Roma: Stories from a Life Well Lived

By Roma Ravn

The book is about the varied incidents that Roma has experienced in over her eighty-five years. Roma came from somewhat straightened beginnings. Her father was a gold miner, only returning to his home many kilometers away in another state once or twice a year. She was an intelligent child who loved all creatures large and small sometimes a little too well. Her education was a double major at her university in medicine and geology, but family circumstances caused her to have to choose between them partway through her studies. She was the youngest and first female geologist appointed to the government mines section and was sent all over Australia prospecting and examining mining areas. Her adventures along the way make for very amusing and interesting reading. It clearly shows her sense of the ridiculous and also the unexplained in this country. Her downtime between contracts allowed her to do research on a great many science subjects, many of which she gained diplomas from.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Mar 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796001570

Roma Ravn

Roma Ravn, a retired geologist, who shocked everyone by being the only and youngest girl to choose this profession, and which threw her into years of lonely isolation around Australia. It was primarily due to this isolation that she got into research of a variety of subjects which the medical profession knew little about, and also pyramid power, which no-one it seemed knew of, then onto the esoteric arts, yet she had no desire to use this knowledge she had gained and would calmly state she was accumulating it to have on hand when she was reincarnated next time and she would then appear wise. Born into a family of male dominance, she learned to live totally within herself until she married, a Dane (but definitely not a great one), this relationship failed and fortunately there were no children to hinder the separation. At 19 she wrote a book published under an assumed name, then a biography of an abused woman, then a cookbook - of which she is ashamed, as she cannot cook, and now this one, a biography of a Hungarian spy; it is a true account of his life, as dictated to his friend and neighbour - Roma.

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Copyright © 2019 by Roma Ravn.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-7960-0158-7

                eBook            978-1-7960-0157-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 03/14/2019

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

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CONTENTS

Roma’s Resume

Me. Me. Me.

Towns

Judge Me Not

My Animals

A Gift

Battle Of The Sexes

Men Are Queer Cattle

Trial Doesn’t Always Work Either

Behind Closed Doors

Four And A Bit Around This Big Country

Matters Of The Heart

Doris And A New Life

Other Experiences

Mosquitoes & Or Sandflies

Marrickville Break In

The Evolution Of Rituals

Life After

Wa Changes

Ufo’s

Odd Encounters

Scattered Incidents

The Sci-Fi Story

The Promise Of Potential

The Skeleton Of Mr. Rudd

Ghost Hunting

Think About It

Some Inconveniences Happened

Love Has No Season

Day Dream

What If?

The Burial At Sea

Coffee In The Bush

It’s My Fault That I Get Frustrated

My Brush With The Law

The Easy Way Out

Meditation

Grandma’s Cure All Bag

Past Lives

Nothing Like A Death To Bring The Townsfolk Together

The Adcoholic

Sink Or Swim?

Soul Mates

The Rock Garden On The Gold Field

Mr. Delaney’s Petunia Patch

The Hillend Hut

The Healing Power Of Coloured Water

Tree With Holes The Mystery Unsolved

The Greenhouse Effect

Adages What do they really mean?

Murder

My Motor Mechanics. But Medical Training Helps

The Nicest Child But Not The Wisest

Ghost Story Or The Chance To Murder

My Shame

The Strange Mud Balls

The Hole In The Highway

The Origin Of This Universe

Pyramid Research

The Tragedy Of Julies Wedding

Gem Collecting

Roy’s Marriage

The Super Prawn

The Best Gold Specimen

Goldstone

Various Experiences Or The Truckies Unusual Incident Out Of Darwin

Car Crash & Ghosts, Plus. Little Incidents In My Life

How To Get A New Kitchen

Ideas Are Cheap

Help

Final Words

ROMA’S RESUME

Good grief, over 80 years, do we have forever to delve into my memory banks, no, well I’ll try.

I’ve always been a ‘thinker’ rather than a ‘doer’ and have therefore been ruled by emotions, all of the nominated 8 of them, plus a few I think, and I can now recall incidents that brought up every one of them, and further that these 8 are found in all organisations. Some psychologists claim there are more such as shame, a negative and debilitating feeling, others state another is gluttony. Nah, there is one I have never had in any form. So, to make this, my story, true and honest I have given the stories and the effects throughout this biography, I have always had a good memory and now at my advanced age I realise the effects of my experiences. Would I change them? Given the skill? Well, yes and no.

Born in Sydney, one should have known my life would be different. My mother had decided to name me Ruve Faye with a comma over the ‘e’, or worse my dad wanted Bonita Fae, then my father arrived back off the field and in those days one got christened at the hospital. So mum said either one Steve and proudly the priest said what do you call this child and dad stepped up and said Roma Olive Anne". Mum did a back-flap but that was it and even dad didn’t know where the name came from, but we do have suspicions.

Four years later my brother was born, his name was cast in concrete to avoid a mis-naming, I would have nothing to do with him, because when told I was to have a baby in the house, I announced it would be a girl and her name would be Roma, and somehow I never forgave my brother for that.

At 16 I went to University, and was admitted only because I had two bursaries, and I took 2 majors to satisfy my parents…medicine and geology, but two years into those studies my brother had an accident, and mum, needed the money so I had to give up one study. I gave up medicine because I had only 10 months to go for geology.

My first job was for the government who took one look at me and said No way you’re a girl and I struck that on several following occasions. When I answered the questions, people would say ‘but you’re a girl." The powers that be were the worst, they wouldn’t let me go to the Antarctic, or take over a lighthouse, so I stuck with geology, working with and for the Dept. of Mines.

I worked mostly alone, except for once when they sent an English geo to assist, he lasted less than a week because he couldn’t handle the conditions; like a frilled neck lizard popping into his bag, and a goanna helping itself to his bread and probably me for all the laughing I did at his horror.

I had incidents with crocodiles, emus, dingoes, one or two snakes and serious cases of diarrhoea when I drank fouled water.

I married at 26 and my husband was a builder so I would offside for him until another job came up for me when he would offside for me. Each year I would have two or three geo jobs, which gave a large amount of free time between them and it was at these free times that I gained other skills

My best advice after all these years is ‘never ever work with or for your husband’. In the building game I handed in my notice every second day and got sacked on the others.

ME. ME. ME.

Someone said to me why don’t you do your own biography Roma? my first instinct was ‘nah, who would be interested? Then I felt unsure about being totally honest about my life, which I admit was different, unusual and afforded me hundreds of strange experiences. So I did decide to be brutally honest, I sought out incidents, things which affected my normal day to day life and I have to say that the most outstanding thing for me was my brother.

When he was born my father came home and was driving me into the hospital to see mum, and my new baby, a brother, a lovely little boy dad told me proudly. I was four years old and went into shock horror mode. No daddy, not a boy, I have a little girl, like me, and her name is Roma.

My father was adamant It’s a boy and his name will be Roy.

The shock horror became endemic, and somehow it never changed, I never liked him, still don’t and I did try, I would spend hours watching him, lying there, mouth open, and either crying or screaming.

As I became more used to him, I noticed things, things like he had no teeth so in an effort to make peace with him, I collected my father’s false teeth which were housed nightly in his special glass, and I decided to fit them into Roy’s mouth. His gasping, choking sound brought mum in post haste, to find me trying to force both upper and lower dentures into that gaping mouth, and I was pushing a little hard. Spanking number one.

Spanking number two came shortly after when I got Dad’s razor, and having used his brush and soap had creamed my brothers face and was about to use the cutthroat to give him a shave. I had reasoned that from watching my father shave in the mornings and his smile into the mirror as he patted his cheeks dry, I could do this for Roy. I should add here that I tried it out on my teddy bear, who, to this day has one side of his face ‘back to bare’ with a part of his nose missing and one ear shredded.

Fortunately Dad only came home maybe twice a year, he had contracts with the government to supply gold, and his area ranged all over this country, then he would turn up and knock. I would race inside and then out to mum telling her there is a strange man at the door and her reply would be, that’s not a strange man, Roma, that is your father and from that moment until he left a week or so later I would hate being in the house. Roy became the centre of existence and any conversation only included Roy’s doings.

When he learned to talk and his first couple of years at school, brought some changes for me, I was expected to be his protector and on two or three occasions mum reminded me I was his big sister and I should look out for him, so that when other boys hit him, Mum would say Roma have a talk with them and explain. But I had a better idea, I would simply see them in the school yard and I would walk over and go ‘whammy’ then when they fell, I would help them up and ‘whammy’ again.

And yes I did acquire a reputation as I learned to direct my frustrations into a more satisfying activity.

Of course, by now I had probably got to spanking twenty or a hundred, it felt like, I don’t remember, but at the approach of ninety years, I can still look back and recall the beltings with the iron cord because Roy would lie to mum causing her to become a screaming Mimi. Like I said or should have said he was a monster and I know when he died he would go to that other place. And, even so during my life at home I tried on the odd occasions to become friends with him. There was the time when he was telling his friends, he could fly and when they voiced their doubts I nodded, oh yes he can and the stage was set for the next day when he would climb onto the roof and fly in front of his friends. He loved the moment of audience, then Look at me he screamed and he launched himself into space and landed splat into Dads lettuce garden, and dad was home from the field at the time.

Broken leg for him and a big iron cord belting for me.

So why would I like him? Years later I loaned him my car twice, and he crashed it both times.

When I blew up mum’s kitchen ceiling, roof and two walls, he backed against a wall and never moved, so he could witness Mum’s reaction, as she tore her hair out with What will your father say? I don’t know how she did it, but we finished up with polished floors which became my job to polish each Sunday, (my punishment) one central rug, a new heater and this one a much bigger version to our room heater we had had previously and life went on until occasionally Mum, would locate a thin line of coal dust in some nook and cranny and the whole thing would be relived, so Roy could be the temporary man of the house.

I got my own back, for the one thing I had learned, was to have patience.

Mum used to buy cleaning ether, a small bottle from the local chemist. Smelled interesting and all I knew of it that it was the best cleaning agent in the world, then, while browsing through my dictionary, I found chloroform, ether, and their meanings and uses.

Patience Rome, some practice first until I mastered the art of using this wonderful stuff.

Suddenly Roy’s two blue tongue lizards couldn’t wake up, nor could Mums ferret, and one chook, all sleeping peacefully in their own land of dreams. Mum was convinced they had some form of disease, and was considering how to put them out of their misery, even the dog was drowsy, couldn’t keep his eyes open. Roy’s two spiders, both dead with their legs drawn up to cover their heads, Mum’s decision voiced in a mumbling voice. Are you sure Roma you have not fed them something? Scathingly I stared at her, Mum, all of them eat different things, how could this be something they ate?

Well the thing was resolved, sort of, when the blue tongues woke up, then the chook and final the ferret, all saved and all was well, but now I had the remains of the ether bottle hidden carefully away in my secret cubby hole for that ‘one day’ use.

As the years went by little changed between Roy and me, and I suddenly began to develop my own personality when the time came that my parents decided on my future.

Dad, I think Roma should study geology she is wild, observant and it’s only a 42 month university course and she could cope outback or where ever she gets work. But Mum stuck with her guns medicine is for her, definitely medicine". Yep I liked the thought of that, I could cut people up and see what is inside of them and with that in mind I threw myself into hard study, every spare moment, for I needed an A plus pass in everything.

I got two bursaries that would give me entry into Uni, and no charge to the family, but the argument still went on with both my parents determined to arrange my future. Medicine? Geology?

So I took both, I would do both masters and I loved both, although I realised that for year 3 the costs would come from the family and although I did never knew how it happened, I did year 2 easily.

Year 3 was another matter, Mum, must have realised that this coming year would cost, big time, so on the decisions of a family meeting where both parents were refusing to give in to the other, I made the decision, I would go no further with the medicine because that was another three years, whereas geology meant I could graduate inside the next twelve months and be fully qualified. And so it was I had found a strength inside me where I could fight Roy on my own ground and he must have realised that, and then of course my parents separated and although I didn’t realise it for ages, the house took on a peaceful few months.

Mum found it super hard for no one would employ a husbandless female with little experience other than dressmaking and she made a small income from that until she got a job as a bar maid in the local pub. At this point in her life she suffered several setbacks, no one even wanted to be friends with a bar maid so she set out to be the best one ever and to my knowledge she succeeded.

She saw to it that Roy would spend an entire day with Dad once a month, but I was let off to just a few hours on the same Sunday because that’s all I could afford.

I graduated and within a week, then a letter came to me from the Department of Mining. ‘Having just graduated from University would Roman arrange a meeting with the above with a view to employment’. I had ignored the incorrect spelling of my name.

Life was beginning to look promising.

In time I turned up for that meeting with Mr. X (maybe he still exists, so I will keep his name to myself), he took one look at me and said but this is a girl, I, er, don’t employ girls, this is actually a man’s job.

I admit I was a little staggered, and could only think of saying. But I am truly qualified.

No doubt and it also does concur with your instructors. But a woman, well, not really, a girl. Fighting words. And instead of being swallowed into the floor, I came up bravely and glared.

Right he conceded well can you drive a truck? Can you handle explosives? Can you assemble a 6 inch D-drill?

Of course. I replied calmly, I am, as explained, duly qualified.

He didn’t want it to rest there, and went on, about driving into out of the way parts of this country, alone, (he actually became quite attached to the word ‘alone’). You have to set up your camp, alone, unload the gear, no small task that even some men find arduous, build yourself a fire, plus handle the 44 gallon drums containing the fuel you will need, the one with gelignite etc. all alone, and if you get hurt, you will have to learn how to signal our spotter plane once a week or more. You alone will be fully responsible for the gear, so if you run out of flour, you would have to repack everything so you could head to the nearest town and that can be 400 miles away. Do you see my concern Roman? And another thing, could you change a truck tyre?

He was trying desperately to think of the more dangerous events that could happen, to anyone, especially a 5 foot female just out of schooling. I often wonder if I had more guts than sense when I took this on.

And so it started, I became a paid geologist setting out to drive the truck deep into South Australia.

TOWNS

While the outback brought an expectant excitement to me, most of the towns, villages and cities rather scared me, for when I came off the field, returning home to Mums, my first job was to phone the bank and check my bank account. All the time out on the job, I never carried anything within the ‘lot’ of money standards, always enough to buy an ice cream and milk shake, but little else, I had requisition slips aplenty, so truck or mining parts meant I simply used those. So that on my return home I would check my bank balance and it never failed to shock me at the amount of money at my disposal, so I would phone two or three of my friends and suggest snow skiing down south.

Loading up the Volkswagen with 4 sets of skis, (on the roof), boots, runners, stocks, warm clothing in the form of truly ugly jackets, never colour coordinated either, and on some occasions would phone my aunt who lived in Jindabyne, or the hotel at Kosciusko. Depending on which would indicate whether or not the VW screeched to a stop at every pub on the way down and would not move until at least 2 beers or whatever had tickled our throats. It was those times when we would arrive at our destination slightly the worse for wear, when we enjoyed ourselves immensely. We always finished up with a table full of wild fellows, usually more than we could handle anyway, so we always thought up some stupid challenge. And on one occasion our table held 9 men, so we decided to buy a bottle of champers and we had to take a vote on the best kisser in our midst who would then be presented with the champagne. And believe it or not, that would be as far as things went, but I recall voting and giving points to each of the men, except one, It turned out he was Jewish, not that that would have a bearing on the passion of his kiss, but of course it could have, what would I know? But his kiss while seemingly tender was a little like my lips meeting a cold wet fish.

We always had a room each, so I have no idea what went on once we had staggered up to bed and the other girls never enlightened. I didn’t care anyway, and clearly I recall trying for a ski, and discovering that it was powder snow, and I couldn’t ski on powder, so a couple of us sat in the hotel and drank brandy all day, a full bottle each, and neither of us ever remembered if and or how we got up to bed. But we suffered the agonies the next day whilst attempting to steer the VW home, and for once didn’t pull up at every pub on the road. It was just as well too, because I came within inches of hitting a giant wombat, who sat in the middle of the road, scratching, and totally unaware of our desire to continue along that road.

I had immediately after that weekend no contract for 3 months, so took a job locally in a self-serve, where I was expected to learn the actual prices of the stock, where the manager was a ham radio person and got me interested enough in building my own. I spoke to the Antarctic group and vowed to build another, better, more correct radio (which I never did).

At the back of this self- serve, a narrow lane ran, and immediately across it was a doctors, this one was Tony, who I had gone through University with, we had both done medicine for the two years before I became Gypsy-ified, and I suddenly was smitten with the worst stomach pains I had ever known or even imagined, my boss said ‘Pop over and see Tony’ which I did, and arranged for me to go up the hospital and have a barium meal, to locate my problem, and I did.

Two days later Tony was at the self-serve’s back door yelling for me, and both my boss and I went to find out what results had come in. And it went a little like this. O.K. Rome what did you do last weekend? Nothing, and no I didn’t go to a restaurant or anything O.K. what about the week end before? Um, oh yes, we went skiing down to Jindabyne. Very disappointed too as there was powder snow, and I can’t ski powder, so basically sat in the pub all day and drank. Drank? What? Oh um brandy or rather cognac, then had to head home on the Sunday." Tony nodded, as doctors tend to do when they have to impart some rarely known knowledge, and told me it was self -inflicted, I had actually taken the entire lining off my stomach by drinking over a bottle of Cognac, with nothing to eat to line the stomach.

Lesson here, which I share with you, despite what you can or can’t do never ever drink an entire bottle of brandy on your own, particularly with stupid bits of food