– life – bokdrols of wisdom –
‘She’s got the key of the door; Never been ninety one before . .’
The lovely ladies at Azania gave Mom a special cake and a rousing song.
Maybe due to austerity measures each candle used has to represent thutty years. Also due to fire regulations, maybe? And ‘part thereof’ probably doesn’t count: you have to turn 120 before you get a fourth candle.
When I found them they were huddled together like Vaalies on a beach. Oh, wait! They WERE Vaalies on a beach. I should have taken a picture of Brauer’s beach outfit: A double-padded fluffy anorak. Sort of a Tshwane Tshpeedo. And a hoed.
We soon scurried off the dreaded sand in search of lunch. In their defence, it was blowing a gale. I kindly took them on a guided tour of – what place was it? – and then speedily straight to Canelands overlooking ve beach.
Back at the cottage:
Their cottage overlooked the beach from on high and despite being grandkid-infested, was very pleasant except for the absence of beer.
Perched high on a cliff, it puzzled me. I thought I remembered our cottage back in 1980 as being right on the beach . .
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
. . and then I remembered: It was Blythedale Beach in 1980. Not Sheffield . .
Sat, Feb 12, 2011(Newser) – An asteroid all but buzzed Earth on Friday, NASA has revealed. The asteroid, known as 2011 CQ1, passed just 3,405 miles above the Earth’s surface as it hung a sharp turn around the planet. That’s the closest near-miss ever recorded, beating a record set by a rock in 2004 by a few hundred miles. The asteroid was just a meter wide, small enough that Earth’s gravity would affect its course, in this case bending its path 60 degrees. Not that there was any real danger if the asteroid had veered into Earth’s atmosphere . . OK, they’re starting to talk nonsense so we’ll cut them off there.
Me: Brings to mind the heroics on Blythedale Beach when we single-handedly (the other hand was holding cheap liquor) fended off the comet which was threatening planet Earth at the time. Whether it was the coleanders and coriander and spatulas or the alcohol fumes from our breath that caused it to veer away is a moot point: Bottom line is it BALEKA’d and the planet was saved.
Funny how little credit we have got for that over the years. Maybe we fell asleep at the medal awards ceremony . .
Steve reed wrote: Jees – I had [almost] forgotten that heroic weekend. I now recall the collander, and making do with some pretty substandard alcohol [probably not a GREAT wine as in 4 Hillside]. Also I recall some of us may have slept on the beach. Bulletproof days. Was that Filly with us as well as her friend whom I remember clearly was from Marandellas in Zim. Wait! A flashback:
‘Comet – it makes your breath small clean;
Comet – it tastes like gliserine.. ‘
Of iets. Not sure that I want to remember too much more…
Me: So many flashbacks! Maybe as the brain cells die, those old pickled ones gain more prominence? Maybe the flashes are vitreous detachments? Surreal. The sales jingle for comet continues:
‘Comet! It makes you vomit
So take some Comet
and vomit
Today . . ‘
Hooligans. I was innocent. I fell amongst thieves . .
But its all true. You can check the 1980 newspapers: How many comets hit Blythedale beach that year? NONE. Not one.
OK, so our comet – probably 8P/Tuttle 1980XIII – may have been further away at 37,821,000km, but it was 4500m in size, not a puny 1m rock. So it’s still a good thing we were out there all night shaking our fists at it, daring it to approach.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
The next day the weather improved, so I claimed some credit: ‘Did you get the good weather I prayed for for you guys?’
Brauer: You clearly have a more direct line then this bunch of unbelievers.
The sun shone down on them. Smiling grandkids, happy windloos days. Actually I hadn’t actually prayed. I pulled some strings. As St Peter I have connections, so I called on the Roman god Venti and the Egyptian god Amun about the wind. Together, they delivered. Bacchus was unable to help with the wine situation.
This trip was notable for the worst lunch ever: Jess usually makes a great lunch. Fresh rolls, butter, mayonnaise, freshly-sliced tomatoes, ham, cheese, lekker. This time she had plastic-y dry garage shop rolls, viennas – and chicken viennas at that – and tomato sauce. Ugh! She has undertaken to work with me in raising the standard.
As soon as she has stopped laughing.
~o0o~
Mom Mary has constipation. Don’t tell everyone, but it’s just a fact and it’s not funny. I even put a bomb up and nothing happened. You know, Granny Bland used to get constipation and now here I am getting it. A mere seventy years later you can be struck with a family ailment out of the blue. Obviously hereditary.
Rose is the matron at the home and she loves Mary. Both nursing sisters, they get on famously and appreciate each other’s wit.
I told Rose I had constipation. This morning she came to me and said “Have you been to the toilet yet?” I said no, and she said, “You know, Mary Poppins, you’re full of shit.”
~~oo0oo~~
Jess picked the flowers, Tom did the braai. We had chops, ribs and wors with garlic bread, plus some fried beans and mushrooms. I had beer and vino. We raised a glass to Mom!
Oh, I do love this! When you do careful examination of DNA you find out where animals – and all living things – fit in the Tree of Life. You’ll also find the old tree we learnt with ‘humans’ proudly at the top as the crowning glory, was done before we knew much about DNA.
And it is sometimes very surprising. For example, when Charles Sibley and Jon Ahlquist started classifying birds according to their genetic code, they found this bird on the right:
. . is more closely related to an Australian crow than it is to the bird on the left! They look and behave the same due to convergent evolution. Same with the next two: Look the same; only distantly related in the bird world:
So for decades and centuries ornithologists knew the two birds were related as they had the same beaks and the same habits, so you can imagine some of them were none too pleased to be told in 1988 by relative newbies that what they thought – heck, what they ‘knew’ – was wrong!
Just like zoologists had known for a long time that mammals in Australia had evolved to fit various niches. These two are more closely related to each other than they are to dogs or squirrels:
And so we come to the even more recent discovery: That cockroaches are crustaceans.
Not only should we eat insects as a better way of producing protein, we should charge higher prices for them! The menu at my new restaurant will feature in future – Cockroach Thermidor SQ
——-ooo000ooo——-
The sixth week of our honeymoon in 1988 was an eagerly awaited visit to good friend Larry Wingert. He’d been a Rotary exchange student to Harrismith in South Africa back in 1969-1970.
We flew out of Lawton Oklahoma to Dallas/Fort Worth, on to Little Rock, to Cincinatti and on to our destination: Akron, Ohio. Friday 8 April. Larry’s friend Dave “Zee” picked us up at the airport, took us to his condominium and fed us. The first meal of what turned out to be a major good food week! Later, Larry fetched us in his Subaru – our third all-wheel drive vehicle this trip, and this one free! – and took us to his beautiful old home on North Portage Path. At home it was all wine, one woman and song, with Aitch and Larry bashing the piano and asking me to please stop singing.
On our arrival in the States some weeks before, we received a letter saying “Please accept these portraits of old American Presidents and USE this plastic card!” Various denomination dollar bills and a credit card for gas (or petrol)! How’s that for a wedding present!? In Larry We Trusted!
I love the canoeing connection with his home: North Portage Path is an 8000 year old path along which native Americans portaged their canoes from the Cuyahoga river out of lake Erie, across a mere eight miles to the Tuscarawas River from where it flows into the Muskingum river, then into the Ohio and on to the Mississippi. Thus they could paddle from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Of Mexico with only one eight mile portage, something any Dusi paddler would do without a second thought! The amazing thing: You can still paddle from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico today, unbroken except for one short section – and while trudging along that section you could pop in to Larry’s place for tea. Or ‘tea’! America’s waterways are astonishing.
Larry indulged us lavishly. There was no tea. Only the good stuff. He indulged Aitch’s joy in shopping, especially deli shopping at the best places. And Larry knows his delis!
Followed by a big cook-up at home . .
. . and music with the two of them on the piano, shoving me aside and asking me to please stop singing!
Then he took us to parks and nature resorts for me to indulge in my birding passion. When he wasn’t able to join us, he handed over the keys to his all-wheel-drive Subaru. Above and beyond . . One morning we visited Cuyahoga River State Park quarry area. Our favourite bird in Ohio was probably the Northern Flicker.
Afterwards we went shopping at another rather special deli – its obvious Larry is GOOD at this! For supper he cooked us some great steaks on his portable barbeque outside his kitchen door. We ate like kings. After supper there was music with the two of them on the piano, shoving me aside and asking me to please stop singing!
A visit to Kendall Lake; Later to Cleveland’s Old Arcade Centre and a look at Lake Erie. Supper at a French restaurant on Larry; He had already spoiled us generously, now this.
Suitably fortified, we moved back home to liquers and piano and song! No tea. By this time my good friend and my good wife had formed an excellent working and jolling relationship. They shoved me aside and asked me to please stop singing. To bed at 2am, rising at 5.30am;
~~~oo0oo~~~
The honeymoon album has been recorded here, and the big old paper album tossed out:
Off to Boston 13 April 1988. In consultation with Larry, we decided Cape Cod was next . . .
~~~oo0oo~~~
Egg, bacon, toast, tomato, black coffee and binoculars. Thanks, Cecelia!
The flying ants were trying to pair up and scurry off and mate after shrugging off their wings. It’s a short life, they’ve been underground, this is their one shot at a shag! But everyone else also loves a flying ant, so their life is vrot with danger.
So the ants were nabbing them. The ants, in turn were being robbed by the birds and a skink. They’d grab the juicy termite, flick hard, separating the ant, then peck up and gobble down the termite. Termites taste like butter, ants taste like acid. That’s where antacid comes from.
Indoors there was also some wildlife to be seen:
Made me late for work!
More this week:
~~oo0oo~~
vrot – fraught; or rotten
Westville Kookaburra – Brown-hooded Kingfisher
Westville Pterodactyl – Hadeda Ibis; or Mike Lello’s ‘tenor clarinet – he who never pays attention to the conductor and plays with great volume and gusto’
Mom was on furlough from the home – Azalea Gardens. Sheila fetched her and Barbara, Linda, Tholo and the two terrors Mary-Kate and Dawie and I joined them at 16 Ivy Road in Lincoln Meade, Pietermaritzburg.
What a lovely day – a great lunch, fun with the kids and ending with a surprise: ancient movies from our youth taken in the sixties with Dad’s 8mm movie camera. Sheila had arranged and paid for hours of old footage to be put on a memory stick! Dad says he had a small Canon movie camera first; I only remember his Eumig camera.
As we were leaving Tholo spotted a birds nest right above the car door with two little chicks begging, and showed Mary-Kate.
After everyone left I waited till I could spot the mother: a Cape White Eye.
——-ooo000ooo——-
See the top pic: When the old man moved out of earshot – which means six inches away – Linda murmured to me sotto voce, ‘Here’s the man always telling others to get dressed early mornings: still in his jarmies at noon.’
Giving advice he’s good at.
——-ooo000ooo——-
Raksha Singh had a magnificent full Hindu wedding, and me and Jess were invited! I did a bit of homework as the only other one I’d attended was probably fifteen years ago:
Marriages are made in heaven. Once you are married, the bond is to last for seven lifetimes. Hindu weddings can be long, and various rituals may be held on different days. Every custom and practice in a wedding ceremony has deep philosophical and spiritual significance. Hindu traditions of marriage vary, but some form of them take place throughout the world.
Raksha and Pratish looked magnificent sitting on stage in the center of the mandap, or wedding altar. A fire burnt brightly in an altar in front of them. The bride’s brother gave her popcorn as a wish for his sister’s happy marriage. Each time, she offered the popcorn to the fire, an offering known as a homam. I kept thinking Don’t let her clothes catch fire! especially when they did The Seven Steps, getting nearer to the fire with each step!
The traditional white horse the groom would arrive on is more often a motorcar these days, and Pratish arrived in a very noble steed: A white Merc 6.3 AMG!
But Raksha trumped him! She arrived in a McLaren 650s – much to Tommy’s awe when I sent him this picture:
The food was delicious and plentiful and everyone was so welcoming and friendly. I had the lucky job of keeping five ladies company: Jess, Prenisha and Yandisa from work, Raksha’s colleagues; Prenisha in a Hindi outfit, Yandisa in a Xhosa outfit and Jess in a Dress! plus Seema and her daughter were also at our table. It really was an awesome day.
![Tom_Cooks_Jul2018_2[1]](https://i0.wp.com/bewilderbeast.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/tom_cooks_jul2018_21.jpg?resize=620%2C827&ssl=1)
On Wednesdays always something new. Tonight Porterhouse, mushroom, roast potato and um, something green if you squint. Cecelia had hers delivered to her room; Jess and I had personal service too. Mine delivered to my glass of rooiwyn.
Yum, Tom!
It has gone wimpish! Actually Oddballs Palm Island Luxury Lodge is still a wonderful, more affordable way to see the Okavango Delta and this post must be taken with a pinch of salt; My tongue is in my cheek;
This is classic “The Good Old Days Was Better” bulldust. As my friend Greg Bennett says, ‘The older we get the better we were.’
When WE went in 1993 (‘the olden daze’) we had to take our own food! And that ain’t easy when there’s a 10kg limit on the Cessna 206’s; because one naturally has to take binoculars, a spotting scope, a tripod, a camera and books:
I exaggerate, these were Jessie’s books for her field guide course last year, but still: weight. So we took very little food. At Oddballs we bought their last potatoes and onions in the supply store, and then we pitched our tent. Not like these wimpish days when the tent is semi-permanent, pitched for you on a wooden deck with shower en-suite!! Here’s THEN and NOW:
Here’s Aitch snoozing inside an old Oddballs Palm Island Luxury Lodge bedroom. And the wimpish new arrangement! Aargh!
Luckily, the rest is still the same! You head out on a mokoro with a guide who really knows his patch: Our guide was Thaba Kamanakao – Delta legend.
You pitch your own tent on an island without anyone else in sight:
And you enjoy true wilderness. When you get back, Oddballs really does seem like a Palm Island Luxury Lodge:
There’s a bar, there’s cold beer, gin and tonic and ice. You can order a meal! And – NOWADAYS! – a double bed is made up for you, ya bleedin’ wimps!
Go there NOW! It’s amazing . .
(you can also look here)
~~~oo0oo~~~
Jess having fun on her baking course with Maria of Sugar Me Sweet!
She has to buy some strange stuff! Gum paste, cornflour, chocolate chips and baking slabs, cake pop sticks, etc!
Breakfast at Badgers in Helen Joseph Road with Jess and two of her mates. A large greasy soulfood brekker on a windy Durban morning.
They gave me a present, too. The bill.
![20180617_111609[1]](https://i0.wp.com/bewilderbeast.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/20180617_1116091.jpg?resize=620%2C465&ssl=1)
Meanwhile, Tom and a mate had gone off to have a haircut in downtown. On their return they offered me their Fathers Day pressie: A large braai with them doing everything including the buying. All I had to do was pay.
I saw them get a bonfire blazing and some time later this evening a plate was marched in, loaded with beef short ribs and boerewors with a token vegetable teetering on the edge: a chicken wing, braai’d golden brown.
I shoulda taken a pic but I only remembered halfway through. Delicious! Washed down with Cardboardeaux – a 2018 vintage.
Jess also made a card:
![20180617_191622[1]](https://i0.wp.com/bewilderbeast.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/20180617_1916221.jpg?resize=620%2C827&ssl=1)
~~~oo0oo~~~
Back when I was seventeen or eighteen I became an American farmer – a certified Future Farmer of America and I can still hear how Mr. Schneeburger would say EFFIFFAY in Ag Shop class. In Ag-ricultural work-Shop I craftily constructed a rotating cattle feeder made of a 55gal drum, mounted on a wheelrim on an axle that would always turn away from the wind thanks to an angled weather vane on top. Thus keeping the cattle feed dry in all weather. Clever, hey!? Trouble was my birdshit welding. So it fell over in the first little breeze. Still, the thought was there and I was – maybe – on my way to greater things. Redemption? I have been found wanting as a farmer on more than one occasion.
I went to hog shows – where the winner wouldn’t be looking quite so pleased with himself if he read what his mistress had planned for him on her placard:
I planted peanuts in Fort Cobb – well, watched some Mexican fellas do it anyhow. I sprayed something on Jim’s lands. I drove in Walter & Pug Hrbacek’s – or was it Gene & Odie Mindemann’s? – airconditioned cab of their big combine harvester or tractor (yeah, a farmer should remember which it was!) with an eight-track tape sound system overhead. Remember them?
My farming career peaked when I took part in the big annual roundup, catching, de-horning, castrating, branding and inoculating the bull calves. I was pulled in to the gathering and closely watched to see if this boy from Africa knew anything. At all. Well, by then they actually knew I didn’t, but I was good for a laugh! When I first got to Apache the local cowboys asked me if I could help them round up 18 cows. The maths nerd in me answered, ‘Yes, of course. – That’s 20 cows.’ (actually, that’s a Jake Lambert joke, but not far off the truth!).
As the feverish activity took place I hovered around, just out of helpful range. Then we went home to wash up and joined up again to eat the produce and wash it down with beer. I was better at that. It was my first ‘mountain oyster fry’.
It was like this, but in Walter and Pug Hrbacek’s barn, not at a church, and not in Texas:
They’re delicious, and they smell good – unlike the smell of burning cowhide from the branding! – but I found them best fried and covered in batter. You don’t really want to see them, especially not raw. I only ate the well-battered ones. They also get better with each ice-cold beer!
Recently I found out they do it better in Montana where they add a competitive eating of bull balls, or “Rocky Mountain oysters” and they throw in women’s hot oil wrestling, a women’s wet-T-shirt event, and a men’s “big ball” competition – basically a men’s “wet thin white underwear show”. Sounds like fun, huh?!
They make good products too, good merchandise: One for an insecure man, and how useful is this one for a lady who has a dick of a boss? The Under-Desk Scrotum Stress Ball.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Lydia of London is what we called Jessie’s room-mate on her field guide course. It’s a year later now and Lydia is back in SA doing her Masters thesis on vultures and people, including sangomas and the muti trade.
So the girls decided to get together before Lydia heads off back to London. We spent a lovely day in the reserve, not uneventful! In fact we saw nine interesting stand-offs: Three avian, where pairs of red-capped robin-chats, camaroptera and bulbuls chased and challenged each other; three mammalian, where two bull rhinos, two bull buffalo and two bull giraffes sorted each other out like boys do – much huffing n puffing, little action; and one inter-species where a chameleon huffed at Lydia as she rescued it from becoming road-kill.
The eighth was a fraught Rhino vs Ford Ranger:
This old bull had been pummelled and bullied and gored by a bigger younger bull who marched him backwards for a couple hundred metres then took him into the bush where we couldn’t see them but could hear the grunting change to squealing, ending in this guy emerging bleeding. We then got between him and the aggressive one and I decided I’d better get past. Upon which this poor fella tucked his horn down and feinted at the vehicle as we scooted past. I think Lydia of London did frown at me somewhat, but I decided I couldn’t have an unseen victorious rhino in the bush on my left, so I decided to scoot past the losing rhino on my right.
On a more peaceful note, Jess made us a lovely lunch, we saw a finfoot in the river, and we organised a dozen vultures to do a special flypast for Lydia of London!
We also saw a rhino named Frank:
(Couldn’t resist! Got a pic of an ele with egrets with that caption on whatsapp and thought of this picture).
The ninth event was a champagne opening, where Lydia tried her best not to intervene as Jess struggled, miming in the background with great restraint. But eventually she just had to assist her old roommate.
~~oo0oo~~
