Lucky to be an Australian III

This is nice.  Worth reading the whole thing.

Going native:  John van Tiggelen (Good Weekend, The Age, January 21, 2012)

I share a town in Central Victoria with John Pasquarelli. You might recall him - he was the croc-hunting über-patriot with a head like a grenade who groomed Pauline Hanson for politics. As a reporter back then with the Townsville Bulletin, I used to see a fair bit of him in the Deep North.

These days when we meet in the street, we break into broad smiles and merrily abuse each other. I call him a redneck boofhead and he calls me a pinko clog-wog. We cannot take each other seriously, because we regard each other as caricatures. 

During one such encounter, about a year ago, I mentioned he and I would soon be sharing this country as well as this town: I was becoming an Australian.

"God help us," he said. 

"God help me," I said.

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The citizenship ceremony took place three months later. The week before, I returned to Far North Queensland to visit friends in Cardwell, post-Cyclone Yasi. The lushest, arguably most magnificent 100-kilometre stretch of Australia, between Ingham and Innisfail, lay as if napalmed. The rainforested mountains were grey ridges of sticks. Past favourite haunts - waterholes, canefield pubs, camping spots, entire beaches - had been blasted. Exposed cassowaries blundered about the leafless tangle of timber. It was heartbreaking; this was my country. Then, a laugh, FNQ-style. At Tully Heads, where the storm surge had swept straight through every single house, someone had daubed on a thoroughly smashed home, "Is that all you got, bitch?"

Days later, back in my southern home town, I put on a formal jacket and a pair of bright orange clog-shaped slippers, borrowed from my (football) World Cup-watching outfit. The idea was that, at the crucial moment of naturalisation, I'd kick off the clogs to reveal a pair of blue thongs underneath.

My wife looked dubious. "It's a bit Eurovision, darling. There will be other people taking it seriously." 

I settled for a thong on one foot, a clog on the other. Eight people were taking the pledge in our small town that day, including two Afghans in national dress. It all felt quaintly festive, what with the morning tea looking as if it might have been prepared by my mother, Mark II. Then something extraordinary happened. After we were presented with a certificate and a native plant, I glanced across to see my kids, the eldest just four, waving little Australian flags back at me. And bugger me if something didn't catch in my throat.