DianaCountry versus City Life
March 15th 2008 02:31
I love talking to people in and around Emu, where our family farm is, about their lives. What they experience is so vastly different from that of city-dwellers and their views are fascinating.
Of course, for some people in remote parts of country Victoria (and believe me there are plenty of 'remote' parts around, though it is all relative) Melbourne is a vast and frightening city. Freeways twisting every which-way. New roads and suburbs sprouting up and barely in the Melways.
One of our neighbours only sees Melbourne when they drive down to visit their cousins in an outer western suburb, so of course their view is colored by this experience. ( Outer western Melbourne is not the most attractive of areas, bleak is a word which springs to mind. Though nice if you like the odd 6 lane freeway: access is good.)
These people look disbelieving when I tell them the city is not all that bad, that it is in fact possible to live an ok life there, there are parks, rivers and beaches to visit.
One of my neighbours, an older lady who lives alone, seriously believes it is unsafe to live and drive in Melbourne. I think in her mind it is as gun-ravaged and lawless as LA.
The commonly held opinion from locals is also that city-dwellers are all rich, all drive late-model cars and all have no idea of country life or country-type issues.
Anyway, it would not be exaggerating of me to say there is a big gulf between the understanding of the lives of city and country people.
So when a poem appeared in the local paper painting a very negative view of city dwellers, I wa stung to reply in kind.
Here is my offering, which I have to say infuriated some of the locals, with people even stopping me in the street to abuse me or complain.
Fascinating stuff? I guess this is pretty boring for some people, but anyway.
Us n them?
The country folk just never know
Caught in their dusty rooms
The pleasure of exotic scents
Wafting thru from up the Hume
They never feel the warm night bloom
Of frangipani trees
Nor do they have an empathy of
Struggles to pay school fees
All their tracks wind back to home
On corrugated dirt
they labour hard to produce a buck
By brawn not brain but pluck
They drift down streets and wave to cars
Which hoon and squeal and roar
And yet they seem to so resent
The stranger, rich or poor
Their minds are not invigorated
By orchestra or play
Instead they sit and smoke and chat
In bars and pubs all day
They never see the splendid scene
Of Flinders St at rush-hour
Preferring yet the rabid roar
Of bikes’ and trucks’ high power
They do not have a craving
For coffee cake and stroll
At Ackland St or Chapel
To watch the passing moll
They never crave to discourse
On Sibelius or Mann
And only want to kick back
With stubby well in hand
With conversation stunted
And restricted to a grunt
Tis no wonder many souls
Wonder, should they go punk?
But country folk are safe and true
In their town and farm
And love to sneer at you-know-who
Thru ignorance not charm
Tis true some city folk are crass
Though so are country too
And while we keep this sneering up
We’ll never blend the two
Some ‘city’ people love the bush
And work their daily grind
But would rather be in open space
and see horizon fine
While country ones do crave at times
For culture, crowds and shops
And know they need a balance
To make their life the tops
Let’s understand each other
Not criticize or tease
For neither has it easy
And no-ones life’s a breeze.
Of course, for some people in remote parts of country Victoria (and believe me there are plenty of 'remote' parts around, though it is all relative) Melbourne is a vast and frightening city. Freeways twisting every which-way. New roads and suburbs sprouting up and barely in the Melways.
One of our neighbours only sees Melbourne when they drive down to visit their cousins in an outer western suburb, so of course their view is colored by this experience. ( Outer western Melbourne is not the most attractive of areas, bleak is a word which springs to mind. Though nice if you like the odd 6 lane freeway: access is good.)
These people look disbelieving when I tell them the city is not all that bad, that it is in fact possible to live an ok life there, there are parks, rivers and beaches to visit.
One of my neighbours, an older lady who lives alone, seriously believes it is unsafe to live and drive in Melbourne. I think in her mind it is as gun-ravaged and lawless as LA.
The commonly held opinion from locals is also that city-dwellers are all rich, all drive late-model cars and all have no idea of country life or country-type issues.
Anyway, it would not be exaggerating of me to say there is a big gulf between the understanding of the lives of city and country people.
So when a poem appeared in the local paper painting a very negative view of city dwellers, I wa stung to reply in kind.
Here is my offering, which I have to say infuriated some of the locals, with people even stopping me in the street to abuse me or complain.
Fascinating stuff? I guess this is pretty boring for some people, but anyway.
Us n them?
The country folk just never know
Caught in their dusty rooms
The pleasure of exotic scents
Wafting thru from up the Hume
They never feel the warm night bloom
Of frangipani trees
Nor do they have an empathy of
Struggles to pay school fees
All their tracks wind back to home
On corrugated dirt
they labour hard to produce a buck
By brawn not brain but pluck
They drift down streets and wave to cars
Which hoon and squeal and roar
And yet they seem to so resent
The stranger, rich or poor
Their minds are not invigorated
By orchestra or play
Instead they sit and smoke and chat
In bars and pubs all day
They never see the splendid scene
Of Flinders St at rush-hour
Preferring yet the rabid roar
Of bikes’ and trucks’ high power
They do not have a craving
For coffee cake and stroll
At Ackland St or Chapel
To watch the passing moll
They never crave to discourse
On Sibelius or Mann
And only want to kick back
With stubby well in hand
With conversation stunted
And restricted to a grunt
Tis no wonder many souls
Wonder, should they go punk?
But country folk are safe and true
In their town and farm
And love to sneer at you-know-who
Thru ignorance not charm
Tis true some city folk are crass
Though so are country too
And while we keep this sneering up
We’ll never blend the two
Some ‘city’ people love the bush
And work their daily grind
But would rather be in open space
and see horizon fine
While country ones do crave at times
For culture, crowds and shops
And know they need a balance
To make their life the tops
Let’s understand each other
Not criticize or tease
For neither has it easy
And no-ones life’s a breeze.
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Comment by ABP
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
Comment by Vesta