2. I Fell Off A Flying Fox
As a general rule I’m not a very
well-coordinated person. However, what sets me apart from others is that even
though I know I’m uncoordinated, I have still managed to participate in and fail
at a surprising number of unnecessary physical pursuits.
This little tale traces the dawning of the
realisation that I would never be a gifted, spring-loaded athlete, blessed with
skill and poise. I think I was nine, so the scene was certainly set early.
As most children my age were trampolining
(more on this in another post), back-flipping into swimming pools and taking
jumps on their bike, I always had my doubts. However, I could never be
considered a ‘chicken’, and was instead driven by an unsaid social and
environmental pressure to engage in such activities myself. Activities that I
now consider foolhardy at best. At worst? Deadly.
The setting of this story is a park in
Bendigo (as well as Bendigo Base Hospital). The protagonists? A flying fox, a
hot jam donut and a long car trip.
Our family had taken a trip to Bendigo and
we were soaking up the last sunshine of a particularly happy Sunday before
leaving for home. One of countless fun-filled family holidays we enjoyed in my
younger days.
So what does a family do before loading up
the car and driving 3.5 hours back home? If you answered ‘eat a hot jam donut
and then go to a park’, you’d be correct.
It was the aforementioned social pressure
and an ideal of ‘wanting to fit in’ that found me on this fateful afternoon
playing in a seemingly care-free way on a small playground in Bendigo. While my
typical playground pursuits were undertaken with a strong respect for gravity –
slides, swings, whizzy-dizzies at best – today was unique in that this
particular playground featured a Flying Fox.
It just so happened that a caravan selling
hot jam donuts and other treats had positioned itself in close proximity of
this playground, and it was decided that it would be a great entrée for a play
session.
The experience of eating a jam donut, which
to that point I’d never sampled, was probably a seven out of ten for me. The
jam wasn’t too hot, the dough tasty and sweet and it was coated with a generous
topping of caster sugar.
Little did I know that it was this tasty,
cinnamon-tinged caster sugar that would be the factor behind my eventual
downfall.
After a rapid but enjoyable donut
consumption experience, I swept over to the playground and began to engage in
my usual activities of swinging, sliding and spring-loaded-horse-rocking. Until
I saw my sister having what appeared to be an amazing time on the flying fox.
To this point in my life, the flying fox
held little appeal. It wasn’t something I’d had a lot of experience with.
Manangatang wasn’t known for its playground innovations, and the stock
swing/slide/whizzy-dizzy combo held sway for generations.
But seeing my sister step onto the platform,
grab the handle, swing her momentum forward and slide to the other side
appealed to me at that moment. Quite possibly it could have been a coming of
age. A confidence booster.
So I wandered over bravely to the platform,
and being encouraged by all around me I grabbed the handle and pushed off.
The rest is a blur, but my patchy memory
and the tales told by others present on that day suggested that a combination
of my lack of coordination, the height of the flying fox and the icing sugar on
my hands culminated in the fall that led me to black out for a short time. I am
told that I landed squarely on my head.
In those days there was none of modern
society’s namby-pamby rubber padding or even bark chips beneath playground equipment.
These were harder conditions driven by harder times. Which was evidenced by the
concrete-hard compacted dirt and faded memories of broken bones past beneath
this flying fox.
If given the power to express itself
directly, my skull may not have been so flippant about a safe landing zone.
The next thing I knew I woke up in Bendigo
Base Hospital with a small ‘Gold Digger’ toy purchased to help me feel better.
It did, but I must admit that through my confusion the only thing I could think
about was that I wasn’t as keen on hot jam donuts as I once was.
But while a short hospital stay and a
diagnosis of a mild concussion might seem like a fitting end to this
unfortunate tale, the truth is far more telling. The punctuation mark on what
turned out to be a derailed afternoon was a swelling sensation of nausea I felt
outside of Sea Lake on the return journey.
I had never vomited in my life to this
point, and have only done so once since (from any causes, remarkably). My
memory of it was sketchy, but I do recall depositing back my donut to the earth
from which it was created. Poignant indeed.
What
did I learn from this?
It was certainly the dawning of the
realisation that I’m not the most physically adept person out there, and set
the scene for what proved to be an accident-prone teenage phase.
It also meant that I would never again
touch a hot jam donut. Even the hipster-led trend of donut balls stuffed with
jam and chocolate sends shivers down my spine. Icing sugar has escaped further
scrutiny, but it’s on notice.
