The £10 Ticket to Another Life
Back in the day, and by "the day" I mean "anytime between the end of WWII and the 1970s," hundreds of thousands of Britons were offered a terrific deal: for only £10, you could send your entire family (yourself included) to Australia, where you could build a new life from scratch, poverty be damned. This was great for people who would've been limited to a lower-middle-class existence otherwise, and thanks to this grand social experiment (limited to white folks, sadly), my dad was able to spend his Christmases surfing; attend medical school for free; marry a hot, brainy chick from Cleveland (hi, Mom!); and become a doctor/professor of medicine/chief of residency/chief of research/etc. with a funky accent.
Because of £10, my dad is now a president and CEO of a successful, ethical, and avant garde biotech corporation, plus he's a wicked rad photographer. Go, Dad! I'm so proud of him; and I'm so cheered by my family's pluck that they could move halfway across the planet for a dream, back when it was still an arduous journey which took weeks, and required living in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but sand, mines, and sheep.
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