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Today's quote:

Friday, April 13, 2018

Don't GOOGLE me, I GOOGLE you!

Helmut and I raise our glasses in June 2011 at the Lake Eacham Hotel,
Yungaburra's only Husbands' Daycare Centre

 

I always visit bookshops, so when I toured the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland in mid-2011, I called in at the Spencer & Murphy Booksellers in Yungaburra which was minded by Helmut Brix, a fellow-German who'd come to Australia and also passed through Bonegilla in 1961, four years before me.

 

Helmut 'holding the fort' at Tony's bookshop

 

Entry in National Archives of Australia:

"BRIX Helmut Franz born 9 December 1938 - German - travelled per MIKLM departing in 1961 under Australian German Migration Agreement"

Perhaps I ought to request a full copy of his immigration papers in celebration of our short and accidental meeting and ensuing friendship which lasted for several years. And so I did - click here.

Being almost seven years older than me, Helmut immediately settled in Melbourne and finished up with a wife, children, house, everything - or, as Zorba the Greek called it, "the full catastrophe".

 

A young Helmut Brix in his camerashop in St Kilda
Helmut in his former career as Camera repairman

 

Fifty years later, he said goodbye to his grown-up kids, told his wife he needed time to himself, and travelled north. In Yungaburra he found friends and a free flat in exchange for looking after several more, and I admired (and envied) him for the ease with which he had escaped from half a century of domesticity. Lotus-eating in Bali or Bora Bora next?

 

Helmut's new-found domesticity at Yungaburra.
A romantic at heart, this one got him in:
"Liebes Laube" means "Love Shack"

 

However, we all seem to be creatures of habit because a few months on he told me he had bought a house at 17 Currawong Avenue, Yungaburra and turned domestic again! Which is where the story should end, except I just GOOGLEd him and read that he escaped again, this time for good:

 

born 9 December 1938 - died 18 March 2018

 

Rest in Peace, my friend, and I'm glad we had those beers together. And I'll stay off GOOGLE for a bit as this has been enough bad news for a day.

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