Forever Day

A wandering heart in the '70s; a digital odyssey with comic detours; a stint with USA TODAY, and the long road to love, family and belonging down under.

Growing up in the kitchen of a Swiss pub, I believed the day you die was your "forever day". I wanted to find my own. So, I drove a hippie bus into the '70s, one foot on the corporate ladder, the other in the sand. I split with my girlfriend, quit my job, and boarded a migrant boat bound for everywhere.

There had to be more to life.

Onboard, I fell for an Australian school teacher. She was smart, beautiful and came with an entire continent. While the Embassy slept, I wrote a fictional memoir about my trip down under and stitched up a stringer contract with a press agency. The book got accepted. The visa took longer.

We married on arrival, set up house among the magpies and gum trees, and travelled the country like the Leyland Brothers on a budget. I wrote another few books with a Budgie ringing the typewriter's margin bell. But the '80s arrived, and reality hit. Centrelink offered pearlers. I bought a chicken bar instead and ran it with a crew of ex Telecom staffers on workers comp.

A Hungarian spice turned it into a franchise. The Hungarians sent me back with a suitcase full of cash. The Italians followed suit. I deposited it all in Swiss banks and multiplied, kids, chickens, complications. I became publishing manager for USA TODAY's global push and allegedly laundered as much money as Rene Rivkin on the side.

We've had our ride on the wild dragon; Janine said it was time to go home, stop chasing the next big thing and settle down in Queensland. I stumbled upon my lifetime's calling: antique hand tools, and I never thought of it as work for a single day. Time just rolls on when you find your very own Forever Days.