Latest / Salt of the Earth / Ep 130: Reg Dodd _ Marree SA

Transcript

Ep 130: Reg Dodd _ Marree SA · Salt of the Earth

• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Red is an original elder from Mallory in Factor Stratus Drive.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: He was born in 1940 and from a young age worked with PowerPoint.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about finding Ghana and Amy for today.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about how to accept them and the challenges of today.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: But he said the person behind that OIM is like what?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: This is Reg Dodd from Maori in FAC to Death Australia.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, Rich.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining me.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's great.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great to share your information and communication is the greatest thing in the world.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Ridge, what country are we on here?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Arabana.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I what I wanted was to keep talking about and thinking about is that to really give the right information about Aboriginal culture and and connection to the land and and how it doesn't cease at this boundary here.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same as that road that goes from here to Darwin.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a corridor which we follow, see?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so you more b in that country, you're here how you've got to look after that.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Your responsibility with that country, but the connection of that country to other countries, because they've got it is a travel route.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it lives on.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Just imagine you do comparison to the rail or the road with that.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Say, no, no, no, this is Maori to Ud Na Mari, and Udnari, you know what I mean?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can't if you call it.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: You have a responsibility to ensure that the safety, well-being in the travel during the ceremonial time, or just to travel to see their relation, because they've got relation rights with the country through true through culture and through through family, and through thousands of years.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so people don't actually see that.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: In the days, you know, with the old people, they had no pack racks or some car to chuck in a computer and uh and uh whatever else they need to print and take photos of things.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's all in here.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: But you're told from a small age um, you know, who you are, where you belong, where your people and where you friends and who are, and what the hills and that are, and they take you out.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just is a fun thing, but it's not a fun thing, it's actually teaching you.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Where were you born?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: That book will tell you all at Finnah.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: At Finnace?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: And can I ask what year?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: 911, 40.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: 1940.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: So you're looking good.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Hey?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you're still very active.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well that that's uh uh because you uh you you had that work ethic, you know, and at a seven-year-old and that we used to drive the horses while our uncles and that and used to do the ploughing and the scoop and that to put a dam bank in or something like that.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: You were working horses, were you?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we were riding off on these kids and that, you know, because uh grandfather had horses with the cattle and sheep and all that.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: But came from a big family.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: How many were in your family?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there was about fifteen or something.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Fifteen kids.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in our in our mothers and things like that.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I've got four children, four children, and they lost the missus uh a few years ago.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: But do do you have a favorite memory growing up?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: When you when you go out, we used to go out and where we were thinking there was this little bit of a sand dune by a swamp and that thing.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the old people take it and show us where the frogs are, so we would dig out and get the frog.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: There was a water next to that moment.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So so it it it looked like a fun thing, but it wasn't a fun thing, it was a teaching of the culture and thing, you know?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's that respect and something that they taught you that, you know what I mean?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh had to respect other people and and that and you know.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I used to see when old people come down, called me old man comes from the from the Alice and that up in the north and that.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: When people travel through not only here from there, but right across Australia travel and came through there to come through the uh first thing they would feed them and we'd be sitting there waiting while while they fed the visitors first thing.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But this was their yeah, apology.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there wasn't any that bickering and uh arguing and things because they were ruling with you know pretty hard rules there, but they were caring for others too.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah in that respect.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Did you go to school up this way?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Did you go to school yeah?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: School, church, hospital, shop, a lot.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: Here in Marae.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Built there, built.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, in up there.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: In finished.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: As kids we'd be turning the mixer or some of that, and uh we'd be mixing the cement now, um, they'd be nearly dropping off, you know.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we'd make their own bricks and that, and you know.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I look back now and after after looking at what's happening around around the countryside now, is that way way grandfather had set up, you he built a dam or put down a well or something, he put it in a place where it would be it would be safe, but where it wouldn't interfere with the flow of the water.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: The water would flood in, fill up the underground tanks in it, and then flow on, keep on flowing in the creek.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he didn't interfere with anything, yeah.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Did you have good teachers like your dad and your uncle?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: They taught you a lot?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: He did, yeah, but uh not as much as the uh others around you, you know what I mean?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: But he took me out and on his English uh two things, and we'd go to in the morning and we'd go for a walk and would be gone all day.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And as a kid, he said, You sit here and play here, I'll come back after.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you know I'm gone for a little while and the sun's nearly down.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: But but that was home, you know it?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: And you said before, it's important to learn about country, isn't it?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you've been able to pass that down?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and not only m w well the country as a whole, because you have you know, you the animals and all this sort of stuff, right?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know when to go and find find eggs, beady dragons' eggs, or go on their eggs, or kangaroo.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You'd know all that, you know what I mean?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: You would know that and where to go, uh, 'cause where to dig bush onions and all that, and the whole lot.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was a like in y in a in a supermarket.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: What were you eating when you were kids for meals?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: We had kangaroo and gowanna, bearded dragon, rabbit, whitching, you cook it on the fire.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, ashes.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Ashes, plenty of ashes.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Money was nothing, mate.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Money was nothing.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you've been able to pass that knowledge down.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty hard because you're competing with technology, and then you've got this other culture coming in saying, you gotta work hard to get money to survive.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And here we survive.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the old woman used to get get five shillings or two, five shillings uh as uh child endowment.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: But they were all working, they were all working.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: They'd go to that the west side, do the sharing, or the stations would come up and get them get the men to go and help them muster and all that.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: They were always working.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: They had and I was going to say they had relations with the you know.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the other things I I I keep saying now I would need to do is that the railways introduce uh Aboriginal people in the in this different thing, you know what I mean?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: They were all inside the the lads from there at Finnet uh got a job on the railways from here to Alice Springs to down south and that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the people from down south would come up and work the railway there.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the girls would would work in the shop there and then they go in.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we had that relationship between other um other missions like Nepha Bunner and Udia.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uldiya mob used to come across and give us a hand.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Give not me hand, but give the old people the hand to build bricks, to build the church, the shop, the school, the whole lot.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So he that unity between the people.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then uh they would just head off and head back.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: What what did you do after you left school for work?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: After school, it was plain marbles.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then then you you know, you had finishing the school here because the old man got a job on the railway.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: We were up there when that horse and cart.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: You see that cart in front of the shop?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's our wagon.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean motherfuckers, yeah.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: We that where they used to call the red chariot.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the horses that used to pull that was Yudie and Blackmail.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we traveled all over the country with that.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I when I came down here, they came in there because Dolman was working on the railway, and then the guy from the station came in from Anno Creek, Anna Creek was Stewart Creek, anyway, and took me back to uh Seward Creek to work in at the station.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh started working there.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Working with cattle.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: What does country mean to you?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Country is everything.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Country is everything.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's your it's your I don't know, with the souls of the right word, you know, you it's you it's everything.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's who you are, what you are, where you're from.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're from the country, you're part of the country, you go back to the country, you know what I think.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you identify with all people, no, that's the mob from that mob, you know, that mob from that country the country, they name the country, you know.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's it.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and it gives you a thing in here to actually care for and look after, and you can see what's happening with the with the country.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you know that all people have said that, and you know, know and you learn from that if you know look after these things that happen.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you know where to look for uh the bee, the dragon eggs or the goeness eggs or the kangaroo's eggs or the animals.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because if there's good living for them, the vegetation and water and that on that area, they'll always come back.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: So then you would know that, eh?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you wanted the kangaroo or some whatever it is, you want to climb a tree, that big old big red river gums there, high as a mile high there.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know if that if the galars and that white cockatoos have eggs in there, so you would climb the tree and get the eggs.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But you'd only take one or two, maybe.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It depends how many were there.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: See, you always left you was always learning something.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: When someone comes, you feed them first, and you always were sharing it.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to take it now because it's different, you know what I mean?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's man eat man or dog eat dog or whatever it is like, you know.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Rich, you're very knowledgeable and you've written a fantastic book called Talking Sideways.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I recommend to our listeners to to get hold of that copy because it's a brilliant read.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've got to read it all yet, but I've had a quick look at it and it looks amazing.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: So well done.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Rich, I want to ask Catty Thander Lake Air, what does that mean to you?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very important, very important.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is, yeah.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: What it is to do I bring people is that it should be to everything, everyone, and have a look.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was out there one day and I when I was doing tours with I used to have a school, Pembroke, Trinity, Gift and all and look from.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: We used to go out there now, uh I'd go look.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got these rocks and that or took these rocks a bit that long and took them and stuck them in the in the museum.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the uh geologist came on and he said, Where does it come from?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: He asked me, yeah?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I got it in the lake, I got that from.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: He said, No, it doesn't.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: See, that comes from in New South Wales and in the sea where the the volcanic things are.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: He said, That's where that comes from.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: When you go out to the lake, what do you see that others don't?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, one thing you get is is a a sense of belonging.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it changes within seconds it can, you know what I mean?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: You could sit down and just write a book, right or you can write a Bible about the thing.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much there, it's so amazing.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time again, it's that like a religious thing, you know what I mean?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: We had this bloke uh working for uh Western mining and and uh we talked about one of the islands and I said, No, you you can't go in there, he said.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You shouldn't go and I said it's he had to go out there because the the the uh pelicans were nesting to canter penny.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: So he went out there.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: There were a couple of cars and one got bogged or broke down, and so that car went back so the the the boss himself he went on his own.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so he had to walk in about maybe probably three or four miles to the island.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So he walked in there.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then by the time he started recording and photographing and all that, well the sun had just gone down, didn't he?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Oh my god, he said, I better get going.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we started walking back to where the car was, and he's walking back.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then he thought, you know, he didn't feel right.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he looked back and he saw this light coming behind him.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh, that's a station guy, I think.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then he walked a bit more.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Well it couldn't be, 'cause that's the middle of the lane.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: So he started to walk a bit faster.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the light kept up to him, followed him right to the edge of the thing.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he never went back there no more.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it's so thingy, it's it's so alive, you know, so ancient and all and the stories old people tell about that, you know.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it's it's a magic place for me, though.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: R Rich, you've spent a lot of years teaching kids, haven't you, and taking them on tours, teaching kids?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we started off with Pembroke.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Pembroke, and then then then uh Scott College came along, then they heard, and then Trinity in Melbourne, and then Arano in Melbourne.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then Giftland Grandma, and they all wanted to start talking, you know that.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I enjoyed it.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was good.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: You you uh when they come up they sort of when they leave and I don't want to go.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: You've been recognized too for this teaching, haven't you, with an OAM?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: That must feel good.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was, but it was sad for me, because the one who was responsible for it was the driving behind.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was the myths.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: Your wife.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are a couple, yeah, and uh non-abridging lady, she would come work with us.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: She she got one and my brother, three of us.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Three members of that organization were the recipient of it all to Australia, and I got a senior citizen too on top of that.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it is because of the people who we had around us, you know.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he was old and they were genuinely thing.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: When we started out, people said, We'll uh bring down a lot of our stuff in that and put in the music, and so they did that, you know.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Stuff you wouldn't find there anywhere.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And stuff you would see there that was that was made long before the Westerners set foot on it, you know what I mean?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: Storytelling's important, isn't it?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: What that will do to me, it will bring the society together, yeah.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: They will have an understanding.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's also important to listen, isn't it?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you're hands-on stuff, you know what I mean?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hands-on stuff, isn't it?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you like photography.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: You like taking it.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I do I I think photography and music, I do that.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and each each thing tells a story, you know?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And flying, if I go flying from Roxby to Adelaide, uh, you see all the sand dune lying, and they're all facing in toward this way towards the lake.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: See?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: When this water covered it, and they recede, the water receded and it formed that creek.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then after you have a dry time with the dirt and sand, then the rains and the grass started.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it, I've seen it happen.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have a favorite photo you've taken?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: So many.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So many.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've got about 3,000 photos and videos on the side.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was driving along way out in the middle of nowhere.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm driving along, hmm?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's an amazing photo.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's that by the lake, I was on the lake, and uh I could see that movement.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I pulled up and jumped out and grabbed the camera and walked over.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they were amazing.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: So they're painted dragons.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: We call that cuty uncle.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well done, Reg.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great photo.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing with that same lizard, not this one same, but the same type of lizard, I was out here and I climbed up on a big plateau high high as that, walk up and sandy on top, and uh look nothing, hey, there's a bloody lizard, very buried himself, too.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's very hibernating, see.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so when he digs in, then he he's digging with the front feed and he's kicking it out with the back feed.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just imagine two, one sitting on top of the other side.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I said, I don't know how he done that.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well done.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: And when did your love of music start?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Every just about every house had a wind-up gramophone, and uh the old old people used to be, old men used to be listening to boxing, yellow Louis, and all that.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was standing by the window, yes and when I saw the postman coming down the track.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a favorite song you've got?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's there's a cluster of them.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know the name of it, but I I know it.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't sing it without crying.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, come on, your dear old mother needs you.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, come on, your father dear is dead.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Has Maori changed over the years?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: It went from that town that was supportive and and of one another, you know?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was like uh caring, you know.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: The old the old nurse used to put on a crawbery up at the hospital to raise money for the hospital.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you get the old men that to go up there and paint up in their full thing and dance, and then she'd make cakes and sandwiches and sell it to make money for the thing.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: She worshiped them, you know.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: That there was that work there, yeah, and unity.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's tell my boy that daddy wants him home.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: My eyes above, my dear, old heart is breaking.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: As I'm writing you this letter, red and black.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: What are you most proud of, Rich?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Again, there's many achievements because uh it was one getting getting students from here in the school into into Trinity, uh Pembroke and uh the school uh back then was was the richest school in in the state.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: We had uh uh Nicole Kidman's mom and dad with us out camping out and scrubbing the swag and the thing of that, yeah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we had uh Safkol, you know, Safkolaby Company out with us for a week.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: People from all walks of life.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: But but but they were just normal, you know what I mean?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: Is this the indigenous center that you're talking about?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you we had people from all walks of life, you know?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: The schools and that, you know, and we and we could go down and and and what part of the school is this, you know what I mean?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: What's been your biggest challenge?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Biggest challenge is uh getting people to believe in themselves that they can do this.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And when they've done that, but uh it's that the younger generation, but them old people made they were staunch and strong as a thing.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's this cultural when you're actually changing, you know what I mean?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're changing cultural things.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, they still had that work ethic, you know, them old people around here and everywhere you went, they were working, you know what I mean?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: No matter where you went, if I went up to Udendad or Sphinck or somewhere, they'd see you open you with open arms and that, you know what I mean?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you saying, oh, you see well mom, you think that?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it it yeah, it was that, you know.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't something, what are you doing there?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is he coming here for, you know what I mean?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's that acceptance, I think, of another human being, you know what I mean?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, these black, white, or brindle.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: You always think it and and the way to deal with that if you're doing something, you know what I mean?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh someone will come along and say, Why don't you aborigine?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it won't be black fellow.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you get off the backside and lose some work or something?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're all sitting down and oh yeah, I reckon that'll be good, mate.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: But you tell us how we can do that.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Put the harness back on them and say, Well, you tell it how you do that.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: They'll hear someone said that, then they also like them.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing comes easy.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing comes easy.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: What does being an elder mean to you?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you have the responsibility to teach them next generation to do who we've got to.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you've done that very well.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: That that's that's uh that that's what you've got to do.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell you what we've been we've been thinking, we've been thought of war here, what and that.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not down there.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what I see, what I see, is that there's that reluctance to accept to come up there and talk about what that might teach and or how to teach it and that you know what I mean?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's that's sharing that information.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have a favorite place around here that you go to?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Preparing to go to to Tamworth, then.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: You met Slim a few times.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Slim had his last live concert on the platform there.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: Slim Dusty.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right there.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right at the front of your house.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's a light burning bright in the cabin.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Reg, you've given a lot to a lot of people, and there's a lot of people that are very grateful for that.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: So well done.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: You've also got a beautiful respect for your ancestors, which is really nice and moving.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you've been very generous to me today.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: You've given me a lot of your time and a lot of your stories.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I just want to thank you very much.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: And we're going to play some more music.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that was Reg Dodd, a man with a lifetime of stories, a deep connection to country, and plenty to say about life.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening to Salt of the Earth.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Darren Grieg, and I'll catch you next time.