It was remiss of me not to write this column two weeks ago, for the June 6 edition, as it was Queensland Day: the fabulous day we cut loose from NSW back in 1859.
God bless Queen Victoria for freeing us from the clutches of the south.
Of course, being two weeks late is part of the romance of being in the laid-back environment up here and one of the reasons that below the border gets frustrated with us.
The only mistake the Queen at the time made was that she should have decreed that all citizens below the border have no right to try to change us when they come to live here.
Queensland is a proud bunch of banana-bending folk who like it up here and welcome visitors and new residents to our state on one condition: don’t try and change us.
If you are building a house or getting something fixed and there is surf, expect delays.
If you like daylight saving down south, well, basically stay down there as it is unlikely it will ever happen unless you completely outnumber us.
Speaking of time, if you want things to be on time, stay where you are because Queensland time is way different than below the line.
Of course, some change is good – like a whole range of different beers since we have been infiltrated. As far as this Queenslander is concerned, that has been helpful.
But leave our Bundy Rum alone. It is not to be messed with.
It may taste like barbed wire but that is what we are used to.
That reminds me of a story in the 80s that explains a lot.
When bourbon started to become popular above the line, a distiller in Tennessee got the bright idea to not only take some market share, but to make a rum as well.
So, the distiller got its rep to send a bottle of Bundy to Tennessee to see if it could ‘copy’ it.
When it arrived, the bosses tasted it and rang their man in Australia to ask him to send another one – the one he sent was off.
He replied, “No, that’s what it tastes like. They love it.”
They gave that idea away quickly and stuck with bourbon.
So my advice post-Queensland Day is, like the folk in the south of the USA, don’t try and change us.
Just accept that it is what it is: two weeks late and happy as.
Ashley Robinson is chairman of the Sunshine Coast Falcons and Sunshine Coast Thunder Netball, and a lifetime Sunshine Coast resident. The opinions expressed are those of the author. These are not the views of Sunshine Coast News publishers.
