So I went in to Valhalla Tactical & Outdoor, a military supply store, to pick up the gear I will need for THE BIG WALK.
The guy who assisted me (Brendan) was phenomenal. What a Legend. Generous with his time, expert on the product lines, and full of useful advice for what might or might not be helpful if you set out on a Mad Quest like mine.
He was also welcoming and embraced my BIG WALK, or at least showed such a high level of tolerance toward my unusual line of questions that I felt welcomed and supported.
I have pretty much everything I need now. The boots in particular feel great, like a second skin. This weekend I will focus on pulling the new uniform together.
It will look a lot more practical, and military-themed than the original version of Captain Australia, but I think my undertaking is more authentic and sincere now. Before, I didn’t quite know what Captain Australia was for, I just knew it was to combat a growing darkness in the world.
Now, I realise Captain Australia has saved my life. Helped me fight back from Stage 4 cancer, taking great strength from the idea of being of service, taking what was a broken down old man, and making him useful again, to help those poor beleaguered kids facing up against the same kind of ordeal I had to face.
PLEASE DONATE TODAY TO CAPTAIN AUSTRALIA’S BIG WALK (ALL MONEY GOES DIRECTLY TO THE KID’S CANCER PROJECT, WHO INVEST IN THE SCIENCE BEHIND CURING PAEDIATRIC CANCERS). CLICK ON THE ICON BELOW TO GO TO THE FUNDRAISER PAGE AND DONATE.
I get it that “A Teardrop of Beauty” sounds like a bad Haiku, but my teardrop banners (x2) arrived today, and they are MASSIVE. That’s me to the left carrying just one of them.
When I get the gear to rebuild the Captain Australia costume, they’ll be strapped to the sides of a metal framed military backpack, but today I did a test run in high winds, and it’s going to be fun (and funny) getting around with these massive things strapped to me.
Since losing all the cancer/thyroid weight (or most of it), I have some extra skin flaps as well, so I may find myself screaming as I become airborne if a high wind catches both of these banners just the right way — but at least I’ll be able to grab the skin flaps under my arms and glide to safety like some kind of flying fox (or an elderly heavy-set spiderman with the web-armpitty-version.
Yesterday I did a 35km walk. I got up at 5:00am and walked into the public dental school at Herston. Since my travel insurance company collapsed (and more recently my car engine exploded) we have to be super careful with money, so I get to let student dentists have a go at my radiation-damaged teeth 🙂
Thing is, they’re wonderful. Slow – a root canal takes about 4 times as long as with an experienced private dentist, but the kindness and interest these young (about to graduate) dental students show me more than makes up for it.
Anyway, check out the banner – next week I should be able to start doing the DAILY DONOR DARES OF DOOOOOM! and let you see Captain Australia in his full regalia, carrying two massive banners strapped to his back.
Please support CAPTAIN AUSTRALIA’S BIG WALK for The Kids’ Cancer Project. Click on the link below to go to the donation page, all money goes into research to better treat and ultimately cure paediatric cancers.
I’ve spent the last 8 months walking. I’ve fought my way back from post-cancer problems. They still plague me, but they no longer hold me down. As I get physically healthy, my mental health and overall spiritual outlook has improved as well. I’m stronger. Better able to face up to my problems. I feel as though even if I *did* have to face up to cancer again, it wouldn’t crush me. I’d fight, as I did last time.
(But I hope I don’t have to!)
As we move toward September, I’m entering into the serious planning phase. The goal was to start getting out into public and promoting the charity next month, but the lockdowns in Brisbane across August have held me back. Plus in July I did get pretty sick .. I had been under-eating-over-exercising for months, and became malnourished. All on track now though.
So my challenge is to figure out the CAPTAIN AUSTRALIA UNIFORM now that I’m bringing the old boofhead out of retirement.
I figure I’ll build the superhero outfit from a basic military uniform, as you can see from my sketch. I’m not sure about the chest emblem. The “@” symbol last time didn’t work (nananananana AT-man, AT-man, AT-man, people would chant). A boomerang is an iconic Australian symbol, but it’s a tool and weapon of the first people, and although I’ve lived amongst indigenous communities as a small child, I don’t want to appropriate. I wrote to a few elders, but I got no response, I don’t think they took the concern seriously. I’m not sure I’m supposed to either – they have boomerang monkeys in a game my kids play (Bloons Tower Defense) and some dude called “Captain Boomerang” in Suicide Squad. But I want to get it right, be respectful.
I’m waiting for these teardrop banners to arrive. You’ll see the design to the right.
They cost me $360 that I don’t really have, but I think there’s something about carrying them around strapped to my backpack like some kind of insane Samurai. It turns me into a mobile billboard for the charity.
My car broke down on Wednesday, catastrophic engine failure. The dealership where it’s routinely been serviced cited “oil sludge neglectfully built up over 3 years”. I don’t think they checked the service history first, because I have to figure out if the neglect is mine or theirs. Anyway, if we have to do without a car, we have to do without a car, I can’t afford a new one and I need this time to execute on my BIG WALK strategy, help the charity, heal myself. Maybe the dealership will come through and help me out with some kind of solution. (fingers crossed)
The next two weeks are just about continuing with my fitness, and then getting the uniform done once the banners arrive (which I need to integrate into the overall ensemble). I hope to start hitting the street from the first week of September, if everything goes smoothly.
But when do things ever go smoothly ?
Since December, I lost a little over 50kg in body weight, but I’m (sadly) still a little tubby. Strong like the bull (stamina-wise), but still carrying a tire of fat around my thighs and middle. Tomorrow I see the dentist (public clinic in Herston – can’t afford professional dentistry since my business collapsed, haha, so I have to let a student have a whack at m’teeth). The walk to the dentist is about 15km, so I’m going to leave at 5:30am and walk there, get the treatment and then take a lovely long winding walk home up across Mt Coottha (great city views, will take a photo or two for you).
In 2008, I saw the world was slowly darkening, like a piece of fruit rotting slowly from the inside out. I resolved to become CAPTAIN AUSTRALIA, and stop this slow, insidious decline. My mission was three-fold and simple:
Do Good Deeds: find positive and meaningful ways demonstrate kindness
Fight Evil: stand up against cruelty and wrong-doing
Inspire Others: be funny, joyful, righteous, inspiring others to find their way to do the same
I failed in my Quest. I retired when my middle son was diagnosed with a serious health problem, and committed all my resources to helping him (he is thriving today).
I started a travel insurance company, which was also thriving, until the COVID border closures caused it’s collapse.
In 2016, I was diagnosed with a Stage 4, invasive head and neck cancer. The doctors gave me 6 months to live, with a 40-60% chance chemoradiation would save my life.
I got lucky. But there is no lucky with cancer, not really. I was in my prime, and it destroyed me. It doesn’t only try to kill you, it tries to rob you of your dignity, hope, sense of place in the world.
Over the next several years, I slipped into quiet existential crisis. Daily pain, gut-wrenching side effects, and underneath it, the thing that bothered me most, that hurt me the deepest: children have to go through this.
I realised I needed to bring Captain Australia back. I decided to do a BIG WALK for The Kids’ Cancer Project, where on 26.12.21 I will walk from Brisbane to Melbourne, by myself, no help, sleeping rough, dressed as the boofhead superhero Captain Australia.
My goal is to raise support and funds for this incredibly worthy cause, and also to heal myself, to walk away from the cancer that tried to take away my life and my hope.
I wanted to create an online diary, for you (in case it could help you, or inspire you to find ways to make the world better) and for my children (in case the cancer came back to claim me, I could show them who their father was, and how much he loved them).
Captain Australia Online (and THE BIG WALK) 