That was the boom time.

Fields became communities, dirt grew lawn and my books were hand wrapped and taped. Our heads were filled, nooked and crannied with last century's expectations. Homebound we raced over the brink, limitless, eyes clear to the ocean. The brown grass crunched under like a snow I couldn't remember. The overhead buzz always a heavy, pulsar of heat, making the distance warble and watery. First the dry brown crickets, then the locusts, a crunchy, dusty pestilence eating and dying everywhere. The petrolead in the air, that sweet musk of mechanical muscle, of real work going on here. Screendoors against mozzies, windows against dust, my name carved in and glittering guiltily with a fake diamond, my first permanence. Out of the city, the majestic roadtrains ruled, their bullroarer watersacks humming a lower frequency at 90 kilometres an hour. Their drivers, mountainmen of singlets, Akubras and hard boots, winked and drank and spat red dust. 'Caught Marsh, bowled Lillee' was the victory we all wanted. That landshark with the perfect form. Pacing first, then slowly rising, accelerating and exploding in a fierce attack of honesty and intimidation. Glorious. We couldn't dream how hard it was, just wanting to be at the top of that run, accelerating in, a dry hot wind to our open faces.