# THE REDGUM HOLLOW GAZETTE **Thursday Edition — Edition 18** *Established whenever it was. Marge Holloway, Editor, Proprietor, Typesetter, and Person Who Was Up Until Midnight.* *Weather: Still nothing. The sky has the look of a man who owes you money and has stopped making eye contact.* --- ## DOOLEY LIVES AGAIN: A MAN, A MAP, AND SIXTY YEARS OF RUNNING WATER The Gazette's Thursday front page put Frank Dooley back into the district's memory, and the district has received him warmly. The 1964 photograph — Dooley squinting into the sun beside what we now know is the stone junction marker on the Henderson land — has been studied at the café and the servo with the seriousness usually reserved for stock reports and bad news. The channels he dug are still moving water this week. Clarrie Burton said so, on the record, in this newspaper, for the first time in eight years. We note that Clarrie read the finished edition alone on the bench Thursday evening and sat there longer than a man simply satisfied would sit. The bench, it should be said, is listing at an angle that suggests a structural conversation is overdue. We are choosing to interpret Clarrie's stillness as the particular quiet of a man who has watched something he knew to be true finally become public property. It is a different quiet from regret, though from a distance they look similar. Paragraph four of the Dooley feature — specifically the phrase *the current landholder, who discovered the stone junction marker independently* — has attracted the most commentary. The preferred reading in town is that he found it himself, before anyone told him anything. This is being read approvingly, and the Gazette accepts that approval as both appropriate and revealing. A man who finds the old marker on his own land, on his own time, and says nothing about it until circumstances require — that is a man the district has decided to trust provisionally. Whether provisionally becomes permanently is another edition's business. We further note: two bags of silverbeet and spinach appeared at the clinic and the café before either opened Thursday morning. No note. The Henderson kitchen garden is the only green operation in the district worth mentioning this dry. He didn't wait around. Neither detail required confirmation. --- ## THE END OF SOMETHING THAT SERVED ITS TIME: SALEYARDS CLOSURE Les Whitford's sentence is earning its keep. *The end of something that served its time.* It has been said at the store, the pub, and apparently in at least one phone call to a son in Adelaide. The Gazette does not apologise for putting a well-turned sentence in front of the public. That is what newspapers are for. Bruce Patterson was absent from the saleyards piece as he was from the Dooley feature. He was present at the agency counter Thursday afternoon and did not emerge when people passed. The Gazette records this without editorial comment, which is itself a form of editorial comment. --- ## LETTERS TO THE EDITOR **From Neville Dowd, Dowd's Lane:** Marge, good paper this week. The Dooley photo is the best thing you've run since the flood piece in '09. My father knew Frank Dooley by sight. Said he was a man who measured twice and never bothered anyone. Sounds about right still. —N.D. **From Lorraine Apps, Post Office:** Just to clarify for readers, the Gazette does not reflect Australia Post operational matters and any items mentioned in these pages are mentioned by the Gazette alone and not confirmed by this office. That said, it is a good photo. — L. Apps, Postmistress *Ed. note: Noted, Lorraine. As always.* **From Anonymous (handwriting suggests Hartley's end of town):** The bench outside the co-op needs a new cross-brace. Someone should do something before Clarrie goes through it. Respectfully. *Ed. note: Respectfully agreed.* --- ## AROUND THE DISTRICT — Tash's sourdough sold out by 9 a.m. Friday. She was not surprised. Neither were we. — The bingo corner now has what can only be described as assigned seating, informally. Macca had the orders moving before they sat down. This column will be watching that corner. — Steve-o logged a full day at Hartley's Wednesday and Thursday. Nothing unusual reported. The week is not over. — Fuel at the servo continues its upward ambitions. Kevin is philosophical about this in the way that men with no alternative are philosophical. — No rain. Next week, also probably no rain. *The Gazette is printed when it is ready. Advertisements, notices, and letters to: The Gazette, Main Street. All information received in confidence will be treated as such until it becomes interesting.*