One of our most loved annual events as kids, was the Coopers Sunday School picnic. This event was usually held at the sprawling, grassy yet tree studded Yeronga Public Park. Those of us responsible for setting the area up, arrived early to erect the tent and generally ready the place for the expected influx of those all-aged Sunday School folk. You know on reflection, there had to be a better choice of picnic deck-chair than those long dark solid timber church pews that we struggled to offload and position on that grassy knoll each year. They must have presented a rather inappropriate choice of picnic comfort to everyone else that shared those picturesque surrounds with us in those days. Still, a bunch of sportsmen who also frequented the park with us never seemed to express great mirth at our rather bizarre picnic panache. The salient fact that they were all members of the Blind Cricketers Association may have had something to do with it. Now the competitions planned for that day, along with their expected winners, were as fixed (either meaning appropriate) as Sunday church. The competition was well supported by the 8 members of my family who were further joined on the day by the 7 members of Howard Baskerville’s (pronounced by preference – Bar-scar-ville) family. The competition began with the aged sprints races followed by the traditional eggn spoon, sack and three-legged races. The rivalry discussed over lunch had as much to do with Aunty Sybil winning the women’s race again, as it had to do with most aged races also being won by a person sharing a similar last name. The appetizing lunch consisted of a sandwich, a wash down of pine/orange cordial and was topped off with that special treat – a small tub of Peters rich vanilla ice cream. Peters was eventually taken over by Pauls (no big creative logo and marketing departments for businesses in those days). Now you would not think that the placid concept of a Sunday School picnic could pose any great dangers and threats to your health would you but it did! Firstly, there was the twisted ankle on the leg tied together and shared in our three-legged team gone wrong. This can happen with poor timing or by just slipping on the remains of a dropped raw egg (obviously substituted in the egg n spoon by brother David for the expected hard-boiled variety). Either way, whilst it may be hilarious for the observers to watch the funniest home video results of 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-3-oops! – it was not a pleasant happening to experience. Secondly, it is the place where we learnt that not all ice is created equal. See, the ice delivered by Peters and Pauls, that maintained the frozen quality of our special treat, gave a heck of a bad bite. The term dry in David’s smirky invite seemed to convey an image of such inert matter. It hardly reflected the more violent trapped screams that we would broadcast as we would follow David’s invite to touch the pure white yet streaming block to see how soft it was. Thankfully, I did not take up his offer to also lick it and see how good it tasted. Well, the final danger was saved until the very end boiled lollies! They must have been cheap back then because every kid got a white paper packet full of them at the close of the day’s activities. These lollies were made from 100% sugar and were specially designed to be 100% lasting. Still I would guess, because they were 100% dangerous to sensitive teeth tong and mouth, were probably introduced to Australia by a Dental Group in much need of work. The initial challenge tested your ability to pry just one lolly off the fused molecular clump bound up inside the packet. The next challenge was to try and reduce this gob-rock to a size that could be processed by your digestive system. Cracking it with your teeth was by far the quickest way to see your dentist that is. I would do anything to avoid that encounter and so I choose to suck the lolly and reduce its size one minuet layer at a time. Sadly, this method also meant that you just had to put up with a bleeding tong and moth caused by the inevitable air pockets in the lolly that produced those incredibly razor sharp edges. Well, whilst I managed to avoid one medical profession, nothing was going to save me from the back pain loading those picnic chairs back onto the church truck, or from the chiropractors of today as they treat and relieve the contents of my wallet.
