Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
My Father’s Hat
He would wear the hat every year at barbecues. The same chef’s hat, tall but floppy with some gaudy design on it. He loved that hat. It’s gone to my nephew now the one who bears his name. Not sure if he ever wears it, but he will one day.
But I have the apron. It’s stained and those stains won’t come out, but I don’t really want them to. They are a tangible memory of what was, a reminder of times long gone, but still vivid in my mind and etched in my memory like the Aboriginal rock drawings in the Kimberley.
When I use that apron, as I often do, I can see the barbecue fired up and Dad standing around it with the long barbecue tongs in one hand, beer in another, and I see the smoke rising . This was a real barbecue, with briquettes, none of that piped gas that we all have now. There was always the effort to get it going, and the debate about how long it would take to heat up and when to put the meat on relative to when the guests would arrive. What should go on first? The chicken or the steaks or chops?
I can see the salads all lined up, covered with glad wrap, the nuts and chips being handed around , the wine in the cooler and the beer foaming in its high mugs.
Somewhere the dog would be about, perhaps one of the German shepherds or perhaps the psychotic Doberman who ran round and round the pool until finally, one day, it dropped dead of a heart attack.
The barbecue was in the back garden , which was up a steep flight of stairs behind the house. However, in the pool house adjacent to the barbecue would be set up was a sink, small fridge and a sauna and shower.
I can visualise the old plastic dishes that were used, or perhaps paper plates, as the good china was never used for a barbecue.
Dad relished being in his hat and apron, king of the barbecue, being a good host.
Sometimes of course, Melbourne being Melbourne, there was either a total fire ban or else a cool change that would sweep through dropping the temperature by 20 degrees in 10 minutes. In those cases, the barbecue wouldn’t be on and the cooking might still be done outside on a little electric grill or, if the weather really turned, we would all come indoors.
But the hat and apron always stayed on.
People these days like to declutter. Chuck it out , they say. You don’t need it. It takes up too much space. Be zen. Empty. Bare.
But I like this old apron. It evokes a time and a memory, a feeling, a sentiment like all old things do. It might be the battered old frypan that we used to make pancakes in when we were kids, it might be the old coffee table that is a relic from a beach house from 60 years ago, it might be the old leather chairs that have lost their straps but are too comfortable to chuck out. Those memories that are indelible are with us always, and when I use that stained old apron, or sit on the chair or put the mug on the coffee table I am taken back in a nanosecond to times long past- to days where there were people and drinks and a barking dog, to hot days and wet days, to a time when we weren’t exhorted to be zen and declutter..
It’s funny how he liked that hat and how often I think about it. Must be something about hats in the family.
His family made hats. My grandfather had a business making straw hats in Krakow,in Poland. I don’t know how he started in the hat business, but by 1900 when my aunt was born the hat business was up and running.
Grandfather Samuel Wiener was born in a little town called Dobrowa Tarnowa which is in the area called Galicia, at one time part of the Austro Hungarian Empire. Dobrowa(which means near to or next to) Tarnowa is about 20 minutes by car from the bigger town of Tarnow.
Grandfther was born in December 1874 to Ascher Wiener and Tova Knobloch. Great grandfather was born in 1849 in Chrzanow and Tova was born in 1850 in Tarnow. Great grandfather Ascher died in May 1875 when grandfather was 6 months old. I don’t know what killed him, but possibly some sort of epidemic such as flu or typhoid. Great grandmother moved back to Tarnow and much later, in 1898, had remarried Leib Unger and had a child, Markus, in 1898 at the age of 48. Whether she was married previously or had other children I don’t know, but no records of either have been found.
I Couldn’t Quite Get My Head Around It
The first time I opened the window and saw him lying there opposite I couldn’t quite get my head around it. My god I thought he ‘s stolen a skeleton from the anatomy lab. But why is he sitting there naked? That was my first thought. But then, thinking about it some more, I thought, with some shock, surely he hasn’t killed that old geezer who lived downstairs? Or was it some love story gone really wrong? Had someone just died in the arse and there he was staring mournfully at him?
I didn’t know the answer to any of these questions and in any event it was time for me to take the cat to the vet for her annual shots so didn’t have time to ponder it any further.
Then at the vet, they had a cat for adoption. I toyed with the idea of adopting another, but I supposed that 10 was probably enough, for the minute anyway. There was after all still the possbiiltiy of fostering the cheetah cub and I supposed really that I should think of her.
It was melting the day I met the cheetah. She was alone in her enclosure and they told me I could go in and play with her for a little bit. Her mother had died, they weren’t sure why, so she had to be raised by humans until she could be released into the wild. But, as she grew, they realised that she was much too domestic cat like to ever be released, and whilst she could never be a house cat, well not really, she also wasn’t suited to the wild. The idea was that I might be able to foster her for a little bit of time.
But then, walking down the street one day with the cheetah, this weird dog started to follow me. Of course, its not my dog as mine would be securely at home, or on a leash, or something. If I had had a dog. So I told the dog to go home which it seemed reluctant to do.
The cheetah was quite beautiful and didn’t seem to mind being just one of a family of its smaller domestic cousins. She was quite small at this stage. And then, as soon as she seemed to be settling in, she seemed to change a little. Whereas she had purred and chirruped as they do, she adopted a different persona, almost dog like. I couldn’t really say what prompted it, whether it was that odd dog that followed us, or what.
The one day we were out and the dog joined us and walked with us for a bit, but then, in a weird way, it began to crumple as if it had heard bad news. I couldn’t say what happened to it, but it just sort of sauntered off. By then I had ascertained that it lived with the old guy round corner who used to work for ASIO. Funny old dude but harmless in his way. Well, now he was. Not sure that I could say that in the past.
So the cheetah stayed with us for a couple of months, until finally, she grew too big and had to be returned to the sanctuary. I still go and visit her, and she comes and sits on my knee as she used to do, as she observed the other cats doing, and purrs loudly. I had bottle fed her at nights and sometimes she would indicate somehow that she wanted the bottle again, so, to be prepared, I always brought one with me and had it heated up there. She particularly liked certain brands of milk.
I often wondered how many people the old ASIO dude had killed. We knew he had as he was so cagey about what he did.
Then I saw the young guy from across the way. I was about to ask him about the skeleton, when I saw him look around and go into the house of the old ASIO dude.
There were 39 steps in his front yard we had heard. Was he going up those 39 steps or was there some other in? It was only when I heard the news that I found out.