Two negatives, three positives

Monday November 26 1990.

The day started out badly. Melbourne had unusually heavy rain that month. The roof in our rented house leaked and I was startled out of my sleep about 7 AM by a loud crash. Half of the plaster ceiling in the hallway had crashed down! Scared the crap out of our cats. Both Manny and Kafka (just out of their kittenhood) hid under our blankets, staring wide eyed at us in wonder. We gave them loves and calmed them down.

Later in the day I went to Discurio (at the time the best shop in Melbourne for Classical Music recordings). There I had the good fortune to discover a recording of William Wordsworth's Second Symphony. Yes, William Wordsworth, great nephew of the poet.

Mid evening on the same day I attended a performance of Mahler's First Symphony at the Melbourne Concert centre. Excellent performance but not the best I've heard; that honour is reserved, for the nonce, for the Monash University Faculty of Music Orchestra. I was lucky enough to attend their performance of Mahler's first in late 1979 and it was a knockout performance. There's something about seeing one's friend as leader of the Orchestra...

After the concert we ate somewhere in Lygon Street. Food eaten and a bottle of good Australian Red enjoyed we went home, to discover we'd been burgled. A broken window leading into the bedroom (the front room of the house) might have given it away. And, horror, they'd nicked our VCR, a Sony Betamax.

So I thought to myself, thought I, they've stolen a Beta VCR. It will have no street value, so they'll just dump it. Which thought led me to wandering the back lanes of Carlton, Melbourne, around midnight. I didn't find a dumped VCR but what I did find, maybe 12 doors from our house, was another burglary in progress. Two young guys standing out on the footpath while a third was kicking the door in. By the time I noticed the third guy it was too late to turn around so I just kept on walking.

If you ever meet me in person you'll understand that I'm just not built for fighting. At school I only won one fight in my entire career; he was smaller than I am and I was lucky that he called 'nuff about half a second before I did!

So I kept on walking, right past my own front door and around the corner. If there are people around willing to kick in someone's front door I really don't want them to know where I live especially if I'm about to call the police on em. So I snuck home via the back lane and called the police. 3 or so minutes later I saw the blue lights flashing and the sirens wailing and at least two of em were caught!

So let's do the tally.

Negatives: Ceiling crashed in, VCR stolen.

Positives: Found a new symphony I liked, heard a wonderful performance of one I knew, and I managed to walk, unscathed, past a bunch of dickheads who were captured for burglary.

Ah, but we're not quite done. We had insurance and I thought this was a wonderful opportunity to switch from Beta to VHS. Not that I really wanted to but if the world decides that it should buy VHS even if it's not as good as Beta and if the world decides that rental videos shall only be VHS then one has to compromise.

My insurance company had other ideas. They paid the claim with a voucher to the Sony Shop in Melbourne. The voucher was good for one replacement VCR. Which I got. A Beta VCR.

I got a good 12 years service out of that VCR so I'm happy. And I got a new symphony out of that day, so again I'm happy. Life is what you make of it and you only get one try; I choose to take the good and run with it.