We leave Australia early Thursday morning for our 17 hour flight back to the U.S.A. (That doesn’t count our connections from Adelaide to Sydney and Dallas to Oklahoma City, or layovers. We’ll be traveling for over 24 hours.)
We have been in Australia for 5 weeks, attending our daughter in the last weeks of her pregnancy and being here when the baby was born, taking care of the other grandchildren as that was happening. The baby, by the way, Hannah Grace, is exceptionally healthy and our daughter has done exceedingly well, as has the rest of her family. And we were here for Hannah’s baptism.
Australia was recently rated as the 10th happiest country on earth, and I can see that. (The U.S. came in at #18.) There is a “no worries, mate” attitude, in contrast to our American fretting. We were here during a state election and the main issues seemed to be how much to raise the subsidy for kids’ sports and whether there should be pokies in pubs (that is, slot machines in bars). The Liberal Party, which is actually the conservative party (everything is upside down here), won (along with pokies and sports subsidies). Not that there aren’t problems. The whole country was shaken at revelations, including photographs, that the national cricket team was scuffing the ball in a match with South Africa, a traumatic affront to good sportsmanship and the national honor.
Now I go back to the NFL, the NBA, and Major League Baseball (which I have higher hopes for). And a teacher walkout in Oklahoma. And high school students protesting the Second Amendment. And Republicans vs. Democrats, and Republicans vs. Republicans, and Democrats vs. Democrats, and even county candidates interrogated about where they stand with Donald Trump.
The best thing about Australia, better even than its natural beauty and its well-kept slum-free cities with a bakery on seemingly every block, is the people. The “mate-ship” ideal means that people take friendship seriously. People from the church have continued to bring food over to help out our daughter and her new baby. I dimly remember from my childhood my mother doing that sort of thing, but I think the practice has become rare in America. We just learned that after we leave and can no longer help out, the church has organized food drop offs for the next month!
Anyway, it will be good to be home. We miss our other children and grandchildren. And our house. And baseball. And Oklahoma, problems and all. And America, problems and all.
The first thing we’ll do is get a Whataburger.
P.S.: With all of the traveling and jet lagging we’re going to be involved with, I’m putting up some posts, but they won’t deal with up-to-the-minute news. I’ll catch up once my mental fog dissipates and I get acclimated to another side of the world.
Photo by Jean Beaufort, CC0, Public Domain. PublicDomainPictures.net.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In