We’re gonna party like it’s 1949!

Tuesday’s In the Herald column had a present-day aura for some. Nola Tucker of Kiama thinks “the 1949 Timelines is so prescient. Heating,job and hospital problems! Add in COVID and we could be reading the 2022 version.” Elisabeth Hawkins of Normanhurst says “the item on the rush for emergency cooking,lighting and heating gear in 1949 will have ‘older’ readers remembering zone blackouts in Sydney. The generator at Bunnerong wasn’t receiving enough appropriate coal for the city’s needs and this was the solution. Portable stoves,lanterns and heaters fuelled by kerosene were essential household items. My memory is that the zone for the day was advertised. In theHerald,of course.”

Marjie Williamson (C8) brought back lost memories and waves of nausea with her recounting of the boiling of hankies in the copper,” says Greg Rutter of Musk (Vic). ”The nausea increased when I realised the pot my mother used was the one she would boil the pig’s head in for pork brawn. Delicious,by the way.”

While Joy Cooksey of Harrington asks “is our national anthem on the vegie,sorry,verge of becomingAustralians All Lettuce Rejoice?” The following missive from Joan Brown of Orange shows that times really are tough. “The iceberg lettuces at my fruit market are tightly stacked upside down,to deter a cheeky customer from quickly plucking and pocketing the outer leaves undetected.”

“Following the reaction to my piece on donating blood (C8),I recalled the occasion of my first donation when I was a young soldier in the British Army,” says Allen Dodd of Kirribilli. “To my horror,when I used the toilet the next day,the ‘emerging product’ was completely black. I dashed to the medical officer,who huffily reprimanded me for not reading the directions on the box of iron tablets given to me. I didn’t expect to get black looks for donating.”

Bob “Bad Luck” Phillips of Cabarita prays that Garrett Naumann (C8) “is wrong and that Australia is not ‘the expert nation’. A Solomon Islander explained to me that the word ‘expert’ had two parts — ‘ex’,meaning ‘past it’,and ‘spurt’,which was best defined as ‘a drip under pressure’. I didn’t take it personally.”

“I’m no economist,” says Dick Barker of Epping,“so could someone explain this? Things are getting more expensive. So the Reserve Bank makes things more expensive to make things cheaper?”

Column8@smh.com.au

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