust like that.

I won the marathon championship for another year, won a medal for completing ten Perth marathons, came second in the 10 000 metres track in the national games, and generally ran rather well, despite a niggling hip pain which stopped me from training hard.

I became the mentor to a couple of runners and was the editor of the WA Marathon Club Magazine, and on the Marathon Club committee, which gave me a high profile in the running community. I changed the format of the marathon club newsletter to A4, with colour photographs on the back and front covers, and introduced a directory of useful services for runners. I did this task for three years.

It cost me a lot personally. I was out of pocket with the expenses but I gained a lot of satisfaction from doing the job as well as I could.

It’s hard to please everybody when you are running a magazine.

Whatever you do, it’s never enough.

I helped the Marathon Club organise a trip to Alice Springs where runners from Western Australia competed with runners from the Northern Territory in a marathon and half marathon.

We went there by bus and stayed at the Alice in a motel. One of the excursions was an early morning balloon ride. You ride the balloon early because there is little wind at that time. One of the features of the ride was free champagne and a champagne breakfast. I love champagne but it doesn’t love me, so I got back to the motel at about 9 am ,squiffed, and facing a half marathon the following morning at sparrow fart.

Everybody was sitting around a pool drinking beers and more champagne and I thought to myself that I needed to redeem my body to cope with tomorrow’s run. I took all my gear off and dived into the pool, hearing – just before I hit the water – a huge burst of applause.

The water – as everybody with half a brain knows – is at the overnight minimum temperature – about 4 to 6 degrees C. You can’t imagine how cold that feels when you are very hot and full of free champagne.

Whatever, naked and dripping, I dragged myself out of the pool. The applause was for me. A fat lady said, “Richard, you’ve made my day.”

I dried my ears with my underpants, then put them on and got dressed. I was able to run the half marathon the next morning and the organisers gave me a special prize – an Antarctica tee shirt, with a Penguin motif - for my courage in diving starkers into the motel swimming pool.

That was probably one of my most dubious awards, alongside one I collected from my Main Roads colleagues on my retirement – a gold medal for “meritorious running.”

I’m not really an athlete – more a keep fit buff.

Returning from the Alice, we called at Ayers Rock. Local Aboriginal people had asked visitors to respect the rock and not climb it.

I decided I would climb it, as a once in a lifetime experience.

As I ascended the steep incline, I placed my hand across my breast in the attitude of reverence and said to the rock, “Mother Rock, I’m a stranger in this country and seek your advice on how I might climb with respect.”

A voice in my head said “Stay close to my breast and hang on to your hat.”

I did that. A sudden wind, tore everybody else’s hat off. People dropped their cameras. And I went up the rock, close to her breast. It was a brilliant spiritual experience that I will never forget.

A Wongi woman told me years later that the rock is sacred for many reasons but it also has the special task of holding the land firm, lest it slip away into the Southern Ocean.

I walked around the base of the rock and found a small pool full of tadpoles.