Down By The River - Chapter 4 - Condobolin Day 3

DOWN BY THE RIVER

Chapter 4 – Condobolin Day 3

Today I want to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. I want to spend some time with a younger cousin, the youngest business client of Banks Consultancy, to talk to him about his hopes and dreams as well as give him a hand with a few jobs where an extra hand (free of charge) will be more than a help.

Hopefully we will get to meet one of his “inspirations”, a mate who Mitch seems to have “fallen in with” who has the same sort of ambitions which seem to have mutually rubbed off , or so it would seem, on both of them. First though, the chores.

In order to start the chores we need to travel to his mate’s farmlet/orchard on the other side of town and collect the front end loader. There was much merriment last night about who would drive it, as although registered for the road, the brakes are all but non existent. Apparently to stop you need to lower the front bucket onto the road ahead to stop forward momentum. I graceful accept the challenge of the support vehicle.

For large implement the loader gets along surprisingly quickly. Alarmingly so as we head towards intersections that might require the allowing of traffic to pass, but it is early and “peak hour” does not really exist here. IN fact skirting around the town we encounter no resistance to the big machine.

Mitch is a shearer by trade, but that is back breaking work with limited prospects. He started collecting and selling firewood as an adjunct to his income and has a relatively mechanised facility. But that too has its seasonal limitations. The front end loader, purchased as part of the mechanisation program of the wood carting business has allowed him to venture out into land clearing in the warmer months and now he has quite a reputation for getting the job done right.

Mitch and his partner Casey have saved well and purchased as small farm adjacent to Mitch’s parents (my aunt and uncle) and collectively have expanded into cropping and grazing. They have worked hard and ambition keeps them going. 

It is great to watch someone build something from virtually nothing.

One step at a time, a kid who seemed to have no real prospects, educated as best “the country system” could, given the motivations of a young male are more likely to be centered on things other than school, has built and continues to build something. Good luck to them. Where possible they have had a little bit of help form their friends, mine in the form of looking after their tax lodgements and offering the odd piece of advice and an introduction where appropriate when local offerings were simply inadequate. Like many times, its not what you know its who you know that can be the difference between success and otherwise.

A tight knit community can have its advantages but also its impediments. We saw this when Mitch and Casey sought to purchase the farm. 

They had savings. They had history with the local bank. One would have thought these would hold them in good stead for the borrowings they would need for the purchase. Unfortunately, apparently, the bank manager also had designs on the property target and given the nature of the transaction and its origins in an understanding of a bequeathment given the assistance over the years the youngsters had given their neighbour to allow them to purchase at a “discount” was being thwarted behind the denial of funding.

Enter the accountant and property marketing director, with a few decent banking contacts and the finding was soon procured – WITH THE SAME BANK – and the “kids” were on their way. That was only a couple of years ago and even with expansion and renovations costs, all factored into their budget, they are several years ahead on repayments on the loan.

As part of the loan application, with my help we constructed a complete business plan with budgets and expansion plans. It showed Mitch and Casey had not only thought about what they could do, could realistically derive cash flows and contingency plans for their dreams. They had the knowledge just not the expertise to put it on paper in a format “boffins” could understand.

Surely all this is conspiracy theory and something we would only see in a television show like The Dukes of Hazzard where the corrupt establishment does everything to keep those who would succeed downtrodden, and there would be every justification “i” dotted and “t” crossed on the bank file, but why should it be that who you know rather that what you know, is a prerequisite for the evidence you have that determines success. The human story gets lost (or could in the case of Mitch and Casey) and becomes the true thread of the conspiracy behind the why not of the transaction.

Conspiracies aside, they are not resting on their laurels. The front end loader back on the farm, we clear a fallen tree, take the usable part to the saw mill facility to end up as firewood and the knotty stump and messy stuff, off to a bonfire site for the colder months. 

Watching Micth use a chainsaw is like watching poetry in motion. The tradesman ensures his tools a sharpened optimally. The placement of cuts, expertly aligned to give maximum stock for the firewood masses, in lengths he doesn’t need to measure because the repetition of the process is ingrained. Removing the log is no issue either now we have the front end loader on site.

That farm chore done, its off to process a “quick” job of the mowing/maintenance business, that has morphed itself out of the land clearing activities. Mitch laughs at the administration behind this government contracted work. Originally engaged to simply mow the lawns, ancillary work such as what we are aiming to do now are “extras”, billed separately as if they were stand alone jobs requiring separate attendance on site and very “lucrative” for the business owner.

Mitch of course takes pride in his work and as well as clearing overgrowth around the lawns of this “new” job, asks me to shape the bushes into something more aesthetically pleasing to the eye and effectively longer term, making maintenance an easier operation. Shooting himself in the foot somewhat given the money he could make remedying rather than the job now with thought to the client. 

That is one of the reasons he is so successful in business.

At one stage he leaves me on site with power tools (I feel a Tim the Toolman moment coming on) to deliver a load of rubbish to his bonfire – his ute has tipper functions so clearing it is a breeze – to find another load of debris ready to load and roof gutters without overhanging branches, a secret doorway revealed and windows that actually let in light to the house.

Happy that job is done we, of course need to observe the tradie break known as “smoko”. Morning Tea to the uninitiated has more than one function. The owner of the bakery is the mentor Mitch speaks so highly of. The grazing of fat lambs on the property will hopefully in time circumvent the saleyards and brokers commissions and serve to provide meat to the bakery. 

The baker is also a businessman on a mission. Not one to rely on the bakery to be the be all and end all of income pursuits he looks to enhancing the offering. To do this he is looking to create a line of flavoured water and we sit in his office as test dummies trying various varieties as he records the percentages of flavouring to water content and their effect on taste. Not sure of our efficiency in the matter given we are both tucking into one of his specialty pies at the time, but the concept of the real life test is not lost on the businessman.

I ask Paul where he will get his line bottled and find he has his own bottling machine. His biggest expenses are the plastic bottles and of course the water that makes up the biggest percentage of the product. I show him the World Environmental Solutions Water from the Air Machines which can produce, depending on the size of the machine, constant supplies of drinking water for their needs. 

Quickly I make contact with my fellow director of World Environmental Solutions, Wallie Ivison and we consult about the size of the required machine and the cost. Crunching the numbers finds it will take only 4 batches of merchandise to pay for the cost of the two 60 litre machines required. On top of that one could be set up in the shop and allow dispensing of water and non disposable containers for extra income when they are not prodigy water for the stock levels.

Its never what you know.

I have a promise to keep. One of the aunts who has recently and very reluctantly allowed herself to be transferred from her home to the retirement village for better dementia care has ordered a visit at the farm, coming out for lunch.

The repast is simple but the conversations complex, at times devling onto the angst of the loss of independence and at others reminiscing of days long gone with a clarity lost of what occurred yesterday. Aunty Christine is the only sister of my mother not to have borne children. The Indigenous bloodline in her veins produced what one might term an albino. She is/was ridiculously fair skinned with red hair, although after a lifetime of nicotine abuse the colour of her skin is fading rapidly.

From time to time she ducks out for what she terms a “five minute love affair”. The grip of the drug in her instance is complete. Nicotine may not kill her directly but will certainly be a contributing factor.

Back in conversation, the yard dog starts barking, someone is calling in. Uncle Brolga has dropped in unexpectedly. The youngest and only surviving male of my mothers family Uncle Max is another starting to suffer the initial symptoms of dementia. My Aunt Kerre worries about him but is happy he is “getting around” not vegetating somewhere drowning his sorrows. Today he is in a jovial mood, much like the Uncle Brolga I remember from my youth when I used to marvel at his prowess on a cricket field.

Uncle Brolga was a quick bowler and if you believe those who saw him in his prime, as quick as any of the leading Australian fast bowling contingent contemporaries, Lillee,Thompson or Pascoe. I have had the idea to write a separate book about him for some time, collecting snippets from here and there but I need to sit him down and interview him about some of the stories I have heard.

My research has uncovered many rumours and I would love to get his take on the story. Sitting him down as I have with the aunts from time to time across the table with a camera on them will not work in this case, the questions I have ready for him will only get straight answers if he is relaxed enough to unwind. The perfect setting for this would be on a river bank, surreptitiously recording his responses while we are fishing. I put this to him and he agrees that when we return from the houseboat jaunt we will indeed fish and he will be happy to “wax lyrically” Whether or not there will be any “truth” to the stories I am sure they will be ripping hilarious yarns.

Never one to be tied down for any great length of time Uncle Brolga suggests the boys meet this afternoon at a local pub. There is only one issue with that, he has been ejected (and banned) from most of the pubs in town. There is one though, that still allows his patronage and we agree to meet there in an hour or so.

Apparently its not so much his drunken behaviour that causes his ejection from most of the local drinking establishments, its more a product of the times. In days of old, when Uncle Max first set foot in a pub, ladies were not allowed in certain areas and the conversation could lack the decorum of the finer places. Unfortunately Uncle Brolga has not moved with the times and will happily comment on the body form of the females in eyesight (and almost invariably in earshot) much to the chagrin of the more family oriented hotelier and their patronage.

This session is more about old times and memories. Paul from the bakery has joined us and I prime Brolga up on some of the questions I would like him to ponder for the interview. His responses to questions like “how quick were you really” come with answers like ”as quick as I wanted to be” or an anecdote of times pitted against the likes of Jeff Thompson and Lennie Pascoe. I am not sure how much truth there was to the story but it was a good story which I hope to get on tape on the river.

But I am on a self imposed curfew. Tomorrow we will be up with the sparrows and on the road early for the drive to Midura. I bid the group good night and head back to the van.