ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Despite moving on to bigger and better things in life, a local woman has told The Advocate that she’s still a sucker for a naughty boy who drives a Proton Jumbuck.
Sandra Gale, a Brisbane corporate lawyer and apartment owner, is home for the week to help her grandfather recuperate from a recent hip replacement. She told our reporter that she’ll be working the whole time because that’s what her bosses expect of her.
After explaining that she could’ve taken annual leave – or any other type of leave – it’s seen as weakness in the industry. So, she’s elected to just keep on writing bullshit emails, taking bullshit calls, and replacing company names in contract templates.
Nevertheless, coming into town this afternoon, Sandra explained that she saw a Proton Jumbuck up on the verge near the Green Street BP and just smiled to herself.
Ms. Gale told The Advocate that memories came flooding back from her youth spent in our town’s outer fringes. Being paralytic, on the verge of acute alcohol poisoning, in a park, in the Christmas holidays between Year 7 and 8. Walking around aimlessly at night, watching boys throw rocks at passing trucks from the Dudley Avenue overpass. Finding shopping trolleys to push in the pond, finding a nice stick to whack Mrs. Doherty’s sunflowers to pieces with, tying a rope between Mr. Doherty’s towbar and the bottom handle on his garage roller door so when he took off angry in the morning, he pulled his garage door off its tracks and out onto the street. Watching boys put bungas in golf holes and blowing a crater the size of a milk crate out of the green. Breaking into the council pool and pushing the Beef Eater BBQ out of the shed and into the deep end of the pool. Running from the police while they shout your name at you. Hilarious. Watching people put their cars in reverse to do burnouts. Only the flash boys had rear-wheel-drive cars those days.
“There’s just something about the Proton Jumbuck,” she said.
“The naughtiest boys drove them. Gosh, it was a long time ago. But yeah, I dunno, I just look at them now and wonder what naughty adventures it’s been on. How many reverse doughnuts it’s done in the old Bi-Lo car park. How many times it’s been overloaded with bricks or soil. If it’s the fancy version with bucket seats and power windows,”
“It’s just a nice thing to remember. Good memories.”
More to come.
