The SCG, Poetry & Other Stuff

Lango at the SCG

There have been many highlights in this haphazard collation of years which have conspired to bring me to this point. Some I couldn't even pinpoint to a specific place and time and most I wouldn't care to draw into lists for fear of comparing them.

Twelve years ago, just being brave enough to stay alive was and still remains my greatest achievement but moment by moment, watching my sweetheart walk towards me knowing that even though sixty people stood in this bush setting for our marriage, we were the only ones there will always outrank the best. She is, after all, my alpha and omega and as she walked, she smiled.

Holding my kids moments after their mother had given them to the world was a biggy repeated three times with as much intensity first, second or third time. Watching the eldest die in staged tragedy on the mean streets of Liverpool and beneath the sands of Egypt; reading my daughters words about me and hearing them call for change and reverberate across the rural landscape; seeing my youngest applying his skills with his students ... these are journeys I have been a willing passenger to.

I need not remind you of my disinclination for comparison but its  fair to say, what has happened in the past few months is in that second subset of life's pleasurable surprises - the ones that belong to how we apply the skills we have. Without doubt, with all achievement their is an element of luck but if we call that a given, there are times when we should feel proud of things we have done. My first half century, for instance, 40 years ago at Lilli Pilli Oval .... or my first hundred ... graduation day at Teachers College ... the eulogy at my Mum's funeral ... kids I taught ...  being named one of the three best teachers in NSW ... well, we all have such lists. Some of us call them resumes, some of us call them a few beers at the pub and some of us call them old age.

After having to find something to do after leaving teaching, I have pursued writing in one form or another for the past decade. My success is for your measure or those who have been generous, brave or gullible enough to read and buy my poetry. Putting the thoughts which are bouncing about your head out to folks and saying "well this is what I was thinking about ... what do you reckon?" seems easy enough but you soon learn that feedback is your payment. The good or the bad are much the same but its the vacant which is generally the most taxing.

Last November, I wrote a poem specifically about a Brett Whiteley self portrait and it was selected for inclusion in an exhibition at the New England Regional Art Museum. At the time, I happily allowed myself to be quoted as saying that however things were supposed to get, they couldn't get any better than this. Then, on the second day of the Sydney Test, the curator of the SCG Museum, Leah Dromanski, emailed to advise me that my poem "When Dougie Did The Double" had been chosen for the 100th Test exhibition.

This week, I travelled to Sydney and have now seen my writing in a perspex case in front of Doug Walters Baggy Green Test cap. Beside it is Frank Worrell's cap from the Brisbane Tied Test and a West Indies bat autographed by the 1960-61 team.

To be truthful, it was almost surreal. I suspected the clock on the wall would drip and droop at any moment but it didn't. It didn't seem right to be attracting accolades in the company of such ghosts ... for goodness sake, Steve Waugh's red, towelling hanky was only metres away!

Steve and I

Of course, the reality is that I am thrilled. They are not my words of course, merely the way I choose to use them but to have reached such a stage of recognition that the past few months has stood me on is to provide the perfect opportunity to take stock and enjoy the journey. This is not my destination, you'll understand and I may never find another stop along the way which affords others such an obvious view of my obsession - writing or cricket, the choice best be yours - but such spots are recompense for days when the pen wouldn't work and despair seemed easier to embrace than joy was to find.

I am grateful for your messages of support since this news first snuck from my pocket behind John Mayer's cheery ringtone, "Message in a Bottle", as Clarkey was fine tuning the serious end of the second third of his triple century. Some of you have been embracing me with well meant false praise since the days of dreadful dirges and hopefully you can now justify your lies. I, for one, will never condemn you for them because they helped get me here.

I wish my mother might see the exhibit - either actually - but this week, my father and Sue joined me to view the final product which lies within earshot of a well struck cover drive. Dad had his hand on my shoulder and his heart on his sleeve.

Sue was smiling again.