My father left me with some wonderful memories. The least of which was the bent spoon.

After Mum died, Dad lived alone at Tanawha and became swept away with the Woombye Bowls Club.

Most times when I arrived at his place he was at the Bowls Club, or with his bowls friends, or at a meeting to do with bowls.

Such was the case when I arrived there this day and found the place completely empty. As it was early, I helped myself to a bowl of breakfast cereal.

When I opened the cutlery draw I noticed a bent spoon. I picked it up, sat down at the table and hoed into some of dad’s specially-mixed muesli that made him more regular than the number 46 bus from Nambour to Bli Bli.

Scoop after scoop, I made with the bent spoon until the bowl was completely finished.

When Dad finally arrived home, I couldn’t help but ask: “Dad, why the bent spoon?”

“Well Son”, he replied “I bent that one to remind me that that’s the one I feed the dog with”.

Famous – perhaps not
I got to school early the other day to pick up the kids, so early in fact, that the prep school children were sitting in a line ready to go.

I was wearing black boots, black jeans, Zinc t-shirt, a black leather jacket, grey beard and an old face.

I couldn’t help but notice how my every movement was followed by the pre-schoolers.

My ego being what it is, I naturally thought that they recognised my face from television or my weekly column in the Daily and therefore were enamoured with my celebrity presence.

They tittered and giggled and pointed so much so that the teacher walked over to me and said: “I’m so sorry Jamie, they think you’re a robber.”

McWonderful
Congratulations McDonalds – you truly do it well. I had reason to call into McDonalds, Bribie the other day to use their McLoo and get some fries.

While I was there I noticed a special needs employee of theirs, which I might add is a wonderful scheme that gives encouragement to these sometimes shy people.

The man that was in charge of keeping the eating area clean was so obviously proud of what he was doing, cheerily going about his work keeping the tables spotless and gently picking up the bits and pieces of rubbish of the floor.

It did my heart good to see his passion to be part of a team. So let me say it again… good on ya McDonalds, you really do it well!

The Sunshine Coast shines
My Aboriginal mate Tiger Bayles asked me once again if it would be alright for us to host 15 Aboriginal children from Hopevale in North Queensland… and host we did, thanks to Underwater World and Australia Zoo and Mooloolaba Fisheries on the Spit.

It’s our experience in the past that with a little bit of respect and exposure to opportunities, some of these kids further their education and get well and truly back on the rails when they get back to their communities.

Respect can come in so many ways, like “anonymous” from Peters Ice-Cream who called ahead to Fisheries on the Spit after hearing the kids on Zinc to ensure that each of them was given a free ice-cream with their lunch.

One of the chaperones showed me a picture of one of the students she’d taken to the Spit and commented: “This boy has been having a real tough time of it, I haven’t seen him smile like this for years.” Who would have thought that a chocolate drumstick could perhaps change someone’s life.

Peter Garrett
Don't you feel sorry for former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett, now he’s the environment minister? Before he was the angry young man, now he has to announce whether we have a dam or not.

Before he would have written a song against it, now he has to talk about carbon trading schemes, which may mean we will have to look at nuclear power in the future and we all know how vocal he was about that in the past. Poor bugger him!