The nose has it

The nose has it

Perhaps it was just a matter of time.

Eventually the kid with the big mouth will have someone fill it with something to stop their words. In decades past this was a regular occurrence on playing fields, streets and, regrettably, little has changed for some.

Working in education provides access to topics that are, to use Twitterology, trending. Trending is not new.

Those who blend with the trend rather than inspire the next wave of creativity fail to feel the heartache of change. Some of us like the way things are, or have become accustomed to the situation or circumstance — comfortable as a good running shoe.

This does not condone the status quo but shows adaptation.

It took the breaking of a bottle over my family heirloom — the gargantuan proboscis inherited from my Judeo-Germanic parents — to remind me that sometimes my firm belief that Australia has changed and become a comfortable, accepting place to live may be misplaced.

The further one radiates outwards from the ghettos we love and cherish, the greater the lack of social education and change.

Sadly for my footy-loving friends, it was the footy culture — ascribed to ‘team building’ — that reared its head with the addition of alcohol. To be faced with a pack lacking self-control is scary.

All that stood between 10 and me at 1am was a 100-year-old 80cm high cast-iron fence and a rickety gate. Neither stemmed the horde. The bruising, battering and bleeding began.

What I find impossible to reconcile in my intellectual educational framework is that those who provided me with due cause for my first-ever cosmetic surgery — a nose job, what’s more — were 40-year-olds.

While our community cries foul play over issues facing the young, our sportspeople must bear the intolerance for most of their careers. The culture we think is changing reverts with the addition of alcohol and the pack to demonstrating behaviours we try to educate against during people’s teen years.

Make your mark, join a tolerant, friendly gay sports club at QSAM: www.queersportsmelbourne.org

By WALLY SALINGER

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