owlrigh

There is great musical talent to be had hereabouts; a couple of months ago a musical regatta of sailing vessels was had in Double Bay, a seldom-visited anchorage just north of Airlie. I have gone to music parties a couple of times, where most had guitars and sang -- or at least plonked away on a bush bass.

On board Trekker -- the captain used to play professionally and gets out his guitar every so often. The deckhand who joined us this week was once lead in a grunge rock band for fifteen years before he found a love of tallships.

These are all people having fun; there is one man I know of, however, who plays for a living, busking on the main street of Airlie.

My first acquaintance of Ron wasn't on the streetside; I met him at a public BBQ one afternoon, when my brother contributed food to his evening meal.

"I went to Lifeline," said Rob, "and they gave me all this meat." 'All' was right -- certainly the charity knows what kind of food to give to the homeless to store unrefrigerated in this clime.

Homeless he was -- or, if homelessnesss is a state of mind as well as being, he was not homeless at all. And in his state of mind, the whole world is his home.

At that particular time he had chosen somewhere close by as home -- a rough little treehouse on Muddy Bay, in front of where Big Bandicoot, my parent's catamaran, used to be beached. A treehouse made of a diagonally inclined floorboard and an old sail as a roof. Did the main things: kept one off the dirt and kept off the rain. His own mosquito net was all he needed to finish it off.

The treehouse was home to many a rootless person. If one needed a place to sleep, those in the know found themselves there -- and I one night was on the verge of making it a night's home, in my swag, before an invitation to someone's spare berth swept that away.

Ron was always to be found around the treehouse, and upon moving my yacht to Shute I invited him -- and another -- along as company on the slow motor down. For anchor handling.

My dinghy is small; so much so that I, as a short person, am obliged to fold up my legs. With two people in it, the stern is dangerously close to the water; I was to find that day that to have three in it, especially in a chop, is to go for a swim.

Rob hopped out of the dinghy soggily at the nearest stone of the breakwater, and shortly after that he moved from the treehouse completely. If you were to ask him, he has a home -- a couple of metres-long racing catamaran without even a net between the hulls.

This he sails out to the islands, beaches it, and sleeps beneath the thing -- and now has sailed on over to Shute ... where he sleeps beneath a tarp. Tarps are excellent for shade and for another thing: adding to a small-scale greenhouse effect.

It is just as well that he moved to Shute; upon visiting Muddy Bay, a resident claimed my aid in cleaning up the accumulation of rubbish beneath the tree -- the many denizens' worth. I didn't realise it, but this was step one in clearing it all away, the treehouse taken apart by the very man who had created it; parts now unrecognisable and thrown away. A sad end for very many'[s temporary home.

His new place is better than from where he first hailed, where he came from before the treehouse -- an abandoned building on the hillside above Airlie, one completely furnished and on the list for demolition.

One afternoon he lay there on his comfortable, purloined bed, when he heard the builders on the floor below him discuss how best to knock it down, and when-- a day hence. He quickly got out of there.

Now I see him upon occasion -- Shute, in clothes with more holes in them than fabric, hair and beard -- massive beard -- wild to suit the rest of him, suit his gravelly voice.

In Airlie he is on his usual corner next to the Bead Man, who flogs his wares to the droves of drunken youth as they move from one bar to the other. At Airlie he is a different man, hair neatly stowed away under a beret, beard strangely in order, and the best of his clothes to round it all off. A beer keeps him company at his side.

He sings to order, voice free of usual epithets, and yet not; one night as I stood there, tapping and listening, a passerby grabbed hold of me and we swung to the music, the guy demanding songs. Upon the same song being played, he gave me a few twirls and then swung away.

You can be assured of Rob being found on the street on weekends, earning more in those few hours than I do in a week. Homeless by definition -- and having fun at heart.