Dear editor,
Why would you live in Cobar? The town water is dirty (but our Mayor Lilliane is onto this) and the roads are rough (but currently being fixed).
It’s noisy from the highway, from mines blasting, from young blokes driving V8 Landcruisers.
And it’s hot, I mean real hot! Like record breaking hot, in the top 10 places in the world, Cobar gets two mentions!
It’s dusty. You’ve got to drive three hours or more for specialist medical care with kangaroos jumping out at the car down the highway.
Why would you live in Cobar? Because it’s the best bloody community in the country.
I have lived and worked in every capital city (expect for Hobart, it’s rubbish … just kidding, it’s nice).
So please allow me the professional arrogance to say this: Cobar is one of the single most amazing places I have lived in my near 40 years.
My family and I have lived here for five years and I’m excited that in 15 more, I can call myself a local without an Iron Ringer grabbing me by the collar.
I have been called many names in those five years, some good, others not. But I will not be called ungrateful. Not once, not ever.
My family and I are the recipients of such love and generosity that I struggle for the words to explain this properly. (Those of you who may know me will laugh at that.)
We almost lost our house when the stinking printer caught fire.
My wife had only just left the house with the kids and if not for Ben Bottom and Sarah Arthur, we would have no home to repair. (I wish I could dip these two in bronze and have them placed in Drummond Park as local heroes forever.) We are so blessed to have this family as our friends and neighbours.
All our belongings in the house have to be thrown out from fire and smoke damage.
Toys, clothes, beds, couches, everything electrical, the whole lot.
But nobody was hurt and that’s what counts.
We now have a house while ours is being repaired. Why? Because of CSA Mine.
We have a house full of furniture and food and toys and clothes. Why? Because of a whole bunch of wonderful people.
People have called and sent texts.
People gave money and time.
I am so humbled, so unbelievably grateful to live in this town, and to have these amazing people in our lives. To be supported in such a way that brings me to tears in quiet moments.
Country town life may not be for everyone, but it is for us.
Any community is only as good as what you put into it and I promise to put back into this place what it has given us and it has given us everything.
So why would you live in Cobar? Because I love it, it’s my home.
With eternal gratitude, Benny Hewlett
