OPINION

Have you heard the one about the retiree, the educator and the tractor driver?

To be honest it’s not going to have you rolling in the aisles in stitches, but it is interesting and
hopefully will leave you with a smile to start your day.

Basically, it’s about three people I came across in the course of a workday last week. I like to look at it as a little snippet of society as we know it these days.

It’s funny but these days I feel we seem to have lost touch with the average John and Jane Citizen. In my view that’s a bit of a shame. One hundred years ago, as a cub reporter, one of my first jobs was to head to the local train station and talk to the people leaving or departing.

Where were they going? Why? Who were they going to meet? All those sort of questions.

It was a hugely well-read (and supported by advertisers) column in the paper and only stopped when burglars learned to read and worked out where some houses might be empty.

Not sure, well, actually I am sure, you couldn’t do that today without giving the insurance company’s claims divisions a lot of work.

Interestingly, one of our larger newspapers tried something similar not that long ago with a regular column along similar lines featuring comings and goings at the airport.

It fell by the wayside after a while which was a shame. I know I read it every week. Maybe I’m just nosey.

Anyway. This week I went for a drink with the Scottish Plumber and I happened to mention things were a bit tough at work and I was finding it a bit of a grind.

“Go smell the roses,” he said. “Take your mind off it. You like talking to people. Go do that.”

And so, dear reader, this is where we get to the retiree. “Finally,” I hear you say.

On my first appointment for the day, I bowl on up the garden path to see this lady who’s standing at the front door having just taken possession of a huge bunch of flowers from a delivery person who is just departing. It’s an obvious conversation opener.

And after 10 minutes or so of chat where we both mentioned grandchildren, she invited me in for a cuppa. The invitation was gratefully accepted.

For the next hour this thoroughly delightful retired octogenarian told me about her life.

She and her husband had come out from England as newlyweds on a boat that went through the Suez Canal and took the best part of six weeks to get here. As she’d never been further than 40 miles from her home town, leaving her family and travelling to the other side of the world was an adventure on a grand scale.

They’d settled in the big smoke where they both got factory jobs and saved hard. A weekend trip to a town down the line saw them stumble across a nice little weatherboard house in a quiet street. The same one she still lives in to this very day. The rest, as they say, is history.

They bought it. Moved in and raised four kids, all of whom had long since flown the coup. Two to Australia, one back to the big smoke and a son who lives not far away. Eventually grandkids had come along and she and her husband had had a ball. As she said. Life was good. They were content.

Sadly, this idylic life was to come to a shuddering halt when her husband suffered a stroke five years back. He was largely incapacitated and she took care of him until the day he died, a little over three years ago now.

During that time, and every day since, the son close by has popped in to check on mum. She was doing fine, she said. She especially looked forward to her regular bunch of flowers from a granddaughter in Australia who was, she said, “very clever and does something with computers”. I smiled as she whispered, “she’s quite well off”.

Eventually I bade my new friend farewell, wished her all the best as she set about finding a vase for her flowers, quite content with her day.

I have to say she made me feel good too.

At my next job I found myself discussing life and education with a teacher who was thinking about a move to fresh pastures. A new start.

A relationship breakup six months ago had caused him to reassess things. It had been coming a long time so when the decision to part was made it was quite amicable. They were both philosophical about how things had worked out, he said. Life was too short to dwell on such things.

For his part he was wondering whether a change of location would recharge his batteries.

He’d put 10-plus years into his current position and while he still got a huge buzz out of seeing the kids “get” what he was putting across to them, the work outside the classroom had ballooned to such an extent he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to carry on.

As a younger man he used to surf, he told me. Perhaps six months back on the board in Oz would give him some clarity. “Either that or bad groin chafing,” I said with a grin, bidding him farewell.

Another interesting yarn I thought. It had been a great day so far.

My last call was to an old boy who had been a farmer. It took about three minutes of pleasantries and me commenting on the tractor parked right next door to his house before he launched into his life story.

He’d come into the outskirts of town from his large holding when he’d retired. He’d bought this place and a couple of paddocks around it just to maintain the country feel. He hadn’t been able to part with his pride and joy when he moved so he brought the tractor with him.

Over time he’d built little sheds and vege gardens, that sort of thing, all round the boundary and he would drive his tractor the 200 yards from the house to wherever he was pottering that day. Just to keep his hand in.

He’d spent the better part of 50 years on the farm and the work ethic was still as sharp as ever. The day I was there he’d just finished laying a water pipe and filter system across the field to a large holding tank he’d had placed in a corner. He wants to put in a tunnel house for more veges but his wife wants him to take a break and go on a cruise.

As I left him an hour or so later, I was left with the distinct impression he’d rather take a long journey in his tractor.

Anyway. My work at an end, I found myself running through the day’s appointments.

I’d met some thoroughly interesting everyday people. Had some amazing conversations and taken my mind off my daily grind.

And, metaphorically, if people were roses while I didn’t exactly go out and smell them that day, it would be fair to say they were definitely in bloom.