Sunday Thoughts From A Beautiful Place

Doing It Tough, Tropical Style
It's a great life, provided that you don't weaken.......but a much better one if you do, so said the wise old sage that was my life mentor during my 1st ever job, that of an apprentice Bricklayer. Yes, as we do, back then, this was what I was very certain was to become my profession, before I had smashed my hands to a pulp with a brick hammer during some of England's finest and shockingly cold winter's days, not to mention twatting-up my knees for later life on badly erected scaffolding....but I've just gone and mentioned it anyway.
No, Harry, as we'll call him, since that was his name, was a wonderful man - later to be so cruelly robbed of life through bilateral carcinoma of the lungs, through a lifetime spent breathing-in the smoke of Capstan Full Strength cigarettes and cement dust and sheer rotten luck - Harry taught me many things, as a wee snip of an apprentice at 15 years old - he taught me to lay bricks - though I could never have done so in as skilled a manner as he, being a Master Builder and truly something to watch in awe when he went about his trade. He taught me quite a bit about women, although in absolute honesty, I had already discovered almost all there was to know long before this - not all, but most - and I speak frankly and honestly in this regard, believe it or nay readers.
Examples, you say?
Well, he would always remind me to pay particular attention to a woman's hair, her shoes and her finger/toe nails.....if these were shoddy, Harry would firmly say, then everything else about the woman would be much less than acceptable.
I believed him then, and I still believe him to this day - as points of reference, they are a very reasonable starting place. It has, in general terms, been advice that has served me well enough, as well as any and, dare I suggest, even better than most. I continue to look at women - don't we all, works of art that they often are - in these slightly critical ways.....and I do judge them rather harshly if they fall below par, too. Of course, I only ever look these days, being an abundantly happily married chap, to a woman with impeccable grooming and magnificent shoes at all times.....not her words & opinions, but my own. So, I should add - hastily - that I 'browse' only through sake of interest and unwavering fascination at women - at People - and do so unashamedly for these reasons only, that of wonder and interest - it's all Psychology after all, innit?
But back to Harry.......He cared for me deeply, did Harry, just as if I were his own son, and so, not at all surprisingly (although to me, back then, it was something I didn't fully fathom) he was bitterly upset and deeply disappointed when I told him that Bricklaying wasn't quite what I would go-on to do with my life, and this after only 18 months, too. He had given me his all, much more than that, in truth, and was naturally upset that I had thrown it all back in his face......something very easy for me to see now, of course.
He was a truly great man, a master craftsman, a friend and, for me, a father figure of the time, even.
I wish, deeply as can so often be the case and as is right & proper, that I could have been more grateful, more appreciative of Harry for the short time that I was blessed to have been a part of his life - I know, too, how he suffered greatly with his illness, not simply though pain and suffering, but in that way that truly great men do, when they have been very active & skilled all of their lives, only to have it all cruelly snatched away from them by debilitating disease and illness.
Rest In Peace, Harry Sargeant.
Fitting that I have digressed so through the great man - what started only as an introduction to this scribbling went-on to become what is now there. It was, of course, an intro to My Life In The Tropics.
Here, in the place I always dreamt of returning to as a retiree ( for surely, there would be no other way of permanently coming back here?? - that said, there were times I thought the only way I'd ever get into University was pickled, inside a large jar or several - but with Port Douglas, little did I know what fate had in store for Me)
I now sit and ponder my fortune at living in the absolute epitome of Paradise. Perhaps there are more beautiful places.....sure there are, and I've been to many of them, in South East Asia, many at least as beautiful........even in England, beauty and magnificence can be readily found. Here, though, it - or 'things' are different yet the same.........the same as I recall them being when last I visited, some 16 years ago, when I was a Clinical Specialist and before the back injury had come-a-knocking.
There have been a few changes, and listening to the locals, these have not been welcome ones - the Coconut Grove Resort, boldly standing at the juncture of Macrossan Street & Port Douglas Road, together with the shops that form part of it's frontage......not called Coconut Grove for nothing, and as soon as I recalled the reason, it all made sense, the anger against what eventually passed through as a project.
Where concrete and shops now stand once stood a huge Coconut grove, tall & proud trees swaying gently in the ocean breeze. The apartments are luxurious inside, but outside........this should never have happened, and had I then been a part of this community, I would have been equally vocal in opposition. So far, though, the MacDonalds, KFC's and anything 'high-rise' et al have been kept out, and I will do my own bit as an up & coming 'yet to be fully accepted' local to ensure this remains the case until I draw my last gasp.
The latest topics and bones of contention are substantial....one in  particular, this being the proposed lagoon, to be a smaller version of that built in Cairns.....surely a very needed thing on so many levels there, but here?
Well, there are, of course, arguments for and against such a project, and one might easily think that a moderate lagoon might only entice Port's visitors to stay a while longer than they might have otherwise done - give them a reason to not leave quite so soon......and yet most all of the great many resorts have their own pools, a great many of them lagoon-style and very substantial - and in tourist season here, the ocean is much more than an absolute delight to cool-off in, (even off season, it's a very fine thing basking within the relative safety of the marine stinger netting).
One could surely successfully argue that the swimming side of things are already well-enough catered for.....tastefully done, a lagoon project......well, I guess it could look fine enough.....but could it look as beautiful as already does the propsed site for it, immediately behind the Chapel of St Mary's By The Sea....an area of superb & pristine natural beauty of the finest kind.....most of which would be destroyed and lost forever if the project goes ahead, as is highly likely. Even the many tourists who go to St Mary's to marry and get one of the world's greatest photo-op's and backdrops may not be so numerous if the lagoon and all that comes with it goes ahead. This but one source of revenue lost.
And the good?
Well, it would, possibly, bring more $$$'s to the struggling businesses of Port - but then, let's just take a look at what the Cairns variant has led to........the previously thriving Pier complex is now all but dead and buried. I could not believe the extent to which this place had declined - virtually no-one within, no people and no businesses......a very large and almost totally unoccupied gym is almost all that remains. Gone are the extensive and always very populous food halls and tourist shops......gone gone really Gone.
And it is the lagoon that has caused this without doubt - it is a mixed blessing of enormity for Cairns, the huge and well built, well used lagoon area. People will swim and bask all day long, (even, sadly, occasionally rob the belongings of their fellow swimmers whilst they are distracted and in the lagoon - these but a minority of Bad Bastards, I hasten to add) but the patrons of the lagoon there at Cairns, will they get around to spending a lot of money whilst basking lagoon-side? Hmmmm, I think not, certainly not to any extent.
For Port Douglas, though,along with the lagoon as proposed......another is the junction of Captain Cook Highway and Port Douglas Road - for reasons that I cannot fathom at all, since the road is rarely too busy and visibility is magnificent, people keep crashing their fucking cars into one another, misreading, often with fatal consequence, right turns and oncoming traffic, it's speed etc etc. There's talk of sorting it out, and something will definitely be done here - it's traffic lights Vs. roundabout.....now, the people of Port abhor traffic lights, and there's not a single set to be found anywhere here....but a roundabout is the much more expensive project, and is not the one favoured despite the dislike of traffic lights. It will almost certainly be the case that traffic lights will go ahead at one of the worlds most easily seen, easy to read junctions........reducing the speed limit a little sooner has been mooted, and will be a given in any event no matter which mode goes ahead - it does seem that Port Douglas will get it's 1st set of traffic lights, and the locals are less than amused (yes, even myself).
It is these things, things that may appear trivial to you, dear reader (and I use the singular wisely here!) that trouble the people of Port, and I am now amongst their number - my own opinion is that it should be re-sited. The proposed lagoon site is far too naturally beautiful to ever be considered for anything at all - it needs to be left the fuck alone for the enjoyment of all, now and those to come.
I guess, of course, that no-one wants it next door to them, in reality, not even me.....no, especially not Me, lets be very honest here. I am even of the mind that it isn't needed - it's more of a grab for Qld Govt cash.....if the cash isn't taken by the said date, then it's gone - I would spend the monies better, maybe upon furthering the growth of the live music side of things in Macrossan Street, to an acceptable and much needed level. People of all ages love to hear the sound of music, appropriately leveled in volume & style, as they wander along. It isn't a retirement village here, nor should it ever be.....and it's not night clubs and the like that are sought, just something appropriate.
But that's just me, a new arrival to a familiar place - it really is Paradise here, but let's not tell too many people or maybe it won't always be..........aside from the aforementioned, and a complex that includes a well-integrated and stylish Coles and 'Country' Target, very, very little has changed that I can recall, something about which I rejoice daily.
Hallelujah!!!!
This scribbling didn't go at all to plan, something for which I make no apologies. Just more of my thoughts, written as they flow-in to what's left of my sponge-like brain and mind, and read by, well, lets face it....not too many people at all.
It is, though, all about the quality, not the quantity of folks! (Isn't it, my good friend - if even you're there!)
Until next time, Adieu from Heaven!