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Right at the bottom are my Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper columns. Through the middle are letters I wrote from my tent in the East Kimberley in 2007. At the top are various newer rantings.

Saturday 17 March 2007

Kalgoorlie Miner (25): Farewell

One of the first principles I learnt at the WA School of Mines was the Law of Original Horizontality, which states that sedimentary rocks are originally deposited in horizontal layers – much like yeasty scum at the bottom of a sulphurous backyard homebrew (my simile, not WASM’s). They rarely stay that way.

Ask your friendly neighbourhood geologist and he will tell you that horizontal rocks no longer exist in the Goldfields because around 2.5 billion years ago they were stretched, squashed, twisted and fractured by unrelenting tectonic forces; divided by red-hot magma; and transformed beyond recognition by intense heat and pressure. I know how those rocks must have felt.

When I arrived in Kalgoorlie I was soft and horizontal like newly-deposited sediment. I was made of quality stuff – my family had ensured that – but I had yet to consolidate. I was still malleable and ductile; still open to influence. I was, if you like, a blank canvas.

I ask you, my learned reader: Could this young man have chosen a finer place to splash him with colour? I say no. And to press you further: If this city were an artist, whose work would it mirror? I say Vincent Van Gogh; characterised by coarse, bold brushstrokes that inexplicably combine to produce something of splendour.

Superficially there is nothing subtle about Kalgoorlie. A passing observer may appreciate the coarse, bold things – money, trucks, holes, miners, pubs, hookers – but like a good painting, the warm internal elation of true understanding is saved only for those who fully immerse themselves in it.

I hear you ask: What factor – unappreciated by the passing observer – over time transforms Kalgoorlie’s roughness into beauty before one’s eyes? I answer you confidently: It’s people.

When I moved to town, the general concern amongst family and friends was that I would become a red-necked simpleton – how distant from the reality! The city’s very strength is that people of all backgrounds are compelled not merely to tolerate each other, but to co-exist and have a grand time doing it.

My best mates are professionals, tradesmen and shit-kickers; footballers and scholars; Tasmanians and normal people. I’ve discussed philosophy with driller’s offsiders, met likeable South Africans and performed drunken emu-hunting dances with the natives on the Paddy’s Alehouse dancefloor. What better place for an education in life?

My experiences here have taught me that we are all brothers and sisters, helpless products of our own environments, dealing with the same fundamental questions and problems. Ben Lee: I’m made of atoms, you’re made of atoms and we’re all in this together.

Many arrive in Kalgoorlie masquerading as hard-nosed economic mercenaries, but this futile façade inevitably crumbles as they realise that it is far easier to love than to hate. If they do ever leave – as I will be shortly – they do so softened and with an unshakeable feeling that they’ll be drawn back by forces beyond their control.

Had I stayed in Perth I have little doubt that I would have remained horizontal; slowly hardening in a familiar setting until I became rigid and lifeless. As it happened I came here aged 18 and spent seven life-defining years being stretched, squashed, twisted, fractured, divided and transformed by this city and it’s people.

Thankyou Kalgoorlie and, to a lesser extent, Boulder (ooh, what cheek!). I doff thy top hat and bid thee farewell.

A funny footnote: Everyone that spoke to me about “Out There” – absolutely without exception – believed that no-one else understood it. How typical of Goldfielders not to give themselves and each other credit!

7 comments:

Andrew said...

Well done, funny and fitting as always. Burn bright, then bugger off rather than smolder and fester for ever. I look forward to more as nothing makes me laugh harder.

P.S. Although I am family, I am sure I am not alone in my appreciation.

Anonymous said...

Thanks mate. Your weekly blog in the Miner over the past couple of years has not only been entertaining but it has also introduced me to a side of you that was never too ennthausiatic on atleast a few saterday mornings, when I would come round to take Ajax for a walk. Long live the days of Presidential living even if your neighbours landlord a few doors up had a cute dog, but failed to stop his friendly housemates from the destruction of our gutters with a well thought of chemical experiment (the mellenium term for b...), kindly re-parking vehicles at our place, and the most scaring of them all, the naked guiter player that couldn't strike a cord.

I would like to say my years in Kalgoorlie were spent as a fly in barmaid at the exchange(a quick buck without the commitment that grows on most Kalgoorlians), but, much prouder to say it began as a jnr drunk in training, occassionally embracing the geology building of WASM. I guess that always made it easier to see the humour in your writing, having walked a similar path as yourself for a few years.

I haven't stayed in Kalgoorlie as long as yourself, I felt my moulds breaking from the heat and pressure long before my last year of uni had finished and worried I wouldn't make it out of the town without being mylontised, as oppossed to merely reshaped. I have however returned many a times and have always read your blog. I have even read your column on a site in far north queensland, I guess that is just another reflection, Kalgoorlie follows us everywhere we go.

I am sure that most Saterday readers of the Miner will solidly miss the only column they would be guarenteed a chuckle out of, however, I know as well as any that have spent any mispent youth in Kalgoorlie that this laughter is easily self obtained on the dance floor of paddys, leaning on the bar at the exchange or the old Judds (RIP).

As you can see I am no blogger like yourself, I just wanted to wish you luck in your endevours and thank you for writing with such blunt honesty and character. I have no doubt you are an excellent geo, and the town will never leave you as it has never left me.

Kathleen

Michael said...

Ah Kat! Thanks for the message.

It took me a while to figure out what you were on about but the re-parking of vehicles and destroying of gutters twigged my memory - and yes of course you used to take Ajax for a stroll.

It may or may not surprise you (i'm guessing the latter) to know that the chlorine bombs are still ringing out around the street of champions, and they are still just as funny after all these years - and, generally, after all these beers. We have the abandoned house next door to set them off in, but occasionally one will still drift a little off target and explode in the bin at KFC.

I was actually going to put a bit in the column about some people being "mylonitised" (non-geos: this means "turned into rock dust" ie. completely shattered) by Kalgoorlie, but I thought I had stretched the metaphor far enough.

And yes, Kalgoorlie's humour will stay with me as I'm sure it will live on there without me.

By the way - final barbecue at 19 President Street tonight (I'm selling it), so I'm sure there will be one or two "grand finale" chlorine bombs set off. Maybe you'll hear them wherever you are.

Seeya!

Winter said...

What's you email address if we want to stay in touch?

Rhys said...

Where you off to next dude? Another mine site or back to civilisation?

Anonymous said...

Michael, thanks for your column in the Miner. It's proving tough to replace. Best wishes in your new employment.

Michael said...

Hi Michael,

Yes I noticed that Graeme Campbell's column has replaced mine - could two people be further apart?

Anyone anticipating a dreamy idealistic "Out There" essay on page 4 would recieve a very rude shock indeed!

Thanks for the good wishes. For the moment I'm relishing a jobless existence, but I should be starting my new one soon. I hope to start writing something/anything again once I'm settled in to Perth. Stay tuned.

Good luck with the paper - I'll keep buying Saturday's at least!

Michael.