Pour Me A Story, Vol. 52

feat. someone who's known me longer than last week's guest!

greetings everyone, and welcome back to Pour Me A Story!

it’s funny* that this is the 52nd volume by name, a feat which would’ve taken a single year had I managed to keep up publishing every week. alas, it’s now been more than two years since that first post, but who’s counting?

whether it was out of sheer shock due to the long absence or simply a renewed interest in the brand, last week’s newsletter was the most-read edition since I started. hopefully there’s a repeat performance in store this week.

Anyway, We Have Company

after introducing you to a guest I’ve known for 25 years, there are only a few people I could top that effort with. and sure enough, I’ve done it and on a short turnaround.

after reading Wayne’s interview last week, my dad dropped me a text and said he’d be glad to contribute if I ever ran out of other talent to feature. not wanting to put my old man through the guest contributor form, but being stuck on what to ask…well, one of my parents, I decided to crowdsource a little and asked some of my closest 2,400 friends on Twitter what they might want to ask him.

not only that, but he had answers for me within hours, time differences be damned! so here he is, folks — Rob Crawford!

AC: what was your reaction to finding out you were going to be a grandfather?

RC: I remember exactly where I was when you gave me the good news. I was in the car one morning, so getting a call from the other side of the world ensured I pulled over into some close car park and took your call. It was great news both for you and Alex and also for me realising I was going to be a grandfather. After the call I drove away with the broadest of smiles and partially forgot where I was heading. I do recall yelling to myself in the car “woohoo”!

AC: What has been your proudest moment as a dad?

RC: There have been so so many proud moments as a father that singling one out as the proudest is nigh on impossible. I have been mightily proud of both you and Courtney graduating as high achievers from high school and then Uni. Then watching you both embark on successful professional careers. I am very proud to have helped raise you both to the quality people you are.

AC: what did life look like for you at my age, and is there anything you would have done differently?

RC: Thinking back to that same age I had just got out of the corporate sector and started working for myself. That wasn’t without some challenges initially but I suppose 30 years on it must have worked. Not sure there is much I would change and whilst financially it was, and is, less rewarding than the corporate world, it afforded me more flexibility as a parent when you were younger and it also didn’t drag me into office and company politics.

AC: how did you feel about me leaving for the other side of the world, and was there an adjustment period?

RC: That’s interesting because I suppose I had plenty of time to prepare for your departure as you were regularly holidaying there and loved the place and you were also chasing the green card. So it was obvious that at some point you would be off chasing your dream and the US experience. When it did hit though me was when you started passing, (or was that dumping ha ha) me some of your files, hard drives etc that you weren’t taking with you. That was when it was real for me and hit home the hardest. That’s when I realized that those fun occasions like birthdays, Christmases etc would be a little less fun without you; and still are.

So the adjustment period wasn’t necessarily lengthy as I had had the earlier prep; it was just your absence on the special occasions and celebrations when we would normally share a good laugh and a few drinks that hit home the hardest.

AC: what do you see are the biggest cultural differences between Australia and the U.S.?

RC: Having only ever spent a month in the U.S. probably doesn’t give me a lot of experience or insight to recognize a lot of the differences, although a couple do come to mind.

Firstly I noticed when we were over there how very patriotic American’s seem to be. I was taken by how many houses were proudly flying the US flag. Whilst I know Aussies can be patriotic I just don’t see it on display to anywhere near the same extent as in the US.

And whilst not necessarily culturally different, and maybe more politically different, is what appears an intransigence by US governments to change gun laws. The tragedy of the many mass shootings without any positive actions is bewildering and frankly damning. At least Australian laws changed quickly after the Port Arthur tragedy many years ago. We still have our nutters of course but the carnage we hear about so often from the US is staggering coming from a civilized nation. Rant over !

AC: changing directions, what's the best sandwich you ever ate?

RC: Initially I thought this was a tough question given the amount of sandwiches I have eaten over the years, but then it dawned on me what my all-time favorite is; it’s a fresh mud crab sandwich. Fresh bread, thick butter, great chunks of fresh mud crab and cracked pepper.

The bizarre thing about this particular sanga is that it comes from an old tired servo (aka gas station) in a small Central Queensland town named Miriam Vale. The café’s décor is a throwback to the 1960s but these sandwiches are a must have. Shame the place is 500km north of here but any trip up that way definitely demands a crab sanga stop.

AC: the special guest gets to choose the song of the week. Is there a tune that you've had on repeat lately or that has special significance for you?

RC: It may come as no surprise to you that my old head banging preferences haven’t changed much over the years. Still give AC/DC a belt out likewise Led Zep.

Lately I have been replaying Metallica’s Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters just to shut out outside noise and those annoying chat happy radio jocks!

AC: the second special guest privilege is the Free Plug -- you can promote something meaningful or important to you or something infinitely less consequential. Sky's the limit!

RC: Ok as you know, as a family we have been recently introduced to Cystic Fibrosis. I would love to see, and hope that some of your followers might consider offering up a donation to the various CF research and support organisations.

These organisations provide wonderful support for CF parents and the on going research can only offer greater and more extensive treatments and benefits to those with this affliction.

---

Worthy Consumables

a few days before Christmas, having completed all my intended gift shopping, I was idly lying on the couch when I got a email from a company I’d foolishly given my email address to through an ad on Instagram.

the company had previously been super aggressive with its marketing emails, with multiple messages daily trying to steer me towards a purchase. I had idly deleted almost all of them, but this one was promising delivery before the 24th and a 60% discount, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

the company is called Mixtiles and they print photos directly from your phone onto foam-backed tiles with an adhesive strip. now I’m pretty terrible at any kind of interior design, but we have a big empty wall in the playroom section of the basement and I thought it might be fun to put up some pictures so the baby could see some memories, and her out-of-town-and-country family, while she played.

it turned out that the pre-Christmas shipping promise was based on a $35 express shipping charge, so instead I opted for the regular shipping which included an estimated delivery day of the 28th. I’m glad I didn’t pay extra, because they turned up before Christmas anyway and I stashed them under the bed in the spare room for the sake of secrecy. and there they stayed until I remembered them two days after Christmas.

they were a hit and, as hoped, the baby loves looking at them when she’s down here. in fact, I liked them so much that I decided to have a few made for my office to brighten the walls and get some seafood festival-related imagery off my phone and into the world.

I don’t have an affiliate link or anything but I’m sure I’ll be ordering more in the future. they print and ship quickly, the quality is good and you don’t have to be any form of handyman to hang them. lucky for me.

---

Parting Note

well now I know where I get the foundations of my musical taste, as if it was ever in question. we’ll go with Enter Sandman, and to be more specific we’ll go with the version from S&M which was performed live with the San Francisco Symphony.

that concludes the first back-to-back editions of Pour Me A Story since (gulp) November 2021. will you look at us!

thanks again for joining me and spending a few extra minutes of your weekend looking at a screen. I think it’s much less bleak in here than on social media, right?

— adrian ✌🏻