Word: desertion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...there, all right," said Hunter Ron Sells, insisting he had spotted a white girl running wild with a herd of kangaroos across the Nullarbor desert in southwestern Australia. "When she saw us, she watched us for a few minutes, and then she dashed off with the 'roos into the scrub...
Sells is not the only desert rat who claims to have observed this unusual bit of fauna. Rancher Graeme Campbell reports that the girl wears nothing but a sort of furry bikini. Bus Driver Bob Marshall swore that late one night he and his passengers spotted her wearing a brief skirt and a furry cloak. The passengers generously left some sandwiches and milk for her beside the road...
Word of the sightings spread across Australia, and in no time at all, the dusty hamlet of Eucla (pop. 8) was overrun by reporters and television crews in search of the desert nymph and her marsupial friends. Alas, they found not a single clue. Nor could anybody determine who the bikinied girl might be. An Adelaide man wondered if it could be his missing daughter, who had loved to hand-feed kangaroos near their former home. Steve Patupis, owner of Eucla's sole watering hole, the Amber Motel, suggested that "she" might be an itinerant Englishman who had disappeared...
...that time, two enterprising cameramen had managed to produce some pictures of a girl running with the kangaroos-and actually pulling their tails. Desert-wise oldtimers in the sun-parched Nullarbor, however, were not convinced. "Any bird go flitting around in the scrub here with nothing on," snorted one bushman, "would bloody soon burn off what's bobbing, I can tip you." Added Sheep Farmer Harvey Gurney: "The water holes are all dried up. She'd be burned to a crisp...
...impeccable dresser, he almost always wore a fresh orchid in his lapel; when visiting desert countries, he had the flowers shipped in daily. For a London party, he flew in a troupe of belly dancers from Turkey. Married three times and twice divorced, he remained childless. He had a superior attitude about good food and wine. The perfect number for dinner, he said, was two-himself and a headwaiter. In all he did, Gulbenkian remained a flamboyant refutation of the notion that the burden of having money dims the joy of living...