MtGambierI’m in Mt Gambier. I suspect that 99% of you don’t know where in the world Mt Gambier is, I didn’t until I looked it up on Google Maps a few days ago.  I’ve flown down from Adelaide for the day to teach the first year nursing students about the skeletal system, part of my university’s Regional Engagement Strategy. One of the things you might not know about Australia is that once you leave the half dozen or so densely populated urban centers (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, etc.) there are more kangaroos than there are people. You can drive hundreds of kilometers without encountering a town that’s much more than a petrol station and a couple of shacks. To get any kind of tertiary education, people living in the country have to move over to one of the big cities or, increasingly, undertake online learning. So, in the constant drive toward ‘equity’, my university flies lecturers 450 km to Mt Gambier or 400 km to Whyalla once a week to deliver enlightenment to the huddled rural masses.

This week it was my turn. I headed out this morning, picked up by a right wing chatterbox from the car service who spent the entire drive to the airport blaming most of the country’s problems on ‘narrow-minded professorial types’. To his credit, the discovery that his passenger was a university lecturer didn’t alter the tone of his monologue or the target of his contempt.  An hour on a shimmying, shaking puddle jumper and we were skidding to a stop outside what appeared to be a modified cattle shed – Mt Gambier Airport.

45599667.rex_6478If for anything, Mt. Gambier is famous for its volcanic lake(s). But I can’t tell you whether or not it/they are worthy of fame. A taxi whisked me from the airport, on the outskirts of town, to the university ‘campus’, also on the outskirts of town. The only site worth seeing on the way was the local weather station. Woo. Hoo. In fact, I came with kind of a bad attitude. I didn’t see the point of flying people around when we’ve got the technology to set up video links with the remote campuses.*

I’m waiting around in the optimistically christened ‘airport’ for the flight home watching a mother, her two tween girls and baby boy waiting anxiously for their husband/father to arrive. I remember that feeling of anticipation. My dad used to travel a lot for business. Long trips to exotic places – Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Grand Junction. I remember the excitement on the day he was scheduled to return. I was always a little bit proud of him, working under the assumption that only the really important people at the company would be sent to the Colorado mining country. Of course, I’m now faced with the reality – the really important people send the significantly less important people off on business travel. Especially a day trip from Adelaide to Mt. Gambier.

The husband/father has just turned up. It is a bit odd. The girls’ obvious glee and cries of “there he is Mum” as he came off the plane changed to a subdued nervousness as he came into the ‘terminal’. He’s a man’s man, with the sharp cut musculature of one who does physical labour. There’s a darkness in his eyes that I’ve noticed in a lot of working class Australia men. A taut and minacious look. He strides over to his family without cracking a smile. He acknowledges his wife with a nod, ignores his girls and takes his baby boy to him. The girls fade away in the glare of his neglect as he heads for the car park. He’s a man’s man and his only son is the only child worth his attention.

capitalThe tide of superior parenting receded rapidly however, with the realisation that despite my smug and vaguely classist sense of being a vastly better parent than this patriarchal neanderthal, I’m not any better. I’ve got an obvious and unapologetic preference for my older son. For Boy Z I have all the time and patience in the world. More than five minutes of whinging from Not Max brings a lightning bolt of fury and intolerance. In fact, if Dr. O’C, Not Max and Boy Z were meeting me at the Adelaide airport, the scene would be little different than the one I witnessed here. So, it’s my Mt. Gambier Resolution to rectify this inequity, to find, somewhere, a reserve of patience and time for my second son.

I know this has been a bit of faff and ramble, but what else would you expect from a man in a converted cow shed with a laptop on his lap?

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*This trip has changed my mind. The two dozen students in Mt. Gambier were keen, bright and engaging. And there’s absolutely a difference between watching a lecture on a TV screen and being in the classroom with a teacher. I’ve got the utmost respect for nursing students in general. They’re training to do what I reckon is one of the toughest jobs around. They’re not going to get paid much and they’re going to deal with a lot of shit. Literally. It’s one of those careers that requires a selflessness that I’ve never been able to summon up myself. The least we can give them is to show up once a week to help them along in their studies.

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Image credits:

Mt. Gambier

Regional Express

Capital Airlines

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This live version of The White Stripes’ “The Nurse” comes from the performance at Glastonbury 2005. The original is from the brilliant “Get Behind Me Satan”, available from The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan.

 
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