CH-CH-Changes...
Ah that wonderful song by David Bowie summed up my first “Vespa in earnest” since the move to the Little House!
As I had changed address, I thought that I had best do the formality & change my licence information; way cool, a time to Surf out to that wonderful example of neo-urban-farmhouse-inspired-building being the NSW Roads & Traffic Authority Office, located in the Leewood industrial estate on the cool south side of OJ. On the upside, it also gave me a chance to ignore the painting & other work needed on the little house in order to have, some me time, if only for a little while.
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| Changing addresses took 10 minutes! Parked nicely in the middle of a spot again... |
Anyway, the nice thing about the new address is travelling home! As I did not have to take the most practical & quickest way home (which I probably wouldn’t anyway!), I got to traipse all over OJ & down memory lane about the rather dull working class city that I grew up in…
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| The sign looks current; it isn't; The danger no entry sign is! |
I first rode past the site of the Orange Sale Yards. These were operating on this site for years; it got to the stage where, after agreement between the 3 local government areas (being, Orange, Cabonne & Blayney councils) that the sale yards would be moved to Carcoar. I think the new facilities are probably way better… I can’t help thinking of the young Bogan (that I was) thinking that this place was so cool when we went here on school excursions; oh the joys of Primary school in OJ in the late 1970s!
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| Ahh, Edward street - so many memories! |
Next on my impromptu hoon was a right turn for a spin down the wide expanses of Edward street; there used to be an Auto Wreckers that I spent a vast amount of time toiling away at when I was in my early twenties. It went by the way & the shop is now a welder/sheetmetal fabricators shop these days. Unfortunately for the wrecking yards, the arrival of quality at very affordable prices in the mid-nineties seems to have killed off the industry; such is the way things go…
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| The Electrolx factory; carpark in the forground |
This is the manufacturing hub of OJ, Electrolux. They make refrigerators in this factory. In the past couple of years there have been rumours that this plant will shut down as it is cheaper for the Swedish multi-national to manufacture in Thailand (& bring in these fridges to Oz, as we have a free trade agreement with that Kingdom); I hope it doesn’t go the way of the Sale yards; this factory is part of the reason that OJ is a large provincial city, in many ways it has been the spine that built Orange, yes, mining has added a great additional source of employment to the town, but, the less other industries we have, the more worried I become, OJ used to have fruit co-ops, wool scouring & a textile factory, granted that these were in some ways “the ugly & low paid” industries, but heck, how many coffee shops & restaurants & gyms do we have & do they really replace these manufacturing jobs as far as creating opportunities in these areas? I will let everyone else come to their own conclusions over that question.
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| Those trees drop sap onto anything underneath them; i am not leaving the Surfer to that treatment! |
Oh gawd, talk about nostalgia, I grew up here – it is now a Cardiologists practice (although it does look a lot better than it did when I was a teenager & when I did leave the place), the Galah-like colours are still the same though; as are the slate tiles that Dad & I put down on the front porch in the early Nineties. The medical centre that is beside this house was where Mr & Mrs White lived; they lived in an old weatherboard house… it had large “Art Deco” style furniture inside it & the old gas light controls & fittings too. It became a rental house for quite some time before the developers moved in & created the tasteful modern medical site…
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| Naughty! |
I next shot past the Orange Velodrome, which got me thinking as well; Whene we were teenagers, Megamind (My thoroughly evil younger brother) & I used to ride our 10 speed racing bikes on the Orange Velodrome, mostly we’d race each other & dreamt about stuff… It was the 1980’s & we were teenagers & that is what teenagers did in the 1980’s
This reminiscing about racing cyclists prompted a memory…I have seen professional cyclists following a pace setter on a scooter or other small motorbike; thus I decided to see what it was like to take the surfer for a spin around a Velodrome…
I have to admit, it was cool, it reminded me of the old days, but with a lot less sweating! I did make it to top gear & flat out & was quite chuffed at the result – as the speedo isn’t working I have no idea as to the speed that I achieved!
Other than that, from an official point of view, what I did was rather naughty & should not in any way be condoned or done by others… don’t you love it when those in power say this stuff when they get busted by someone digging up a 20 year old picture of them living it up as a teenager!
As for the velodrome, Mr White once told us that there used to be semi-professional racing conducted here in the 50’s, with large crowds & professional bookmakers offering cheap entertainment to the denizens of OJ… apparently, this scene was killed off by the arrival of Television to the central Tablelands.
I wonder if there was a Vespa rider pontificating about the way things have changed when the cycling races stopped, the reason I thought about this was that I had past by Wade Park (opposite where I grew up). This park once had a greyhound race track around the outside of the footy/cricket oval. The races went to the Bathurst track about 6 years ago… apparently better facilities & more TAB money in the Bathurst track. To be honest, I was a bit sad that the old greyhound races don’t happen there anymore. When I split up with Alissa the Sensible’s Mum & was living across the road from the place, we used to have a great time wandering over to the dog track & watching the “dish lickers” run around on a summer’s Saturday night… As Alissa was about 3 years old at the time she just liked to try & talk to the doggies; but hey, we had fun! It’s a bit sad that the Silly boys won’t get “that fun” in the future either…
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| I couldn't get any further; all the horsies were in their stables I supose! |
Of course, my meanderings then took me past Towac Park; OJ’s own centre of Horse racing; which, in my humble opinion, was in due need of a thorough Vespa-ing… at least the car park bit anyway as I could not work out how to get onto the racetrack!
I have been to the races a few times at this track & usually ended up with a rather large headache & a 10 on the Richter scale case of “never-again-itis”… I don’t actually gamble, so I’ll let you make up your own mind on that one! But let’s just say; I did enjoy these events!
After I got home & was picking up the Silly Boys, I suppose my case of nostalgia was one of those rose coloured glasses days, where you think “gee, looking back, that was cool” when at the time you hated it all; you know what they say “Nostalgia, it ain’t what it used to be…!!!”
So Mote it be!
Leigh
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