Dixie's Slides

Like all of us Dixie bought a camera in country ... we were told to buy an SLR. We all laughed when we heard this ... our rifle was called an SLR so we thought that someone was having a lend of us ... but no the camera was an SLR, just not a Self Loading Rifle ... but a Single Lens Reflex ... Oh! we said.

Then someone who was obviously more knowledgeable about matters photographic said that it was better to get slides rather than prints ... well they knew what SLR meant, so they must know what they are talking about. Thirty years later we are still trying to figure out why slides are better than prints. But hey what did we know.

So we ran around happy snapping with our new cameras. Then we would bundle our film up and mail it back to Kodak in Australia and some weeks later a little plastic box of slides would arrive in Nui Dat ... and some weeks after that we would arrive in Nui Dat from the bush.

Oops! how do you view slides? OK down to the PX to get a slide projector. Oops! No screen. Buggar it ... down to the PX to get a screen. Oops! it has got to be dark to see the damn things on the screen. OK down to the PX to get a slide viewer. Peering down this little hole, squinting at this small picture on the viewer, handing it around so that everyone can see it .... then repeating the whole process with the next slide. Oh yeah slides were better than prints.

Well Dixie got this one figured out. These bloody slides were a nuisance hanging around the tents and could get lost or damaged. Plus we were probably paying premium prices for developing with all this postage etc. So Dixie sent his film back to his Mum to get them developed and she could keep them in Oz for him. So week after week Dixie sent roll after roll back to Mum ... no problems.

After our farewells in Sydney, Dixie headed back home to see Mum and show off all his slides. Did he find a mountain of slides? No he found a mountain of undeveloped rolls of film.

"Mum why didn't you get them developed?"

"Daryl, I developed the first roll and I was so disgusted in you that I refused to get any more developed"

Dixie was buggared ... he had no idea what could have been on that roll that would have so disgusted his Mum.

"That picture of you and those girls ... and what they were doing to you ... that was disgusting."

What picture? Dazzling Daryl got out the box of slides and holding each one up to the light, squinting at them one by one until the offending picture came into view. There it is ... a dark haired soldier, with a rocker haircut, trousers down around his ankles and two bar girls on their knees, one each side of him, tying a pink bow around his penis and giving it a little kiss.

The light dawned. People were always saying how much Woody and Dixie looked alike. On the first leave Dixie had taken the photo of Woody with his bar girls in the middle of the bar ... it seemed so funny at the time. It was just one of those things that Woody did. He had forgotten all about it.

"Mum. That's not me ... that's Woody"

"Daryl I know my own son ... that is you in that filthy picture and I don't want to talk about it again".

Well that was that ... Woody and his penchant for bar girls had sunk Dixie and there was no point arguing with Mum any longer. Dixie just took the rest of the film down to the chemist and got them developed ... hoping like hell that there weren't any more photos of Woody that were going to get him into trouble.