"KOOKY" With this fourth issue of the Kookaburra we have reached our first chronological milestone. The well known motif on our cover page has now been a familiar feature on our bookstalls a full twelve months. We are now a well established going concern in our own right. No members of our staff are prouder of achievement than those two newly appointed members of our executive Kooky and his alter ego Maggie Pie, without whose sage advise and initiative we could not have made good our deadline of having this issue on the streets by its due date. Yet having said that and given due credit to these two key members of our work force, we are not without our problems, and thing^have not always run as smoothly as we would have liked. While the unruffled confidence of our new recruits (they work best as a team) has been a great comfort to us in our hour of crisis. Many of us fear that the very success of these two, Kooky and Maggie Pies endeavours in eliminating bottle necks in our editorial department could have gone to their young heads, thereby increasing their youthful tendency to arrogance. While most of us are prepared to overlook this trifling display of callow youthfulness so long as they get on with the job in hand. Others complain that their enthusiasm to get things moving, Kooky and Maggie Pie often decend to down right rudeness in their dealings with some of the less efficient members of our senior executive. "Cut the cackle and swallow a tranquiliser mate" was Maggie Pies rather off hand way in dealing with one of our more senior fuss pots on his expressing some concern about J:he _way in which she and Kooky were handling the petty cash returns and their lackadasical approach to office routine. "There are more ways of gettin' rid of a kitten than drownin' it so just sling us a winfield and we'll call it quits". This^said Maggie Pie^, swallowing the last remnants of her ice-cream cone to.relaxed beside her^Kooky on top of the office desk. Hereupon the gentlemany old fuss pot on sharing out the last of his winfields, beat a hurried retreat and gently closed the door behind him. J Such is life" commented Maggie Pie when this incident was brought to her notice at a later Board room meeting. This flamin' publishin' business is just a matter of confidence and us young'uns have whips of that in our crow, you oldies are now the men of yesterday, why can't you be honest and admit it. Just leave the job to us, me and Kooky, and you'll find every thing is onkydory on publishing day, and herewith Maggie Pie put a proposition to the meeting that hence­ forth and from this day on all the operations in the printing, news­ gathering and publishing department of the Kookaburra be left entirely in her and Kooky's hands and thereby become their sole responsibility. This motion seconded by Kooky was carried by a unanimous show of hands and the first hand to be raised was the hand of the gentlemany old fuss pot who, on doing so, whispered in an agitated voice to the person sitting beside him, "she's a tartar that one, I"d rather walk through a snake pit in my bare underpants than enter the precincts of this printing office^again while this Maggie Pie person is in possession - but she has talent and I'm happy with the arrangement, let me draw my dividends in peaceful retirement. Many of us thought in the same way, tho ugh we were not so outspoken about it as the gentlemany old fuss pot. The bringing out of the Kookaburra at regular intervals had already began to impose a heavy burden on shoulders long since stooped and we were somewhat glad that Maggie Pie had taken the initiative and spoken the words that we hesitated to speak^ourselves. r \ So beginning with the next issue, the bringing out of the Kookaburra ill be entirely in the hands of Kooky and his devoted girl friend 2 s; 2 aggie Pie. In recognition of their past services our chief of staff who has jurst returned from a news gathering trip to the sub Continent of India, has granted them both a handsome honaranum . presented them each with a skate board, custom designed by a Hindoo specialist. LATE EXTRA.... Maggie Pie has just this moment swept into my office to inform me that she and Kooky intend to spend next week-end attending a barbecue got up by the Romper Rights League in defence of Kindergarten Cliqueness. This seminar is held on the banks of Merrie Creek, among the many subjects proposed to be discussed at this seminar. The in­ creasing senility of parents and guardians, and does senility begin at the age of thirty five. Rolling off this information in her sharp staccalto lisp, I detected a glint of malice in Maggies hazel grey eye when she informed me that as guest speaker she herself proposes to take the affirmative on both these subjects. Anticipating any objection from me to her proposal she turned up her nose and, placing her hand on her shapely rear portion as a gesture of defiance, wriggled out the door. JiJfd We were at Beltana Station, one Saturday, and two brothers Mick and Frank said there was a dance in the town of Beltan _and they was going in, taking the utility and we all piled in the back after we cleaned up after tea. Coming home the boys had a few in after being at the pub as it was open late in the night we arrived back at the station and went to bed. A voice sang out Fire they rushed down and saw smoke coming out of the cabin of the utility as it was by the wall some were trying to push it from the wall and dented the mudguard others were throwing water inside the front with buckets and Frank was trying to take the seat out then the two brothers started fighting. After ahile the fire was out they found out someone dropped a butt down the side of the seat. The boys and I went to bed, next morning they saw the utility it was a sight. Frank the owner spent all day Sunday cleaning up the utility we never forgot the fire a Beltana station. Roy. The Fight For Survival At one time in the earlier fays of my life, I was camped on the outskirts of a town called Ayr, in North Queensland. They grew sugar cane mainly on the surrounding farms. There was a large mill, Kalamia, about three miles out from the town, which was used for crushing the juice out of the cane, after the molasses had been seperated from the juice, and other processes had been performed, the remaining part was bagged in crystal form, then either shipped or railroaded to the large cities, where it was further refined and dis­ tributed to the shops in the form we all know it as sugar. Now I have just been sweetening you up for one of the most unusual and seldom heard of plagues, of which I had seen. As I was preparing a meal for myself, over an open camp fire, the twilight was just about to begin. I happened to look up at the sky in the north west direction across a cleared stretch of the land, and above the forest about a mile away, I spotted what looked like thousands of black dots in the sky. Then I noticed some were going into the forest, but masses of them were still coming towards the town. Then I thought to myself must be some sort of birds, so I went on with the job of cooking a meal for myself. A short time later I heard gunfire in the distance, apparently coming from some farm houses. Then people from some of the houses nearby, appeared outside with guns in their hands. There was still enought light to see several hundred yards away, when the first waves of the flying objects appeared close enough for me to become aware that they were large bats. They were mammals and not birds, which I had at first thought they were. They were more commonly known as flying foxes, unlike mammals that glide, they propel themselves through the air by flapping their wings, which are formed by thin folds of skin extended by the limbs and tail. They had a body about twelve inches long, and a wing-span averaging about three feet. They normally live only in the tropical regions, where fruit is constantly ripening, and as they had apparently over pop­ ulated and had eaten themselves out of food, which consists solely of fruit and berries. They were migrating in search of fruit to eat, and that is why the people from the nearby houses had their guns ready, because many of them had different varieties of tropical fruit trees in their yards. When the flying foxes decended upon them, they kept firing away with their guns. But it was futile, the flying foxes came in thousands, and with their clumsy alightment on the trees, what fruit they did not eat was knocked to the ground and damaged. It was not a good night to sleep for me, because the noise of the gunfire went on for several hours after I went to bed.