Sometimes it's a friendly wave. Sometimes a kiss is blown. And sometimes it's a singular digit constituting reply.
Back in the good old days there camped on the eastern outskirts of Alice Springs an old dear by the name of Olive Pink. Today if you visit you will find a nature park there named in her honour. Miss Pink, for showering arrangements, had a six foot hessian screen enclosing the shower, open to the sky.
She was something of an anthropologist, a friend of Daisy Bates in fact. One of her fortes was the writing of letters, often of long and detailed complaint. She planted many trees on her patch, which she named individually after various politicians and other public luminaries. Many were the letters she wrote to these people, threatening to no longer water them if they did not mend their ways.
On several occasions she was prompted to write stinging letters to Eddie Connellan, the managing director of Connellan Airways. The burden of her complaint was that his pilots often seemed to know when she was having a shower, for they would fly low over her. And wave. And sometimes come round again for they were nothing better than a bunch of depraved, privileged voyeurs.
At the forthcoming reunion in Alice of those who worked and flew under the 'Populate of Perish' banner of the late EJ, a glass or two will be raised in salute to the unforgettable Miss Pink.