The Sweetest Words: I'll Help You, Mate
Newcastle Herald
Thursday January 28, 1999
HE took a while to answer his doorbell.
`Yes?' he said.
`I'm sorry, Sir,' I said. `I think I've got the wrong man. You see, I've got a flat and I'm changing the wheel. It's a big car, it's got mag wheels, and I'm in the gutter and I've jacked it right up, and I got the wheel off okay, but I can't get it on. It's clear of the road but it's too heavy. I'm not strong enough anymore. I must be getting old.'
`I'm 94,' he said. `I'd love to help. But I can't. My arthritis. Hands won't close any further than that.'
He showed me.
I looked at him, a big, pleasant old man with a creased face and stooped back. And he looked at me. Overweight, sweating like a pig in my shorts and T-shirt ? to him, young.
His eyes twinkled and he saw the funny side.
We both burst out laughing.
`Not a good house to pick, hey?' he said, between belly laughs.
`Thanks anyway, old mate,' I said. `I'll try someone else. A week or two younger.'
We laughed again, and he told me next door had a strong young bloke. IT must be the generation.
They want to help each other.
At the weekend the rain came to my town.
The streets were rivers. 74mm of rain in an hour. The bowling club was flooded. It's near sea level and there's great hills all around it. The rain tore down the hills and everyone else's rain descended on the area surrounding the bowling club.
The three greens were like three big lakes and the locker room was a metre or so under water.
The greenkeeper, a big strong lad of Italian background, was close to tears.
`I had it perfect,' he kept saying. `Just bringing in that green. Ruined.'
You could sense the frustration and the hours of work that had been put to the sword in that hour. He was close to a beaten man.
I do the gardens. I haven't got to do one for a while. At least not until I put back all the soil. It's on the third green, 100m away, with the plants.
We told the green keeper it wasn't his fault and he said he knew that but it would take weeks and weeks to repair.
Then they started coming.
The older members.
A couple of young ones too. The two best bowlers in the club in fact. They're young. In their forties.
Not one had to be telephoned. All `just turned up to see if they could help'.
The working bee drained the greens, and started raking, sweeping, wheel barrowing.
The young blokes did the heavy stuff, the older ones manned a rake or a shovel.
Old Peter stood in the middle of one green with a rake, doing a metre at a time.
`Take it easy, old son,' I said. `We don't want you to cark it. Don't do too much.'
He was down to his athletic singlet. `I'm okay,' he said. `Good exercise for me.'
He's at least 80.
The sun was sweltering down now but they worked on. The club put on free beer but they would just have one and go back to work.
It was dark when I left but the greenkeeper and his assistant had it under control.
The members drank a few beers together with the satisfaction of a job done and the camaraderie of men who had helped each other.
It was the biggest crowd we've had in the club on a Sunday for a long time. Men who had proved themselves men. Still able to handle a shovel. Still able to help each other.
They felt good.
It must be the generation. A YOUNG woman answered the door in her nightdress.
`You haven't got a young man in there, have you?' I said, feeling ridiculously crass. `A strong young man.'
He wasn't tall but had muscles on his ear lobes.
He lifted the tyre on with one hand almost, and did up the wheelnuts with the other.
`Thanks mate,' I said. `I'm not as strong as I was.'
`Bloody heavy these mag wheels,' he said. `Glad you asked me. Always like to help out.'
It must be the generation.
I hope so.
© 1999 Newcastle Herald
