Clean Heart and Clean Mind
Stephen Doyle
Merla and her main squeegee, Keeth
There are people in the life of Bloodwood who really make a difference.. to wine sales in Queensland. Too occasionally, they appear un-announced at the cellar door and while the winsome one on the left begins absent-mindedly swabbing the furniture for human detritus and traces of tasty meals past, the personable one reclining begins poisoning our paths and re-arranging our rockeries. Not that this is done casually or with any lack of professionalism; no they always travel prepared. Mops and buckets, glyphosate and glen 20 at the ready, they set about sterilizing theirs and our immediate environment with effortless efficiency and poise. In fact, if you want to see what the celebrity stool looked like before they recently arrived, take a sniff at the itchy mess incarnate under and surrounding the very unsuspecting .Brian Riesling It is difficult to believe, but there was a bare seven minutes between photographs..hardly enough time for a mere mortal to focus on the aberrant weedy problem at hand, let alone design, deliver and disinfect the stool and its stumps. We still don't know how they of all people ended up living in Crapalaba. Rhonda and I were trying to remember how many times we've met Keith over the years. I first ran into him over a half-bottle of warm and curdling tuck-shop milk, half century ago (which shows you how really old he is) and then there was an absence of 15 years before he again appeared on July 14th 1972 clutching a half-slab of Cairns Bitter Ale, muttering something about how BobDylan ripped off Phil Ochs and hiding under the same red wig Merla wears today. Another thirty-two years passed by and up he popped again, this time clutching a half case of Big men In Tights in one hand and Merla in the other and all the while demanding that we clean up OUR act. That's when the squeegee and the squeeger re-entered our lives, to our mutual and enduring benefit...or as Phil Ochs should have written, they are inside a small circle of clinical friends