Wyn Drabble: Good life guided by two things

Wyn Drabble.

So I picked him up from the airport and during the half-hour drive home, our conversation covered ... well ... life really. And the secrets to success.

He is a dear old friend from university days and we also flatted together in London. He is currently a successful architect in Melbourne but also spends as much time as possible in his other home in central Italy.

During our car conversation, we both agreed there were two main things you had to know in life, two guiding principles, if you like. By adhering to them you couldn't go wrong and we were both living proof of these principles.

Our conversation rapid-fired through politics, Latin grammar (we could still conjugate our verbs), arthritis, dietary fibre and nose hair. Could one, we wondered, train nose hair up so it could be coiffed into a Trump-style pelt? But, of course, these were trivial issues compared with the two biggies.

We also discussed the Friday cars we had both bought during our lives (a Friday car is one full of problems generally put down to being assembled at the end of the long working week when the workers are tired).

I had flown from Sydney to Melbourne about mine. I wanted to see the most important man in the entire business, I said. I was told he was busy all day so I said I'd wait and plonked myself in a chair outside his office. Meanwhile, back in Sydney, another door was probably falling off my car.

It worked. I got my way. My friend remembered the experience fondly so re-enacted it when he suffered a similar problem but with a different brand. He too was successful.

It all comes down to the two things.

And we'd both fought tooth and nail for injustices dished out by insurance companies and the like. We celebrated our skill with words but lamented the thousands who just accept wrong decisions either because they feel powerless or because they can't use language effectively. Age had brought us wisdom and a fighting spirit to use it. Pluck.

We had adhered to the two things.

Naturally we touched on the effects of advancing age, the chief of which was evident on both of us in what I shall call the frontal region. We had both become more "distinguished" than we had once been. Or ample, fuller-figured or big-boned.

Admittedly, physical tasks have become more demanding. A simple procedure such as clipping toenails can result in our being locked in the staple position and, to cover our problem, pretending there are a few other things to do while we're down there - carpet pile maintenance and the like.

And we both take care of the original parts which still work. To be on the safe side, I protect my teeth by cutting scorched almonds in half before biting. And peanut brittle is OUT.

We were both extremely aware of the approaching blackness. We are both getting on, as they say. But we were together on our determination to avoid sunset homes where we could sit, rug-kneed, and gaze at others in their golden years. We eschew cardigans.

The two things, you see.

We were together on continuing to work, as well, though we both admitted to having "spies" who will alert us when we need to go.

Memory problems were keenly discussed. Not the clear-as-a-bell recall of boyhood pranks but the complete disappearance of thoughts no more than a minute old.

Our conversation after such a long friendship had cemented the fact that our two guiding principles were key. Without them we might have erred, gone astray. But, no, we were guided by the two things.

Trouble is, for the life of us, we can't remember what they are.

- Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.