“Nature’s first green is gold,” wrote Robert Frost, “her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; but only so an hour.” Thus he describes, with his customary pithiness, the tendency of things new and tender to be superseded by the mundane and pedestrian: “Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, so dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.”
First impressions of a new place likewise are made of this kind of ephemeral stuff. If past experience is anything to go by, I will not be able to remember a year from now what ordinary things made me gawp during these first few days in Australia. I think that’s reason enough to jot down a few first impressions after nearly two weeks. These are in random order and are, of course, highly subjective observations.
First, nature: although we have been in Melbourne and various suburbs (a word of explanation right away—Australians say “suburbs” where Americans would say “neighborhoods” or perhaps “boroughs.” In Seattle, think of Queen Anne or Capitol Hill; in San Francisco, the Mission District or Chinatown; in New York, Queens or Brooklyn) the whole time, we have seen a fair bit of local fauna. Birds in particular are everywhere, and with the exceptions of seagulls, crows, and pigeons, all of them are new to us. Some have long and canorous songs, and others are brilliantly colored. I wish I could say whether I had seen or heard a kookaburra, but regrettably cannot until I acquire a local bird book.
We spent the first five days at a hostel in the suburb of Richmond, and one night the owner brought several of us guests into the back courtyard to see a mother and baby possum devour part of his bottlebrush tree. They were larger than American opossums, and had thick, brownish-grey fur. Their tails were long and bushy, in place of the naked, ratlike tails of their American cousins. Possums are nuisances here in Melbourne, and many trees in the larger parks have plastic sleeves partway up the trunks to prevent the possums from laying waste to the new foliage. Strangely, they are still protected animals and so, though you are allowed to trap them, you can remove them no more than 50 meters before turning them loose again. Of course, this achieves nothing in terms of dissuading the possums, unless you happen to live within 50 meters of a large and deep body of water, and so the battle remains pitched between the marsupials and people looking to protect their plants.
Melbourne is in the 11th year of a drought, and everyone is extremely conscious of water usage. All toilets have two buttons that I’ll call flush #1 and flush #2, the first using only half the water of a full flush. Many, many homes have above- or below-ground storage tanks to collect rain runoff from their roofs, which is used to water gardens. A sign in our hostel urged us to help conserve by taking short showers or by showering with a friend. I could not find a friend willing to help me conserve, and so chose the short-shower option.
Sport looms large in the culture—a soccer or cricket match, or Australian-rules football seemed to be under way whenever we turned on our television at the hostel. The newspapers cater to this fascination by churning out a steady supply of fat sporting sections, and I have been intrigued to see not just men, but women too on the commuter trains poring absorbedly over articles on personnel changes at various team franchises, post-mortems on matches won or lost, and strategy predictions for upcoming grudge contests. Australia’s biggest horse-racing event, the Melbourne Cup, takes place at the beginning of November. Reputedly, the whole country comes to a standstill to watch it—think of the first moon landing or the reading of the O.J. Simpson verdict, only with more alcohol—and you will have some idea of its universal appeal. This will be something worth observing, as a disinterested newcomer.
The tellers at our new bank stand behind a pane of glass, but it is not bullet-proof, and there is a wide gap in the glass right between them and the customers. Clearly, this does not afford much protection, but during one visit I spied a notice on the countertop on the teller’s side of the glass: “Fly-up shield; keep clear at all times.” This notice was stuck to a strip of metal, broad as a man’s hand, that apparently was the top edge of the aforementioned shield. Plainly, it is a thick, protective plate that shoots upward in the event of a robbery. I looked along the row of tellers and saw that none had put so much as a finger moistener on this strip. I would love to see what happens when it is deployed.
Eggs at our local supermarket come in three varieties. In ascending price order, they are cage-laid, barn-laid, and free-range. We have so far taken the middle-high road with the barn-laid eggs (I’d like to see that, too, by the way). Inside the carton lid is a blurb from the Royal SPCA about the working conditions of the production staff: “…The hens have litter in which to dust bathe, space to flap their wings, stretch and socialise, nests in which to lay their eggs, and adequate perch space.” Given these conditions for the barn hens, it seems probable the free-rangers may even be able to join unions, form bowling leagues, freely practice their chosen religion, and run for public office when they come of age. For all I know, the extra profits from their ova are channeled directly into diversified retirement accounts for them.
Every morning the trains, trams, and streets are thronged with children in their school uniforms—they really do wear them here. It actually is quite sweet to see young people mingling, laughing, text-messaging, flapping their wings, all while un-selfconsciously wearing outfits that no American teenager would be seen dead in. The girls wear above-knee-length dresses and sun bonnets—matching cardigan sweaters appear to be optional. The boys wear shorts or long pants, white shirt and tie, and blazers. The school crest is often stitched on one pocket, along with the sometimes-excruciating official credo: “Lead and Achieve,” and “Honor the Work” are actual examples. Imagine Angus Young from AC/DC, and you have the visual image of the Australian school lad. If you’re not familiar with Angus Young, imagine Mickey Rooney in knickerbockers, or the boy who used to deliver your groceries—a kid who would say “Gee whillikers,” if his bike got a flat. That’s what they look like, anyway. I haven’t heard any of them say “Gee whillikers,” but I bet they wouldn’t bat an eye if next year they were ordered to wear beanies with propellers on top, or even lederhosen.
And speaking of inadequate mottos, the state of Victoria, where we now reside, could use a lot of help in developing a new local slogan. In the U.S. some states put their mottos on car licenses to tell you something about the place (The Evergreen State—Washington; The Golden State—California) or its people (“Live Free or Die”—New Hampshire; “Live Like Me or Die”—Colorado). Compared to these, the messages on Victoria license plates are frankly vague and colorless. The most common are “Victoria—On the Move,” and “Victoria—The Place to Be.” I expect any day now to come across “Victoria—Well Why Not?” or something similarly bold and inspiring. Actually, I have also seen “Victoria—Garden State,” which is an improvement over the other two, but still not as zippy as it might be. Readers with a creative bent are therefore urged to send in their submissions for a new Victoria State slogan—there may actually be a prize awarded for the winning entry, but don’t count on it.
--first posted 10/2008
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