Koala hitches a ride on a Golden, "as happy as Larry" - translation please for, as-happy-as-Larry" [View all]

My first brush with Aussies was in Vietnam when my LST down the big rivers would unload supplies - lots of pallets of concrete, Coca Cola, boots, Aqua Velva - at the Army base at Can Tho. We would be there three or more days and were allowed Liberty until 7 P.M., meaning beer at the base bar. The base also hosted personnel for some Rest & Recreation, mostly rest, coming in from the front lines. In our many trips of this sort, we encountered our allies, the Aussies, at the bar. It became a competition about who would take control of the bar, decided by who got there first, us or the Aussies. And this formed my first impression/stereotype of the Aussies, who, to begin with, all seemed to be 6' and rambunctious and exuberant, full of life and zest. And the cultural detail was, if the Americans took control, all the tables stayed where they were, all separate, and we would sit in little groups of 2, 3, or 4, separately. But if the Aussies decided, they would push the tables together in a long row or two, everybody together, and they would be *singing* drinking songs (think, "Waltzing Matilda" ) and swinging their drinks in time in the air.

And in years after, the couple or three Aussies I've encountered have been exhuberant and with joie de vivre. The ones in the movies - Crowe, Jackman, Blanchett, Ledger, Rod Taylor, et al. - all seemed to attract with an extra magnetism, then finding Oh-it's-an-Aussie to be the common thread. The dark difference was Errol FLYNN, whose nefariousness dominated his reputation, until my recent realization of Oh-it's-an-Aussie (gone bad).



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https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/man-hears-commotion-yard-finds-210349230.html

.... "Denni came running up to me with this on her back," Lamplough wrote in the post, which featured photos of the dog and the baby koala together, "Both as happy as Larry."

In the photos, Denni beams at the camera, while the baby koala hugs the back of its new friend's neck tightly from behind. From multiple angles, the baby koala appears unalarmed to be on the back of a large golden retriever, and almost seems comfortable gripping the dog.

Lamplough decided the best course of action was to gently remove the baby koala from his pup's back and place it in a nearby tree for the koala's mother to find later. Lamplough confirmed on Facebook that an adult koala came and collected the joey, and that no animals were hurt during the encounter between the dog and the koala. ....

"It was quite amazing to see," Lamplough said. "Especially when [Denni] was running and [the baby koala] was bobbing up and down like a jockey." ....

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