My house from 50 years ago

 

27 Elder St, Braddon, Canberra, Australia. 

This was the student house I lived in with two mates, 1968 to 1971. That's it above in 2018. Hasn't changed in 50 years. The scene of much of our local sex, drugs and rock & roll, of the famous 60s. That was my major at Uni: SD&R. Oh, and snooker. 

The house was "27" Elder St, and we also were paying, I seem to recall, $27 a week all up, $9 each per week. Think on't. I got by on a Teacher's Scholarship and the occasional grift, like packing wheat ($1/hour), or selling chicken-shit to new suburbs, for their garden beds. 

That chicken-shit gig, I've often thought since, I could've turned into a real business. People couldn't get enough of the stuff. I used to drive my VW beetle with trailer to get the chicken poo in  bulk from the Pialligo egg farms, pretty much for free, bag it up and sell it door-to-door in the new suburbs, $5 a bag, $12 for the three. Good money in those days. 

Every house I knocked on, they'd take three bags on the spot, and ask for more. Way better than the door-to-door selling encyclopedias that I'd done in Pretoria, South Africa, the year before. Or selling garish day-glo black-felt paintings door-to-door, in Cape Town, pretending to be a poor student (true), who'd painted them himself (false). Selling chicken manure was an honest occupation. No bullshit, ironically. And could've been something much bigger than chicken shit. But my priors were set for me. Must finish Uni. 

Could've been the King of Chickenshit, but instead finished up Gweilo of China....

Across the road from Elder St was, and still is, Ainslie Primary School. They used to provide milk for the kids. We used to pop over each evening and take the bottles that the kids hadn't drunk. They were only going to go to the pigs anyway. That was our daily protein, right there, for free. Milk and Weetabix.