Virgil's Diary: Zayda's Random Reflections

28 May 2006

The latest coincidences
I’ve said it before, many times, but I must repeat it: "The older I become the more I’m aware of the occurrence of captivating coincidences”...

19 April 2006

Gaelic Gabble or Jewish Jangle?
My wife Marge had become very friendly with a delightful Catholic lady, Adrienne, some years ago. Recently my daughter Jo and I responded to her invitation to visit her in her new home in Williamstown...

15 February 2006

Words while on the tram
It’s another hot day -- 37 degrees Celsius in fact -- and I’m on my way to elder daughter Jo’s home via a city-stopover to do a little shopping...

25 January 2006

Transport troubles on a torrid day
It’s a hot day today, 37 degrees Celsius with 42 degrees forecast tomorrow. It’s the last day of 2005...

20 December 2005

The Great Greenberg Gathering
Not long ago, on 20 November 2005, my sixth great-grandchild Clancy was but twelve days old and made his first journey from home across Melbourne to Ardoch, my home in East St Kilda, for afternoon tea.

18 November 2005

Phone foibles and facts
One of my voluntary jobs last week was a five-hour stint on the phone ringing many Victorian community organisations. I had plenty of time to consider the many and varied ways my call was answered.

20 October 2005

The Hindu-Muslim taxi driver
I lowered myself into the front seat, reciting the usual "G'day", at the same time offering the turbaned taxi driver my subsidy card then waving "Goodbye" to my daughter Jo...

07 October 2005

My art teacher Aggie Connell
When I was a nine year old pupil in Grade four at Elwood Central School in Melbourne, my teacher, about 20 or 21, was Miss Aggie Connell.

20 September 2005

Thoughts when out walking
I do believe it's essential for good health and good economic reasons that we get plenty of exercise.

08 August 2005

Tales from the Greenberg Brothers
About once a month my 81 year old brother Joe, my 71 year old brother Kenn, my 79 year old brother-in-law Nat and the 86 year old Harry Greenberg meet for a luscious luncheon, at the Tanti Hotel in Mornington, Melbourne.

31 August 2005

Marriage & my multicultural mob
Last Wednesday night I was browsing through a book of quotations and came across this, on the subject of marriage by American writer Benjamin Franklin...

11 July 2005

Reflections from my Queen's Birthday Weekend
Australia celebrates the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II in mid June each year. However, Saturday 11 June is a special day for another reason...

15 June 2005

Silent witness: A window to the past
"These scarred Trees are a reminder of the past, and they link us to all Trees. Take the memory of these scarredTrees with you forever. Share their story with your Family"...

30 May 2005

The jilted jaded Jacaranda
Just like a jilted bride, lonely and left at the altar, stood the jaded jacaranda outside the front of the Ardoch Swimming Pool...

25 May 2005

Murder on Mother's Day
One recent Thursday I had a call from Ella, a good friend of thirty years, inviting me to dinner on Friday. I had to refuse, advising that I was to attend the first visit of my fifth great grandchild, one week-old Ailsa Kate, to her grandmother Jo's regular Friday dinners.

18 May 2005

Dimboola, the traffic cop and me
Nearly 60 years ago I was driving along the Western Highway, in an ancient Baby Austin -- a tourer soft-top with clip-on side curtains -- at a top speed of 45 miles per hour...

02 May 2005

A potential hill-top paradise
I feel I'm dead... in Paradise". That was my answer to friends in the 1960's and 70's when we lived at Prospect Hill Park in Wandin North -- a few kilometres from Lilydale, just off the Warburton Highway on the Eastern reaches of Melbourne.

02 May 2005

Panic at the eye-surgeon's
A few weeks ago I visited an optometrist to get my eye tested. I say "eye" and not "eyes" because I'd been born with a "lazy" left eye, which I had virtually no sight at all...

19 April 2005

121 Steep Spiralling Steps
The last 12 months have caused me to go gallivanting around Geelong, visiting the beauty spots of Melbourne's Bellarine Peninsular -- including the seafarers landmark, the historic Point Lonsdale lighthouse.

12 April 2005

A memorable magical mystery tour
My elder daughter Jo one day recently asked me to check my diary, nominating a Sunday on which she and her husband Jim wished to take me on a mystery tour... All I could do was wistfully wait for the nominated day to arrive.

04 April 2005

Spanish Spoken Here: Calling Mexico
A few months ago my grandson Stephen married and he and his wife decided to visit Mexico for their honeymoon. When I asked Stephen had he booked locally, I was surprised by his answering me, "No Zayda, I rang the hotel direct.”

29 Mar 2005

Spanish Spoken Here: The Phone Call
Sam, heading to bed after a hard day’s work, is surprised when his wife halts him in his tracks and announces that he is expecting a phone call…

17 Mar 2005

Spanish Spoken Here: Uncle Meyer
In the 1940’s I read a little story, an article titled "Spanish Spoken Here". Over the last 60-odd years it has provided many laughs for those who’ve read it themselves or listened to it read by me.

09 Mar 2005

The Early Bird lives longer
Recently, the Virgil's Diary Editor commented, "Gee Zayda you get up early!" This was because I'd emailed him at 6:50am one morning -- an hour after quitting the sheets.

02 Mar 2005

Red Symons and the ex-pat muso
Some months ago, while working with my paints and brushes on my 20th family sea chest, I heard an appeal from ABC local radio asking for names and details of Australian ex-pats living abroad...

21 Feb 2005

The Sacred Heart virgin Volunteer
Yes -- I admit it -- never before had I conscientiously, carefully, carmly, chopped chillies, carrots and cucumbers for three hours constantly.

15 Feb 2005

Ignorance is a fine art
Instead often being a calamity, ignorance is sometimes the source of power, usefullness and happiness.

06 Feb 2005

A family coincidence
Way back in December l941, just a few days after Japan came into the Second World War, thousands of folk living in Queensland and other northern Australian climes decided to travel as far south as possible seeking to stay with friends and or family...

31 Jan 2005

Turning the tables: Chasing expressions through history
I came across a most unusual little book titled "Uncommon Origins Of Some Commonplace Expressions" -- in an op-shop -- after heading, as usual, straight for the second-hand book section...

26 Jan 2005

You become someone, alone
While browsing amongst old volumes recently this challenging headline quickly claimed my attention, naturally, because I live alone: "You become someone... Alone."

17 Jan 2005

Vat's Dat? Asked my grandmother
"Vat's Dat?" This was the question Rebecca Diamond used to pose to fishermen offering their fresh fish from Frankston pier in her quaint Russian accented voice.

10 Jan 2005

Doctors say: Friendships are good medicine
Friendships are increasingly being recognised as vital to health as happiness. In study after study, researchers have found that people with friends are more likely to survive health challenges less likely to develop diseases.

03 Jan 2005

Change your pace
All my life I've moved quickly. I'm not a "nervy" person, anyone of my large family will confirm that -- but early on I considered that quick walking is wonderful exercise...

16 Dec 2004

I'm learning to cope with grief
It's a simple fact of life that every human being, one way or the other (unless they pass on first) will eventually encounter grief and I thought it may be of some help to someone if I jot down in black & white my experience so far...

06 Dec 2004

Your next job: Making Australia
Recently, thousands of teenagers slammed the doors on their school days, fondly imagining that the last year of school was the biggest test of their lives (it wasn't) and assuming exam results will irrevocably shape their futures (they won't).

29 Nov 2004

What is a clothe s line?
In these days of clothes driers lots of our intimate secrets can remain just so -- never revealed to become the momentary interest and entertainment of the passer-by.

22 Nov 2004

How rhythm smoothes life
After spending two years at Melbourne High School in years nine and ten, I'm sure that I greatly disappointed my parents when I foolishly broached the subject of leaving at Intermediate level and not matriculating at the end of year twelve.

15 Nov 2004

Kindeness sometimes kills
I had always considered hospital visiting a doubtful good deed and I'd desist - as much as possible. My thoughts were confirmed recently by a doctor friend who'd just come home from hospital.

9 Nov 2004

Last Will and Testament
It's really a matter of you Will or you Won't... If you're a mature adult you should jot down in black and white your wishes as to their disposal in the event of your sudden unexpected exit from this mortal coil.

01 Nov 2004

How to meet the Listening Seat
In the leafy suburb of St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne between Alma Rd and Dandenong Rd, lies Alma Park -- a superb serene sward laudably landscaped and interestingly intersected by pleasant paths, shrubs, flourishing flamboyant flowerbeds and tall thick trees.

25 Oct 2004

Try turning your illness into an asset!
Only yesterday you were flying along in good health and vigor then -- suddenly inflicted with illness unexpectedly unhinging your knees -- brought limply to bed. Now you're a haggard horizontal citizen of the sickroom -- a most unwilling initiate in the fellowship of pain.

18 Oct 2004

What you owe your children
My 58 year old daughter -- grandmother of three magnificent kids (my great-grandchildren, of course) caused me to strongly affirm that the following opinion offered by American writer Frank Crane nearly a hundred years ago does not apply to my grandchildren.

10 Oct 2004

Do you get along with older people?
Even the most patient of us have thought at some time or other... Why are so many old people difficult to get along with?

04 Oct 2004

A really remarkable woman
Among the few hundreds of elderly folk living at a St.Kilda Road Home for the aged is a really remarkable woman -- Ella Gerber. She is 90 years old, almost completely deaf with no help from hearing aids and with little sight in both eyes, relying on a walking frame to move...

27 Sept 2004

Tim Tams and the Almighty
One day a young boy wanted to meet God. He knew it would be a long journey so he filled a small backpack with all the essentials: Tim Tams, lamingtons and chocolate milk. He wrote his parents a note, "gone to find God love Jamie" and he set off on his adventure.

20 Sept 2004

Eighty years is a long time
I walked into a tiny two-storey store with above residence in Melbourne's Central Business District recently -- built over 150 years ago -- on the North East corner of King & Latrobe Street. An old sign on the window proudly proclaimed "Russells Old Corner Shop".

12 Sept 2004

A warm warbling welcome
When I alighted from the tram a few days ago -- which is about 200 metres from my front door -- I was greeted with a tremulous twittering emanating from a nurturing nest of baby magpies surrounded by lush tiny tips of greenery high up in a huge old pine tree -- such a charming compatible contrast to the naked wintery branches of nearby deciduous birches.

06 Sept 2004

Casting a blind eye to defeat
I'll never forget the day I arrived at my work-place Essendon Airport during the period I was Assistant Accountant to Ansett Airways -- 1938-39. My eyes just couldn't accept the dreadful disaster confronting me and other staff members.

29 Aug 2004

You wouldn't read about it!
Last year I had three grandchildren in Scandinavia at the same time. Wendy in Northern Norway, Maria at Malmo University in Sweden and Virgil at Oslo University in Norway...

23 Aug 2004

That little black bag
Crumpled, but comfortably ensconced under a chair it was -- just like a little pussycat dozing... But that little black bag was not so benign...

16 Aug 2004

Heralding History Here...
So I've been told... Apparently I'm the first Virgil's Diary regular weekly contributor committed to sharing with you thoughts, ideas, opinions, comments, quotes etc. -- some my own and some that have inevitably impressed me over my 85 years