Today's the day, Australia bound

Good day,

It's 12 July, and today is the day that a dream comes true, a plan comes together, which ever turn of the phrase you'd prefer.  I'm heading to the other side of the world to fulfill that dream which has been over a decade in the making, and planned in earnest over the last four years.  Australia, get ready.  I'm on the way.

As many of you know, in 2016 I began a love affair with a game that has transformed my life.  That game is Australian rules football, and I think I can safely say I have become a super fan.  For the first four years of my fandom, it was enough to find a club to call my own, and be welcomed by supporters of that club and questioned by supporters of other clubs.

While that burgeoning fandom was limited to me spending late nights or early mornings, watching my beloved Geelong Cats play, or watching a matchup of two other clubs, I had become fully engrossed.  But there was so much more yet to come.  I watched the games here in isolation, as nobody in the family was interested in the game.  My son was off at college, and my daughter was having her fantastic high school experiences, and my wife was and is still a baseball fanatic. (something that I was for well over a half century, but I will not delve into why I gave up on the game.)

While watching these games, I began developing friendships, once where I would have extensive discussions about the sport itself, but also many that would evolve into every aspect of life.  I have joked with people, and it is not necessarily a joke, that I actually talk to more people that live in Australia than I do that live on my own street.  Now the people that I do chat with that live on my street are absolutely wonderful people, so don’t get that wrong, but Footy has become such an integral part of my very existence, that these friendships across a vast ocean have been things that I have clung to and have been vital for my well-being.

As many of you know, because you’ve received this via an email from the podcast or we’re associated with one another through social media, I did in fact, start a podcast because I wanted to do my level best to share this tremendous game with other Americans, as well as deep in my understanding of the sport through the eyes and voices of people living in Australia.  Well, the podcast is not huge by any standard, I’m damn proud of the guests that I’ve been able to have on the show.  Whether they be premiership players or simply fans of the game, that had great stories to tell, or people that were just curious about the game, I’ve truly enjoyed sharing those stories with listeners.  But perhaps more importantly, I’ve truly enjoyed learning from all of these people and that is something that I’m so grateful about.  The kindness and generosity that I have seen over the years and that have evervesced since announcing this trip have been nothing short of humbling.  From the extraordinary generosity of people like Peter, Craig, Darren, Bob and Freemo, I've been frankly, overwhelmed by your kindness.  

My wife and her best friend have developed a bit of a travel routine over the last many years.  They've spent 2+ weeks traveling throughout the United States (and sometimes Canada) to visit national parks.  They have had tremendous fun with each of the trips that they have taken, and it’s always exciting to hear the stories that they tell upon their return as well as seeing the tremendous photography from their trip. They are tremendously organized when it comes to their trip.  They have a detailed itinerary down to the mileage, covered the specific things that they are going to see almost to the point where they have the names and tag numbers of the grizzly bears and bison that they are going to run across during their trip.  😀  what I’m trying to say, if they are tremendously organized when it comes to their trip.  Something that is a skill set that I have not yet quite mastered in my 63 years.

It was approximately five years ago that I realize that I need to take a trip something like that.  But my trip is going to be a little bit further away.  I realized that I needed to go on this journey, but had to figure out how to have it come to fruition.  One thing that I knew was that I needed to ensure that I was in much better shape physically than I had been previously.  At some of you may know I’ve lost a significant amount of weight over the last decade.  Unfortunately, I’ve put a little bit of it back on, but have been much more active over the last many years and I had been previously.  I knew that I needed to put aside a significant amount of funding for this trip because it was not going to be cheap so, if you have heard the story about the proverbial killing of two birds with one stone, I decided to combine my physical efforts with setting aside additional funding for this trip. 

Four years ago, I began working the summers at the local amusement park, Cedar Point.  If you have grown up in the Midwest of the United States, or you are a roller coaster enthusiast, you have definitely heard of Cedar Point.  If you haven’t, and you love roller coasters, then it definitely needs to be on your bucket list.  I’ve worked for five years previously at the park in different capacities, but I decided that I wanted to do something. It was going to be physically demanding while also earning some money during the time teachers are ‘off from work’.  So, I signed up to work in what is known as the Park Services department.  Think of it as the janitorial services for a large amusement park.  I have done that for the last four summers, and did a tremendous amount of walking each day that I was working, and developed friendships with wonderful people there as well.  Almost every penny that I have earned their over these last four summers has been set aside for this trip.  Now to be completely honest, this is a job that somebody that is my age should quite frankly look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves a very serious question. That question is, “are you sure you want to do this”?  Well my answer was yes.  Were there drawbacks? Sure, I have had surgery on one hernia, and have a small one that will still need to be repaired before I retire from teaching.  But it’s been worth it.  Even though my body is getting older and I know I won’t be able to continue to do that job in the summer as much as I would like, it has been cathartic for me.  Believe it or not, and being trash cans and cleaning the restrooms, and taking care of somebody’s meal that they only decided to ‘rent’ can be relaxing.  And working there, I knew that there was a goal at one point.  That goal is this trip.  For all of you at Cedar Point, I can’t thank you enough for putting up with this old man who always moved just a little bit slower than everyone else, but it is damnedest to try to keep moving nonetheless.

Now, back to my wife’s extra, extraordinarily detailed schedule.  Mine looks absolutely nothing like that. I do have a list of dates that I’m going to be there, along with days that have the Cats games that I’m going to be attending as well as the other games being played either at Marvel Stadium or at the MCG.  I will be attending quite a few of those, but I also plan on being just a regular tourist.  One who visits museums and aquariums and the Shrine of Remembrance (and a quick trip to Beaufort to visit the Cyril Calister Museum [the creator of vegemite])  But perhaps more importantly, I can’t wait to meet in person the people who have befriended me over this last decade, who have put up with my bizarre questions, my conspiracy theories, my occasional overzealous support of the club that I have fallen in love with.  Peps, Michael, Anthony, Peter, Neil, and so many other individuals that I absolutely cannot wait to shake their hand to look them in the eye and say thank you. Thank you for being so welcoming to someone who was a complete neophyte, but did have a sincere interest in your game and your country.  You have no idea how important this trip is for those reasons as well as just for my overall well-being.  

Unfortunately, there are two people who I am not going to get the opportunity to shake hands with.  Both of them I was so looking forward to meeting them and spending time with them.  Orville Gibson and Barry Cheatley are those two men.  Unfortunately, over the last couple of years, the world lost these two wonderful people.  If you’ve read my blog regularly, and listen to the podcast for quite some time, I’ve had both of these gentlemen as guests, and despite the kilometers between the two of us, Orville might’ve been my closest friend.  He was an absolute gem of a man and an Australian hero.  I know that I’m not gonna get to meet you, but there will not be a day that goes by when I’m there that I’m hoping you’re gonna come around the corner with your guitar slug over your shoulder.  Mr. Cheatley, while I only had the opportunity to talk with him for around 4 hours, and trade several emails with him, was one of the kindest people I've had the chance to talk with. 

Before I wrap this up, I absolutely need to think a couple of other people as well.  My wife, my mom, and my kids.  Without the love and assistance from each of them, this would not likely have happened.  I did find out just a few weeks ago, that I’m not gonna be alone for this entire journey.  My son is home from his job overseas, to attend the wedding of one of his closest friends, and he told me that on his return trip he is going to be flying into Melbourne to spend 10 days with me while I’m on this trip.  This is something that I guess had been discussed and decided back in March, but I did not catch wind of it until very recently.  To say that I’m excited would be an understatement.  I am absolutely over the moon, knowing that he and I are going to be able to have this experience of visiting some of the sites that I planned on seeing, and just to hang out because as we grow up and we grow old, peoples worlds diverge from one another.  For this period of time, these two worlds are gonna get to be on the same orbit.  I’m so grateful for that.

If I happen to run into you while in Melbourne or Geelong, I do hope you’ll come up and say hi. (yes, I know they are two, significantly sized cities, so the likelihood of picking one grain of rice out of a large bowl of rice is unlikely.). But if you see a guy walking around with the logo of my podcast on the back of their sweatshirt, it’s a good chance it’s me, because nobody else has purchased one yet. 😜

Thanks for taking a couple moments to read this, and let’s go Cats!  

Cheers, Craig