Now someone has to tell this story and I am not so sure that my big sisters ever will. So I have taken it upon myself to be the one to give the accurate historical and objective account of our neighbour’s rather special behaviour. See my account can be very objective, given that the details of the part in question did not have the fascination for me that it would have had at the time for my subjective big sisters – Helen and Margaret. Now Peter Loose was a tall, strapping, first year university student, who was embarking on the exciting path of learning and discovery. He generously felt that the discoveries he was making in his extra curricular activities at university should also be shared with others living in his immediate neighbourhood. Now if one wanted to, one could look out of our kitchen window and see the open-air side veranda belonging to the Loose family. Well, that’s only if one wanted to of course. The timber veranda was typical of that old Queensland style and contained various doors providing access to its adjoining rooms. One door on this open-air veranda came from the bathroom and another lead into the bedroom of Peter Loose. I remember being drawn into our kitchen one Saturday morning by the smells of baking cookies, and strangely, to the sounds of Margaret and Helen in fits of uncontrollable giggles. I had never imagined cooking to be so stimulating. But, as I watched, I noticed that their great chuckles and doubled up recoiling reaction happen just after they each looked out of the kitchen window in the direction of Peter Looses veranda. Strange behaviour indeed were my only thoughts! So I took the opportunity, whilst my sisters were busy holding on to each other lest they fall down from the reactive convulsions caused by their attempted containment, to glance out the window and puzzle out the reason behind their great merriment. Well I tell you folks, it was obviously not a behind that was causing the merriment on this particular day, but I will give them this our neighbour was certainly displaying a lot of front. So now let me give you the balanced, historical and objective account of what I saw as I gazed out that kitchen window. Well in simplest terms – here was a tall, tanned and rather fit young man vigorously doing his morning exercises in the form of hand-rope skipping. To me, he displayed a perfect timing and balance as he jumped and jumped to the pulsating sounds of the rope beating those timber floor boards under his feet. Lots to admire surly nothing to laugh about! OK, I may have forgotten to tell you that he was totally nude and facing in our direction as he performed his open-air fitness routine. I may have also forgotten to tell you that the now extended and protruding part of his anatomy, was also keeping perfect inverse time to the efforts of his jumps and landings. The most politically correct way to describe it is to say that it reminded me so much of the strength and pace of the metronome that Margaret would often set to help her keep that perfect time in her piano lessons. I am not really sure, but as I looked back to see my sisters doubled up and pressing their legs together in some form of tense restraint, I just had to assume that it was this sight that was causing them so much hilarity.
