The Glass-Half-full Bloke by Vaughan Baker follows Bill, a farmer who can find a bright side to almost anything, and his wife Dot, who sees things rather differently.
From bushfire and drought to rising floodwaters, Bill’s optimism meets Dot’s running commentary. Vaughan carries their back-and-forth through a string of country mishaps to a sharp final twist.
The Glass-Half-full Bloke
By Vaughan Baker
Now, Bill was a real glass-half-full kinda bloke, while wife Dot was the half-empty type.
He always could look on the positive side, while all she did was grizzle and gripe.
No matter how grim things were down on their place, never setbacks, his smile could erase,
While she was so negative, one nearly could print photographs straight off her face!
She hated him for his bright, upbeat outlook as he passed every trial with a grin
He got sick of her bleak, pessimistic forecasts, but stuck by her through thick and thin.
When the bushfire came through and burnt down their loo, Dottie kicked up a hell of a row,
Bill just said, “It’s insured, and that regrowth burnt too, so I won’t hafta poison it now!”
When the big drought had dragged on for three years on end, he’d say “It’s one day closer to rain!”
She’d say, “It’s one day further from when it rained last! Betcha next year’s a dry b***h again!”
He said, ” Least the fence wires won’t rust away where they pass through them ol’ rotten posts!”
She said, “Won’t matter soon, by the looka our stock, because all we’ll be runnen is ghosts!”
When Bill saw the meatants were shifting their eggs from the anthills out on the floodplain,
He cried, “There’s an omen! The best I’ve seen yet! Dottie, we must be in for big rain!”
“It’s plain to see as the nose on me face what them ants are predickten, she scoffed,
They’ve clearly worked out that it’s not gonna rain, an’ they’re packen their ports ter p**s off!”
When the water kept rising ’til it lapped the floor, he said “It’ll peak soon now, with luck!
It’s great for our pasture, and the dams are all full”, all she said is “My carpet is f……, er,… flamen wet!”
“I bet all that bites will be mozzies”, she said, on their fishing trip after the flood.
Bill said, “Dot, I’ll use you to tie me line to, cos you’re just a stick in the mud!”
One day they were drying themselves on the bank of the good swimming hole where they’d bathed,
When a big gumtree dropped a huge limb in her lap, while he, right by her side, went unscathed.
As she lay there groaning, the branch on her gut, she called to him sarcastically:
“I s’pose you have found something good in this, too?!”
He said, “Yes Dear…
It coulda been me!”
Keeping The Verse Alive
The Glass-Half-full Bloke is shared with permission from Vaughan Baker through Keeping The Verse Alive, Country Campfire’s bush poetry preservation project.
By preserving poems like this, we’re helping ensure the stories, humour and characters of country Australia continue to be enjoyed for generations to come.
Vaughan Baker
Grazier • Bush Poet • Heritage Custodian • Poultry Breeder
Vaughan Baker has spent more than half a century working sheep country near Thallon, Queensland, and retirement has done little to slow him down. Between his Merinos, Foxtukka Freerange Fancy Fowls and preserving Old Bullamon Homestead, he still finds time for a bush yarn carrying the humour and characters of life on the land.
Poems, recitals, photographs, stories and original works remain the property of their original creator and are shared by Country Campfire with permission.
