In good old Mullumbimby, there have always been many long-timers who displayed a critical thinker’s aura.
Without speaking, you know that they know what you know, and the respect is mutual.
Even though many have passed and many have faded into the puzzle, they remain in my memory, captured in a sad smile or the victory nod that always stayed with them.
What makes a critical thinker?
While wandering through the back streets of Southeast Asia some time ago, I met a man. He was Australian, he was my age, and after the general hellos, we realised that we had trod much the same path; he was a critical thinker.
When I mentioned that I had asthma, he told me his story of why he was who he was. It was like meeting a long-lost friend.
I don’t know his name and will not seek him out, for his life is solely his own, but he holds a special place in my memory.
His story went like this. He said: ‘When I was eight years old, I woke up with a raging asthma attack. It was three o’clock in the morning. I woke my father, he got me into the car and drove me to the hospital. This was in the 1950s.’
‘We were going down Parramatta Road when we came to a new set of traffic lights. The lights turned red, and we stopped.
‘There was absolutely no vehicle, or any living thing whatsoever in sight in any direction, but my father waited for the full sequence of lights and did not drive off until ours turned green. That’s when I knew I was on my own’.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
