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the country has a down side too. It’s called work. Unlike city kids, farm kids have to work all the time. Being brought up on a farm means that adults get you working. Long hours too. Hard work, for no pay. That’s why I believe most farm kids are a bit slow. You know, dim. They don’t know their rights. Any city kid would strike if faced with a deal as bad as this.
    As everyone knows, another drawback about farms is that they are always far from anywhere civilised. That’s what makes them a farm, right? As a result a trip to town is a big deal. Our woolly farming friends become filled with excitement and fear at the thought of it. First they always get dressed up in their best clothes so they won’t look like country hicks having a trip to town. But it doesn’t fool anyone. Anyone knows you can spot a farm family fifty yards away for just this reason. The men wear these tweedy sports coats, with a shirt and tie of course, finished off with brown trousers which won’t show the you-know-what. They wear these ankle boots with elastic on the sides. Your average farmer can’t handle laces, his fingers are too thick.
    The women wear a bigger range of garments but you can spot them easily enough if you know what to look for. They are at least two styles out of date and you can bet the brand name Swanndri will feature somewhere.
    The kids? It’s not the clothes with them, it’s the haircuts.All I will say about the haircuts is this; their mums are responsible for the crime and a pudding bowl and sheep shears are the weapons of choice.
    However it is not just dressing up and going in. That’s the fun part. There is the fear side too. The hayseed is terrified of
all those people
. Even if the town – like say, Eketahuna – has only about a thousand people in it. The sort of one-horse dump you flash through in the car so quickly it’s gone before you’ve finished getting your mouth around the name. However to farm folk … whooa! To them it’s still downtown Tokyo on Friday night. Crazy huh?
    So where was I? Oh yeah, the country. I was being sent to stay with Uncle Frank, Aunty Lorna and the five freckled terrors, my cousins. As I said it was not like I had any choice in the matter.

M EETIN’ TH’ K IN F OLKS
    IT’S a long way from Auckland to Taranaki, especially on an Intercity bus. I had plenty of time to think over my options as we droned our way to my uncle and aunt’s place. Underneath it all I knew what this was all about. Back home it seemed that I was turning into something that couldn’t be controlled. A bit like those dogs that come running up. Sometimes they wag their tails, sometimes they bite you. I was like that. People found me a bit unpredictable. I’m not surprised,
I
found me a bit unpredictable too. I guess out in the country, out amongst all the wierdos, I would sort of fit in, or at least not be noticed.
    The school agreed; they had said I “needed space”.
    The counsellor said I had to “work through issues”.
    Constable Keith said that I needed to “see where I was headed on life’s road map”.
    Dad thought “I needed to be amongst my own blood”.
    There you have it. What all these statements have in common was that no one wanted me around any more. I may not be too bright, but I knew that much.
    I could have flown down to Taranaki but for some reason Dad couldn’t make it happen. Maybe it wasn’t his fault, there could have been some local problem, like cows on the runway. Maybe he wanted me to think through things as we rolled through the endless muddy paddocks and small towns. People climbed off and on this smelly old bus and most of them seemed to think they were the driver’s best friend. What this meant for everybody else was that they stood around the sort of flap thing where the bags were stowed, and yakked for ages before the driver climbed back in and headed on