Australia

I had an Aussie flag hung on a wall for several years after Georgia and I were painfully split due to bureaucratic SNAFUs. Her student ViSA was revoked and she had 3 months to return home, which she milked to the last week. I was technically still married, on paper, not in head, and was still on appellate leave, so couldn’t follow. 😿😿😿 Distance, and high international call rates ended up nailing that relationship dead, but I still remember,,,,(and why you’ll note some of my colloquial speech is English/Oz, not American, though I have plenty of that to spare)

It was in late 92,,, 30 flipping years ago,,, She would tell me how Oz was fast becoming a welfare state THEN, and how she came to the US for a real education, not communist indoctrination. I think she was frustrated by the shifting tides of the secondary education system even then, and despite our feelings, longed for home. I think that the frustration of education more than anything is why she didn’t fight harder to stay.

That sketch♡ was made the day before she left my life and this country. After she left, I spent way to much money and drank way to much damned liquor at The Slab in Joshua Tree (three day bender, and only stopped cuz I was broke. )(is The Slab still there? Been way to long,,,)

When I read about the crap going on in the land Oz, she is the first that comes to mind. Is she ok? Is she retaliating? Or has she succumbed to the madness and given up? No way to know now; its been 30 years and we have both moved along in our own realities; two ships in the night yada yada yada,,,,

But I remember,,,, good night Georgia, I wish a better day for you and yours. Good Luck down there.

♡ there was a time, long long ago, when I aspired to ‘Artíste’. ROFL. I found I paint MUCH better with words than pigments or inks,,, and even there, I am a rank amatuer fish among a very big pool of other fish. But I keep pushing type, and learning.