Biography of a Bad Baby Boomer

By Patricia Maxwell

Throughout her life, author Patricia Maxwell has determined that unpleasant and heartbreaking episodes and the mistakes made during ones life builds character and helps develop empathy for those suffering similar circumstances. In Biography of a Bad Boomer, she shares those experiences that have shaped her.

From her birth in 1957 in Coffs Harbor, this memoir describes her personal journey through life in Australia from the fifties to the twenty-first century. She shares her struggles as a teenager with the lack of self-esteem, suffering through domestic abuse at the hands of her husband, returning to school for further education, living with Parkinsons disease, and being diagnosed with breast cancer. Maxwell narrates how her easy-going nature put her in odd and incongruous places as diverse as a sheep station, an R.AA.F Hercules Aircraft, and a sleazy bar in Cambodia.

Biography of a Bad Boomer tells about the twists and turns in Maxwells life and the important lessons she has learned from all of them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: May 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781452528656

Patricia Maxwell

Patricia J. Maxwell is the director of marketing and communications for the Catalina Island Conservancy. She has been producer of the Isla Earth Radio Series for the Conservancy since 2008. She formerly was director of media relations for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Bob Rhein formerly was the media relations news writer for the Catalina Island Conservancy. He formerly wrote for the Fullerton Daily News Tribune and high-tech trade newspapers as well as the communications and marketing department at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Jerry Roberts is the senior editor and writer for the Catalina Island Conservancy and a commissioning editor for The History Press. Formerly an acquisitions editor for Arcadia Publishing and film critic of the former Copley Los Angeles Newspapers, he is the author or editor of eighteen books, including "The Hollywood Scandal Almanac, " "The Complete History of American Film Criticism, " "Mitchum: In His Own Words, " "The Great American Playwrights on the Screen" and the young adult biography "Roberto Clemente."

Book preview

1

Childhood in Paradise

MY PARENTS, LILLIAN AND Vincent Maxwell, went to Coffs Harbour for their 1952 honeymoon and never came back. They just stayed up there and sent for all their belongings from Adelaide. Dad had owned a barbershop in the city with a flat above it where they lived. I don’t know the reason they just moved like that, but they must not have been happy with their lives in Adelaide. Mum and Dad were both in the air force during the Second World War. Dad served in New Guinea. Mum stayed in Australia, but she told us she sat on bomb hatches in bombers and was scared. A benefit of that war service is that they were able to buy a home in Coffs Harbour with Dad’s War Service loan. It was a basic little fifties-style fibro cottage with two bedrooms, a sleep out, and a laundry and bathroom in one. It was only a few minutes’ walk down a dirt track to the beach; the cottage had glass French doors opening out to a patio at the front and bamboo trim on the front of the breakfast bar, in keeping with the casual beach theme. Dad got a job at a local hotel as a bar manager. Mum got work in a corner store, serving customers sliced meat and making sandwiches. Such were the limited opportunities available to newcomers in the only real industry at the time, the emerging tourist industry. I was born in 1957, their first daughter.

My very early childhood is a distant blur of bad haircuts, weak cordial, and Vegemite sandwiches—except for some outstanding injuries. Kids in the ’60s always had scabs on their knees and elbows and suffered from more horrible wounds if they were unlucky. My first was an incident when I somehow broke my thigh bone badly, when I was about four years old. As the story goes, and from what I recall, I was playing horsey rides on Dad when he was lying in Mum and Dad’s bed one morning. Then I somehow fell off the bed onto the floor. The bed was very old-fashioned and high. I vaguely remember being in trouble, with Mum and Dad acting mad, scared, and concerned. I was taken to hospital in an old car, with my leg out the window. Apparently, I was in hospital with my leg in traction for ten weeks and got bedsores. I do remember being in the bed for a very long time and being very uncomfortable and lonely in the ward.

The second injury was chopping the end off my finger off by slamming it in the back door. Mum had to take me to hospital with my hand wrapped up in a nappy and the end of my finger hanging on by a thread. I remember the overpowering smell of bleach disinfectant as the finger was being sewn back on and dressed. It is still shaped like a banana to this day. Oddly, my sister Rosemary slammed that exact finger on her hand in a car door. So we have matching banana-shaped fingers.

I first started school at the local state primary. I hated it. I was a very shy kid. In keeping with the ’50s style of family life, Mum and Dad and I were an isolated little family unit. There was no extended family around in this new paradise, and I don’t recall my parents ever having friends over or even Mum having any girlfriends. So when I started school, it was a nightmare of strange adult teachers and strange children. I was terrified and sat outside the teachers’ staff room during tea and lunch breaks, too scared to go down to the playground. I am not sure how long this behaviour went on, but I eventually found myself down on the playground and functioning fairly normally. Like most other kids at the time, I took my lunch to school: a couple of biscuits to have with my government-provided small bottle of milk at morning tea, one dried-out white-bread sandwich and a plastic bottle of lukewarm cordial for lunch, and a sun-warmed apple. There were no insulated coolers for lunch bags in those days.

As I got a little older, I made a circle of friends in my local neighbourhood. We roamed the streets to each other’s houses, playing in vacant blocks and in backyards. We were mainly never allowed inside each other’s houses. Mothers would lurk inside, busy doing whatever mothers in the ’60s did, and would appear outside once in a while with a few sandwiches and cordial for whomever was hanging around. Visiting kids were sent home as it was getting dark, and the kids of the house got called inside to do sixties-type kid stuff—wash your feet, hands, and face and get your shorty pyjamas on. Parents never seemed to worry about us washing our nether regions, just our extremities. A full bath or shower was not a daily ritual. We read some comics until tea was ready. We read comics again after tea and went to sleep at seven p.m. in skinny single beds covered with faded chenille bedspreads. And so it went, year after year.

My most interesting friend at the time was a kid called Debbie. She lived in a block of flats across from lots of vacant land with only her mum. Her father was a mysterious creature of the past. Her mum went to work every day, and Debbie had her own key to the flat, where we would sometimes hang out alone after school and on school holidays. I found it really weird to be in a home without any adults present. I was only ever home with Mum and/or Dad. I was never alone. Debbie and I didn’t do much in the flat alone, but just making sandwiches ourselves without an adult doing it for us was strange. It was sort of grown-up and a bit scary. I never told Mum and Dad when Debbie’s mother was not home; otherwise I wouldn’t have been allowed to go there.

Then there were the Dutch twins who lived in a really modern large house right on the beach. They had an intriguing and worldly-looking older sister who went out in cars with boys. Their dad was always out washing his car, which was a weird, foreign-looking model, and their mum was always smiling from the kitchen window, which faced the backyard, looking towards the road. Their front yard looked over the beach. I never saw my mum at the kitchen window; it faced the side path, which was a no-go zone for us kids, because the all-important and adults-only septic tank was there. It seemed to be bottomless, and the general impression encouraged by my parents was that if we walked on the lid and it caved in, we would never be seen again.

During this period of time, my sister Rosemary was born, five and a half years after me. It was a mysterious time for me, as she spent what seemed months in the hospital after she was born. Water on the brain, I heard from the muted adult conversations going on at the time. I had to go and stay with Nanna and Pop, who had since moved up to the coast from Adelaide. Eventually my baby sister came home from hospital, and a short while later I was allowed back home from Nanna and Pop’s. I remember her being a spoiled brat when she grew to be a toddler. I was always told to be careful with her. On the other hand, she (weighing a considerable amount) was allowed to jump off the couch directly onto my head with full force and get away with it. Such is the unfairness and burden of being the oldest child. No wonder we have issues later in life, which you will hear all about later in the book.

Even though I functioned fairly normally at school, I was still very shy and introverted. I remember a period in about grade five when I used to take my teddy to school in my school case. It gave me comfort that Teddy was just outside the classroom in my bag. I knew I was really too big a girl to be doing such a thing, but I got away with it for quite a while. One morning at tea time, one of the boys saw Teddy in my case as I was getting out my morning tea. He laughed at me and told all the other kids. I was very embarrassed and never did it again. I had to cope then without knowing Teddy was close.

By my later primary-school years, I was getting tired of being a nonentity. I was very ordinary and introverted—but I wanted to be popular and interesting. A lot of the other kids had come up to the coast from Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, or somewhere exciting. A lot of kids lived in rented houses and moved around a lot. Some of the kids even had parents who had separated; they and their mum lived in a flat, and their dad was still in Adelaide or Melbourne or somewhere. Even more exciting was the fact that those mothers smoked, drank beer, and had boyfriends. In comparison, I was from nowhere, my parents were boringly together, and we always stayed in the same boring house that my parents owned. There was no need to move.

My great idea to get noticed was to try really hard at schoolwork and homework. Slowly but surely, I worked my way up to top of the class by the end of primary school. I was still not popular, but I was held in some awe. In those days, the kids who came top of the class sat in the very back right seat, with the second student next to them and so on. The class, according to grades, snaked from the very right back around through the rows to the very left front desk, where the unfortunate child with the lowest grades sat right in front of the teacher’s nose. Teacher’s desk was always at the far left front of the classroom, with the double doors on the right front. Therefore any pupil to come through the door on an errand from another teacher had to walk across the front of the classroom, in front of the blackboard, to the teacher’s desk. There they would stand embarrassed, with the whole class staring at them, until our teacher had duly and slowly read the note and penned an equally slow reply.

Now, in those days, nobody, not anybody, looked cool at school, like kids do nowadays. We all had to wear daggy school uniforms that, for the girls, were shapeless sacks made of gingham or tartan checked material with prissy little white collars. The length was well below the knee. Whether you were an oldest child like me or a younger sibling, the uniforms were always too big. If the uniform was bought new for an oldest child, it was always a size too big, so you could grow into it. If you were a younger child in the family, you were always wearing your older sister’s uniform, which had been handed down prematurely as it was too large.. Oddly, nobody ever seemed to grow into their uniform and look half decent. Just as you did grow into your uniform, it was deemed to be worn out and a new, much too large sack would be purchased for you. Boys just wore grey shorts and a grey shirt and as far as I am aware, didn’t have any issues with their attire. Although I do remember one boy who was infamous for not wearing underpants, which was embarrassing—but fascinating, in creepy sort of way—for anyone under the monkey bars looking up while he was working out. It didn’t seem to worry him at all.

My grandparents on my mother’s side had moved up to the coast from Adelaide when I was quite young, about four or five. They bought a block of flats. There were four flats in the block. They lived in the first flat, my great-grandmother lived in the second flat, and they rented out the other two as holiday flats. When I was about nine or ten my poor old pop had a sudden heart attack and died as he was trying to fix a tap in the flat’s communal laundry. I remember someone coming to our door to tell Mum, in the days before telephones. That was that, and Pop wasn’t there anymore. My great-grandmother lived on for years until she was about ninety-eight. I remember her being quite a cantankerous old lady who was always suspicious of us kids, but I do recall getting a very large plastic tube of Smarties one Christmas from her and being most impressed.

Mum left Dad once. We caught a bus up to the flats and spent a night in the very back one. My sister and I cried all night wondering how Dad was getting on without us. We all went back the next day. I don’t know what Dad did to upset Mum; we didn’t think of asking her that.

Nanna sold the flats at some point and bought a large house across the road. That house was very exciting. It was up on stilts and closed in underneath. There were all sorts of creepy things in the basement: old furniture covered with cobwebs, old wooden boxes, and heaps of very old records. Later on she sold that house and bought a house just across from the beach. After that, Aunty Beatrice bought the house behind our place as a holiday house, and Nanna moved in to that. Nanna did not drive, never got her licence, and had never owned a car. That didn’t stop her from buying a caravan. Dad was coerced into towing it to various caravan parks up and down the coast, so that Nanna could go on holidays. Nanna had never actually gone to work in her life. I recall Dad grumbling to Mum about why the old bat needed a holiday when she was perpetually on holiday. Dad didn’t like doing things like towing caravans. Dad liked going to the races and the TAB and having a beer in public bars where women were not allowed.

The main excitement in our lives was at Christmas time. The all-exciting Uncle Barry and Aunty Dot would come up from Adelaide, usually arriving at about nine on Christmas morning. Their car boot would be loaded with presents for us all. Also loaded in the car was our cousin Gary. Gary’s older brother, David, sometimes came up for Christmas and sometimes stayed in Adelaide with my other aunt, Beatrice. When Gary was about six months old, Aunty Dot started to realize Gary was not developing like most babies do. It turned out Gary had suffered a prolonged period at birth without oxygen and was brain damaged. He grew physically like a normal person, but he acted like a baby. He was seated in a chair in the lounge room for Christmas day. Gary always wore a large baby bib, held rattles and wooden beads, and shrieked with delight if someone talked nicely to him. Aunty Dot had to change his nappies during the day and feed him, just like a baby. Over the years he grew bigger and bigger until he was a full-sized man but still acting like a baby. He was always happy, and Aunty Dot and Uncle Barry always made sure he was perfectly comfortable.

Uncle Barry was very loud and cheerful, and Aunty Dot never stopped talking. She had very exciting news about Adelaide and all the shops and all the bargains she had found during the year. She always looked beautiful and modern, wore makeup, and fluttered around talking about Adelaide. Meanwhile Uncle Barry and Dad made sure there was plenty of cold beer in the fridge, and Mum and Nanna worked in the kitchen cooking chooks and vegetables, steaming puddings, and worrying about whether the ham was wrapped properly in the fridge. Before we sat down to eat Christmas lunch, at an assortment of tables put together to make one big family table, we opened all our presents that had been stacked under the Christmas tree. Aunty Dot and Uncle Barry always brought heaps for us, like shorty pyjamas and matching brunch coats, hankies, short and top sets, moo moos, and so on. They were, of course, always a bit big so we could grow into them.

Mum and Nanna would always say it was too hot to eat a hot Christmas dinner and that next year we would have a cold lunch, and all the adults would agree. Then we would all get our pudding, which had sixpences in it. That was very exciting; we were always a bit worried we might swallow a sixpence or choke on it. After the pudding the women cleaned up all the mess, us kids were told to clean up all the wrapping paper, and the men retired to the patio to have a few more beers. Mum and Nanna always seemed a bit tired and grumpy after that, and they seemed to be a bit tired of listening to Aunty Dot talking about Adelaide. My sister and I would play with our Christmas tea sets, undress and redress our bride dolls, and try on all our shorty pyjamas from Adelaide. All the adults always wanted to have an afternoon sleep. We could not understand why people would want to sleep on Christmas day but were sent to our rooms anyway to have a rest. Gary had to have a rest too.

Aunty Dot, Uncle Barry, and Gary then drove off in the late afternoon to a holiday house they had rented for a few weeks. My sister and I always went to stay with them the next day and spent our days with Aunty Dot down the beach. She wore a fancy one-piece bathing suit and a floral fancy bathing cap and lipstick. My sister and I wore ratty black speedos or a new towelling bikini if we had one. We were encouraged to get as brown as we could, and if we got really burned we had to have a hot shower to bring out the burn and get it started healing. A lot of the time we had bubbly faces and shoulders where the skin got really burned, and then we would peel for days afterwards. Later in the holiday we were so dark brown we just didn’t burn at all. I don’t really know what Uncle Barry did all those weeks, but I have a memory of him sitting in a cane chair drinking beer and listening to the cricket. He never went to the beach but always told us we were getting nice and brown.

Dad never went to the beach either. The closest he ever got was taking movies on an overcast day of storm damage from a distance with a new 8mm movie camera he had bought. Dad always wore long-sleeved shirts, long trousers, shoes and socks, and a hat. At night he wore long-sleeved pyjamas with long pyjama pants. He worked for a long time as bar manager at the best and fanciest hotel in the area at the time. He brought home little cocktail umbrellas, swizzle sticks, and baby bottles of liquor and liqueurs, which all went into his cocktail cabinet. The cocktail cabinet also contained lots of beautiful cut-glass glasses, which could never be washed in soap and water. Only plain water could be used on Dad’s beer glass. He also had in there a crystal decanter with Scotch whisky and another really old decanter which held sherry. The only time in about fifteen years that anyone had a drink out of that cabinet was when Uncle Rex came to visit about every five years. We loved to open the doors to the cabinet and look in there at all the strange bottles and glasses. It smelled of sticky, sweet, and heady fortified wine.

There was also a piano in our modest lounge room. It was Dad’s piano. Dad could play the piano. Mum hated it because it took up too much room, and she didn’t like Dad playing as it was too noisy. He kept sheet music in a special compartment under the piano stool. Mum kept her feather dusters shoved behind the piano. They were the fluffy woolly ones with cane handles, not the proper feather ones. They were there handy to the piano so