FINAL INSTALLMENT!

Farewelling the Black & Gold

As some famous guy once said, 'All good things must come to an end'. Well, sadly, this is true. Saturday morning saw our last Yellow Pages run. *tear* But, in customary Yellow Page Delivery style, it went out with a bang.

Arriving at the usual time, in the usual place, i started things off nicely by NOT being the last to arrive! With four of us in the van and three in the ute, we split our last remaining area into two and headed out... into the mountainous wilderness that is upper Burnside. With two of our usual crew missing (one MIA, the other LYING IN HIS BED LESS THAN 5km AWAY!!!), we were slightly daunted by the task ahead of us. Glancing up, we could practucally see the end of the street disapearing into the clouds, bordered by houses with driveways long enough to run marathons on.

Breathing deeply (partly out of apprehension, partly to acclimatise ourselves to the high altitude), we start off at a run, sack trucks piled high with phonebooks, every few metres one of us peeling off to run a mini-mile up to a fron door - hinge side - and back again. Unfortunatley for us, our enthusiasm was ever so slightly our downfall...

At a run, B and i headed uphill, still in control of our breathing... until, hours later, we're halfway up and dead on our feet. Leaving the trolley, we decide it's much easier to take a book at a time, lazily wrap it in plastic and leave it at the letter box, rather than trekking up the hills to the front porches. The trips back and forth to the trolley definately beat lugging it round with us - do you know how HEAVY that thing is?

A little later we meet up with the van and drive a little ways to our next street (after a small mishap involving the leaving-behind of a trolley and a speedy return to reclaim it...). Slightly reieved to see level ground, the van coasts along in neutral with us leaping in and out to grab books and run them to doors.

Then comes the moment of realisation -- there are only a dozen books left! Who cares if there are 25 houses, WE ARE ALMOST DONE! A second wind at our back, we fly down the road, blurs of yellow and black leaving our hands as if magnetically guided to the hinge-side of the door.

And then it is finished. Pallets into the ute, some man-handling of the sack trucks into the back of the van - this time not nearly busting through the front window... - and we're DONE...

But somehow the euphoria of moments ago has vanished as it hits us... no more cheery little books to deliver into the depths of Burnside, no more early morning running, no more painful calf muscles in the afternoon, no more worried about dead people in houses or evil name-calling, no more van-related adventures... who am i kidding. It's over, HOORAY!!!

Au Revoir!