For Julie, Mary, and Christine
Puppy love did lift the spirits of a little boy searching for relevancy,
& Kathleen, I should have known.
Chaos surfaces from Michele and Pietro making life decisions without considering the effects on their families. Isolation from family coalesces into a range of social issues, impacting wives and children left behind for many years. Such life stuff unfortunately brings newborns into a precarious future. Joe’s loneliness becomes evident whilst he tags along at workplaces and pub sessions with grownups in Mossman and Cobram, towns barely out of the pioneer stage. At nine years of age, Joe is still unable to write coherent sentences, expression was a matter of cobbling phonetics and ‘Italglishisms’ in-class writing exercises. When Michele goes to Gundagai for the asparagus harvests, Joe is billeted out to Italian families. Migraines begin to affect his quality of life. For want of a mother, Joe finds escapism in ‘puppy love’ for ‘les petit femmes.’ Scholarly arithmetic lifts his confidence. After five years Maria Concetta decides that the family reunite in Australia. The catch was that she had lost a child, but in 1961 gains a teenager; adjustments would have to be made. After 1962, High School gives Joe the advantage and by ’65, ponders whether there is something better than that bleak existence.