Edition Number 80
June/July 2008
INNISFAIL & DISTRICT
Community Information Newsletter
Produced by the
COMMUNITY SUPPORT CENTRE
WEB PAGE
www.csci.org.au
13 Edith Street, Innisfail 4860
Phone: 4061 6000 Fax: 4061 7312 Freecall: 1800 616 001 Email: [email protected]
The Community Support Centre is funded primarily by the Department of Communities
CONTENTS
Innisfail Probus Club visits Tinaroo Dam
DISCLAIMER:
ALL ARTICLES IN THIS MAGAZINE ARE PRINTED IN
GOOD FAITH FOR THE COMMUNITY AND DO NOT
NECESSARILY REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF THE INNISFAIL COMMUNITY SUPPORT CENTRE.
THE CENTRE ACCEPTS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR
THESE ARTICLES
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2 Editorial, Advertisements
3 Friendship Dolls Peace Project
4 Mother Teresa
5 Grandma’s Laundry
6&7 History Lesson
8 Ode to plurals, Trivia
9 Interesting Facts, History of Chocolate
10 Recipes
Talkabout June/July
2
Editorial
Here we are in June and nearly half the
year has gone. I do hope you like the
soups I have chosen for you. They can
be such a good standby at this time of
year. I thought the article on
barramundi was interesting—we can
learn such a lot from our fellow
creatures. At the moment I am
enjoying the ordeal of shifting house
and the following verse is very
appropriate. Here’s to your happy
reading.
Your very weary editor,
Gwen
OH DEAR!
TAX HELP
If you are on a low income our Tax Office
trained volunteers will help you fill in your
basic Tax Return for free.
To make an appointment call in or phone
Community Support Centre on 4061 6000
and check out if you are eligible and what
you need to bring with you.
If you wish to lodge over the internet, you
must have a ‘Notice of Assessment’ from a
previous year (up to 5 years).
There is a $5 charge to make a photo copy
of your tax return for you to keep as your
If my body were a car
If my body were a car, this is the time I
would be trading it in for a newer
model.
I’ve got bumps and dents and scratches
in my finish and my paint job is getting
a little dull…
But that’s not the worst of it!
My headlights are out of focus and its
especially hard to see things up close.
My traction is not as graceful as it once
was.
I slip and slide and skid and bump into
things even in the best weather.
My whitewalls are stained with varicose
veins.
It takes me hours to reach my
maximum speed!!
My fuel rate burns inefficiently.
But here is the worst of it– Almost
every time I sneeze, cough or sputter...
Either my radiator leaks or my exhaust
backfires.
Community Support Centre Innisfail Inc.
recently launched their latest edition of
the Welfare Services Directory.
Directory
The centre has been producing this
directory for many years.
This 2008 edition, collated and edited by
Carmel Murray (above) has been extended
to include the Cardwell and Tully areas
due to the recent council amalgamations.
The directory is for sale at $10 per copy
from the Community Support Centre.
Talkabout June/July
On a Septic Tank
Truck:
YESTERDAY’S MEALS ON WHEELS
3
In a Podiatrist’s
Office:
TIME WOUNDS ALL HEELS
Talkabout June/July
9
Interesting Facts (the wonders of Nature)
Did you know that our own popular fish the barramundi all hatch
out as males, grow to maturity as males and breed once as males!
At some time on their trip to salt water when the males are about
90cm long and five to seven years old, they perform what is to us
an astounding trick: they become female! Barramundi generally
spawn in river mouths on the incoming tide during full and new
moons in northern Australia’s wet season. Larvae float with the
tide to coastal mangrove wetlands. These wetlands are vital
nurseries for the species. As the wet season ends and wetlands
dry out, juvenile barramundi migrate upstream into fresh water
systems. After several years of growth, it is time for another
change. As another wet season begins, maturing barramundi move
down river to spawn in salt water.
When stocked in fresh water dams, such as Tinaroo and Manton N.T.,
because they need salt water to breed they have to be continually
restocked. They can grow to 1.5 metres and can live for 20 years.
Tagged barra have been known to swim up to 600 kilometres. Because
the female fish is slow to come to maturity there is a bag limit
of 5 fish per angler and a closed season from November to March.
The History of Chocolate
600AD Did you know the Mayas and the Aztecs used cocoa beans as
currency and the rich made an exotic drink from it.
1547
The Aztec emperor Montezuma introduces Spanish explorer
Hernan Cortez to his favourite drink, chocolate.
1528
Cortez returned to Spain with cocoa beans and the equipment
needed to make chocolate drink
1620
The Spanish slowly introduced their secret ingredient to the rest
of Europe, where it continues to be consumed as an expensive and mostly
‘medicinal’ drink, and a treat for the elite. Not until 1650 did the chocolate
drink reach England, and in 1652 London’s first coffee house opened,
serving tea, coffee and chocolate. It remained a luxury for the rich.
1765
Chocolate arrived in the American colonies and the first chocolate
factory was in Dorchester Massachusetts. Finally in 1815 it became
possible to separate cocoa butter during the production process into
cocoa powder. In 1831 John Cadbury begins manufacturing drinking
chocolate and cocoa in the United Kingdom and finally in 1847 the first
chocolate bar was created, but it wasn’t until 1875 the world’s first milk
chocolate bar.
1894 An American company Hershey makes the first mass produced
affordable chocolate bar.. Following on from this we have famous candy
bars such as Mars and Kit Kat in the 1930’s and so began the chocolate
revolution.
So when you enjoy your next chocolate bar you can stop and thank firstly
the Aztecs and then Hernan Cortez.
*Personally I just love ginger chocolates.*
Talkabout June/July
I remember Grandma’s laundry
With a basket made of cane
And lines that stretched from wall to wall
To hang things when it rained.
There used to be a copper
Out where Grandma used to toil
And a stick to lift the clothes out
When the water reached the boil.
There were twin tubs made of concrete
With a wringer in between
A wringer in a laundry now
Is hardly ever seen.
Upon a shelf a little box
Of starch called Silver Star
Kero tins for buckets Remember back that far?
A dipper with a handle
To help our Grandma cope
And a little wire basket
With a piece of sunlight soap
She used to have a washboard
For scrubbing out the clothes
You must be getting on in years
If you used one of those.
A saucer on the window sill
With bags of Reckitt’s Blue
5
To make the white clothes whiter still
And good for bee stings too.
Some sand soap and a scrub brush
For scrubbing all the floors
And some firewood for the copper
In a box behind the door.
A tin roof and some guttering
With a funny sort of sag
And a heap of wooden dolly pegs
In a homemade hessian bag.
And out the back, a clothes line,
Not the kind that spins around
But a clothes prop held the clothes up high
From dragging on the ground.
I wonder what would Grandma say
If only she could see
That wash-a-matic marvel
Where the copper used to be.
The dryer in the corner
The tubs of stainless steel
Hot water pouring from the taps,
I wonder how she’d feel.
I think that Grandma would approve
The changes made, and yet
There were things in Grandma’s laundry
That I simply can’t forget!
Talkabout June/July
6
History Lesson
Interesting historical coincidences
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.
Talkabout June/July
7
Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded
Lincoln , was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded
Kennedy, was born in 1908
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated
Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated
Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.
Lincoln was shot at the theater named 'Ford.'
Kennedy was shot in a car called 'Lincoln' made by 'Ford.'
Lincoln was shot in a theater, and his assassin ran, and hid in a
warehouse.
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse, and his assassin ran, and hid in a
theater.
Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.
And finally……….
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.
Talkabout June/July
4
Mother Teresa
e’ve all heard of Mother Teresa. I
thought I’d gather a little information
about her life achievements and some of her
words of wisdom…
Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha
Bojaxhiu in Macedonia,
on August 26th, 1910.
Her family was of
Albanian descent. At the
age of 12, she felt
strongly the call of God.
She knew she had to be a
missionary. At the age of
eighteen she left the
family home in Skopje
and joined the Sisters of
Loreto,
an
Irish
community of nuns with
missions in India. After a
few months training in
Dublin she was sent to
India, where on May
24,1931, she took her
initial vows as a nun.
From 1931 Mother
Teresa taught at St. Mary’s High School in
Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she
glimpsed outside the convent walls made a
deep impression on her In 1948 she
received permission from her superiors to
leave the convent school and went to work in
the slums of Calcutta. Although she had no
funds, she depended on Divine Providence,
and started an open-air school for slum
children.
Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year
was fraught with difficulties. She had no
income and had to resort to begging for food
and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt,
loneliness and the temptation to return to
the comfort of convent life.
She was soon joined by voluntary helpers
who made it possible for her to extend the
scope of her work. On October 7, 1950,
Mother Teresa received permission to start
her own order, ‘The Missionaries of Charity’,
whose primary task was to love and care for
those persons nobody was prepared to look
after. In 1965 the Society became an
International Religious Family by a decree of
Pope Paul VI.
The Society of Missionaries has spread all
over the world, including the former Soviet
Union and Eastern European countries. They
provide effective help to the
poorest of the poor in a
number of countries in Asia,
Africa, and Latin America,
and they undertake relief
work in the wake of natural
disasters such as floods,
epidemics, and famine, and
for refugees. The order also
has houses in North America,
Europe and Australia, where
they take care of the shutins, alcoholics, homeless,
and AIDS sufferers.
“When a poor person dies of
hunger, it has not happened
because God did not take
care of him or her. It has
happened because neither
you nor I wanted to give that
person what he or she needed.”
Mother Teresa’s work has been recognised
and acclaimed throughout the world and she
received a number of awards including the
Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971) and the
Nehru Prize for her promotion of
international peace and understanding
(1972). She also received the Balzan Prize
(1979) and the Templeton and Magsaysay
awards.
“Everybody today seems to be in
such a terrible rush, anxious for
greater developments and greater
riches and so on, so that children
have very little time for their
parents. Parents have very little
time for each other, and in the
home begins the disruption of
peace of the world.”
Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997,
nine days after her 87th birthday.
Talkabout June/July
8
Ode to Plurals
ONLY THE ENGLISH COUD HAVE INVENTED THIS LANGUAGE
We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called
beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called
beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be
those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say
methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and
him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its
paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing
rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it
a pig.
N
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't
fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make
amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends
and get rid of all but one of them, what do you
call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up
speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play
and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be
the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a
language
in which your house can burn up as it burns
down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come
Mother's not Mop?
NOW FOR SOME FUN
Some words that can be anagrams of each other make them into a double
definition.
For example, a practise trek can be a TRIAL TRAIL. Can you work out what
the following are: Cow Farmer’s Log - Most Favourable Wagers – Ideal School
Monitor – Lingerie Counter - Water Sports Venue
Answers: Dairy Diary – Best Bets – Perfect Prefect – Bra Bar - Polo Pool!!!!
A rose by any other name!!
If the answer to swaying bacon is the WA town of Rockingham, can you work
out the following: Shattered Mound (NSW) - Hires Turrets (QLD) - Forenoon
Weight (VIC) - Casket Cove (SA) - Meat Wine (TAS & NZ)
Are you ready for the answers? Broken Hill - Charters Towers – Mornington –
Coffin Bay - Devonport.
Try and make up a few of your own.
Talkabout June/July
10
Let Us Have Some Soup!
Pea and Lettuce Soup:- Chop 2 leeks and fry in 50g of butter until brown. Add
½ chopped iceberg lettuce then 500g of frozen peas. Stir until cooked. Then
add 3 cups of vegetable broth and 2 cups of water. Add some sea salt and
ground pepper. Puree mixture and serve with a swirl of cream.
chips:- Fry 1 onion until brown in 1 tbl of oil and 1
Carrot and Apple Soup with Parsnip chips
tbl of curry powder. Add 6 chopped carrots and 1 granny smith apple. Finally, add 4 cups
of chicken stock and 1 cup of water. Season to taste and cook for 20 to 25 minutes until
tender. Puree and then serve with Parsnip chips.
Parsnip Chips:- Peel parsnip then continue to peel with a potato peeler to get long thin
strips fry in hot oil until crunchy and golden. Place on paper and salt to taste. Serve with
soup.
Quick Canadian Cheese Soup:- Combine 1 cup of water, 1 large shredded
potato, 1 chopped onion, 1 grated carrot and 1 chopped stalk of celery in a 2
litre casserole dish. Microwave on high for 12 to 15 minutes or until potato is
tender, stirring after half the cooking time. Now add ½ cup of milk, ½ cup of
cream and 1 cup of vegetable stock. Place in microwave on medium high for 7
to 8 minutes. Stir in 1½ cups of grated cheese until melted through.
soup:- Fry 1 chopped onion until brown in 1 tbl of oil.
Creamy Chicken and Vegetable soup
Add 2 tbl cornflower, 1½ tbl chicken stock and 1 litre of water. Stir. Now add 1 can of
light and creamy Carnation milk. Bring to boil and add 300g of chicken pieces, ½ cup of
macaroni and some chopped vegetables (ie. a carrot, a potato and some broccoli) and
simmer until cooked. Season to taste.
Cream of Avocado Soup:- In a saucepan place 1½ litres of chicken stock, 2
chicken stock cubes, 3 chopped onions, 3 peeled and sliced potatoes, 5cm
strip of lemon peel, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and simmer for 45
minutes. Remove lemon rind. Take a quarter of the mixture and blend until
smooth. Now skin and stone 1 avocado and place in blender with a cup of soup
mixture. Blend and add to the rest of the soup with 1 cup cream. Take 30g of
butter and mix with 2 tbl of flour until smooth. Stir into soup. Cook for another
few minutes and then serve. This soup is best made a few hours before serving
and then gently reheated.
soup:- Cook ¾ cup of rice in salted water. Trim ½ medium sized
Cauliflower Rice soup
cauliflower into small flowerets, chop 2 onions and 2 carrots and fry in 60g of butter with 2
tsp turmeric, ¼ tsp chilli powder and 3 chicken stock cubes.
Add 3 cups of water and cook covered for 30 minutes. Puree vegetable mixture and add 3
cups of milk (combining 2 tbl flour with a little of the milk into vegetables and then add
rest of milk). Simmer for a few minutes. Add the cooked rice and 1 cup of yoghurt.
Season to taste and top with 3 tbl of chopped parsley. Heat gently but do not boil.
Country Potato Soup:- Peel and cut 500g potato into small cubes and cook in
4 cups of water. Heat 30g butter in a pan until light brown. Add 2 tbl of flour
and 125g bacon pieces and stir until cooked. Add to potato mixture and boil
until soup thickens. Add 2 crumbled beef stock cubes, ½ tsp of caraway seeds
and some chopped parsley.