1984. A year so good even a Terminator travelled back in time to experience it.
Unfortunately, also the year that the drowning of Artax in the Swamp of Sadness traumatised many of us, fundamentally so that even now, some of us still wake from our sleep in sweat-soaked terror wondering why Atreyu didn’t just detour around that forsaken place.
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Anyway, as any given Saturday for a kid in the 80’s goes…
0500. Wake up to watch Thunderbirds on the Tele while eating Home-Brand cake-mix for brekkie.
0700. Watch Saturday morning super-hero cartoons to the hearts content. Later I will make a cape out of a bedsheet and jump off the verandah to see if I can fly like Firestorm.
0800. Wage war on the Atari 2600 playing Dragonfire, Pressure Cooker and Combat with some of the guys who turn up until around 1000. There are fights, as only two of the four joysticks work properly as the others are....beyond repair..
1000. Hit the road on BMX's, stopping at the news-agency to buy bags of marbles which are gamed in a circle drawn in the red dirt behind the shops. Green cat's eye marbles are the coveted prize. A black rubbish bag is caught around the power lines. One of the guys brings out his fishing rod, promising us he can hook it. A successful cast across multiple lines results in a spectacular white flash of electrical light followed by a shower of orange sparks. The bag, still on the line is now on fire. The fishing line melted. One of the power lines now has a kink in it. Power to McLean Street and O’Brien Street is out. Later we find out the whole town has lost power. All agree not to snitch.
1030. Bomb dives and summersaults in the town pool until around lunch time. Frozen cordial in cups is our lunch. And ‘Calypso’ ice block poles, which apparently never existed. Now there are only ‘Callipo’ ice-blocks though ‘Calypso’ was the real name of the block as ‘Callipo’ never existed. Another true Mandela Effect on par with 007 Moonraker’s Dolly character having big silver braces when she smiled at that metal-mouth Jaws guy, although no footage of her having braces seem to exist.
1200. There's a mangled car wreck in the empty lot near the arcade. It's a metallic brown VB Commodore waiting to be towed. It has yellow cordon tape around it. Don't matter. From outside looking in we can see blood splatter over the beige upholstery and dashboard.It's dried brown. But there's money on the seat and floor amongst the shards of diamond-like shattered glass. On a dare I climb in through the smashed window to get it. Bingo. Now we got money for the Arcade.
1300. Bikes dumped out the front of Day’s Arcade. Inside 20cent coins are stacked on the game consol as turns are took blasting at mother ships. Ice-blocks and Coke. Samboy Chips and Juicy Fruit gum. Sugar-fuelled tensions run high.
1400. The money is gone. We ride bikes around town stopping at one buddies house after another knowing snacks will be provided by mums at each stop. Matthew's older brother has Return of the Jedi on VHS. The one with the Ewoks. We watch it, debating which one of us will marry Princess Leia, then play out back with our original Star Wars figurines which we trade between each other. It stings to think I once held original Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, Storm Trooper, Bounty Hunter and Darth Vader figurines in my hand, knowing today they are probably buried under 2foot of dirt in someone’s backyard. If only I still had them. Matthew’s mum makes us all sandwiches soaked in peanut butter and Thousand Island dressing for afternoon tea. She tells us if we play nice she will take us all to Timbuktu. We don’t know where that is but it sounds cool.
1700. Arrive home for dinner, then off again to the Capella Bowls Club. There's some sort of party there. Free drinks and chips for the kids. I drink so much Sarsparilla and Tab I fall asleep watching Young Talent Time and piss myself, soaking both the chair and carpet of the foyer. A quick trip home to change. But wait, there's more. Some dude outside of town has a film projector which he's got set up on the side of a grain silo. At nine they're showing The Wizard of Oz. Every one piles into cars. I along with six others into the tray-back of a Ford utility. We hang on to the sides as the car flies through the night down the Gregory Highway somewhere between Capella and Emerald, and the Ute is literally, flying. There are a lot of people, watching that magnificent silo in the night as Dorothy travels the Yellow Brick Road. Watching on blankets. Watching from the back of utes. Some drinking.. A lot drinking. Those characters belonging to the Green Witch, the ones with roller wheels for arms and legs are scary as Kruger driving a bus.
2300. The party at the Bowls Club is still raging. The event room is a fog of cigarette smoke. My belly is full of junk food and sugar. I'm tired. Eventually I make it to bed and all is well, not pissing it like the chair at the Bowls Club, for tomorrow is Sunday morning and it is all waiting to be done again, first task being a trip to the dump outside the north end of town to scrounge for copper wire in the mounds of junk. We put the gathered wire in a pile and set it on fire, watching the pretty green flames dance around the burning rubber sheathing as we try not to breath in the black smoke. One man’s trash is another kid’s treasure. A small victory, for now we have pocket money for ever-hungry games machine in town.
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Somehow most of us survived.
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The interior of the Day's Arcade (now long closed) at 61 Peak Downs Street, Capella. QLD.