Cyclone Clare sure had the memories ... flooding back. Zing! I lived in The Pilbara for twelve years and spent many a tempest getting shit-faced with my housemates. That was the done thing in those parts. As soon as the red alert went up you sprung into action, slick teamwork being the go. "Righto then. Tone, you do the pub run. I'll get the videos. Rob, you see to the snacks. Nige, you fill up the genny." During Cyclone Chloe in March 1984 the back of our house blew down but we didn't notice until the next day. "Hey, look at this, boys," someone said. "Shit a brick! There's no beer left."
Soon after we moved into a bigger, less rubbly house where we met a Croatian psycho named Steve The Wog. "Hello, boys. Here - drink Vee Bee," commanded Steve, handing us a can by way of a greeting. "Is good beer. Drink, fucking." Steve lived in an ancient caravan in the back yard and, as far as we could tell, had two hobbies, drinking beer and nurturing this sapling beside his van. Sadly for all concerned, but most of all the sapling, it was run over. That night Steve burst through the back door brandishing a massive kitchen knife "WHO KILL YOUNG WOOOOOD?" Us cowards all looked at Deano - he'd flattened the tree with his deadly treadly. "You cunt, fucking! I kill you!" He rushed at Deano, but instead of filleting the poor slob, Steve suddenly laughed "Haaaaa, you shit, boy!" and stolled out whistling. We laughed, too - just not at first.
Twenty-two years on and in lieu of a real tree, here instead is a Brief History of the Tree in My Street. What better way to make it up to Steve. It's the least can be done for a bloke who is probably dead from liver disease, but you never know.

Eagerly anticipate Next Wood.
Posted by: gav | 13 January 2006 at 15:21
As long as you don't get wood.
Posted by: peemil | 13 January 2006 at 17:19
i can't make out the dates on each photo.
Posted by: Francis Xavier Holden | 13 January 2006 at 18:40
Sorry, I don't play wood association football.
There's no dates - they're plain trees. But for the record: April 2005, August 2005 and today.
Posted by: Tony.T | 13 January 2006 at 20:51
"Is good beer. Drink, fucking."
Interest accent he's got. Is he just swearing, or saying that we should drink beer while having sexual intercourse?
Posted by: TimT | 13 January 2006 at 22:50
How long does it take you Aussie to get wood!!! No wonder your Island is barley populated
Posted by: Vaughny | 14 January 2006 at 06:25
Tim: For some reason Aussie wogs say adjectival swear words last. So "it's good fucking" means "it's fucking good". Not sure how the punctuation works.
Vaughny: Feel free to move here and live in the desert. By the way, you seen Wolf Creek?
Posted by: Tony.T | 14 January 2006 at 14:27
"oh those plain trees will blind a weary driver..."
Posted by: Francis Xavier Holden | 14 January 2006 at 16:10
Paul Kelly? Hoodoo Gurus? Australia All Over with Macca?
Posted by: Tony.T | 14 January 2006 at 16:20
The very thought of 6am Sunday mornings and feckin macca makes me feel murderous.
Posted by: Francis Xavier Holden | 14 January 2006 at 17:34
I don't know one person who doesn't want to strangle Macca. Universal snuffrage is the go.
Posted by: Tony.T | 14 January 2006 at 20:59
The Pilbara seems to be full of crazy Croatians (they used be Yugos).
I worked at a mine that had two underground miners who used to work like madmen trying to outdo each other in tonnage moved on each shift, and after the shift they would run out to the access road, past the gate and beat the shit out of each other. (There was a "no fighting" policy at the site, so they went offsite!)
After this effort, they would come back to the wet mess, get a huge skinful of the booze du jour, hug each other, head back the donga, sleep, and start the whole process over again next shift.
No manager was ever game to sack them, crazy or not, they were too good as workers.
Posted by: Pedro the Ignorant | 15 January 2006 at 01:15
Would love to live in the desert, but alas Boots have ran out of factor 15 sun cream for my pale european skin. Tony, come and live in my shed, there are spiders in there I am sure even you Aussies would be wary of, plus apparantly a great white has been spotted of Cornwall so you should not get to home sick
Posted by: Vaughny | 15 January 2006 at 06:11
Very true, Pedro, they were indeed called Yugos, and the bosses knew never to put the Croatians with Serbians. There were some healthy punch-ups in the local soccer, too.
You've pretty much summed up life in Kalgoorlie, but where I was in the Pilbara there was no underground mining.
Spiders, sharks, Vaughny? Now all you need to complete the package are bitey snakes.
Posted by: Tony.T | 15 January 2006 at 16:06
Whereabouts, Tone? I lived in Para for 10 years, starting in '87. Olivia scared the crap out of me, demolished my patio (which I must confess was pretty dodgy structurally), and knocked over pretty much every tree in town. Not much in the way of other damage, though.
Posted by: tONY | 15 January 2006 at 16:24
Wickham, tONE. Twelve years I lived there, then two in Perth followed by one in Geraldton and one in Kal. Never got to Para, or TP for that matter. I was a bit slack in getting about. Fortunately I saw plenty of the other places via football - Headland, Goldsworthy, Shay Gap, Newman. To be perfectly honest, I had a great time up there. Pity they can't move it closer to the rest of civilization.
Posted by: Tony.T | 15 January 2006 at 16:32
You didn't miss much from a tourist perspective - they were great places to live, but not much to do for the visitor (apart from drink piss, of course). It was a good life - I've never moved back to a city since, but none of the other mining towns I've lived in since was as much fun.
Posted by: tONY | 15 January 2006 at 16:53
That was funny, fucking.
I grew up in the tropics and have been through a few cyclones and hurricanes m'self. But if the hurricane cellar also doubles as the wine cellar, it's surprising how painlessly these things blow over.
Posted by: Nabakov | 15 January 2006 at 16:54
tONE: It's one of my great regrets that I didn't see more of the Pilbara, but when you live in a place you tend to become blasé about the circs. Thus I never made it to Wittenoom, Broome, Tom Price, Paraburdoo or the Kimberlys. Pretty fucking slack, now that I think about it. Pretty slack, too, that I didn't take many photos. And the ones I did take, I've lost. Including an extensive collection of the Burrup Penninsula taken before Woodside moved in.
All reports about Wickham these days is that the place has become a dump. Disappointing for a place that has a real resonance for me.
Nabs: The TT cellar up north was stocked with all your favourites - Coolabah casks, Sprizig Moselle and Mateus Rosé. We were all class. We washed down that fine wine with lashings of Emu Export Lager. A substance I am wont to call 'an acquired taste'.
Posted by: Tony.T | 15 January 2006 at 17:21
No Blue Nun?
Posted by: Nabakov | 15 January 2006 at 17:31
Or Liebfraumilch.
Posted by: Tony.T | 15 January 2006 at 17:32
BYO Maroomba!
Posted by: Tony.T | 15 January 2006 at 17:34
We have Adders!!!! And Peter Beardsley who is pretty fucking scary
Posted by: Vaughny | 15 January 2006 at 21:50
I'm not even going to ask why you were photographing that tree.
A quick search of the internerd reveals that Emu Export is still being manufactured, which is news to me. I didn't realise - as a WA resident, mind - that it actually still existed. Next thing you know, someone's going to hand me a Swan Gold or something.
Posted by: carneagles | 15 January 2006 at 23:21
And it can't be because Emu Export is actually produced for export. What alternate-reality shitheap would import it?
Posted by: carneagles | 15 January 2006 at 23:23
Is that right? I thought EEL would be made for ever, purely to spite eastern staters.
Posted by: Tony.T | 16 January 2006 at 14:16
I could do with an emu how about yooo?
Posted by: Yobbo | 17 January 2006 at 06:32
Vaughny and Wolf Creek. ha-haaaa.
John Jarrat deserved an Oscar for The Great McCarthy decades ago.
Posted by: Brownie | 17 January 2006 at 10:55