Psuedo

I grew up here from a small child having moved from Gympie in 1973. That was when Caboolture produced its own dairy products and the river was green, there was no Esme Street because that was the paddock where the cows roamed, train's were not electric, not air conditioned and men gave up their seat for a lady. The police station, still where it is today, was only a two man station. Carmody's pub was across the road where that god awful council building is now. It should have been heritage listed but the council, so I'm told, forgot to renew their liquor licence and, I guess, money talks. Morayfield Road was beautifully untouched with bush along either side with the only shops being where Pat and Margaret Nicholls had the local corner store where the carpark is to Anaconda, down there at the intersection with Caboolture River Road. The local butcher was on the diagonal corner, across the road from Morayfield Primary School where the picture framer is now and the local veterinarian had acerage about where Martin Jonkers is. This was when your neighbours looked out for you or took care of things for you if you weren't there, like take your laundry off the clothes line and brought it in if it started raining and had very much the live and let live type of congeniality. Yes, you knew your neighbours. Neighbours actually got along, cut each other a bit of slack and spoke to one another, nicley, hard to believe I know, sorted things out over a beer and a gentleman's handshake meant something. It meant honesty and integrity and honor.

This town started to go down hill when the prison was built out at Woodford and, well, the incarcerated needed somewhere for their families to live. Soon the mates follow because deals are still done in prison and old mate still wants things taken care off while he is on the inside. Contempt breeds comtempt, and so the shallow gene pool flooded over, in a course of time. This sleepy, innocent town just got a wake up.

MacDonalds arrived in Morayfield Road about 1986 and, let's face it, a company/franchise like MacDonalds doesn't go anywhere where it can't make money. Now there are 5 of them.

There were only two places - Caboolture was north of the bridge and Morayfield was south of the bridge. Easy peasy!! The arrogance of developers who like to see their name in mortar have created many more little places. Which brings me to another point, asthetically, this town/s is very unappealing to the eye. Nothing like advertsing a 'small' area as 'affordable' (aka cheap/housing commission) high density living and not have the infrastructure to support it.... oh, but then this justifies knocking down more trees and flattening more bushland, the homes of many native wildlife (I wonder if they understand that koalas are territorial) to widen roads. Mmmmm, pockets filled with dollars, they stand back and admire their handy work as I bend down to check for a joey from yet another doe (kangaroo) killed with a head injury from a vehicle because it struggled to find the land it once knew.

There are nowhere near enough police to patrol an area that covers Caboolture, Morayfield, Upper Caboolture, Bellmere, Burpengary, Narangba, the highway, Bribie Island, Elimbah, Toorbul, Donnybrook, Wamuran, Woodford, Kilcoy and Moore and everything in between. Crime is on the increase and coppers are doing the best they can but it still isn't good enough to a population who doesn't understand and is flooded with biased media.

Sure I reminisce. I understand that growth occurrs and is inevitable but this town/s could have been so much more than what it has become.