LUCKY # 4

Its hard to believe how fast things have changed in New Zealand over a few decades. The 'devil-may-care, number -8 wire, smell-of-an-oily rag' approach to doing things has largely gone and has been replaced with 'over-regulated, wrap-them-up-in-cottonwool and make-them-pay' bureaucracy.  Admittedly a lot of this is not a bad thing but sometimes it does get out of hand.

When I was about 8 and my brother 10, Dad sold off one of the sections to my Aunt and Uncle. This was the third one along in the row of three and was similar in shape and size to the one that our house was built on. There was a creek running along the back of the lower area that had to be piped and filled in. This was a loss to us as it was a great play area with the creek being at the bottom of a deep bank. It was here that I threw the rocks at trespassing neighbour kids and broke one of their pair of spectacles.

See http://grumpyoldmanreturnsnz.blogspot.com/2009/07/spare-rod-and-spoil-child.html 

The land was soil over clay over rock and the rock had to be blasted to level terraces for house, sheds and gardens as dad had done for our property.

Dad had had enough of dynamite by this time (see Lucky # 3) and so got old Mr Boyce down the road to set the explosives. Old Mr Boyce was a demolition expert but must have learnt his skills from watching old Westerns because he was a bit of a cowboy. Once all the charges had been set and neighbours alerted Dad told Terry and I to stay well clear, in fact to go into our house and stay away from the windows as there was going to be an almighty explosion and it could get dangerous. This was once again like a honey pot for bees and not unlike telling someone not to press the big red button.

Naturally Terry and I sneaked out the back of the house and made a crouching run uphill until we gained the cover of the flax bushes and regenerating native bush at the top of the section. From there we took the well-worn track across the back of the 3 sections where we used to play jungle-war games. At the top of the third section we made our way through the bush and shrubs to peer out at the excavation directly below us, edging back under cover so as not to be seen. After what seemed endless mucking around (why don’t they just light the fuse?) Mr Boyce sounded some kind of hooter and yelled something out. There was a period of absolute quiet before a huge ear –splitting explosion sounded and we felt the ground beneath us shake. 

There was a lot of dust and then, suddenly we were being pelted with rocks and debris. Rocks of all shapes and sizes and big clumps of earth were raining down through the foliage. We could hear them drumming a tattoo on the Thomas’ tin roof which was the next house down and way to the back of us. 

We just about crapped ourselves and quickly scuttled back through the bush finding really big pieces of rock that had crashed down in our path. Getting back home we crept back into the living room and looked out the window in time to wave to Dad who was looking up to see if we were there. We watched the two or three subsequent detonations from the safety of the house.

I’m sure nowadays that this wouldn’t happen, certainly not in suburbia anyway. Life is getting pretty tame nowadays.