The Young Adult Years (13 to 20)
- The Early Reader Years (birth to 12 years)
- The Young Adult Years (13 to 20)
- The Adult Years (21 to 36)
- The Cool Older Guy Years (37 to now)
1976 – Started at Blackburn High School.
1977 – Started to really blossom as a cricketer. The hair helped a lot. It acted as a helmet.
Second year in high school.
1978 – My dad won Tattslotto this year. We really did. First prize and everything. There were 3 other winners, so we ended up with about $250,000 which was a very large amount in those days. (warning: this isn’t a totally happy part of my story. Keep reading to find out why.)
Soon after we moved to Lower Templestowe because we could afford a really big house. I kept going to Blackburn High School with my friends though. It took two bus trips each day, but it was worth it.
1979 – I’d like to think it was the fashion at the time, but perhaps I was just a bit of dork. Hmmm?
1980 – Failed to significantly penetrate the themes of my English novels. Boo!
I may have been missing the point in English, but at least I was still looking good.
1981 – Moved from our big place in Lower Templestowe to a slightly smaller place in East Doncaster. After a few years, we realised we couldn’t really afford the big place any more, even though we still had most of that Tattslotto money. Boo.
Finished High School. Yay!
1982 – Started a university degree at RMIT – Media Studies. Yay. Met lots of new and fun people. Yay some more.
1983 – Lost all of that Tattslotto money we’d won, and just about everything else we owned. We got conned in a very bad business deal. My parents split up. I moved with my mum to a really run down house – the worst place we’d ever lived in. Oh well, back to being poor again. Boo.
But there was some good news. Because we’d moved, I met my a guy called Keith on the new bus I was taking to university. Keith and I formed a band. Double-triple-yay!
1984 – Completed my degree at RMIT. Many yays!
Took my first flight in a plane. Didn’t like it much, so I jumped out. Actually that’s not entirely true – it was my first flight and I did jump out, but I was wearing a parachute. Eek! My friend, Andrew, and I made a radio show about it. It was bought by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Yes!
We also made a show about embalming – that’s what they do to dead bodies before funerals. Ewe!