Alcohol can be dangerous.

Hello everyone , this is a story about the old Wonthaggi Apex club ,
old Curls is a life member of it,
unfortunately a few years back due to lack of interest and members the club was struggling and it eventually folded.

The Apex club did a large number of things over the years that it operated,
to raise money and to help the community.
I remember lots of them like working catering at the local motorbike scramble track ,
Paper drive collecting and loading it all on dads semi trailer at
Donmix Powerhouse  depot.
The building of the Moonya centre .
The classic Powlett river raftrace.
Equestrian marshalling at Yankawinna stud farm.
Pole sitting on the poppet head in Apex  park .
I also remember the Apex club entering the Moomba birdman rally at the Yarra river .
Also the purchase and renovation of Mitchell house , named after the Mitchell family in their honour ,
they were active members and had a tragic road accident.
It was originally the stationmasters house for the railway .

Apex did many great things around our community and also they did lots of in house social club events also.

One such event is actually burnt hard into my memory ,
it was held at a members family farm at the Mouth of the Powlett river .
I think i was around 8 years old at the time and It was a nice sunny spring afternoon, there were only a few kids at the event and mostly adults all gathered around in the shed.
They were all catching up having a beer until the minute that the cork was then pulled on a big wooden wine keg that was full of red claret.
Now that was about when my mum had to go somewhere and she then left dad in charge for the afternoon.

Soon the wine was flowing freely into green bottles and being calked  just like a production line .
The boys were now mostly switching over to the red wine  from beer ,
There were open bottles of wine on the table and because I had previously drank small amounts of wine at home at family dinners i had an idea .

My little sister and I decided we might just have a glass of wine because we could, so we both went into the shed and we got a seven ounce glass each of red wine .

My sister was smart and she stopped at one glass but i was a glutton for punishment as I then managed to down a few more that my sister had kindly went and refilled for me.
I started to get dizzy and feel funny and it was now time for a tractor carryall hay ride .

That didn’t go too well for me as i was drunk as I had lost my balance function nearly completely by then and I fell off onto the dirt at speed face first onto the dirt track at a fair pace.

After the tractor ride my sister got  me another  glass , and I then drank that ,
I felt sick  and dizzy and I must have been so drunk by then that I completely and blacked out as I cant remember anything more except waking up crying , vomiting and very drunk, back at  home .
Mum ran me a hot bath and  told me to get in .
I was that drunk I fell into the bath with all of my clothes on .
I was still crying .
I was left hungover and  quiet for two more days to recover.

Mum got stuck into dad for being irresponsible and not watching us kids .

I couldn’t stand the thought or the smell of red wine at all for  years and years , it made me dry reach , until one day I chopped up a heap of wood for my nona nona and she sat me down and poured me out half a glass of claret and  half a glass of lemonade,
it was so nice ,
and refreshing
After that I found that I could now drink red wine again ,

But now when i drink it I have it in moderation.

Cheerrs xxx
Curlyg