“When we stripped the bark from trees to make shoes for the bush trek, we shod each other first. In my case it was an early experience of the selflessness that defines good friends,” writes columnist ANTONIO DI DIO as he continues his short history of kindness. 

1985 was just a funny old year: Saints won everything except the grand final, Wham made us wear “Choose Life” tops while desperately trying to look like inanimate Ken dolls, and every girl in Sydney was in a uniform of red jumper over white shirt and blue jeans. 

Honestly, it was the best year ever. I’d arrived in the Big City, met a dozen awesome new friends, and learned an exciting new lifestyle involving really smart mates behaving with relentless stupidity. 

As those first months passed, I grew in confidence enough to be an infuriating bugger, especially to my long-suffering girlfriend, who eventually left the country to live with someone rational, but also to the more senior students. 

The seniors exacted their revenge halfway through each year in a charming tradition where first-year students would be auctioned off to the highest bidder and then, in pairs or threes, the winners would take their frightened freshers and deposit them hundreds of kilometres away in some bushland. With a packet of chips and a 20 cent coin – that sort of thing. 

The trick, as if one was needed, was that you’d generally be paired with someone you did not know, or preferably disliked, for the purposes of “bonding”. More like cruelty but that was the gist.

Well, my turn came and I fetched a good price on account of being a loathsome little oik, and found myself in a trio. Good news. Fifty per cent higher probability of having one of us hide a credit card behind our eyeballs or something clever. 

We were taken to prepare, involving our new clothes (puerile – funny to Benny Hill) and footwear (nil) and very many hours later via car back seat blindfolded torture from a single endlessly repeated Violent Femmes tape, arrived at The End Of Civilisation. 

My companions were the Lion (long-haired Lankan leg spinner) and the Ward-rob (north-shore fashion icon, so named as he had up to four different shirts and a Johnny Farnham haircut that made him look like Michael J Fox’s mum). Also we were encumbered with Ward-rob’s beloved fridge. 

This small white good encumbrance would, we thought, be a challenge for hitchhiking. Like three drunken idiots in paisley dresses in 1985 needed an encumbrance to attracting a homophobic truckie.

The thing is, it was cold, then hot, then scary, then exhausting, then dark and cold again, and so on. We got threatened with assault 500 times. We hid, and ran and were startled like rabbits. We got home safely two days later, and ate our own body weight in Newtown Maccas cheeseburgers, and two of us never ever drive past Dapto train station without thinking of our PTSD patients. 

The bigger thing is, when we stripped the bark from trees to make shoes for the bush trek, we shod each other first. In my case it was an early experience of the selflessness that defines good friends.

Years later I took our mate Clubbie on the Dumb tradition. Being me, I left my lights on, my battery went flat, and my victims had to jump start the car. And then Clubbie drove back and gave me back my car instead of leaving me there, knowing that I could not tolerate the embarrassment if he’d shafted me. You learn a lot from beautiful humans. I still do every day.

The Lion and I are still good mates, and still buddies with the dozen idiots and our daily WhatsApp abuse with the same jokes developing a sweet patina of age around them. 

I knew I was soft – a spoiled single child from a sheltered home – but every time something like that happened to me I could only feel joy and thanks – as I do every day still – at the opportunity life gives you to learn what really matters. 

Birdy Bob, Butch Andy and Kingo could do a jug in 11 seconds, Ticka and Adam could pass left or right in a heartbeat, Micky D and Club could do anything, Baz’s smile made the world turn, Jim and Gus could talk to girls, Kev could bat! The list went on. 

But the Lion went barefoot for hours so I could walk. That was something else. At that stage of life I was still wondering if no one but family would ever really give a damn. Well adversity – even stupid uni adversity – is a great way to give and learn kindness. I use it every day. 

Antonio Di Dio is a local GP, medical leader, and nerd. There is more of his “Kindness” on citynews.com.au