My dinner with Dinah has been had. My, my, it provided some revelations, and was enjoyable, too. She's a straightshooting individual, and clearly a strong character. She worked in television for several years after school, and then in a variety of roles, most recently administrative jobs at the ANU. Lives back in Canberra in part to look after her mum who has Alzheimer's, and partly to be able to afford a house.
I had forgotten how short a time she had spent in Canberra during the time I knew her. She was at a boarding school 65 miles away when I first met her on her summer holidays, through her brother, my friend Richard. I was then in 4th form (10th grade). It must not have been until the next year, when she was at school in Canberra, that I ineptly asked her to come to Civic with me, and waited for her at the bus stop on Caley Crescent, as the 6pm and 6:30pm buses arrived without here, and I ended up taking the 7pm alone, only to see her later walking down the main shopping street under the arm of one of my classmates, as I awaited the last #29 bus home, at 11:10pm.
I have long suspected that she didn't even realize that I had asked her on a date. A little later on, I saw more of her, at the parish yough group. She often came with her beautiful and delightful friend Maggie (the daughter of the only Aboriginal recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest recognition for bravery in war – theirs was one of the very few Aboriginal families in Canberrra, at that time). She and Maggie came to the youth group, and I'd thought they must have come on several occasions. But when I think about it now, I realize it was probably only 6 events, or so. Or perhaps they came only to the barn dance we held, with live music. I danced with her quite a bit - an accomplishment for me, as I felt particularly pathetic while trying to dance in the modern modes, and as I was, in any case, ridiculously shy. But then, I thought we were friends, and so forth, and that her being friendly to me, at that point, even after standing me up on my Very First Date, meant that she must like me, at least. Of course, I couldn't possibly have asked her, straight up. The unsuccessful date was quite traumatic, and memorable. I still can play the whole thing over in my mind with cinematic verisimilitude.
So, I did wonder, going into the dinner tonight, whether the subject of our feelings about each other, at that time, 30 years ago, would come up.
I was a little surprised to learn, then, that when I had contacted Dinah last year, after coming across her name and email in an Australian Naitional University publication, she immediately called Richard because - because – she didn't remember who I was!
So, tonight, it turns out, I learned that, with all her foreign travel and boarding-school attendance she remembered very little from her childhood, at all. Drinking a lot, since then, may have played a role.
I was not perturbed, now, and almost amused. It's not like I've spent the 30 years of the interim obsessing about that first date, but it certainly was part of the formation of my expectations about romance, and of my self-image.

When I was sitting in Garema Place today, it struck me that recent immigrants must feel odd about their place, or lack of it, in Australia, and then I thought about my own lack of place. And, in reality, no European or Asian Australians really should feel any great sense of fit in the place. Virtually none of us has the faintest about the realities of the land. Europeans have been in Australia only 217 years, about 50,000 fewer than Aborigines.

Stopped on the way from Canberra to Melbourne at Holbrook, a small highway town in southern NSW with an excellent swimming pool, about 35 yards long, and crystal clear. Had it more or less to myself, as school hadn't got out yet.
It takes forever to drive the 400 miles as, even though the roads are almost all excellent, now, the speed limits are low and their enforcement is brutal. There are speed traps all over the place, with cameras and radar, and unmarked police cars also are out and about. Fortunately the cricket, Australia v New Zealand, was on the radio so I could imagine it as I drove along. It's not the same as it used to be, because the commentators have settled on a style that panders to idiots who aren't able to listen just to cricket. Limerick competitions via text messaging, that kind of things.
Neddy (who is seven – "seven and a half," he says), was excited to see me and rushed up with a big hug. He told his parents when he got up yesterday that it was going to be the best day of his life, because I was coming (which I was) and he was going to Jamies (which he wasn't, until Saturday). He insisted that I sleep in his room, on the floor, underneath his loft bed, a double bunk with no lower level. I got him to promise not to get up until Harry came by to say it was time to get up, at 7. That bought me an extra hour of sleep, at least.