[Warning: If you think the mind is merely useful, and not an organ of immense power and mystery, and you believe the life of the mind is not worth talking about, I strongly recommend you read no further. - Yes, that means you, up the back, with the funny grin.]

The Only Characters Freer Than Me Are Found In Books

While I'd LIKE to be able to say that, I can't really - that is, AND be taken seriously. My track record shows a few bold strikes, and a whole stack of things done for the first time without any upfront training or knowledge - sailing a boat across the Pacific with a companion similarly ill-equipped as I for such an endeavour is the most recent, but not the only one. I popped into a plum job singing for my supper on a primetime national TV show at age 21, never done anything like that before in my churchgoing, nice-and-proper, live-with-my-parents life. Experimenting with booze and drugs and sex I will not mention, because everyone in my generation was doing THAT - yet for me, just emerging from the supersaturated christian environment made it feel way more risky and way more exciting. Between school and that job, when I didn't want to go to classes at Sydney University I went to the movies, and told no-one. AND failed royally. I got myself a boat, only 22 foot long, and set sail for Russell, N.Z., 1200 miles away - my girlfriend came too - and with tiny pilot fish leading our white-painted bow into the inky blue waters off the continental shelf that tiny yacht climbed every wave as if it were a penance, as if it were a faithful dog, climbing down the other side of every wave ruminating like a cow, and really getting nowhere; and the skipper turned around after an 8-day week, now sailing with the wind at their backs, and found Australia. The boat was a very old and leaky wooden sloop, stated by the marine surveyor, on purchase, in his report, to be "suitable for use within enclosed waters" - which the Tasman Sea is not.

Next in the line of untried, okay let's have a go! adventures was stepping into the role of schoolteacher without the shred of a credential, lacking the least minute of training, and possessing not one day of experience - in a country Catholic school - and me a city boy and a Protestant, well, born and raised church-chastened priest-fearing Bible-boy anyhow. And I BECAME a CATH'LIC too - another first for me! And then started fathering kids (five in 6 ½ years!) - well --- nearly everyone has kids, so maybe that doesn't count, on the Freedom CV, but FIVE!?

Did a bachelor degree and Masters degree as time-out from employment.

Briefly, now - Got fired from one of the most prestigious Catholic Private schools in Australia - Saint Ignatius, Riverview for doing it my way - retrained from teaching Art to Industrial Arts and was sent to a Deaf school! Schoolkids don't listen to the teacher but at the North Rocks School For Deaf Children this was considered perfectly okay. Nobody's listened to me since, I think. Went into schools as a man wearing a yellow plastic Dick Tracy hat and a ukulele and was greeted with disdain by the senior staff and delight by the children, worked as a roofpainter, labourer, taxidriver, self-employed Self-Help guru, busker, musician and kitemaking teacher among many other things, including playing Santa Claus in department stores and at a fancy hotel on Christmas day.

I ended a marriage with an Englishwoman, and began one with a California Chick. I took myself less and less seriously --- and then ---

It came time to run a restaurant! Why? Neither my wife nor I had ever done this before, but did we let that stop us? Not then! But two-and-a-half years later we were begging passersby in the street to take it off our hands, gratis, but that's another story. Meanwhile we took a foundering, bankrupt community icon and gave it mouth-to-mouth day-to-day resuscitation, breathed new money into its little lungs, and with autocratic chefs, local blue-eye and hand-cut chips, young staff, Jazz on Sundayz and everlovin' smiles from our hostess we got it up and running, and kept it running, 7 days a week.

That brings us up to the 6,000 mile US/Canada by road and 9,000 mile Pacific (by waves) treks - me ending up back home morally richer, financially poorer and on the shady side of 70.

Of course, in compiling my Freedom CV, my Resume Libre I have been selective, as you do when you write a resume, but even so, based on that, I can't honestly say what I'd like to be able to say, namely: The Only Characters Freer Than Me Are Found In Books. And I have left out entirely my adventures in Inner Space, the so called Spiritual Quest, a compulsive digging into the What-Am-I? aided by drugs, religion and bookreading, meditation, prayer and blind luck (=Divine guidance?). Age brings, maybe not wisdom, maybe not sagehood, Buddhahood, Enlightenment - but some fucking good lessons about oneself. I am content. To hew wood, draw water, and drink beer. All of which, are as before, but (dare I express it?) One. Me and Bobby McGee - even with the windshield wipers slappin' time (a really good line!) - will NOT agree: Freedom's NOT just another word for nothin' left to do - it's another word for nothin' left you HAVE to do!

'Bye friends, and thanks for listenin'. - All comments welcome, specially friendly ones.

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No photo could cover this story, but maybe I'll find one ...