Every morning Jip gets up early to decorate his house and garden with artificial flowers. He returns to the old highset house for two flags.
He raises the Australian flag and the American Stars and Stripes.
“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.” he says. When Jip is not busy in his garden or home, he might spend his day fishing or sitting uptown watching the passers by.
Each afternoon he lowers the flags
and takes them back upstairs. Then he returns to collect up all the flowers and bouquets, baskets and pots and brings them up to the enclosed veranda.
He locks the lattice veranda with a heavy chain.If he doesn’t lock up at night, ‘they’ come and steal from him.
They steal his flowers.
Jip often has rocks thrown by vandals, shattering his windows.
He doesn’t seem to be deterred by these setbacks. He doesn’t express a great deal of anger. It is as if he has become even more determined to fulfil the needs of his obsessions. He focuses on solutions. He seems to know he will prevail.
Jip has become quite inventive in the way he goes about achieving his floral mission.
He has long timber sticks studded along their length with blossoms looking remarkably like some kind of artefacts from an ancient tribe of eccentric florists.
He can bring out quite a lot of flowers at once when they are already attached to the timber sticks.
He has hooks on the sides of the house ready to hold the flowered timbers in their place.
He invented a pulley system to reel his flowers in and out of the house. Some beautiful kind of washing line – for fairies perhaps?
After he locks everything away, he watches the 4.30 news and then he goes to bed.
‘Keith’, can’t ever remember being called by his birth name. At first he had the nickname ‘Chip’. As a young boy, he had the chore of bringing in the woodchips for fuelling his mother’s wood burning stove. The name ‘Jip’ evolved from Chip, and that is the name he was known by ever after.
Jip is over 80 years old, though he prefers not to tell people. He is incredibly proud and self-confident and appears to be very fit for his age.
Jip dressed up for our meeting. His hair is neatly slicked back. He wears a chain around his neck.
He has his favourite shirt on.
This old highset ‘Queenslander’ is where Jp and his mother lived for over 30 years until she passed away.
Jip used to have quite extensive gardens back then, but has scaled down somewhat as the years have gone by.
He enjoys his retirement after many years of hard work. He cut cane for over twenty years and worked in the family dairy for twenty – five more…amongst other jobs he took from time to time.
His retirement seems to have bought Jip to a place of contentment in all aspects of his life.
Through the day he might venture into the garden to tape flowers to the branches of the dormant trees. He says it doesn’t stop the trees flowering again in Spring.
Later today he will go down to harvest pawpaws from the trees in the back yard.
There are often cars full of interested observers pulling up on Jip’s nature strip for photos to be taken. The cars come and go. It’s a bit like Christmas night when you go seeking out all the houses done up with lights.
At Jip’s it’s a bit like Christmas all year round, but more likely - an eternal first day of spring.
Whatever it is, Jip has the prettiest house in the street.
But this is only part of Jip’s obsession – the public part. The secret obsession is revealed if one is able to find a means to invite oneself in to the house.
I will tell you how to do that tomorrow…..I do have chores!!
Each afternoon he lowers the flags
and takes them back upstairs. Then he returns to collect up all the flowers and bouquets, baskets and pots and brings them up to the enclosed veranda. He locks the lattice veranda with a heavy chain.If he doesn’t lock up at night, ‘they’ come and steal from him.
They steal his flowers.
Jip often has rocks thrown by vandals, shattering his windows.
He doesn’t seem to be deterred by these setbacks. He doesn’t express a great deal of anger. It is as if he has become even more determined to fulfil the needs of his obsessions. He focuses on solutions. He seems to know he will prevail.
Jip has become quite inventive in the way he goes about achieving his floral mission.
He has long timber sticks studded along their length with blossoms looking remarkably like some kind of artefacts from an ancient tribe of eccentric florists.
He can bring out quite a lot of flowers at once when they are already attached to the timber sticks.
He has hooks on the sides of the house ready to hold the flowered timbers in their place.
He invented a pulley system to reel his flowers in and out of the house. Some beautiful kind of washing line – for fairies perhaps?
After he locks everything away, he watches the 4.30 news and then he goes to bed.
‘Keith’, can’t ever remember being called by his birth name. At first he had the nickname ‘Chip’. As a young boy, he had the chore of bringing in the woodchips for fuelling his mother’s wood burning stove. The name ‘Jip’ evolved from Chip, and that is the name he was known by ever after.
Jip is over 80 years old, though he prefers not to tell people. He is incredibly proud and self-confident and appears to be very fit for his age.
Jip dressed up for our meeting. His hair is neatly slicked back. He wears a chain around his neck.
He has his favourite shirt on.
This old highset ‘Queenslander’ is where Jp and his mother lived for over 30 years until she passed away.
Jip used to have quite extensive gardens back then, but has scaled down somewhat as the years have gone by.
He enjoys his retirement after many years of hard work. He cut cane for over twenty years and worked in the family dairy for twenty – five more…amongst other jobs he took from time to time.
His retirement seems to have bought Jip to a place of contentment in all aspects of his life.
Through the day he might venture into the garden to tape flowers to the branches of the dormant trees. He says it doesn’t stop the trees flowering again in Spring.
Later today he will go down to harvest pawpaws from the trees in the back yard.
There are often cars full of interested observers pulling up on Jip’s nature strip for photos to be taken. The cars come and go. It’s a bit like Christmas night when you go seeking out all the houses done up with lights.
At Jip’s it’s a bit like Christmas all year round, but more likely - an eternal first day of spring.
Whatever it is, Jip has the prettiest house in the street.
But this is only part of Jip’s obsession – the public part. The secret obsession is revealed if one is able to find a means to invite oneself in to the house.
I will tell you how to do that tomorrow…..I do have chores!!
Chris how interesting ... yes as you say 'an eturnal first day of spring'
ReplyDeleteJyp's inspirational in his perseverance, in the face of the destructive reactions of some, to his being a person apart from the everyday. Will be back tomorrow to get a peek inside the house .. Sue Hutton