I spent five years in the ad business learning copywriting and
media and printing and design and finally I was an account executive
selling the American dream that had become Australia’s.
I felt a dark cloud descending. And as it thickened around me I
struggled to find a way to escape. I thought about inland Australia.
Mining companies paid well and life was rough in the desert. I
considered joining the army, something to initiate and toughen and help
me escape the malaise I felt. But the war in Vietnam was in the
headlines every day and Australians were dying in a distant land, that
made no sense and I quickly dropped the idea. And then, one day an old
school friend suggested Papua New Guinea.
We were having lunch at a pub in one of Melbourne’s leafy neighborhoods
when he told me about patrol officers, young men employed by the
Australian government taming the wilds of Papua New Guinea. Suddenly the
cloud lifted. I realized perhaps this was the answer - a way out -
overseas travel and adventure all paid for by the Australian government.
I loved the bush. I relished the idea of working outside, traveling far
away from “Tip Top Bread/ As the baker said/ It is especially fine/
Hurry to the shop/ There you’ll make a stop/ When you see the Tip Top
sign.” The banal and insidious nature of advertising was getting to me.