WHY do we treat bushrangers as some sort of folk heroes?
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While many of them had populist reputations for being Robin Hood figures, most were just hardened criminals with little thought for their victims, mostly diggers returning from the goldfields, travellers and store owners.
Our bushrangers included Ben Hall who took over Frank Gardiner’s gang after the stage coach hold-up at Escort Rock, near Eugowra, and then carried out more than 600 robberies.
After raiding Cliefden Station on Limestone Creek in 1863 and stealing the best horses owned by William Montagu Rothery, Hall and his gang bailed up Canowindra, shepherding everybody in the town into Robinson's Hotel where they were told to eat and drink all they wished. The party lasted for three days.
Hall was shot near Forbes, where he’s buried, and he’s remembered there by a bushranger ballad called The Streets of Forbes and a Forbes Ben Hall Festival. There’s also a motel named after him.
Bathurst now plans a re-enactment later this year to mark the 150th anniversary of a town raid by Hall and his gang along with a weekend of celebrations and street closures.
The bushrangers robbed a jeweller’s store and the owners and customers of the Sportsman’s Arms hotel before riding off.
Only a few weeks ago Ned Kelly’s relatives held a new burial for him in Greta cemetery, near Wangaratta, more than 130 years after his execution following the historic Glenrowan shoot-out with police in 1880.
Kelly's body was exhumed from a mass gravesite and identified in 2011 by doctors and scientists at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.
He was a notorious criminal, robber and murderer, killing two policemen, but he and his exploits are promoted as a tourist attraction around Jerilderie and there’s been films made of him.
So why do these crooks get so much hero status?
Sympathisers believe Kelly was a symbol of the Australian spirit, an enduring underdog with the courage to challenge the authorities.
If murdering two coppers is seen as the Australian spirit, pity help us.
The dogs are barking animal jokes
Animal jokes have never been so popular.
Have you heard about the flea who rushes into the pub just before closing time, orders five large scotches, downs them, hops into the air and then falls flat on his face.
He picks himself up, looks around and says: “Damn, someone’s moved my dog.”
That’s the sort of shaggy flea story we all love.
In fact we love jokes about animals as much as we love animals themselves.
Our folk memories are stuffed with endless material for limericks, sagas and stories about all kinds of animals.
Did you hear about the female cats gossiping about the good times to come when the big ginger tom moved into the district.
It wasn’t long before the most flirtatious young tabby delivered her report.
“You can forget about him, girls,” she says. “I went out with him last night and all he did was talk about his operation.”
What about the French poodle and a collie walking down the street. The poodle says to the collie: “My life is such a mess. My owner is mean, my girlfriend is having an affair with a German shepherd and I’m as nervous as a cat.”
“Why don’t you go see a psychiatrist?” the collie says.
“I can’t,” replies the poodle. “I’m not allowed on the couch.”
And then there’s two dog owners arguing over whose dog is the cleverest.
“My dog is so smart”, says the first, “that every morning he waits for the paper boy to come round. He tips the boy and then brings the newspaper to me, along with my morning cup of coffee.”
“I know,” says the second owner.
“How do you know?”
“My dog told me.”
Second runway in plane sight
WITH renewed interest in a second Sydney airport, people in the bush should put up their hands while the pollies are arguing about Wilton, Badgerys Creek the Central Coast or Barry O’Careful’s preference of nothing at all.
It’s a wonder the people who campaigned for Newnes Plateau near Lithgow and Goulburn as likely sites haven’t made another bid.
Wyong has jumped in by earmarking a site at Bushells Ridge for a regional airport capable of handling domestic flights from all capital cities and flights from New Zealand which the shire says could be worth anywhere from $100 to $200 million a year to the local economy and provide a huge boost to council coffers.
Orange City Council is about to spend a few million dollars upgrading Orange airport to a standard to take smaller jets but they could well take a deep breath, borrow a few thousand million more, go all the way and turn it into a second airport for Sydney.
The terrain is right along with the weather.
However, could you imagine the ruckus if drinkers having a few quiet beers in the Spring Hill and Lucknow pubs had to put up with A380 Airbuses or jumbo jets screaming overhead.
And their cattle dogs sitting in the utes outside wouldn’t take too kindly to the noise either while an environmental impact study would no doubt find some endangered rare frogs.
But it might be a way to have our 1800s railway upgraded with a more direct fast link to Sydney rather than trains rattling around half the state through little places like Newbridge, Georges Plains, Tarana and Rydal just to get from Orange to Lithgow.