60 in 60 #21 Paul
I am reflecting on the last 60 years, and writing 60 blog posts in 60 days. 30 about people and 30 about events, places, experiences and entities.
I’ve said a few times already that seemingly insignificant incidents have turned out to be life-changing events, never more-so than in this story.
One of the reasons my last two years of high school were so good was because I met Graham Barnes. We were in the same English class and we hit it off straight away. We both loved footy and barracked for East Perth, we played a lot of pool and we both went on the North West Trip, a bus trip run by the school taking students to the North-west of WA for two weeks. We took the inland route north, via Meekatharra and Wittenoom (!) then on up to Port Hedland and Broome before returning south via the coast road to Carnarvon and Geraldton. It was a fantastic trip for a whole lot of reasons including a rendezvous with Dad and Julie at Millstream, a day of silly antics at the South Hedland shopping centre, four of us sneaking off to go skinny dipping at the famous Cable Beach, and getting the bus bogged on the banks of the DeGray River.
Graham in the poolroom
About a year after we left school Graham and two mates, Dave and Sean, headed off in a panel van to go around Australia by the northern route; Broome, Darwin and the top end. At the same time I had embarked on my hitch-hiking adventures going the other way, across the Nullarbor. We figured we would meet up somewhere on the other side of the country but the plan was pretty loose. We had some mutual contacts and addresses and kept in touch by mail. This was in 1980, long before mobile phones or the internet of course.
As described in chapter 17, my original plan when leaving Melbourne was to go back to my old home town of Toowoomba on the Darling Downs but when I got a ride with Peter who was heading for Cairns I changed plans and joined him on the trek to Far North Queensland. Sadly his car died when we got to Townsville and he ditched it and flew home to Newcastle. I intended to return south as well but figured seeing as I was so close I would hitch up to Cairns for the weekend. I stayed a couple of nights at a youth hostel and was set to head off on the Monday morning when a group I was hanging out with invited me to join them on a day trip to have a look at the Atherton Tablelands. Having no deadlines and no commitments I accepted their offer. That night when we got back to the hostel we were sitting in the front garden having a drink and telling stories. I had my back to the footpath but for some reason turned around at the exact moment a bloke was walking past wearing an unmistakeable cowboy hat, it was Graham!
Graham and that cowboy hat, in London, not long before I left for America in 1984
Being reunited, my plans changed and I decided to stay on in Cairns as well. Graham got a job unloading prawn trawlers and I got a job at Tom Hull’s Mansworld, a menswear shop that specialised in outfitting cattle workers.
We moved into a new hostel together and started playing pool at the pub most nights.
There were some interesting characters at the hostel, including a woman who got very confused about which room she lived in and could often be found wandering around the first floor veranda. One day I brought home a gigantic pair of denim jeans I’d found in the storeroom at Tom Hull’s. They were so big that Graham and I could stand in one leg each, they probably had a 100” waist. They were some sort of promotional pair I think. For a joke I hung them out on the washing line late one night. The commotion the next morning was hilarious as the bunch of odd characters marvelled at the mammoth jeans and wondered who on earth wore them. The lost lady went hunting around the hostel trying to locate the owner, no doubt thinking that a giant had moved into the hostel overnight.
Paul when we met in Cairns in 1980.
There was another guy at the hostel who wasn’t strange, apart from being American. His name was Paul Frederickson and the three of us started hanging out together. He hailed from California and had already been to New Zealand, and worked in the outback before arriving in Cairns. We sat on the steps and talked for ages about life, religion, education, hopes and dreams. At night we headed for the pub and the pool table. Paul was working as a lumper at a factory, unloading heavy bags off trucks and onto ships, or vice-versa. He told me to make the job more interesting he started doing “Disco-lumping”, incorporating a few dance moves in between bags. After a few weeks at the hostel we figured we could save money by renting a flat so the three of us moved into a little two bedroom flat a few streets away.
We stayed in Cairns for about 3 months before Graham said he wanted to head back to NSW to re-join Dave and Sean. I swapped addresses with Paul and a few days before Christmas Graham and I set off hitching south while Paul stayed on in Cairns.
Sometime later he returned home to the States and we started writing to each other.
Fast forward to June 1983. I had been in England for a year and was flying to New York for the start of summer camp at Camp Schodack in upstate New York. (Chap 14). After a brilliant time at camp I set off hitch-hiking around the USA with my main target being San Diego, Paul’s home town. It took me a couple of weeks to get there and even though I had written to let him know I was coming I think Paul was still surprised that I made it. I spent about a week with him and it was just as good as it had been when we met in Cairns. He was working for PSA airline and often took advantage of the great staff discount airfares, such as flying down to Quito, Ecuador, for a weekend, much to the amazement of his big-noting neighbour. While I was there I helped Paul move in with his girlfriend Vicki who also worked at PSA.
I took off back to New York and London in September 1983 but the following year I returned to Camp Schodack, and on my second trip around America went across the top via Mount Rushmore and Seattle before again arriving in San Diego. This time I spent about two weeks with him. We went camping in the Redwood Forest National Park and I met his brother Damon in Fresno.
About to leave for our trip to the Redwoods, 1984
Paul loves fly fishing (so much so he has been to New Zealand a number of times to indulge his passion). On this visit he was keen to check out a potential fishing spot a couple of hours outside San Diego so we set off on a hike to look for it. I don’t remember if we found any decent fishing spots but I will never forget what we did find. While we sat on a rock to have lunch Paul asked “Did you hear that?” “No” I replied. A couple of minutes later he said “I can definitely hear something”. We peered around the other side of the rock and sitting beneath it was not one but two rattlesnakes!! We took off quick smart and then cracked jokes all the way back to the car about being chased by a couple of angry rattlers.
The day of the Rattlesnake hike
We are alike in many ways and very different in others but the more time we spent together the closer we became. Paul was an accountant and thus very good at managing money while that is definitely not one of my strengths. He is a careful planner while I am more spontaneous but we both share a love of travel and adventure. When we first met he was exploring Christianity and I was a sceptic. A few years later I had a profound conversion while Paul was not sure what his beliefs were. These days we are both believers.
After my second trip to San Diego I returned home to Australia via Hawaii and life took a very different turn, within a few months I had accepted Christ and less than a year later was married to Carolyn. Paul and I carried on our letter writing and an occasional phone call but in the next few years we were busy getting on with life and raising a family and our contact was less frequent. One day I came home from work and Carolyn told me that Paul had rung because he had realised that we had lost touch a bit and he was adamant that he didn’t want that to continue because he valued our friendship so much.
In 1992 I got to go to America again to attend a youth leaders conference in Montreal and a church conference in Los Angeles. Needless to say I stayed with Paul and Vicki at their place in Escondido while I was in California. It was a couple of months after the LA riots sparked by the beating of Rodney King and I borrowed Paul’s truck (ute) to take a tour through the affected areas.
About two years later Paul came to Australia again and stayed with us in Perth for a few weeks. It was during this trip that our son Jordan, about 4-5 at the time, greeted Paul with words that have become enshrined in the folklore of our friendship,
“You’re real nice Paul, just as I expected you would be.”
It was during this trip that Paul joined us for two special events, Sailing Camp and Augusta Beach Mission, both run by Scripture Union. Paul fitted into both communities beautifully and was an enthusiastic participant in everything we did. Paul was a star runner at school and in college and also loves soccer so we were both in our element with the soccer games played every evening at Sailing Camp. It was a summer full of great fun, special memories and new friendships including Paul meeting another one of my mates, Andrew Broadbent- Broady.
Climbing the Gloucester Tree at Pemberton
In 1997 we had our fourth child, a son. We had not decided on a name until I said to Carolyn, “How about we name him after Paul?” She liked the idea and thus the bond between us was strengthened even more. About a year later Paul came on another trip down under, this time with Vicki as well. By then my Mum had been to America a couple of times and had met and stayed with Paul and Vicki so their trip included a stay at Bridgetown with Mum.
While he was here I arranged a hiking and camping trip in the Stirling Ranges along with Broady. The three of us went down south to Bridgetown and Katanning before setting off to hike up the third arrow track into the rugged Stirling Ranges. We intended to camp the night in an overhang cave that I had been to with kids on a wilderness hike the year before. The problem was we had wasted too much time en route playing on the adventure playground in Katanning and by the time we started hiking the light was fading. My companions’ confidence in me diminished the higher we climbed and the darker it got, until, forced to admit we couldn’t safely go any further, we bunkered down next to a rock wall and sought whatever shelter we could find for the night.
Broady wasted no opportunity to rubbish me and my navigation skills but the funniest comments surrounded Paul’s new bike. Paul had been telling us how good it was and how much he enjoyed riding it while we were hiking. As the darkness descended and the risk level increased Broady started rehearsing the phone call he would make to Vicki should anything terrible happen.
“Hi Vicki, really sorry to have to tell you there’s been an accident, but before he died, Paul said I could have his bike.”
Of course, when we woke up next morning we were less than 50 metres from the cave we’d been searching for! By then the rain had set in and the three of us spent the day snuggled in our sleeping bags, watching the rain and cracking jokes in between sleeps. By the third day the weather had cleared and we were able to continue hiking before returning down the track to the car. Unfortunately, due to the rain, we were now parked in a muddy field and proceeded to get the car bogged as we tried to depart. As everyone knows, it’s the mishaps and unplanned problems that make a trip truly memorable and when you add in Broady’s sense of humour, we had a fantastic time.
With Broady on our way to the Stirling Ranges
After that trip there was a long gap before Paul and I saw each other again but rather than fade, our friendship grew ever stronger until we both realised that we were best friends. The fact we live on opposite sides of the world or that we only see one another for brief periods then spend years apart is immaterial.
We have a bond that is unbreakable.
I admire so many things about him: his energy, his endless enthusiasm, his Pollyana-ish optimism, his sense of adventure, his loyalty and faithfulness. Then there is his amazing array of talents. Besides being a highly credentialled manager and accountant, he loves learning new skills and has learnt how to do all manner of physical jobs including the complete renovation of their house in Old Town San Diego, pretty much doubling it in size. He told me once how much he enjoyed doing the work himself and when asked by a friend why he didn’t hire a tradesman to do some particular task he replied, “What! and miss out on all this fun!”.
I love Paul and value his friendship incredibly highly. He has been an inspiration to me but more than that, he has been a supporter, a sounding board and a believer in me. I respect his opinions and many times have sought his advice and counsel when making big decisions. I know that he loves me and that without a shadow of a doubt he is there for me no matter what. Over the last few years Paul has redefined our relationship, elevating it from “best friends” to “brothers”. We both have two flesh and blood brothers but now we have a third by adoption.
In 2014 I called Paul and said there were some amazingly cheap airfares available to Hawaii and how would they like to meet us there for a holiday? I should say that Paul and Vicki own a house on the big island of Hawaii which her Dad Dave built. They go to Hawaii a couple of times a year and each time they do Paul does more work to the house or the garden or both. They immediately said yes to my suggestion so I booked the tickets and a few months later we jetted off to Honolulu then onto Kona on the big island.
It is no exaggeration to say it was the best holiday we’d ever had. We loved Hawaii, the natural beauty, the beaches, the lush green tropical feel and the perfect weather but most of all we loved being there with Paul and Vicki. They were wonderful hosts and every day there was a new place to go, a new beach to swim and snorkel at or a new place to eat. We had many BBQs at the beach, basking in the beautiful sunsets. We laughed a lot, especially when the things Vicki had told us we could do failed to work out as planned. The milkshake place turned out to have stopped making milkshakes years before, there were no spinner dolphins at the beach, no turtles where we snorkelled and no stingrays to be seen seen under the spotlights at Rays by the Bay. It didn’t matter, we laughed all the more.
We took an overnight trip to Volcano, the small town on the southern end of the island near the active volcano that emits a steady stream of lava into the surrounding area including flowing into the ocean. Paul and I walked across the floor of a dormant volcano, past vents of steam and lava tubes. Another day we hiked a few miles down the hill to a place known as ‘Captain Cook’, the landing place of the famed British navigator. We took a day trip to Hilo, the biggest town on the other side of the island and found some beautiful Hawaiian dresses for Carolyn. In the evenings after a typically wonderful meal of Mexican food (Vicki’s specialty) we were introduced to a great card game called Wizard. In between all the activity I worked on a drawing for Paul. I had asked him to choose a style from some of my samples and I then drew something for him that I was able to personalise based on our long friendship. Paul chose not to look at it until it was finished and I’m pleased to say he loved it when he did.
My first picture for Paul, Hawaii, 2014
One thing that I loved about Hawaii was how it brought out so much of Carolyn’s beauty, she was relaxed and happy the entire time, her playfulness emerged, unhindered as it often is by her worries and concerns. The pictures I took of Carolyn in Hawaii are absolutely beautiful and remain my favourite images of her, many of them capture her laughing and full of light and joy.
Carolyn, glowing in Hawaii
When we returned home I commenced my teaching degree at Deakin Uni and we moved into our fantastic new home in Ocean Grove but the afterglow of Hawaii lingered and we set our sights on going back again.
That opportunity came two years later but this time it was planned as a double whammy. We went to Hawaii in March 2016 and Paul and Vicki came to Australia, via New Zealand, in October. The second trip to Hawaii was just as good if not better than the first. More beaches, BBQs, turtles and dolphins, great food, day trips, swimming and snorkelling, and culminating in Paul and I establishing a tradition, a day of moped hire around Kona. I drew another picture but this one was for Paul and Vicki together and formed a pictorial biography of them.
My second picture for Paul & Vicki, Hawaii 2016
It was another idyllic trip and I joked that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get Carolyn onto the plane when it was time to go home.
Paul and Vicki’s trip to Victoria six months later was equally wonderful for a variety of reasons, in particular, Paul got to meet my Dad and they hit it off, bonding in our backyard where Paul spent several days building me a shed and Dad became his off-sider and advisor while I was at work. Paul and Vicki took a side trip to visit Mum at Narrawong and we took a trip to Wilson’s Promontory and got to see wombats and wallabies then Paul and I rode our bikes to Fish Creek on the bush tracks following the old railway lines through the beautiful Gippsland forests. On our way home I showed them Auntie Ev and Uncle Ken’s old house at Leongatha. They also got to meet a good friends, Bruce and Jacqui Robinson over a memorable lunch in Melbourne.
The Robinson Lunch
On our trips to Hawaii I kept a daily journal to create a record of all that we did and a commentary of memories and anecdotes which I read out at breakfast each morning. I continued writing journal entries for their visit down under and I love looking back at them to relive the memories of some very special times. The icing on the cake is that Carolyn and Vicki have become close as well and the four of us together never fail to enjoy ourselves.
Carolyn and Vicki
I am especially glad that Paul got to meet Dad and vice versa, dad having heard so much about him over the years, because it was less than a year later that Dad’s cancer returned and took his life. Paul wrote him a lovely letter when he heard the news.
Our plans had been to meet up again once I finished my degree, somewhere in Europe, Italy perhaps, but job hunting and other commitments delayed anything happening and now with the Covid pandemic all thoughts of international travel are on indefinite hold. I know we will meet up again, somewhere and sometime soon, once the world opens up again.
In the meantime we email and facetime, swap pics and stories and keep up to date with one another’s lives.
I had a great idea early this year and I asked Paul if he would like to facetime with the kids in my class at school. Of course he said yes so after I had prepared the kids by telling them a bit about my best friend and getting them to prepare questions for him we facetimed one morning. Following the call the kids had to write a recount of the whole process. I emailed copies of their writing to Paul and we had a follow-up call a few weeks later when Paul was back in Hawaii. A couple of weeks later a package arrived from Paul with a personal card written to each of the kids and a small gift for them all. The kids fondly remember meeting my best friend.
I started by saying it was a series of small and unrelated incidents that led me to this point.
If I hadn’t hitched a ride with Peter and changed my plans from Toowoomba to Cairns…
If I hadn’t decided to continue on to Cairns for a weekend…
If I hadn’t stayed an extra day to take a trip to the Atherton Tablelands…
If I hadn’t turned around at exactly the right moment when my mate Graham walked past…
If I hadn’t stayed on in Cairns instead of heading off the next day as intended…
I wouldn’t have met my best friend!
I love my brother Paul and I give thanks that all of those moments happened the way they did because for over 40 years we have formed a bond that has become the strongest and most important friendship in my life apart from my marriage.
Thanks mate, I love you and I can’t wait until the next chapter in our friendship unfolds.
Your brother Marcus.
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