AAer of the Month (April 06) - Bill Critch

An Australian American - life under the Tucson Sun

"You ought to come to Johnnies for a week or two,
They have marmalade and church parade,
And flies dipped in stew.
The potatoes are rotten, and the meat walks to you.
You ought to come to Johnnies for a week or two!"

Rhyme frequently heard at St. John the Baptist Preparatory School for Boys

Bill Critch - from New South Wales to Arizona

If you want to know what life in rural Australia was like between WWII and 1955, you can do no better than to ask Bill Critch.

Bill is a pre-baby boomer and came to America in 1955. There was just no future in Australia and he wanted to start over. Which he did.

Bill now lives in Tucson Arizona, has retired and spends his days by the pool, making latté for his lovely wife Marlene, gardening, reading, writing and generally enjoying life under the Tucson Sun.

Pink Cactii in Bill and Marlene's Garden

Life wasn't always so laid-back for Bill. Both his parents died when he was young, and being a parentless child was no easy time in Australia in the fifties. Forced for obvious economic reasons to leave school at fifteen, having only completed year nine, Bill started his adult life early.

At that time, the education systems in Australia awarded you a certificate if you passed your ninth year of school - many children were lucky even to achieve this. It was called the 'Intermediate Certificate'.

So armed with this, his good looks, no money but plenty of spirit, Bill entered the real world. For a couple of years he "bummed around on the kindness of strangers". Then he decided to go to America.

What does a poor boy from rural Australia do on arriving in the States? Number one - get educated. He joined the USAF and learned to fly. After leaving the Air Force, he flew commercially until grounded for heart disease at age 35. What does a boy do then? Get more education.

The US Social Security Voc. Rehab. program and the G.I. Bill paid for him to do a qualifying exam and subsequently complete a Bachelor of Arts. And from then on there was no looking back.

And now, after many years in the airline industry, having raised two daughters (now in Seattle), Bill and Marlene have certainly earned their retirement.

After living in the US for over fifty years, although still visiting Australia regulary, does Bill consider himself Australian or an American? His answer comes quickly - without even a second's hesitation. "American".

Well you could have fooled me, Bill. The touch of the larrikin, the Aussie accent coming through, the humour ... an Aussie from way back ...

But there's another side to Bill. His Zen Buddhism leanings. His advice to the next generation is to take a leaf out of Alan Watts and to follow the 'Watercourse Way'. "Don't fight tooth and nail; but take advantage of what life offers you." Remarkably similar to the advice given by last month's AAer of the month, an original Australian Little red mangrove flying fox woman.

Yep, you can take the boy out of Australia, but you can't take Australia out of the boy.

You can read more from Bill Critch at Bill's Blog.

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