Tag: Joanne Mildenhall

The Decade of Peace and Love

In the early 1960’s John F Kennedy was elected President and gave his famous speech – “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Peace and War were high on the debating list and the Vietnam war had started.

Later in 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. A country was heartbroken.

Civil rights was big at the time and White and Black racial tensions were high. Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous speech “..I have a dream…” More than 200,000 demonstrators were present to demand equal rights for both White and Black people. Five years later two Civil Rights leaderes were assassinated, Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy (John F. Kennedy’s brother).

I was a young hippie at the time and one of the events of the time was Woodstock. Music, Love and Peace – It was held on a 600 acre farm in New York and nearly half a million people were there. It lasted three days and sometimes it’s hard to remember it all. I spent a bit of time back then with Commander Vermont and Mrs Vermont and we like to catch up and remember the hijinks we used to get up to..

Fashion

The 60’s certainly had it’s own fashion – at the time it consisted of all the hippest gear – hotpants, miniskirts, vinyl pants, long beaded necklaces, peace symbols. The beehive hairdo was a sight to see! Women would spend hours putting their hair up and the men were into growing their hair long, and peeking out through some round John Lennon glasses. The body was for decorating and the brighter the clothes the better!

Denim jeans were making a big impact and a certain person I used to know called “The big D” owned a pair that are quite famous now.

The Beatles

Wow! The Beatles were hot! The Fab Four – John, Paul, George and Ringo. Everyone my age couldn’t get enough of them. They broke out into the music scene with hit after hit like:

• Love me do
• Can’t buy me love
• A hard day’s night
• Eight days a week
• Yesterday
• Yellow Submarine plus so many more!

Music was huge at the time and psychedelic music started with Pink Floyd – long instrumental solos and different electronic effects made up their style. Dancing was also popular with so much music around – The Twist, and the Locomotion were made famous during this time.

I’ve never really grown out of the sixties – there’s often a time in your life that you’d love to re-live and this was certainly my time. It was a tough decade but an exciting one.

The Vermonts

Woah! Octavia sure has some spaced out parents. Mrs Vermont is like a robot, “yes dear”, “no dear” and not much in between dear…..

Apart from trying to sell everyone some country goodness and telling people they “can’t handle the truth!” there’s not much more to be said.

Commander Vermont on the other hand is OTT (over the top). His army of men running around the garden is music to his ears and catching aliens is the best thing since sliced bread.

The Montana’s

Josh Montana is from a very wealthy family. The Montana’s have been in Sunset Cove for generations. Josh’s parents are often overseas on big business trips (or so they say). But no one knows what they do. They fly here, there and everywhere and make millions of dollars doing it. All with the utmost secrecy. Rumours went around the Cove that the Montana’s sold rare tiger fingernails, but nothing has ever been proved.

Josh loves what money can buy him. The other day he offered a girl the real “Balls of Nantucket”.

The Marigolds

Jet’s parents were hippys from out west. They used to travel the country in their van, stopping for protests and gatherings along the way. Jet was a bouncy baby girl in their first years on the road.

To make money for gas they would creep into farmer’s paddocks for cow pats and make cleansing lotions out of them.

They stopped in Sunset Cove one day and Jet didn’t want to leave. It was the weirdest place she’d ever seen and everything she wanted.

Her parents still drop in now and again to Sunset Cove to sell their famous cleansing lotions.

What would you do if you found out your parents weren’t who they said, or who you assumed they were?? Could you ever recover from the knowledge that you had been misinformed all this time? Do you think it would affect the future for you?

Well there’s a secret in store for you… keep watching Atlantis High to find the most bizarre, wild and whacky secrets of all as the story of Atlantis High in Sunset Cove unfolds!

Parents! They’re all wacky!

How many of you think your parents are whacky sometimes? There are always things that parents do or say that kids will think….like duh…that’s so strange!!

Well strange is what we see a lot of in Sunset Cove. Giles still could not understand why his mother even uprooted them to Sunset Cove in the first place. He noticed right from the beginning that there was something odd about her and the way she acted around certain people….as if she really knew them??

Could it be some old dark secret? Stashed away and never to rear it’s ugly head? Everybody’s family seems to have a ‘skeleton in the closet’… secrets from long ago that you think are forgotten, but someone always brings them up eventually!

And why does Grampa keep calling her Dennis?

Do you think you know your parents?

Sabrina’s Parents

Sabrina’s mother married money. Her husband worked for large oil company and earnt millions of dollars a year. Sabrina’s mother and Sabrina herself got used to the big spending. They could have anything they wanted! The best clothes, the best perfumes, the best jewellery and the best holidays.

But these girls just spent too much. Sabrina’s father couldn’t keep up with their spending and very soon wasn’t earning enough money to support their expensive habits.

Sabrina’s father quit his job and he and his wife went to live in Tibet. Sabrina now lives off her credit cards.

GLEAM CLEAN

I have tried a lot of cleaning products in my time and people often ask me what I use to make the wood shine in the Vermont’s home. I find that chicken fat works really well and if you rub it in hard enough you can’t even smell it – unless the sun is shining (which it often does in Sunset Cove) and then you just tell people that you have been roasting a chicken. This can have it’s downside though because then the said person who noticed the smell will want to stay for dinner and then you actually do have to create a roast dinner with all the trimmings.

WHERE TO START
I always start at the top of the house so that the dust can work its way downstairs and then I can trap it easily. I chase it with a net and sweep millions of the little dust particles up in one swell swoop. I then sell the dust mites to Don who makes pillows out of them – he always likes to sneeze when he sleeps. He says it gives him good dreams.

It is really important to tie your hair up as you clean so that you don’t miss anything. I once had a long fringe hanging in my eyes and I managed to miss an important stain on the bathroom floor, which was bad news for Commander Vermont who slipped on it and broke his medal.

I also like to carry a duster around with me because I like to tickle my armpits whenever I get tired. A feather duster is best, not the new acrylic ones – they don’t tend to give as good a tickle as feathers.

A vacuum cleaner is an important part of a cleaners equipment and even though I’m not sure how to use mine I carry it with me, strapped to my back so that I look important and kind of like that lady in the Alien movies. I creep round the corner and aim my nozzle at the mirror- KBAM! One time Commander Vermont got all excited because he thought that I had actually seen an alien and he spent the rest of the month staking out the attic in case the slimy green beasts showed themselves again.