I ran into Roy again the other day. He's the Vietnam veteran I met at my front gate a few months ago.
He was, as he explained then, a 'walker' — the formal designation given to the men and women who, as he put it, 'traverse the courts, roads, closes, circuits, avenues, lanes and parades' of this small coastal town delivering the local papers. 'You don't find anything as bloody mundane as a "street" round here,' he said with scathing accuracy.
After we'd greeted each other, I observed that he wasn't carrying a bag of papers.
'Gave it up, mate. You out for your morning walk?'
I explained that I was walking into the township — about three kilometres — where my wife was attending some sort of meeting, after which we planned to have a cup of coffee together.
'D'you mind if I walk along with you?'
Of course I didn't mind, on the contrary. And so we set off towards the beach and the esplanade that meanders around the bayside to the tight group of shops, restaurants, Post Office and Real Estate agencies that make up what the better class of resident likes to call the 'village'.
'I prefer "township" — it's more Australian,' I said, when Roy scoffed at what he called 'this "village" nonsense'. But I could tell he had something else in mind. Roy is one of those people who does not walk and chat. If he wants to make a point, he stops. And if you don't stop with him, he puts an arm out like a footballer to shepherd you and hold you up. So, within sound but not sight of the sea, we paused. Magpies and currawongs tunefully tossed their greetings and warnings from tree to tree while he stared at the grass that pleasantly passes for footpaths in these parts and visibly gathered his thoughts.
'You know how there's something these days called identity theft?' he said.
'I do,' I said. 'Electronic theft of credit card numbers, online personal details, that sort of thing.'
'Exactly. Well, I reckon there's also a phenomenon you could call locality theft. Have you noticed that thanks to real estate agents and their advertising this village or township, or whatever you want to call it, has had dot com added to its name? It's not Point So-and-So any longer, it's Point So-and-So dot com. In other words, mate, our community's name has been hijacked by a