Before I left Australia in the dying days of 1969 for the wilds of New Guinea, I rented a mail box in a small suburban post office in Canberra, and for the next fifteen years my permanent mailing address became
regardless of wherever I was in the world.
The "postmaster" of this small hole-in-the-wall post office, a likeable Pom by the name of Steve Dow, would every couple of weeks stuff my mail in a jiffy bag and send it to wherever I happened to be, which altogether totalled some fifty different addresses in well over a dozen different countries.
In turn, I sent Steve from all the places I had been to and worked in many colourful picture postcards which he pinned to the backwall of his tiny post office. They brightened up his work place for many years until an overzealous postal inspector told him he was running a post office and not a travel agency and would he take them down, please!
Well, I seem to have come full circle because I now have my own wall on which I pin the few cards I receive from the few friends who still remember me. As you can see, there's still plenty of room left, so you're welcome to send your own picture postcard to
"Riverbend"
Nelligen N.S.W. 2536
Australia
I promise to pin it to the wall and raise my glass to it in quiet contemplation whenever I sit in the "Clubhouse".
