Summing up

 

 

Most people I know spent decades in the same job during which time they looked forward to retirement as their just reward. Once retired, they never looked back and excelled at being good lawn bowlers or bingo players.

Not so for me. My work had been the greatest adventure of my life because of the speed and the variety with which it all happened. Perhaps because of lack of education I always accepted jobs that more educated men would have avoided. Because of my lack of education, I used unorthodox ways to solve problems that other men, because of their education and preconceived bias and ideas, could not see.

Or perhaps I succeeded because I hadn't tasted failure yet. I always had the feeling that I must not pursue success, and so I resigned from one successful job after another, becoming, quite unintentionally, a quick fixer-upper rather than a steady, greasy-pole-climbing company man.

Of greasy-pole-climbing company men I knew a few. Two of them I even hired to carry on after I had done the hard work in the first five months, after which they continued the established routines and reaped the benefits for another five years. Nobody reaped the benefits after I had opened the Athens office for a Saudi Arabian commodity trader and resigned eighteen months later, because for an Arab it's all about trust. After altogether three years with him I had become his trusted adviser, so that when I resigned, he simply closed the office down, and all his dealing went back to the chaos they had been when I first joined him.

In retrospect, I can see now that many employers took advantage of my youth, of my inexperience in selling myself, and delighed in my always wanting to be the fastest and the best in everything I did. I have no regrets. I did what I did because of who I am, and I probably would've done the same had I realised that I was being taken advantage of.

It has been an amazing journey. I loved it and I still miss it. Would I do it again? Anyone looking at my bank balance would tell me, "You've done enough!" but it was never about the money. It was always about the excitement and the thrill and the adrenaline rush. So, yes, I would do it again in a heartbeat but could I do it? Do I have enough heartbeats left? Anyway, I am a different man now with little hair left and fewer teeth, and the world is a different place too, with little need for a man with no more than a 'summa cum laude' from the School of Hard Knocks.

And, yes, there were two more exciting challenges once I got home - click here and here - but what they lacked were the foreign location and the foreign language and the constant insecurity that whipped me along. Once I was home, I had weekends and superannuation and award wages and, if all else failed, a regular cheque courtesy of Centrelink.

It was a paradise - a Fool's Paradise!

 

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On this very day six years ago ...

 

Chris Mellen with his charming wife

 

Pete, I met you in the early '80s when I acted as a barley broker between various grain traders and Abdul Ghani. If this message reaches you it would be great to catch up, and I would like to get in touch with Abdul Ghani."

That email in October 2010 - see here - renewed an old acquaintance which morphed into a long friendship which lasted until - well, 'hier'.

Chris Mellen, with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Affairs from the University of Sussex and and a Master of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, was a true renaissance man, multi-talented, multi-lingual, multi-marital (four at last count!), and, born a Jew and raised by the Jesuits and converting to Islam in 2000, even multi-religious.

 

Suave and flamboyant Chris in better days - taken from his LinkedIn profile

 

We shared many interests - apart from our past commodity trading in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - such as a love for the writings of Julian Barnes - we both subscribed to his sentiment in "The Sense of an Ending" that "... the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be" - and Hermann Hesse, with Chris sometimes calling himself Goldmund - as he confessed, "No savings left after a timetime of living beyond my means. My life has been rather self-indulgent. I rarely refused myself anything" - and, by inference, me being Narcissus.

More than a year ago, Chris was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer which confined him to months and months of hospitalisation and vicious chemotherapy as well as several bonemarrow transplants - "I'm due for my tenth spinal tap; the treatment costs so far are $750,000" - and a myriad of other 'medical advances', none of which worked.

 

 

As he wrote, "I'm struggling with the discomfort, the endless pain, and incipient depression." By 14 October 2019 he'd had enough. "I am home. The cancer has morphed into acute leukemia and is incurable. I hope to see another year but ... I am trying to seize the carp every day. It's challenging. I enjoy your news and admire your energy."

A fortnight later he'd found enough energy himself to get back in the saddle: "Took the old girl out for a spin today. It's my hormone replacement therapy."

 

 

But it was not to last and he was back in hospital for more treatment ...

 

 

On 31 December 2019 he WhatsApp-ed me, "Thank you for your messages and commentaries - much appreciated. The doctors have run out of ideas and I hope to be able to go home to die in the next few days. Sorry to admit this, but I love you old bastard, and I admire you, fucking fascist that you are ☺. I'm thinking of you, you crusty old dog."

And shortly afterwards, "I'm breaking out. I've had enough. My wife will take me home tonight. Halle-fucking-lujah. I wish we could celebrate the shit and derision of this dystopian disaster together. I feel so close to you, you miserable bastard."

 

 

Back in bucolic Bussy-sur-Moudon (population 198 which, until recently, he was still trying to improve on), Chris was a happy man: "I'm home, recovering from the trauma of the last year. I am a happy man. I am a satisfied man ... no regrets ... I have been true to myself and have accepted who I am and the choices I have made. My wife is the love of my life and my kids are very close to me. Good night, my dear friend."

We kept on exchanging thoughts and ideas and I told him about the devastating bushfires which had us almost wiped out as well, to which he replied in typical irreverent Chris Mellen fashion, "I'm praying for you, Christian, Jewish and Muslim ... I am mumbling incomprehensible guttural sounds on my hands and knees with my asshole aimed away from the south-east and towards the glittering heavens, all on your behalf. I have difficulty reading. These are the side effects of the chemo. I am damaged goods after ten cycles of chemo treatment. So my current challenge is to assess what's left and accept my new me and learn to live with both the cancer and the after-effects of the chemo instead of engaging in a head-on war with a disease that we do not understand. My treatment was not the fruit of a scientific analysis but the result of the doctors' hunches. I was unaware of the primitive methodology of this pseudo-science that we call medicine. I am planning to keep going for another decade. I am ready to make big compromises in order to remain active in this new life. It's the constant pain that prevents me from having a good laugh but if that's part of the deal, so be it. I'm far from ready to go."

Suddenly, on 4 February 2020, the decade had shrunk to just a few days, " I've been given a few days to live. I just want you to know how much I have appreciated your friendship. See you on the other side, brother."

What could I say to that, other than to pass it off light-heartedly, "Don't believe everything you're told, Chris. You'll probably still sell a few loads of barley before you go (although not to Abdulghani). 'See you on the other side'. That's what the surgical assistant said to me before they wheeled me into the operating theatre which confused me no end. When I woke up again and she was leaning over me, asking for my date of birth and how many fingers she was holding up, I was quite surprised because I had always been told that St. Peter had a long white beard."

Silence for a week, and then this morning's "Chris est mort hier", presumably from his wife. Je suis tellement, tellement désolé.

They say the only death we experience is other people's, and I've experienced Chris's slow demise for over a year. See you on the other side, you old bastard! We both know we're checking out just in time!

 

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage. Without her you would have never set out on the road. She has nothing more to give you. And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.                                    --Constantine P. Cavafy

 

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The awful German language

 

 

Having acquired two new email friends in Germany, one some months ago in my (c)old hometown Braunschweig, and the other just a few days ago in the equally (c)old Hansestadt Hamburg — and both at their own instigation rather than mine, which means they have only themselves to blame for getting all those pesky emails from me — I am beginning to write long sentences like this one again, even though I've been a Hemingway stylist all my adult life which, thankfully, I spent in English-speaking countries.

 

In case you don't know what Mark Twain meant by this, and always assuming you can read German, here is a perfect example received in this morning's email (and no offence given to the writer and, hopefully, none taken): "Ich möchte meinen heutigen Beitrag, in dem ich ein bisschen durch die Themen springe, ohne ihnen genügend Raum zu geben, weil ich hier gerade etwas gegen die Uhr arbeite, nicht ohne folgende Bemerkung beenden, denn das liegt mir sehr am Herzen." This is perfect German - but only to another German!

 

Mark Twain had something (not always nice) to say about the awfulness of the German language, even though he became quite fluent in it. I invite anyone who entertains even the slightest thought of learning the German language to first read his essay 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕬𝖜𝖋𝖚𝖑 𝕲𝖊𝖗𝖒𝖆𝖓 𝕷𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖚𝖆𝖌𝖊.

In fact, I should have handed it out to all my would-be students when, many years ago, I volunteered to teach German at the local Adult Education Centre. All they ever learnt was "Guten Morgen" which they still wish me regardless of the time of day whenever we meet in towm.

 

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A Speck in the ocean

 

 

Few have heard of the incredible voyage of this intrepid German, who spent seven years and four months paddling a collapsible kayak from his native town of Altona in Hamburg all the way to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait.

Oskar Speck was born in 1907, one of five siblings. Just after graduation, he started working as an electrical contractor in a factory that closed in 1932 during the Great Depression. With no prospect of work, the keen canoeist and outdoor enthusiast saw this as an opportunity to take his collapsible kayak Sunnschien (sunshine) and venture to Cyprus to try his luck in the copper mines.

Sunnschien was a double kayak produced by the German manufacturer Pionier Faltboots (which would become his biggest sponsor) which Speck modified for single use, leaving room for storage of equipment, clothing and provisions. The flexible wooden frame allowed it to be folded into a small bundle for carriage and storage.

With a small sum of money collected by the sale of his belongings and contributions from his family, Speck set off from Hamburg on 13 May 1932, when Hitler was almost unknown. Armed with a kayak, two paddles, a camera, film, clothing, a pistol, documents, sailing charts and a prismatic compass, he paddled down the Danube through central Europe towards the Mediterranean.

 

 

During his voyage he kept in touch with family and friends by letters. Through them he learnt about the changes of the political panorama in both Germany and the rest of Europe. He kept the letters with the hope of one day writing a book about his voyage.

Once in Cyprus, he quickly realised that this nautical adventure was more enticing than working in the mines, so he decided to continue to Syria and then to challenge himself by paddling down almost the whole length of the Euphrates. ‘I wanted much more to make a kayak voyage that would go down in history’ (The Australian Post, 1956).

While waiting for a replacement kayak after his broke in the Persian Gulf, he contracted malaria, a disease that would accompany him for the rest of his voyage. Pionier replaced Oskar’s kayak four times in total, and in return, used Oskar’s adventures and photographs to promote their products.

He then continued to India and paddled his way along the coast. It was 1935 and Oskar was already a well-known figure in Germany, as many magazines and newspapers were reporting on his voyage. Capitalising on this and his good English he gave talks and presentations to mostly English expats who were more than happy to donate to the cause and recommend him to other connections living in Asia.

‘In Germany, I was a recognised kayakist before 1932. As my voyage progressed and reports of it went home from Cyprus, Greece, from India, I became acknowledged as the most experienced sea-going kayak expert in the world.’

During 1936 Speck paddled his way along the Bay of Bengal, Malacca Strait and the Dutch East Indies. While in Singapore, he collected another kayak and paddled on to Indonesia. During this time, he was pressing friends and papers to get more coverage of his story but the political turmoil in Europe and the Olympic Games were getting all the attention.

 

 

Malaria and the monsoon slowed Oskar’s progress and he only managed to get to the coast of Dutch New Guinea in 1938. Here, the authorities were unsure if the German visitor should be arrested or permitted to continue his trip. After more delays, he finally continued to Australia.

 

 

On his arrival to Daru Island, the officer in charge decided not to arrest Oskar but instead let him complete his dream and reach Australia. But it was his luck that in September 1939 two constables were waiting for him at Thursday Island. After congratulating him for his feat, the officers told him that he was now classified as an ‘enemy’ and had to be arrested and transferred to an internment camp.

 

 

After a month in Thursday Island, he was transferred to Brisbane and then Tattura Interment in Victoria. He escaped the camp but was quickly recaptured and sent to South Australia until his release at the end of the war.

Oskar had kept all the letters and newspapers clippings in preparation for the talks and conferences he was to give and the book he was going to write.

‘So ended one of the most fantastic and dangerous voyages ever accomplished by an individual … I have reached my goal, but not one of the numerous doubters would ever find out and my modest success in reaching Australia in my folding boat would be swallowed up in the imminent global catastrophe’.

Sadly for Oskar, by the time he was ready to tell his story and show the world images of his amazing voyage, the world had moved on, so he never got to be the hero he dreamed of being.

 

Sydney airport arrival card August 1970

 

However, having learnt about opals during his internment as Prisoner of War, he became a successful opal dealer, and spent the rest of his life in Australia. As he concluded in an interview with the Australasian Post, "Australia has proved a good goal. I have many friends here, and I have built my home here, on the Pittwater, near Sydney. I hope to visit Germany again, but Australia is where I belong now." He died in 1993.

 

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I'm slowly learning how to ride a unicycle

 

For a look at the online advertisement, click here

 

An ocker voice on the phone, G'day, mate. Youse still selling the place? Emma chisit?" Almost told him I didn't know her, put you can't judge a caller by his voice, can you - or can you? "Somewhere north of three million", I said. "Too much, mate" was his answer, and hung up.

Ten minutes later a text message, "$2.3 cash sale if you have a change of heart, thanks." I texted back, "No change of heart as my heart is not foolish; however, if you're serious, raising a million dollars in finance with $2.3million in cash would be a walk in the park (ahem! Bank)."

Quick as a flash, "We could do $2.7m cash. We don't like loans, sorry. Not to be rude but the house is very dated and needs a lot of work. I think 1.7m suffices the land etc." (Our land valuation is $2,637,000!)

Which called for a longer reply, "You are not being rude, and you would be stupid to pay above market just as I would be stupid to sell below it. Trouble is there isn't much of a market to compare to in the case of a property in as unique a location as this, so we are both left to our own assessment and imagination. I have already rejected a previous $2.9 million offer and never regretted it. No need to be polite and say the house is dated. It's bloddy old!!! (but it was built like a tank in the 60s). It would be foolish to pull it down, which is what I told the chap who offered $2.9 million million for the land alone. $1,750,000 for the one up the lane at 5 Sproxtons Lane (another inspection this Saturday) would still leave you with some money in your pocket to upgrade it as it is a very ordinary house and what you are paying for is its location. Thanks again for your interest. P.S. If you are REALLY interested, I could offer vendor's finance of $600,000 on top of your $2.7 million cash."

"So what is the actual figure you are wanting?" $2.7 million cash plus $600,000 vendor's finance is what? Come on, switch on your calculator!

"Will never sell north of $3 million", texted me this expert, and "Happy to sit at $2.9 million if your mind turns but won't move from that. Nice location but lots of money to spend." And then there were a couple of more texted messages, which I replied with, "We could go on and on, but please let's not. Thank you for your interest, and good luck with your househunting", to which he replied with a conciliatory "All good mate thanks for your time if anything changes you have my contact."

He sounded like the chap who, once you'd locked onto his price, would find more and more faults with the property to screw you down more and more, and then drop you altogether. Better I dropped him first.

It's a bit late in life, but I'm slowly learning how to ride a unicycle.

 

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