Coloundra to Maryborough

4/24/2014

On the road for an overnight stay in Queensland's historic Maryborough - home to Kevin & Cheryl Connors. 

Cheryl was our first baseman, I played shortstop and Loretta coached/managed our Toowoomba softball team in 1976-77. I had not seen Cheryl for about 39 years so I was thrilled that Loretta built time into our itinerary so we could catch up, especially since the highlight of my 2 years spent teaching in Clifton was definitely driving to Toowoomba every Saturday to play in one game, coach a junior team in another, and umpire a third. Those were the days...

 So many choices - so little time!

Cheers!
Shortstop Barb (62); 1st Baseman Cheryl (67); and coach/manager Loretta (69).
Looking mighty fine 39 years later.

We spent most of the day reminiscing, eating and drinking lots of wine, beer and champagne. Dinner was freshwater fish and red claw caught by Kevin earlier in the day + lots of vegetables, and, as an unexpected surprise, specifically from Cheryl to me, golden syrup. 

To understand and appreciate the syrup you needed to go back to 1975 when I planned to make my Aussie flatmate, Zeita, American pancakes for breakfast. I had everything but the syrup so I walked to Mr. Frahm's general store to buy some - only to find that Mr. Frahm not only had no syrup but that he had no idea what it was. How to explain???

So I told Mr. Frahm that it was a liquid thinner and sweeter than molasses with maple flavoring, and that the most popular brand, Log Cabin, was a clear plastic bottle with a red label bearing a log cabin. He suggested treacle as a replacement (the stuff is absolutely dreadful), but I knew that wouldn't work, so the real American pancakes didn't happen that day.

Several weeks later, Kaye Frahm (daughter) caught me at the school and mentioned that her dad wanted me to stop by the store after school, so I headed down later that afternoon to see what was up. When I passed by the front window I just cracked up when there, front and center, was a pyramid of Log Cabin syrup! And that wasn't the only display of syrup. Since Mr. Frahm wasn't quite sure what function the syrup might serve, he had multiple displays throughout the store! I wonder if anyone besides myself had purchased a bottle - I hope so because I would have felt very badly if he ended throwing out all those bottles once they reached their expiration date.