Records show that September 4, 1977, was an ordinary spring day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and someone was drinking the real thing. Historically speaking, the hippy movement was close to dead because all those peace lovin’ youths found out that there were consequences to the ‘free love’ experiment: KIDS! And that’s exactly what Mr and Mrs Dobson faced at the maternity ward of the St George Hospital at Kogarah, when not one, but two KIDS came out into the real world. The first one arrived at 11:03 pm, the second just 11 minutes later. After many suggestions, Mr and Mrs Dobson passed on naming them Kane and Abel, preferring the less kosher names of Paul and Greg. And thus was born one of the greatest twin combinations since Arnold Schwarznegger and Danny Devito.

Paul’s early childhood got off to a flying start when at the age of two months he could say “ma ma” and “da da”. At the age of three months, while watching the then young Jim Waley on a Sunday morning TV program, he shocked his parents by speaking his first fluent words of English: “tax reform”. Greg on the other hand excelled in other areas. His love for lego was well known, and he’d spend hours building new and wonderful developments. There was no doubt that here were two people who would not be confused about what jobs they wanted to do when they were older.

Due to poor research, their primary and early secondary years are illusive. I suppose we can always take guesses at things like who cried on opening day of primary school - from my memories of them on opening day of year eleven at St Mary’s, you can assume that both of them did. I think Greg was the first I came to know properly. You see, in yr 11, we had a maths teacher called Mr Wagner, who was a Paul Davies look alike... so much so, that even Paul can’t tell the difference. Anyway, Wagner’s seating arrangements had me sitting next to Greg. As Mr Wagner soldiered on trying to show us the proofs to compound interest and trigonometric functions, Greg and I had countless 50 minute discussions and hundreds of lifesaver pepomints. I came to learn a lot about him and also about his brother Paul, who Greg always spoke of with awe.

Knowing Paul personally came about not only in Economics and Legal Studies classes but during school breaks where the group would gather to talk about the sort of things any 16 yr old would have on his mind....... politics and school work. Paul may have seemed like “the quiet one”, but soon enough I came to know that this was part of a devious plan to gain higher marks in class. Once the HSC was over, reports came in from Schoolies Week indicating that some people overheard him talking to the sand and the sea at Great Keppel Island. Paul reckons that this was not because he had a bit too much to drink, just that he was admiring God’s wonderful work.

At home, the brothers have a normal family life. Like any normal twins, they have little competitions between themselves. One of these is an ongoing contest as to who has the largest mini-alcohol collection. Greg leads the tally and some would say the reason for this is because Paul has trouble keeping them closed. Whenever Greg and Paul decide to take part in Monopoly, there always has to be a third umpire throughout due to almost violent accusations of cheating and fighting and over who is the banker. Apart from these little contests, you can tell that Greg and Paul get on really well and have hardly any arguments.

To conclude: I’d just like to pass on my best wishes to the two. All of us here have had the pleasure of knowing them. I have known them for over five years, and it’s amazing that in spite of being in different unis that I still see them and get asked to make speeches that are supposed to be funny. In Lebanon when someone has a birthday they say: hope you live past 100 years. I suppose we should also do the same. So, cheers to the two Dobsons. No doubt, we’re all looking forward to their hundredth at the local nursing home.

Delivered 5 September at Grand Hotel, Sydney by Dominic Moawad. See you all in 2077.