Column Chronicles: Riff Shattersmith and the song of Toowoomba

Riff Shattersmith and the song of Toowoomba

Frank Cotolo
April 13, 2022

Anywhere I go on Earth, I, Riff Shattersmith, have become part of unexpected adventures. These are testimonies to such events.

I was in Australia one summer, at least it was summer on that part of the world, and a strange woman invited me to a picnic in Brisbane. It sounded pleasant so even though I did not know her I accepted.

"Why don't we drive there?" she said.

I agreed but I thought she meant she would drive there when she said why don't we drive there but she meant I should drive there in her car. Anyway, I agreed and asked her how to get there. She gave me a map that she drew on the back of a grocery store bag and I followed it for a hundred miles.

"I don't see any signs that indicate I'm driving in the right direction," I said.

"Why would there be signs indicating we're driving to the capital of Queensland?" she said. "You can't miss the capital, it's where there are the most people and I favor to think that's why they made it the capital so follow the map and shut up."

I couldn't help but wonder why she wanted me to be with her on a picnic so I asked her and she said she lied about the picnic; what she really wanted was for me and her to rob a bank in Brisbane. I told her I was not a robber and she said I looked like one and I said I did not but she insisted and when showed me the guns she kept under the seats of the car I stopped the car and got out of it.

"I'm not going," I said.

She began to cry and say, "Lord, why won't any man I pick up rob a bank with me during an Australian summer?"

When I began to walk away in the direction from which we came she shouted for me to run for my life and I heard gunshots and began to run. She fired all of the bullets in all of the guns she hid under the seats of the car and did not hit me. I saw a sign that read: TOOWOOMBA, 100 KILOMETRES. I ran to Toowoomba, which had such a musical sound to it that I wrote a song called "Too Toowooba For Me," which became Toowomba's official song.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.