Well, here we are finally at the end of the line.
This will be my last letter from Lawnmower Land, but the landscape is not as bleak as I imagined; just a bit dusty at the edges.
The grinding forces of the almighty algorithm, the ceaseless march of time and tightening purse strings have combined to ensure I must say goodbye.
What began 33 years ago as a lightweight report from the frontier of fatherhood has grown into a leatherbound Tolkienesque journal of a life lived in this small corner of Australia.
I have talked about dogs and frogs and the joy of marigolds, and how much of a tree bends in the wind, the speed of dark, why people hurt and love each other and why chickens cross the road.
I have been continually surprised and delighted to know that my fellow travellers have found something in my columns to laugh about, or scratch their head about, or get angry about or even cry about.
My meandering journey on this rag-tag track has produced a small book on the pitfalls and joys of fatherhood called Some Shiny Days.
This was then turned into a musical play performed with the help of Shepparton Theatre Arts Group to packed audiences over two seasons at Mooroopna’s WestSide Performing Arts Centre in 2003 and reprised as a rehearsed reading with music at Nathalia’s Grain Store 20 years later.
I am indebted to the Shepparton News for allowing me the space of this treasured platform for so long, and to my loyal readers for sticking with me through the fertile and the fallow times of words and thoughts.
I have tried to bring a little light into people’s lives and not add to the gathering clouds which at times, can seem so overwhelming.
I am not an expert in anything, except Beatleology, so I have tried to address the big and often terrible events of our times through the only lens I can truly know — myself, my family, my dogs and my backyard.
I have also tried to keep politics at a subliminal level because everything ebbs and flows.
But I am human, and sometimes people and attitudes annoy me.
However, please know that all the missiles I have thrown have come from a place of kindness and care for the greater good of our fellow humans.
So here I am on this perfect spring day sitting on my verandah, which has served as a watchtower and a writing desk for half my adult life in these pages.
The marigolds are out and all the dogs are here — Brue, Xena, Gromit, Billy and Finski, good listeners and inspirational devils all of them.
They are still sleeping in the garden alongside the Chief Gardener, still on her hands and knees and pulling those relentless weeds to clear a path for the next flowering.
Rockboy and Petgirl — my greatest muses — are out in the world somewhere now writing their own stories.
There’s a guitar and a glass of Gewürztraminer next to me, waiting. All that remains is to say thank you for staying the course and sharing the silly, the sad and the beautiful things that come with all our wild and precious lives.
And please be kind, and always stay curious.
John Lewis is a former reporter at The News.
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