Humor: Learning to say 'truck'

Learning to say 'truck'

My parents gave me a set of army vehicles and a sanitation truck for my second birthday, according to my dutifully-kept baby book.

It does not say why.

My guess is that mum and dad were hedging their bets.
I could either become a soldier when I grew up or a garbage collector.

The baby book, written mostly by my mum, says my youngest sister, Sally, bought me a building block.
I guess it was not her idea, seeing as she was just six months old at the time.
But, heck, what on earth can a budding young engineer build with a single building block?

I had my second birthday party with my family at our new rented home at 184 George Street, Launceston.

My father, after more than three years learning the journalism trade at Scottsdale, had accepted a job as a D grade reporter with the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Launceston for 22 pounds a week.
George Street was just a short walk away from his office in Brisbane Street.
My memory of it, albeit from a few years later, is of a grey, drab rabbit-warren of a building, with clattering typewriters, rattling telex machines, cigarette smoke and men swearing loudly and often.

But I remember nothing from our stay in George Street.

My baby book says I had my first haircut there (at 20 months).
"John looks very grown up with his first boy's haircut and a little of dad's hair cream," my mother wrote.

I also drank some poison at George Street, but it did not seem to do me any lasting harm (though others can be the judge of that).
"The only effect was a great thirst," my mother wrote. "He was given a glass of salt water to make him vomit but neither that, or putting fingers down his throat, made him do so. He thought it was all fun."

We did not live in George Street for long.

We moved out shortly after a rat got into my sisters' bedroom and chewed off half of one of baby Sally's ears.

I had my third birthday at 14 Canning Street, not far away.

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it