Dogs and Tuckerboxes

 

There is an old song that I used to sing 70 years ago which goes like this: “My Mabel

waits for me, underneath the bright blue sky, where the dog sits on the Tucker Box five miles from Gundagai.” Well, Mabel must have become impatient and “shot through,” because last week I went down to Gundagai and Mabel was nowhere to be seen, however a replica of the dog was there. It is strange really as the dog was extremely unpopular with his owner for doing what he was doing at the time. You see, his owner was a bullock-wagon driver named Bill and in the 1850s he was trying to cross a creek, five miles from Gundagai with a wagon like the one pictured, only his one was heavily laden with supplies and became hopelessly bogged to the extent that the yoke joining the wagon to the bullock team snapped under the weight. Being worn out, tired and depressed, Bill decided to have his lunch before he endeavoured to fix the problem but found the dog sitting on the lunch-box. For some reason, (not documented), this didn’t cheer Bill up at all, and his fellow bullockies wrote a poem about it, immortalising the dog.

I find it very interesting that we often preserve old buildings and old equipment like this old wagon, and even a dog, but think very little about the pioneers who were involved with them. I am very pleased to say though, that the servicemen and women who fought and died to keep our country free and also helped others to maintain their freedom as well, are not forgotten on A.N.Z.A.C. day and other services yearly, because it is people who are the important part of our civilisation, not machines and infrastructure, (not that those things don’t have their place) but comparatively speaking their value is very limited).

I have great respect for the pioneers like Bill, who opened up this country of ours by clearing tracks across the mountains, making roads and building slab huts to house supplies for travellers at the various “staging posts” along these tracks. They had no comforts supplied, but just the very basic needs, and had to suffer the most difficult situations with no doctors or dentists or the modern cons that we all take for granted.   I “roughed it” in a cabin at Gundagai the other day with a comfortable bed, electric blanket, television, refrigeration, air conditioning, electric stove and microwave, not to mention the mobile phone. I can’t imagine what Bill would have said if he had suddenly appeared. Which begs the question: Where is Bill? Well I can tell you this much, there are only two possibilities: He is either living it up in one of the “mansions” Jesus went to prepare for us, and is enjoying more luxury than I had at Gundagai the other night, or else he is in “outer darkness in Hell” which was the only other option that Jesus said was available. The next question is “did Bill realise that there were those two options?” Well it would be someone’s dreadful neglect if he didn’t know, because Jesus said that His followers were to go into all the world and preach the good news, of His saving grace, to everyone. And “everyone” means exactly that: there isn’t a person in the entire world (irrespective of their education or up bringing) who isn’t eligible to claim Jesus saving Grace, for “Jesus came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” and “world” there means “people” like you and me and Bill, who make up the world. (John chapter 3 and verse 17).

 I enjoy talking about old times, so I hope that I will catch up with Bill in Heaven one day and be able to “compare notes” with him. Don’t be embarrassed to join us, if you want to, when you get there. That is assuming you also make the right choice and get there yourself. If not, don’t look for me in the other place because I won’t be there as I have already claimed the Passport to heaven, that Jesus made available for each one of us. Personally, I reckon that a free gift like that is too good an offer to pass up.

Besides, I don’t like excessive heat.

Best wishes, Tom.