Finska: Gary Korey
Gary Korey (or Corey as we have seen sometimes) first found fame as a world class athlete. He then left his country of origin under a political cloud, and made a new home here in Ballina, planning to share his experience, and inspire young hopefuls to compete in sporting events, both locally and wider afield.
You may have seen the Finska Mayor making regular appearances selling the Korey range of fitness equipment on a well known TV shopping channel. He also runs popular motivational workshops, and has written a number of favourably reviewed books, including his best seller ‘The 73 Hour day, How to Succeed At Everything.’
Needless to say, we were keen to meet this local legend, but things didn't go exactly to plan!
First, we wasted forty five minutes trying to disentangle the “Korey Patented Jaw Strengthener” which had been used to replace a broken hinge on the Ballina Files portacabin door. Myrtle was insisting that we take the device to Finska and have it signed by the man himself.
In the end we had to leave the contraption behind, but my sound recordist wasn’t happy about the decision.
The compromise agreed was that we would ask the Mayor to sign the ‘Walk Your Butt Younger With Gary Korey’ VHS tape, which had been wedged under our rattly office mini-fridge for several years.
‘I’m not even sure if it’s authentic,’ Myrtle wailed, ‘I don’t want to upset him with an illegal bootleg’.
Due to this distraction, we were already very late when we reached the turnoff to Finska, located at the newly built main road junction.
There we met another unwelcome obstacle.
ROAD CLOSED
The orange blinker lights around the sign seemed to taunt us.
We could see a dusty group of construction vehicles in the far distance, but no evidence of any work being carried out.
The diversionary route indicated turned out to be very congested, and by the time we finally reached Finska we were both desperate for a cup of something, but instead we pressed on to our agreed meeting venue, by now a full two hours behind schedule.
The sports complex in the centre of the new town was well used, but none of the crowd present knew where our interviewee might be. The phone signal was very intermittent, as it had been on the journey, and we were contemplating walking to the Mayor’s office on the other side of town, to see if anyone there could help us.
Just then, we were hailed by a very large man wearing a tracksuit, outside of which every inch of flesh was covered in multi-coloured tattoos.
‘Ballina Files?’ He asked, in a pronounced eastern European accent. We nodded, and he indicated we should follow him.
We were both somewhat wary of this strange looking character.
‘What if he is scheming to drag us off to be, you know, one of those working girls?’ , my colleague whispered anxiously.
I had my doubts if Myrtle and I were obvious candidates for this option, and besides, as we struggled to keep up with the extremely fit resident, he maintained a non-stop commentary on all the wonderful things achieved by his beloved Mayor, which knowledge would have required excessive research from someone with nefarious purposes.
After the very brisk walk which left us both panting, we spotted Gary Korey, perched half-way down a road embankment, staring into a coned off underpass.
‘It iss Kaputttt, yarr’, our tour guide pointed to broken tiles which had obviously fallen from the tunnel roof.
It was at this point that Myrtle panicked, realising that we had left the celebrity endorsed, butt lifting video back in the car, and she tried to drag me back to go and get it.
‘I’ve got nothing for him to autograph,’ she pleaded.
Mayor Korey must have thought we had changed our minds about the meeting, because at this point he shot out of his hole to greet us. So Myrtle had to stay to tape the interview, although she was quite agitated at this development.
We found the man to be charming, positive and full of enthusiasm in his plans for the town, and its inhabitants. It was only when topics of a more practical nature cropped up, such as newly built roads which had to be immediately closed for repair work, that he lost his trademark smile, and adopted a more distant, troubled look.
‘It will all be worth it,’ he said, ‘when we get youngsters, like Karl’s son here, into the national teams. He’s the best soccer player I have ever seen.’
Our newfound tattooed friend swelled with pride.
‘Best Mayor ever!’. He patted Korey so hard on the back that the politician nearly slid back down the road embankment.
At the end of an already long day, we endured another wearisome journey back to the office, reflecting that despite this, the Finska trip had been, overall, a good experience.
‘Sometimes it is ok to meet your heroes’, said Myrtle, getting out of the car rather stiffly after the extended drive, but still beaming with pleasure.
‘He sells a good hinge anyway’, she laughed, slamming shut the portacabin door with a satisfying rubbery twang, before grabbing the mugs to brew two long overdue cups of Ovaltine.
My colleague gazed down fondly at Korey’s signature, emblazoned on her forearm in green marker pen.
‘That will wipe off if you’re not careful,’ I suggested.
‘Oh no, I’m having it tattooed on permanently in the morning, as a souvenir,’ Myrtle smiled, ‘That Karl gave me the idea, he recommended the best places to go.’
I knew better than to argue with her. If Myrtle was about to do something foolish no amount of logic would dissuade her from her ambition, and if she was secretly winding me up, then I didn’t want to give my old friend the satisfaction of rising to the bait.
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