Why Me....Oz's Unluckiest Truckie    

    Why Me was the archetypal sixties truckie-vertically challenged, a thin and wiry bloke with arms like knotted cord. In fact, so much like knotted cord that he once,  when tying down lost a month's work by putting a double hitch in his forearm and breaking both his radius and ulna in three places !!
    
    Why Me..Proud to be a truckie.  An important part of the economy..if it wasn't for truckies there'd be little or no country music , sales of greased food would plummet , blue singlet and the stubbie shorts manufacturers would go broke , the roads would be in much better nick , thereby creating vast pools of unemployment among the road workers.  Sheep would be walking to the docks ..the list goes on...
    A fore-runner of modern fashion clothing.  He wore a black T-shirt with a pie and sauce motif down the front..a pair of dyed black bombay bloomers that almost reached the top of his black work boots , hiding his pipe-stem legs from view..and a Mack Truck peaked hat on backwards (and the kids today think that they're the arbiters of fashion... "not so !" would hoot Why me.... if he were still alive..which he ain’t)
    
    Speaking of fashion..he wore an Akubra Ninety litre hat that not only doubled his height..it also served as a shelter when all weather loading .The forkies would scurry for cover but Why Me would just withdraw his legs and huddle under his hat..One memorable day loading up in Midland (W.A) a willy-willy caught him up and carried him off , near enough to the Alice as not to matter ! U.FO sightings peaked at about 3,000 that day. 3,000 sightings of a strange flying saucer with tripod landing gear down.. (apparently he'd lost his shorts  )
    
Why Me..A fount, a fund of many fantastic tales of life and love on the road      

                    ..an extract from his forthcoming biography,  The Complete Trucker Of Oz .
   
Chapter three:When Why Me went to the Beach.

    When Why Me went to the beach with the family he always did it in style. Not like his mate Uncle Jimbo, with the one giant esky containing everything from a block of Emu, six cold giant pizzas, his snorkelling gear, telescopic fishing rod, an old brass telescope, a folding umbrella, the towel (actually one of those double-sized four beaver pelt blankets from Witney in Pommieland) a roll of gaffer tape and a star picket...for the brolly of course. That was Uncle Jimbo.
    
    Whereas when Why Me, Ms Why Me and the five boys, Mack, Morris, Acco, Ken (middle name Worth) and Blitz came onto the beach, they each towed a little red fat-tyred waggon, loaded to the gunnels. Three or four eskys of food and drink, boogie boards to the number of five, for each beach-goer a beach brolly with the Mack truck motiff emblazoned thereupon, a Mack truck beach towel, one director’s chair marked 'Mack's', an acme thunderer double sized pea whistle and an assortment of large toy trucks, Macks, and sundry dozers and graders.
    
    The boys and Ms W.M would hit the surf, Why Me would crack a can and set to, setting up the beach site. He would brook no help from the rest of the Why Me’s, and they in their turn were glad of this fact. He was a complete pain in the backside . Once he’d warmed up he would even rant and roar at himself...’Not like that you dill, screw it in, don’t want it flying out and pinning some poor bastard to the sand, or like that bloke in Tassie, transfixed  to a breakwater, pinned like a butterfly squirming on a board.” It was not unusual for quite a few folk in the near vicinity to discreetly pack up and slope off , further away from this dimunitive, pipe-cleaner legged cove wearing an eighty litre Akubra, with a voice that sounded like a rasp-file working away on a large piece of galvinised iron air-conditioning ducting.
    
    He’d make a semi-circular laager of the brollies and eskies, with the mouth facing the sea. Set up Ms W.M’s chair, with the acme thunderer on its arm under the middle brolly, place a little red fat-tyred waggon to one side, filled with stuff to slip, slop and slap and read, her very own esky with the makings for the Brandy Alexanders, cheeses and olives and the small radio for the cricket scores. He would then do the cryptic in yesterday’s Age (he originally hove from Victoria) until the family emerged from the surf.
    
    Ms Why Me would give him a little kiss and a discreet squeeze of his scrotum, a token of thanks, it was also safer to caress Why Me on the beach. Only once in a blue moon would he sweep her into his arms and stagger up the beach to the Kombi for a morning glory, with the boys shaking their heads and making gagging noises.
    After laying on his stomach for ten minutes, Why Me would roust up his five sons,  Mack, Morris, Acco, Ken (middle name) Worth and Blitz, and the construction would begin….


        From..Why Me, the Complete Trucker of Oz..©rogermontgomery

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