Peanut butter and pineapple rings
Did ya see it? I certainly did. You wouldn't catch me missing an event like that. Not in a million years.
Came right up the main street, it did. In cooee of our front gate. The kids were so THRILLED. Their little faces were BEAMING. They were.
Little Dylan couldn't sleep the night before 'cause he didn't want to miss the torch come by. God love him. So we were up there bright and early in our jim jams waving Aussie flags the kids had cut out of a Weeties packet. And they waved them like merry hell.
God, it made me darn proud. I felt privileged. I did. I felt real proud.
The kids were cheering and down the hill past the Convenience comes THE OLYMPIC TORCH! Their little faces lit up like a Christmas tree as the bloke carrying the thing gave them a little wave. Pleased as punch they were. It was a great day in our household, I'm telling you. A great day.
So after all the excitement of the torch we made a special show out of it and had a Dick Smith breakfast. Won't catch us having Vegemite in our house. No siree. We went with the Golden Circle pineapple rings and the Dick's own peanut butter on bread made by those Vietnamese in the High Street (you know the place, where Kelly Whatshername works Saturdays).
We're doing our bit. Won't catch us giving into the multinationals. We decided to stand by our own kind.
It's all very nice to get into the Olympic spirit, I tell the youngsters, but when it comes to which side your bread gets buttered on, you gotta think closer to home. Hip pocket nerve and all that.
When you grow up, I say, you want a job to be there. It pays to plan ahead. Look after number one in this world. That's what the Olympic spirit's good for.
Makes you think. It's dog eat dog in this world. You gotta stand by the team — Aussie jobs, Aussie dollar, Aussie this and that — and keep on buying Australian. That's what Dick says.
If you ask me, Dick comes across as a true Australian in a National Geographic way — not a Chips Rafferty or Slim Dusty way — but he speaks to the city folk. You know what I mean?
I couldn't come at that Hanson woman. A bit crude and rude if you asked me. But Dick? What you see is what you get. He's one for the battlers (not that he says so). But that's the impression, isn't it?
All them companies doing it tough — BHP, the Commonwealth Bank, Telstra. At heart they're all about keeping jobs at home. You know what I mean? The money stays here — as Dick says — gets spent in this country, not somewhere else.
In this day and age it ain't easy to find principles to live by. Well I reckon Dick has served us up one. Food for thought, as it were — peanut butter and pineapple rings. There's gotta be a job in it somewhere?
Dave Riley
<http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dhell>