Coal

 April 16 Word of the Day: Coal

 

1966 is famous for ‘Norwegian Wood’ and our school excursion to the Morwell opencut mine. Changing trains at the splendiferous Caulfield Station, we stepped into a Gippsland red rattler, pulled down the windows, and stared with open eyes towards our rapidly approaching destination: the yawning abyss of Yallourn. Colossal powerhouses streaming with steam overwhelmed our childish expectations. Mountainsides of prehistoric coal met our collective consciousness, the magical fossil that brings new, if transient, life. After the first half hour of this industrial-sized vision we were wondering why we hadn’t been taken instead to the circus, or a movie at the crystalline Capitol Theatre, or several hours of the zoo staring back at us. Interface with coal has always been a one-way exchange, as is the nature of fossil fuels: they are all give and we are all take. This was part of the educational purpose, perhaps, of our excursion and if it was then it was a quick lesson. Artistic value was in short supply. Truckloads of briquettes rattled past towards the depots of Melbourne, jostling about like darkness visible. Their heavy sooty smell hung in the evening side streets of childhood as neighbours stoked their heaters to a perfect orange-red glow. The idea that coal needed to be phased out, in fact should fade out as soon as possible, had never entered their minds, or been entertained by public decisionmakers. We knew it was unlikely that if we waited long enough on our excursion the compound pressure on the coal would turn it into diamonds, just more coal, of which we had seen enough already. Childhood was a time of boundless energy and infinite possibilities.