The Arches – Source of Wonderment

3wonder
Function: adjective : WONDROUS, WONDERFUL: as a : exciting amazement or admiration
b : effective or efficient far beyond anything previously known or anticipated

The Arches, which lay on the Dargo Road, approximately eight kilometers outside Briagolong, in East Gippsland, Victoria was the enchanted world that I was privileged to regularly visit with my parents, brothers and sister during the 1950′s.

We headed off from Maffra, in the Austin, stopping briefly at the General Store at Briagolong to buy Mrs Hair an ice-cream. The Arches had no running water or electricity and my mother recalls that Edna loved ice-cream. It was a challenge to keep the ice-cream cool until we had navigated the winding eight kilometer stretch to reach the Arches, but it was a small gift compared to the gift of wonderment and enchantment that surrounded us during those regular monthly visits.

The Arches were the home of Archie and Edna Hair, an elderly couple with a rare spirit of generosity.

Archie and Edna Hair

I remember that Archie used to spend hours in the bush setting up treasure hunts, especially for the cubs who came to visit. I still have a collection of the tiny china dogs that I found tucked under gum leaves or in the hiding holes in the trees. He would lay out clues with cryptic advice like bob low, look high and so on.

I also remember Archie feeding the Kookaburras who came to the kitchen door. He gave them carefully chopped sausage. If I close my eyes I can see him in his flannels with the grey vest, can almost smell the smoke from their open fires that lingered on his clothing.

Archie was well ahead of his time. The Arches were constructed from recycled materials and I have memories of the airplane nose that formed part of their sitting room. Every time I visited I loved to go up the wooden stairs to the attic and lie on the old grey blanket on the stretcher and just look at how Archie had covered the walls with images from magazines like ‘The Post’. To this day I yearn to cover walls like that and feel most comfortable in older homes.

We loved having afternoon tea at the Hairs. There were always copious supplies of home made ginger beer and plenty of Mrs Hair’s kisses. My father used to tell Edna just how much he love her kisses. Sometimes we stayed on for dinner and invariably had cold cuts and canned potato salad. Everything tasted different there. I loved whatever they served up, loved the warm energy that exuded from the whole place.

Everyone was happy and there was a lot of laughter when we were at the Arches. My mother spent the time in the sitting room with Edna who was crippled with arthritis while we swam in the Blue Pools, prospected for gold in the Stony Creek, went on one of Archie’s treasure hunts in the bush or listened to one of Archie’s stories about his prospecting days.

Carefree days
Swimming with my big sister

Archie had a wooden box, the contents of which were a source of fascination. He called it his box of wonderment and in it he kept things that he had collected from the bush. He called the bits and pieces of debris that he gathered wonders.

And wondrous they were! Archie held us captivated as he regaled a story that was associated with a rock, tiny fragments of pebbles, a prized birds nest.

The Box of Wonderment at Soul Food honors Archie’s memory and the impact he had on an eight year old. It contains a collection of the writing exercises that I have used with people ranging in age from eight to eighty whatever, is a tribute to the capacity Archie and Edna had to fill me with wonder and whose magic is continuing to be woven over fifty years later.

To me, Soul Food itself has become a source of wonder. It goes to show what happens when you make a daily commitment to building something. Maybe you will stop for a moment to reflect upon that which has bought wonder into your life.