JOCK (IS THAT “JACK” WITH AN AUSSIE ACCENT?)

August 4, 2010 Tuesday

There’s an old guy who rides around Broome on his motorized chair all the time. We figure he’s at least 80. He has an improvised sun-shade from which he hangs a cane. He’s always got a “bud” in his ear. It must be playing something really loud because when he talks, he talks really loud. Orson’s talked to him on the street and says he’s a nice old guy. One eye squints shut most of the time.
On Monday, he came into the library and asked what we were doing. We explained about family history and how it’s important to write down our memories so future generations will know about us. This morning he came into the library and plopped a small green notepad and a larger white pad of lined paper on our table. “Here,” he said, “Look at these,” and rode off. I didn’t see him leave the library, but he must have. So I started looking at what was in his papers. The small green notepad appeared to be a letter requesting that his passport be renewed. In it he expressed how stupid and childish it is that he has to answer a millions questions since they already know everything about him. He figured the government should just give him his passport since they take all his money in taxes. He used some very descriptive terms to describe how he felt.
The other pad of paper was lined, and he had started writing in it a month or so ago. He started off talking about the “boys” who had been sent to tunnel under the enemy lines in Turkey. (I’m reading a book about that right now. It was in World War I.) Then he flipped into some of his own memories of World War II. He must have served in the navy because he knew the size of every diesel engine on every type of boat in the navy, both Australian and German. He had also been a worker in the shearing sheds at one time or another. He kept bouncing around in what he was writing about. Sometimes I couldn’t figure out quite what he was talking about.
So I asked one of the librarians who he was. The answer: “Oh, that’s Jock. He’s always writing letters. He lives at the nursing home. He’s not here now or you’d be able to hear him.” I expected him to return to pick up his papers, but he didn’t. We are going to see if we can talk to him when we are at the nursing home next week. I would mind trying to put down on the computer some of his memories and then giving him a copy of it.
In the afternoon, a lady came in who had been in on Saturday. She sat down and said she’d come back to see us. She’s about my age. Evidently, she’s been married twice and has lost touch with her kids from her first marriage. She has a son from her second marriage who wants to meet his half-brothers. So she wanted to know how she could go about looking for them. I gave her some ideas (Orson had gone to lunch) and she went on her way. I think the best thing that’s coming out of this whole family history thing is that people are seeing us as just people who want to help out and not some crazy folks who will preach to them at the drop of a hat.