Vale Graham George ‘Cookie’ Cook – Melbourne’s Head Mech

13 December 1958 – 10 January 2021

Gee Gee, Cookie, or Graham George; the name you knew him by dated when you fell under his spell. To others, it’s when you came into his life, or when he came in to save yours. The Master Of Second Chances, he’d been given so many growing up, the one he gave you was his way of undoing his wrong.  By making it right, you got the benefit from his big heart. Because of his street instincts and his smarts, he’d throw up his hands to say “Trust me, I got this. The kid’s got some good things to offer. He brings a lot of bad things from along the way so old and deep the weight of them would drag him down by the shoulders.”

He fended of his attacker with a joke. He could make a laugh out of nothing at the drop of hat. When you reminisce down the track you laugh still as hard, but the belly aches from laughter hurt even more now you’re older. There’s so many laughing-out-louds, you forget the funniest.

The best one of mine is The Princess Theatre Stage Lift. A no-no after the half- hour call. But it’s only 24 minutes to Beginners and we have to be up in the Proscenium by then. So taking it to the top to be near the Stars is the logic behind your bending of your mantras. You get in with your mentor because you feel safe by his side, but by then it’s too late. The unexpected attack while the rats run into your jolted, numbed mind become a giant leap back where the push and shove struggles are pushed down deep into the ‘can’t deal with’ area because the next laugh is coming now. Cookie pressed the alarm bell for help twice but only enough to make it go DING DING, and then plunged us all completely into darkness. He started to swing his fists around faster and faster ‘til they’d connect. A barrage of punches were flying blindly, as were the laughs, the ooos, then the bigger laughs, until a random floor punched in the darkness opens and delivers all the belly aches, happy tears, and one giant “SHHHOOOOSH!” from an ASM to jolt you back into Show Mode. That’s the Cookie I remember

137 were his quaddie numbers, and in my as is everyone’s eras, they were shit and never won for him. Well, not in my timeline anyways. Those that know me will always back me on this red hot tip; I couldn’t tip a sick girl off a dunny seat. But I’m tipping and putting the house on it; 137 never ever won in yours either. Did he care or listen? He saw it, and boy did he hear about it every week, but he never ever gave up on hope, nor on the 137 that had been there his entire life. 

I hope he now finds his peace knowing that he never gave up on hope. His only reason was to live, love and to protect, and that also bought him death, hurt, and hate. But that is the full circle of life. You pick the bits that are the most memorable and important to you. Cookie knew well the consequences of mixing just the right amount of stretched boundaries with ‘not broken but bent’. It was always just enough to strengthen his reasoning for the lesson. He would never push you the wrong way, but he wouldn’t stop you when chose the wrong path either. He allowed you to see for yourself and make your own mind up. When it became too hard to do that, the logical way he stepped in, pointing you in the right direction, was all because he had made so many moves back in the right direction after taking so many wrong turns and hitting roadblocks.

The bumper sticker on his Holden Wagon said it all

GET IN

SIT DOWN

SHUT UP

HOLD ON

137 says it all about Cookie. Now you can see what else they really mean, and what his name was to you. You can now see more dots connected, and how much closer we really are to each other because of him. Here’s my start from all the scattered, jumbled stories I’ve heard over and over a 15-day straight period that has made me confused, tired, and very old.

13 – day of birth. 3 + 7 = 10 day of death

1 – love is unconditional, Nana Cook his favourite

No. 1 love Kay, always and unconditional

3 – most important reason for Hope – Kay, Dale, Dean

7 – Gordo, Enid, Lynette, David, Barbara, Graham, and Jenny

Full circle it goes around, only you can see when it’s time to stop spinning. But by then it’s too late. Put your hand out and you will see it won’t destroy all the problems, and will only clear some of the little ones away. But it’s a start able to be taken and ends is when it ends. Only you know what’s right, but the others will know what’s best.