The Story of Me and Rory!
This is the story of one of the most remarkable little coincidences of my life. It might not sound so extremely amazing in the retelling, but it still blows me out when I think about it, now, years later. And I now have the photograph to go with it. Courtesy Kira Tombs. All the names, places and events are true.
Right, I’ve driven up-country, north, about fifty miles, to a tiny hamlet of eight, yes eight houses, called Julia, yes Julia, near Eudunda in the Barossa Valley. (Colin Thiele, South Australia’s best-beloved author, and my one-time English tutor, was raised in tiny Julia.) I’ve gone to see an old friend Erick, but he’s not home as I get there. So I’m waiting only a few minutes, and a green Datsun station wagon drives up and a little bloke I’ve never seen before gets out. I take one look at him and the first thing I say is, “You look like me!”
The bloke is a little taken aback, “Do I?”
We look in the car mirror, Yep! We sure do look alike!
Similar glasses, gingery hair (what’s left of it), beard, expression, everything. He’s just a bit taller, and a bit younger, but I’m a bit better looking, naturally.
The bloke’s name is Rory Tombs. We get along so well that later that day he invites me to his house, at Australia Plains, another tiny settlement of just a few dwellings on the very edge of absolute dry sandy desert.
[This is desert with no knobs on, flat sand, the desertiest edge-of-desert I’ve ever been at, and it starts at the other side of the road. I’m impressed. The world of men, and every visible living thing, ends here. It is pure.]
Rory shows me his work: he’s a silversmith, he makes trinkets, some of them very pretty. He calls his little operation Treasures from the Tombs. Nice. We have a pleasant parting.
One week later, to the very day, I’ve gone South this time about 50 miles, to the seaside township of Aldinga, where the local pub is holding a music and poetry festival. There’d be, say, 200 people there. I’m now 100 miles from where I met Rory, with the whole length of the long fair city of Adelaide fair in the middle between us.
I’m there doin’ my thing, I’ve read my poetry, now I’m flying a SKYTE, my little flying wondercraft, for the delight of the kids who infest the area. One particularly graceful girl of about 11 (graceful in the way she herself flew the Skyte, as kids love to do, and graceful in her manner too) has meanwhile been looking at me hard, with a really puzzled, perplexed look on her pretty face. After a while she says to me, “Do you drive a green Datsun?”
“No,” I tell her, “I drive a silver Mitsubishi station wagon.”
“Oh . . .” she says . . .
but her puzzled expression deepens . . .
She hesitates, but she’s too puzzled to let it go -
Then she asks,
“Are you a silversmith?”
HOHH!
(It just takes my breath away!)
“RORY TOMBS!” I almost shout at her.
“I met him last week! At Julia!”
“He’s my grandfather!” says the little lass simply. “You look like him!”
“I KNOW!” I say.
Her name is Ebony Tombs.
********************************************************************************************
Her aunt is Kira Tombs. I think I must have met her there too. My memory of some of the events since then are a bit hazy. I’m not quite sure how or when we actually did meet but I went to visit her once and she had a little red-headed boy child, Jordan. A dawning Tombs head!
What I had not remembered is that Kira took a photo of the two of us, Rory and me, together. Anyway, having found me on Facebook, she some months ago sent me this astonishing photograph, and you can see what I mean. Doppelgangers!
As I say, I’m the good-looking-er one. Naturally. I won’t say which one that is. It’s obvious!
An old friend took one look and reckoned there was some skulduggery about it all . . .
Something about my Dad . . . who had red hair too.
Since writing the above I’ve contacted Kira who now has 3 kinder, Jordan 7, Gabriel 4, and Aurora who’s a baby girl. Turns out we have long-term close friends in common, Erick Monier’s family, the people who live at Julia that I went to visit. We have plans to go and visit Rory, whom I haven’t seen in quite a few years, and I would love too to catch up with the graceful 11-year-old Ebony, who is now 17! Her mother, Kira’s sister Mischkha (sp?) I think I might’ve met too but my mind is holey. (Greetings to both of you.) (Oh and I had a Samoyed named Mischkha, Russian for bruin, a nice term for bear.)
Notice, this story would have been just as amazing to me if it hadn’t been for Kira having taken that photograph, after all I knew how amazing it was, but it wouldn’t have been nearly so dramatic to everybody else without it, Kira proved our uncanny similarity for posterity! Thanks Kira.
This is the story of one of the most remarkable little coincidences of my life. It might not sound so extremely amazing in the retelling, but it still blows me out when I think about it, now, years later. And I now have the photograph to go with it. Courtesy Kira Tombs. All the names, places and events are true.
Right, I’ve driven up-country, north, about fifty miles, to a tiny hamlet of eight, yes eight houses, called Julia, yes Julia, near Eudunda in the Barossa Valley. (Colin Thiele, South Australia’s best-beloved author, and my one-time English tutor, was raised in tiny Julia.) I’ve gone to see an old friend Erick, but he’s not home as I get there. So I’m waiting only a few minutes, and a green Datsun station wagon drives up and a little bloke I’ve never seen before gets out. I take one look at him and the first thing I say is, “You look like me!”
The bloke is a little taken aback, “Do I?”
We look in the car mirror, Yep! We sure do look alike!
Similar glasses, gingery hair (what’s left of it), beard, expression, everything. He’s just a bit taller, and a bit younger, but I’m a bit better looking, naturally.
The bloke’s name is Rory Tombs. We get along so well that later that day he invites me to his house, at Australia Plains, another tiny settlement of just a few dwellings on the very edge of absolute dry sandy desert.
[This is desert with no knobs on, flat sand, the desertiest edge-of-desert I’ve ever been at, and it starts at the other side of the road. I’m impressed. The world of men, and every visible living thing, ends here. It is pure.]
Rory shows me his work: he’s a silversmith, he makes trinkets, some of them very pretty. He calls his little operation Treasures from the Tombs. Nice. We have a pleasant parting.
One week later, to the very day, I’ve gone South this time about 50 miles, to the seaside township of Aldinga, where the local pub is holding a music and poetry festival. There’d be, say, 200 people there. I’m now 100 miles from where I met Rory, with the whole length of the long fair city of Adelaide fair in the middle between us.
I’m there doin’ my thing, I’ve read my poetry, now I’m flying a SKYTE, my little flying wondercraft, for the delight of the kids who infest the area. One particularly graceful girl of about 11 (graceful in the way she herself flew the Skyte, as kids love to do, and graceful in her manner too) has meanwhile been looking at me hard, with a really puzzled, perplexed look on her pretty face. After a while she says to me, “Do you drive a green Datsun?”
“No,” I tell her, “I drive a silver Mitsubishi station wagon.”
“Oh . . .” she says . . .
but her puzzled expression deepens . . .
She hesitates, but she’s too puzzled to let it go -
Then she asks,
“Are you a silversmith?”
HOHH!
(It just takes my breath away!)
“RORY TOMBS!” I almost shout at her.
“I met him last week! At Julia!”
“He’s my grandfather!” says the little lass simply. “You look like him!”
“I KNOW!” I say.
Her name is Ebony Tombs.
********************************************************************************************
Her aunt is Kira Tombs. I think I must have met her there too. My memory of some of the events since then are a bit hazy. I’m not quite sure how or when we actually did meet but I went to visit her once and she had a little red-headed boy child, Jordan. A dawning Tombs head!
What I had not remembered is that Kira took a photo of the two of us, Rory and me, together. Anyway, having found me on Facebook, she some months ago sent me this astonishing photograph, and you can see what I mean. Doppelgangers!
As I say, I’m the good-looking-er one. Naturally. I won’t say which one that is. It’s obvious!
An old friend took one look and reckoned there was some skulduggery about it all . . .
Something about my Dad . . . who had red hair too.
Since writing the above I’ve contacted Kira who now has 3 kinder, Jordan 7, Gabriel 4, and Aurora who’s a baby girl. Turns out we have long-term close friends in common, Erick Monier’s family, the people who live at Julia that I went to visit. We have plans to go and visit Rory, whom I haven’t seen in quite a few years, and I would love too to catch up with the graceful 11-year-old Ebony, who is now 17! Her mother, Kira’s sister Mischkha (sp?) I think I might’ve met too but my mind is holey. (Greetings to both of you.) (Oh and I had a Samoyed named Mischkha, Russian for bruin, a nice term for bear.)
Notice, this story would have been just as amazing to me if it hadn’t been for Kira having taken that photograph, after all I knew how amazing it was, but it wouldn’t have been nearly so dramatic to everybody else without it, Kira proved our uncanny similarity for posterity! Thanks Kira.
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