BEING among the older generation, I can’t help but remember those days in Ipswich during that bad flood, in late January1974, some 52 years ago.
Those days are etched in my mind as it happened around my birthday – days when I lived in a haze, not remembering where I slept or what I ate.
A good part of Ipswich and Brisbane suffered in that time and many thousands were affected.
It started me wondering about the fires raging in Victoria, the floods in Queensland, and how many people have lost everything they owned.
It’s all very well to gloss over this and say they can start again. If they’re young maybe, but what happens to the older folk, those just retired or in their eighties, how do they “start over.
I can’t help feeling how unjust this world is to us.
We live by rivers and lakes and mountains and valleys because it’s a great life, but always mindful of the possibility of things going wrong in a weather event.
Or you live on a mountain and one day the earth moves, you don’t have a house or land any more, it just slid down the hill. Life is like a lottery, isn’t it.
When you’re young, none of this matters, one doesn’t care too much. But as you get on in years, things start to matter more in this world of ours.
You start fearing for the grandkids and what sort of world they will have.
Wars seem to be inevitable – but hopefully there are enough sane people in high places willing to go against what is slowly becoming a bit of a problem.
But who is thinking carefully about what’s going on overseas?
Are young people really that interested in world events – after all, they do have busy lives.
Silver and gold are going to go sky high, is that good?
What will our world be like if these hard-to-get precious metals increase substantially in price – what will that tell us about the world economy.
It’s still not too late to have a plan for the future.
