OPINION: Gerry Forde finds that sometimes it's the simple things in life that get you.

OPINION: Beware the little comments from people that somehow stick, like the guy who asked of us: "You're not really using public transport in Los Angeles", writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: My resolution is to have as much fun as a child, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: It was the stifled scream that has echoed down the centuries, that a caveman would have heard from his cave wife and come running to fight off a sabre tooth tiger, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: She used the fork as a drum stick against the pot, to rake up the seeds I'd just planted, to brush the dog, to poke me in the bum, to splash in the dog's bowl and then went to stick it in her mouth, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: He was the Burt Munro of the greyhound track. Mervyn Eade drove the bunny and he drove the sport of greyhound racing in the south for almost three decades, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: Watch a two-year-old walk cross the room – they skip, twist, drop to the floor, wave their legs in the air. An adult walks across the room and every step is the same, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: It's scary!" said one of my Southland Spirit of a Nation student representatives chosen to be part of the historic Ranfurly Shield paradecorporal, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: Suddenly, the Good Woman was off to Aussie to see her friend Amy marry James, an army corporal, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: The Good Woman's birthday is fraught with danger, writes Gerry Forde this week.

OPINION: With one seat in the ute, I wondered who was going to sit beside Terry — me or school principal Kathryn O'Loughlin, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: We played a father-son challenge on a one-eighth-sized billiard table and he'd give me a start of 50, which dropped over the years until I could beat him from scratch, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander column.

OPINION: Capturing the spirit of Southland in a photo was simple — just use children at play, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: Take a tower crane on construction work at the courthouse, a friendship with Nick Hamlin, the project manager from Arrow International, and in no time I had a Southland flag flying in the breeze above the city, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

Can personality make up for size, asks Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: Which is harder: to read to a group of 260 children of all ages or to read to our two-year-old friend Rylee , asks Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: Every day of the week a book comes out on motivation but I can save you reading them by relating my personal story, entitled the loneliness of a long-distance runner who is a long distance behind the field, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: As a dad there's a fine line between trying to please and just being a try hard, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: Gerry Forde needs to know what sort of communication is required.

OPINION: Yes! I said punching my mate from Mataura on the shoulder, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

OPINION: Google suggests that good businesses are run by their customers and we should talk to real people first and last, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

Man-made elephants with ear-like wheels, a square, squat body and hissing trunks.

A wicked easterly was blowing off the Hokonuis, through our open gazebo and up my three-quarters while I called the end of the Moonshine Cycle race to a hypothermic crowd huddled in the food tent, holding their hotdogs for heat, and I wondered, does it matter what I do on this microphone, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

With a name like Forde, what was I doing in a Holden Super Car at Teretonga? Worse still, I drive a pushbike, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

Courage is "facing the thing we fear most", according to Eleanor Roosevelt, so I went in search of that thing, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander

The young girl was on a swing rope cruising clear of the water, the young fella was about a storey up on a ledge of rock, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.