Took three 12yr-olds to the movies on Friday night. They asked me to disappear before they got spotted with me – ruin their reps, I would.
So I wander off to my man cave substitute, Exclusive Books and wait, surplus to requirements.
They walk in bright-eyed a few hours later.
The movie? Oh, the MOVIE!? Ja, it was good. They’re bursting to talk, but they’d probably arranged “Don’t say nothing”< and I get non-commital grunts.
It couldn’t last. There were GIRLS! Some not even from their school, and some taller than them! They sat near these chicks and in front of them and spoke to them and they took the sweets the boys offered them! And it was a 16 movie, that’s why they needed me away before they bought tickets. But it’s fine, they let them in no problem.
Oh boy . .
Tomaldinho! I was seeing dollars sign$ I was going to sign him up with Amazulu in Durban – No Dad!! PSG in Paris!! Oh. My bad. I need new boots, Dad! Lime green ones.
– Soccer Tom – ‘It was nothing chaps! I do this every day!’ – about to be mobbed after scoring –
But then suddenly it was rugby. RUGBY Dad! I need new boots. You can’t play rugby in soccer boots, Dad! I’m a rugger player now!
Photogiraffing? It’s hard to photograph giraffe in Ithala Game Reserve when you have a Jack-in-the-Box popping up in the jeep right in front of your lens every time you’re ready to depress the shutter. And then the laughter gives camera shake.
After she had showed the Barnard heart transplant file to the class, Jessie’s teacher said “Didn’t your Mom also sail yachts, Jess?” (she knew, and was drawing my Jess out of her shyness).
Back home she comes and says “They want to know if Mom really sailed a yacht”.
So another album gets dusted off and the tale of the three yachts is told:
– 36ft fibreglass Danné from Cape Town – St Helena – Brazil – Caribbean;
– 85ft aluminium hull, wooden deck Chrismi II as a charter yacht in the Caribbean;
– 60ft wooden sailing ketch Drumbeat to Bahamas – Bermuda – Azores – France.
Aitch the navigator – like an ancient mariner, with chronometer, charts and sextant.
Jessie’s grade 10 class had Dr Chris Barnard and Heart Transplants as a subject last week.
When she told me I asked, ‘Did you tell them your Mama worked with him?’ Actually, no she hadn’t. She vaguely knew Mom had done it, but wasn’t confident enough to step forward. My shy Jess.
So out with Aitch’s old albums of her working next to the old sleazy charmer, still quite young back before 1983 (when he retired). She says he tried his luck to get her to go out with him one night, as he apparently did with all the nubiles on the team.
And there in the pics was Aitch in theatre greens and mask: The cardio-vascular perfusionist operating the heart-lung machine – ‘the oxygenator’ – that kept the patient alive once the blood circulation had been diverted away from their own heart and lungs. And there was the famous cad watching. And there was a heart in a jar.
– The Prof and The Mom –
Off to school went the album the next day and Jess was the focus of much attention and oohing and aahing. Which she loved.
I didn’t need the pillows. Once I had the red coat, flimsy red pants and gumboots on I looked round enough to fit the bill. Steve Angelos had asked: “Pete will you be Father Christmas? The kids all know me, but you’ll be able to fool them”.
He was right. I was about fifteen years older and fifteen kilograms more substantial. It was a no-brainer as to who would be the more incognito Santa.
Earlier that year I had balked at going to another service at the Methylated Spirits. “I can’t stand another droning monotone of mournful half-hearted song where half a hall of ancient whiteys mumbles All Things Bright and Beautiful as a dirge”, I said to me dearly beloved. Well, unlike me, Aitch was Action Woman, so the very next Sunday we were in a school hall (a CATHOLIC school hall, did she know what she was doing to me!?) with cheerful people of all ages and all shades of mahogany and beige singing heartily while clapping and dancing. I swear, I must have really loved that woman.
Now it was the Christmas Party and there I was, red hat with cotton wool pom-pom, cotton wool beard, gumboots on in an African sub-tropical December, a black garbage bag full of gaily-wrapped presents slung over my shoulder. Bracing myself (where’s the gin bottle when you need it?), I stomped into the hall full of kids engrossed in the distraction provided to draw their attention away from the door and boomed out, “Ho Ho Ho! Where are all the Good Children?” I had their attention instantly and they approached me excitedly from across the hall, “Father Christmas!” cried some, so I let out another “Ho Ho Ho!” upon which Jessie shouted out with complete certainty: “THAT’S MY DAD!!”
~~oo0oo~~
And the lies! The LIES! Me, I’d have said “Of course there’s no Santa guys, use your noodles, who is more likely to give all the children around the world a present? Their parents, or some mythical fat bloke who whizzes around the globe in a heartbeat, dashing down chimneys he’s too fat to fit into? Hello-o!”
But the hawk eyes were upon me, and under her fierce gaze and hissed “Don’t you DARE!”, I lied like my feet stink: ‘Santa had a lot of other calls to make so he asked me to do this party; He parked his sleigh here, on the hockey field; The reindeer didn’t make marks because they stayed up in the air, even the sleigh hovered;’
‘Santa uses a lot of helpers like me – eg. in shopping malls; No, the man you had your photo taken with . . . . what did Mom say? Well, then he was the real Santa that time;’
Lies and more lies to my own children who really wanted to know, and who trusted me. Shit, I HATED that. Very soon after this I negotiated a new deal: I won’t spill the beans, but nor will I lie to them.
That was a bit better: ‘Lots of people say there’s a Santa, I don’t think there is; Yes, they say you have to be good for him, but my advice is rather be good for your Ma n Pa just to hedge your bets; Be kind to your Dad, maybe its HIM what puts the presents under the tree; Be kind to Mom. She has a lot more say in your life than Father Christmas, rather work with her;’
Bloody hell!! Now Aitch is gone, and they’re 16 and 12 and don’t believe in that bladdy myth – nor any other bladdy myths – any more, thank goodness.
Here’s your muti Tom, I say. He has already snuggled into bed. You need to remember to take it yourself, fella. “It’s open to scientific debate, Dad” says my sleepy open-minded critic. True boy, that’s why we see if it helps you. As long as you benefit from it we give it, if it stops helping you we stop giving it. (I’m chuffed that my “Question everything” lessons seem to be working!). “Do I take it for the rest of my life?” Well, that’ll be up to you. Once you’re on your own you’ll make your own decisions. I won’t be involved. “Oh. Night night Daddy. Love you”.
Car spotting and car bragging is a (very) competitive sport at Tom’s school. Every day I hear tales of Ferraris and Range Rovers taking kids to school and the sad lament of what the isikoroskoro we drive means to his standing. We usually park far from the school (I let him walk the last few hundred metres) but yesterday I parked right outside the gate and poor Tom got bust: His mates spotted the Ford Ranger double cab. Worse: It’s only 4X2. This morning we parked far away again as he told me they ragged him mercilessly. “We saw your Dad’s Bhugatti, Thomas!” they said with great delight.
the wish – reality
– – – – – – 883Kw 103Kw
Ah well, he has inflicted pain, he has to learn to take pain.
Its a sudden decision: Let’s go to a game reserve Dad! – that’s Jess on Friday night.
OK! (I’m chuffed!). I’m working tomorrow, so you guys buy food and gather the camping stuff. Be ready when I get home at 2:30pm and we’ll go to Mkhuze. Remember the tent, mattresses, pillows, your swimming cozzies.
Cecelia helps them. Minenhle & Andile join us. As we head north to Zululand I realise we’ll be cutting it fine. The gates close at 7pm and it’s 3:30pm already, so there’s a change of plan: We’ll go to Hluhluwe/Mfolosi instead. Means no camping and no swimming.
At the gate the usual story: A pessimistic Ooh, you haven’t booked? Mpila is full. The bushcamps are full.
Keep trying, I say cheerfully. Oh! OK, I’ll try Hilltop camp. Just then the kids walk into the office and he gets interested in me and the kids, asking all sorts of adoption questions and Where’s my wife? and Is she a Zulu lady? and so tries harder when there’s no reply on the radio. Will you phone them on your cellphone? he asks me. Sure. We get thru, there’s a chalet available, we book and head off on what turns into a free night drive!
Tom spots an elephant running towards the road ahead of us, ears flapping. I slow down and it turns onto the tar road and walks determinedly towards us, causing great panic on the back seat. We reverse and wait, reverse and wait, giving him plenty of space, till he eventually finds a mud wallow, drinks and heads off into the bush, allowing us to proceed. It’s dark now and later on two more eles loiter on the road and we just wait patiently, watching them in our headlights. All the kids have watched the videos of the elephant flipping the car, so they’re nervous and don’t want to go anywhere near eles. A look at the video will show how many warnings the people in the car ignored.
– stupid human video –
At Hilltop they’re waiting for us, they give us our key and bring us an extra set of bedding and towels for the fifth body. Bleeding luxury for us were-going-to-be campers.
– girls in their element – NOT camping –
AND the big breakfast buffet in the restaurant is included.
The dawn chorus the next morning was fantastic. In that magic spell between pre-dawn and the screaming banshees waking up I made a cup of coffee and sat out on the deck listening in the half light. As the kids started waking two trumpeter hornbills landed in full view and the kids got a good look at them through my telescope. I issued a decree banning all post-5000BCE music and they just nodded, acquiescent (!). So birdsong was it.
Like, if I was on an island in the Okavango Delta sipping champagne out of cellphone reach and you can’t ask me for advice or money?* Then read this . . . Love – I love you guys more than you’ll ever know. And I’m very very proud of you and so very very pleased I am lucky enough to have you as my children. Kind – Be kind. Especially to the poor, meek and timid. Help – Where you can. Help yourself, be kind to yourself (and hard on yourself as far as getting things done) but also help others wherever you can. It feels good, and it’s rewarding. Do it for you – When you help people, don’t expect a reward; When you greet people, don’t expect a reply; Do it for you. Work – When you’re at work, work. Work honestly and deliver. If you’re unhappy, don’t leave. Plan first. When you have your alternative ready, leave on your own terms, without rancour. If no alternative pans out, and where you are is really bad, then leave anyway, and work honestly and deliver on the next job. When you’re unemployed, you still have a job: Finding your next job. Work hard at finding it: Plan, prepare, talk to people, work at it. Religion – Look into all religions. Understand their origins and the holes they were meant to fill. Know that we know far more now than they did then (even as recently as the 1950’s when L Ron Hubbard started his religion (called Scientology – hidden behind the recruiting front called Dianetics); Hell, we even know more now than in 2005 when Bobby Henderson started one of the kinder, more rational religions, The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Learn about how many Gods there are (hundreds) and what each one of their followers believe. Take the time to really understand religion. And when you have carefully worked out why people dismiss all gods other than their own, you will start to see how ALL gods have actually been created by humans. In their own likeness. To fill a need.
If learning about the world and how it works doesn’t satisfy your need for “why are we here”, and you feel you need to be a something, then become a Humanist. Read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism – and when you have time to read slowly and read over & over, read here: http://infidels.org/library/modern/fred_edwords/humanism.html – its just 8 pages, well worth reading and re-reading.
Even better, DO something: Become a scout leader, a coach or a dance teacher.
Teach – Be a teacher. Even if you don’t become a teacher, still be a teacher in your life. Right near you there are children who need guidance and support and fun. If you have a car and they don’t, just take them to the beach once a month. Or take them fishing with you. Teach them how to attach a hook and cast. Teach them how to use a computer. Or to play a game. COMMIT to once a month. Laugh – Laugh lots. Laugh with people, not at people. Be scientific – Require evidence. When someone asks you to trust them, ask them to do you the courtesy of giving you proof, evidence, a link – or at least their statement in writing, signed by them (a lot of strong adamant statements evaporate – or at least dilute – when asked for in writing). “Trust me” is used by too many dishonest people to trust it. Look for evidence. And always get a receipt (remember my mantra “slip and change”!?)
Love again – Love people. Love them. Be gentle with them. Sure they can irritate you and frustrate you, but they’re great, all in all. Mom – Mom loved you fiercely. She loved you with her whole heart – and was awfully proud of you. Same as me.
.
Oscar Wilde said: Advice is great stuff – in the giving . . . .
Tom’s headmaster committed suicide. At the school. He was found by a caretaker. It has rattled my two profoundly.
Aitch had befriended Eugene when his wife was also suffering from cancer, and then more so when she died, about two years before Aitch died. They were in a home bible study class with the Methodist dominee Ian Howarth.
Tom & Jess both asked me “What would happen if you died, Dad?” and Jess asked me “Dad, would you ever commit suicide?”
Shit! shitshitshit!
I have told them how much I love them and all about what I have arranged for the house and live-in care and so on, and also re-assured them no way I would do myself in. We had some good chats.
What a bliksem. Eugene was a more mature man than many of the teachers at Tom’s school, and a steadying hand. I fear Tom will catch more flak at school for a while.
A long Day Offstretched ahead of me. My schedule looked like this:
.
.
.
.
Bliss!
“Oh, I booked you for an assessment at the gym at 6am” says my Aitch.
GYM? My shadow never darkens the door of any gym! She knows that! “Calm down, it’s with Tanya the biokineticist and it’s for Vitality points,” Aitch instructs me patiently. “And I told you about it,” she reminds me.
Hmph! That rattled me. But, Oh well, thank goodness it’s early, the rest of the day will be just me and chilling.
Aitch is taking Tom the younger to school and doing his class reading, so I suggest we meet for breakfast before her chemo, making my second appointment for the day. My day off is filling up.
At the gym Tanya worked my case with pushups and crunchies and other forms of torture – which seem like nothing compared to when she starts measuring me.
“It’s OK, just put 75kg” I said for weight. “No I must measure” she says, hauling out the scale from under the torture bed. It was unfair, as she didn’t have one of these scales, where you can read your own weight . .
She had one of those where you can’t see them way down under the folds . . so I had to take her word for my weight and her word was “92,8kg” – said ominously. Oh.
“99cm” I say as she approaches me with a tape measure (knowing that over 100 classifies one as obese in this freaky anal gym-world environment.).
“106” she deadpans. I clearly hear the implied “Jy’s obese, ou bees.“
But she’s very sweet in the end, telling me I’m absolutely perfect and supremely healthy if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m fat and unfit. I squeak into the bottomest of the “acceptable” rating. Up from “fair” six months ago (which is the last time I did any bending or pushing). Aitch will get her bonus Vitality points. Phew! Tanya gives me a list of stuff I must eat (crunchy and fruity) and stuff I must avoid (succulent and tasty).
I get home and Jess the older is waiting to be taken to school.
At breakfast with Aitch at Oscar’s on the Berea, I get prrring prrring (actually I got Reelin’ and Rockin’ as Jessie has changed my ringtone). “Why aren’t you at the clinic?” A mad scramble for St Mary’s hospital at Marianhill ensues, gotta stop at home to pull on some long pants – How was I to know? I’m on leave! (OK, if I’d read my sms earlier . . . ). As I shovel a last mouthful of Oscar’s kipper into my beak, Aitch shoves a list into my hand.
So now my day looks like this:
6.00am Torture and Humiliation
7.10am Jess to school
8.00am Breakfast with Aitch
8.30am Eye Clinic volunteer duty
(arrived 9.20am – could get fired – yeah, right!)
1.30pm Fetch Jess from school
2.30pm Fetch Tom from soccer
3.30pm Take Jessie to swimming
4.30pm Fetch Jess from swimming
5.00pm Take Tom to cub scouts
7pm Fetch Tom from cubs
Jessie asked nicely to skip swimming. I said FINE. Tommy immediately said “Great, so I’m skipping cubs.” No way. It was the AGM and all the cubs were in full uniform. My fella had all his kit on and looked really spiff. So much so that his bare feet almost didn’t seem to matter. Except to Akela.
– my man –
Bliksem! Tomorrow I’m going to have a day of rest. By going to work. This ‘Being Like a Mom’ lark is exhausting.
While we’re packing for a camping trip to Mkhuze the vervet monkeys sneak into the kitchen and grab the fresh peanuts. The peanuts grown by Thulisiwe just north of Jozini on the Makathini Flats, which she then roasts over an open fire and salts herself. Tobias brings us some whenever he goes home.
Tom spots them on the roof, spilling the nuts as they chomp them, the spilt ones rolling down the tiles into the gutter. Hey! he shouts and remonstrates and fulminates! Tom and the monkeys, not a good relationship despite all my lectures (because of?).
After a while I tell him Relax m’boy, its OK for the monkeys to have the nuts. We left them in the open, their job is to glean and gather, so that’s that.
But he doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t like them. I think its because he’s a bit scared of them, so I ask him:
TomTom, how big do you think the monkeys are, fella? How much do they weigh?
About 90kg, he guesses. Guess again. First, how much do you weigh?
45kg And the monkeys?
15kg?
I ask Tom not to wee over the edge of the patio, but rather to go into the garden, find a shrub and wee discreetly behind it. More than once I ask him. Yes Dad, he says, shaking off the last drops.
Early one morning as the sun rises I watch the feathered parade in the old dead avocado tree. I’m going to miss that tree when it finally platzes. Already I’ve sawn off the big branch overhanging the driveway as it was full of bracket fungus and ready to dent someone’s car. I have planted a Natal Mahogany underneath to succeed it one day.
The white-eared barbets fluff themselves up in the early rays and two black-collared barbets land and go through a spirited two-puddly (or “Scottburgh”) duet. A group of purple-crested touracos bound across the branches, an olive thrush peeps and lands, as does a female violet-backed starling, a brownhooded kingfisher, a forktailed drongo and a speckled mousebird, all using the tall bare branches as a waypost or a sunning spot.
I’m busting for a leak but I don’t want to miss anything. I don’t want to go inside and I don’t want to disturb the birds by going off the patio, so I discreetly have a leak over the edge of the patio outside Tom’s bedroom window. It’s early. I’m sure he’s still sleeping.
But he spots me and I know I’ve blown my credibility.
I feel I need to explain, so at breakfast I tell him about the wonderful dawn display and not wanting to disturb the birds. He nods.
Not too long after that morning there’s Tom, weeing over the edge of the patio in full view. I bite my tongue. I know what’s coming. Dad, he says mock-solemnly, I didn’t want to disturb the birds.
I never really learnt to be circumspect. I tend to blurt. So what would you like to do now your second chemo spell is over, Aitch? We’d gone snorkelling at Mabibi on the Zululand coast after the first. A six hour drive in a 4X4.
Where? The Great Barrier Reef? But that’s in Oz, m’dear! You do? Um, what I meant to ask was: What, reasonably-speaking, would you like to do?
So I scurried off to do my homework. Costs, flight times, travel time to the reefs, what we could afford. With trepidation I showed her two alternatives: The Great Barrier Reef in Oz vs Madagascar, where we would live aboard a yacht, plopping overboard to snorkel whenever we wanted to.
Phew! She chose Madagascar – and LOVED Madagascar. “My BEST holiday ever!” she enthused afterwards.
We shared the boat with a delightful English couple, Dickie and Claire, with their two blonde girls Sonja and Natasha. Easygoing and relaxed, it was a blissful getaway. They were chilled and accommodating, and so were we. The crew, too, were wonderful folk, friendly, capable, and good chefs! Skipper Bert, chef ___ and teenage deckhand ‘Mowgli,’ who fascinated our Jessie.
It was Aitch, so homework was still done, naps were still taken, routines were kept as far as possible:
I tried. Well, I made a less-than-worthy attempt. My heart wasn’t in the training. I thought, if you live on the route, you gotta have a go. If you live in KwaZulu, you’ll always be asked, Have You Done It? But I could never quite see the glamour or ‘worthiness’ of shuffling furtively round the dark streets long before sunrise. Anyway I thought, Give It A Go. I even tried the flaming hot running shorts Phil Greenberg gave me in the hopes I’d speed up a bit.
Running broeks Phil Greenberg gave me in my crazy running daze
I joined a club – maybe that’s where I went wrong? I joined Westville with their red & white hoops ‘caterpillar’ outfit whereas historically I was more suited to be a black-&-white Savage with a Zulu shield, knobkierie and spear on my chest. Years before, I had been a Savage. Running Number 451, so maybe I should have stuck to that? Westville gave me number 159738b or something – I don’t think they valued me like Savages did. That probably put me off my stride a bit.
Anyway, I shuffled and I shuffled and I ran a lot of races. 10km, 15km, half marathons and two 42km marathons.
Here’s an example of a ‘short’ training run in windy, hilly Westville, starting at our home. We took turns hosting our short runs at our homes, with tea n cake served afterwards. This is the run I worked out for the training team:
Walk up River Drive
R into Elvira
R into Rockdale across highway bridge
R Severn – down
L Mersey
L Rockdale – UP for 500m !!
Back all along Rockdale
R Tweed – Done 4km at this point
L Thames – down
R Conway – down
L Constance Cawston – UP & UP
L Somerset – UP & UP (becomes Frank)
L Cochrane (becomes Cleveland – UP) – 6,5km
L Rockdale
R Rockdale (that’s right, Rockdale again !)
R Broadway – UP
L Neville – 8,6km
L Westbrook – down, then UP
L Harrison – UP
L Springvale
R Lawrence
R River – 11,5km
Then eventually the big day arrived and I hadn’t arranged anything so I took myself off to Maritzburg to my folks. Early the next morning my Mom dropped me off at the start – long before sunrise. More dark streets – but now with crowds of lunatics milling around the red brick city hall.
Some guy crowed like a rooster and a gun went off in the dark and nothing happened. Minutes later still nothing had happened. The chatter of the would-be runners had changed to an excited murmur but nothing else had changed. Eventually we started shuffling at a slow walk, then a very slow pace, slower even than my training pace, and some long time later we crossed the START line. The START line! I was tired already! I think I was in Batch ZZZZ.
That’s when I started thinking fu-uck! and I’m afraid that thought didn’t really leave me all day. I knew my pace was slow by the people around me: None of the runners looked like young skinny blonde Wits students, nor like Russians – and if they did look African they looked larger and rounder than me. Also, the few spectators about weren’t saying ‘Well Done!’ or ‘Go! Guys!‘ NO, Instead they were saying Move Along! in a rather critical, nagging tone of voice, I thought, Why’s no-one saying, ‘You’re looking good!? Weird that.
This was confirmed when I passed under a banner that said ‘HALFWAY’ – Half way meant I only had 3km (Plus a Marathon) to go. Springbok rugby captain Wynand Claassen recklessly shot off a gun which left gunpowder residue on my scarlet Westville Running Club shorts. Well, if that wasn’t a pointed ‘Move Your Arse’ hint! Who the hell did he think he was? He had run the race but he’d never won the race, his father had.
En route I caught up with a few long-lost friends: Jacques-Herman du Plessis from Harrismith days; Rheinie Fritsch from army days. Also Aitch and 5yr-old Jessie and 1yr-old Tommy met me in Botha’s Hill for a family reunion. They were all a bit cool though, a bit offish, I thought: Because after a while of enjoying standing and chatting to them, they all said, ‘Haven’t you got something to do today?‘ and sent me on my way. Bugger off, Koos! they said.
So I shuffled and I shuffled and then my spirits rose at a sudden thought! I started to think maybe there had been a collective coming to their senses, as there were no other runners around nor any spectators. Maybe I had got the wrong day? Or maybe everyone had just gone home to a hot bath and a cold beer?
But no, the spectators returned in Westville. Trouble is, they were all packing up their deckchairs. And so the slow torture continued. Shuffle, shuffle. Suddenly a few cops jumped in front of me holding reflective tape as I shuffled under the N3 below 45th Cutting, just before the onramp (usually an offramp) onto the Berea Road section of the N3 into town.
Go Home, they said, We need this road for tomorrow’s traffic. You’ve had eleven hours, they said, and you’ve only done 82km. Where have you BEEN?
So I went home to a hot bath and a cold beer. Look, about this heading: Actually, you can call me Comrade, I’d love that, but only in a liberation sense, not in a shuffling sense. Who knew they only give you a medal for the last 7km? The first 82km are completely ignored!
~~oo0oo~~
So now I’m also guilty of this: “How do you know if someone has run a marathon?”
“They’ll tell you.”
~~oo0oo~~
The guys in my pics are Dave Williams, Kingfisher and Savages mate; and Dave Lowe, Westville runner; Both have done OVER FORTY Comrades – 41 and 42 respectively to be precise. That is Seriously Certifiable! I told Dave ‘Jesus’ (when he had a beard) ‘John Cleese’ (when he shaved) Williams just the other night at Ernie’s wake “You know you can stop now, right?” and he said No, I failed to finish last year for the first time ever, so this year I have to repeat my 42nd Comrades. Bleedin’ ‘ell!
– reality 
