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!
Maybe next time, to speed me up I’ll shave my legs?
~~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!
Obertauern in Austria and I’m learning to ski. The paraat Austrian ski instructor is earnestly telling us to “snor-plau, snor-plau” but we’ve been “snor-plauing” for an hour and we only have two days to ski! This won’t do, so I head off for the ski-lift.
“Oy, where are you going?” shouts herr instructor. I point ‘up there.’ “But you can’t even snor-plau!” he exclaims, him being used to things being done as they should be done. He’s right, of course, but there’s the matter of the two days (less this hour we’ve already wasted).
I discover that when you hop off the ski-lift gravity does not take a short break to allow you to get your bearings, so my first descent is backwards standing up for twenty metres, then backwards lying down for a few hundred metres, then various undignified ways until I lose a ski which then gives a bit of traction, so I can dig one boot in the snow and stop.
So I can then retrieve the other ski and get back to the ski-lift and start again.
After a while I work out a good system: Down at full speed at an angle across the slope till I cannon into the deep drift on the side. Then back across the slope to the other side, till ditto. Zig-Zag I go, accumulating more snow with each crash so I look like a huge semi-human snowball. It’s abominable, but it is more fun than snor plau.
Too much snow accumulates on the corduroy trousers, so I decide to try another way: Straight down the slope to dodge the deep drifts.
Well . . .
Whistling along at terminal velocity I notice that there’s nothing to stop one at the bottom (which I haven’t reached till now, having been on my face long before the bottom). Below the ski-lift start, the slope simply ends against a building. Said building houses a below-ground restaurant where people can sit and eat while looking up the slope at eye-level.
Approaching the restaurant window at speed I close my eyes and lie back and hear a smack as my skis go through the grill under the window and protrude right into the restaurant above an occupied table where some sane guests (who can probably snor-plau) are eating. Some of our group, notably Volke – the CEO of Aitch’s company, our host on the trip, whose brother owns the restaurant, which is why we’re here – come up to me and pour gluwein down my throat and laugh at me, refusing to help me up or out of my skis. I’m soaked through my corduroys and cotton shirt under my anorak and my ankles are breaking, but do they care, as they laugh and take pictures?
I hang up my skis when I’m finally freed. Call it a day with limbs intact. One’s constitution can only stand so much fun.
– first-time skiing – corduroy pants, half a lesson, no brakes! –– Aitch bundled up –
~~~oo0oo~~~
snor-plau – snow plough, I suppose – I never did learn to do it. Even after skiing again in Lesotho: Still no brakes.
Hey Dad! What’s that in the pool!? shouts Jess this morning. It’s a mole, swimming rather desperately, gulping for air every so often, head underwater between. I rush for the poolnet and get him onto the lawn where he starts burrowing under the grass right away.
Well saved, Jessie!
golden mole
Remember: Golden moles: Tiny teeth, eat insects & worms;
Mole rats: Big external teeth, eat plants;
Don’t harm either of them. Allow them in your gardens. Please. Your lawn or garden need NOT be ‘perfect’. In fact ‘perfect’ gardens are a sure sign of cruelty. Again: Perfectly neat gardens are a sure sign of cruelty. And pollution. And poison.
Four year old TomTom got burnt. Boiling water. It was my fault. We were in our kitchen in our new home and I switched a stoveplate on to high, put an empty pot on and later added water! Mistake!
I rushed him to Westville private hospital. Where they didn’t talk to him; they didn’t look at him. Please help, he’s been burnt with boiling water! I said. Is he on medical aid? You need to pay a deposit. The doctor was reluctant to even get started. I had to snarl and tell them he’s my son and he’s on my medical aid before they give him attention. A very poor show. Damned disgraceful, actually. If he wasn’t, what would they have done? Told him to piss off!? A hurt four year-old!!? Shame on them.
But we all know private medicine in South Africa is “World-Class”, right? American-class, maybe.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Another time our friend Minneapolis hurt her leg, she thought she actually heard it break as she turned on it playing netball. She has no medical aid, no insurance. I got a call, a plea for help. I drove to Westville Girls High School and took her to King George government hospital – now King Dinizulu. They immediately put her on a wheelchair and talked to her, sympathised and re-assured her. Then off to x-ray her, bandage her, give her medicine and THEN they asked for R20 admin fee if we could pay. A good show.
But we all know state medicine in South Africa is “Third World”, right? We all know you CAN’T go to a state hospital!
~~~oo0oo~~~
Other times, another two hospitals:
Aitch goes to Parklands private hospital. Small op, two nights. They give her a fierce infection. I see it happen. A nurse is putting up a drip. She’s battling. Another nurse comes in, wheeling a trolley. Seeing the first one battling, she drops the trolley and joins in, helps put up the drip in Aitch’s arm. Nowhere have hands been washed. Aitch ends up in hospital six nights instead of two. Dose after dose of intravenous antibiotics finally control the raging infection. The UNNECESSARY infection. So the hospital got punished for their poor cleanliness, right? No, they made thousands and thousands of Rands of extra profit thanks to it. Maybe the nurses were given a percentage of the extra profit?
But we all know private medicine in South Africa is “World-Class”, right? American-class, maybe.
~~~oo0oo~~~
I take Aitch’s dear ole Dad Neil to Mshiyeni government hospital with a broken hip. He’s 88yrs-old. They check him in at 11pm at night. They wheel him around, x-ray him; I see him to his ward and go home. The next day they operate, then intensive care him, put him in the ward and look after him. No sign of infection. I check his hip every day. It stays cool and clean. The senior orthopod gives me his personal cell number. ‘Phone anytime,’ he says.
When I do phone him with a question, he says ‘I’ll discuss with the prof and phone you back.’ He does. Once I sms him and he sms’ back: ‘I’m in a conference in JHB today, but I’ll get the other surgeon to look at Mr Humphrey and he’ll contact you.’ He does. They charge him nothing. He has paid for it the fifty years he paid taxes. THAT’s how it should work.
But we all know state medicine in South Africa is “Third World”, right? We all know you CAN’T go to a state hospital!
~~~oo0oo~~~
I think: Westville and Parklands hospitals’ people should spend a day at King George and Mshiyeni hospitals. Especially their accountants and profit-sharing directors – and some of their shareholders – should spend a day in real South African hospitals. And learn. Maybe learn to spend less on Marketing and Public Relations, plush carpets and artwork on the walls – and more on infection control and human care.
Showering one-year-old Tom in my arms in the ablutions at FlatDogs camp in Zambia I must have squeezed him a bit too hard, as he shot out of my arms like a slippery bar of soap and landed flat on his back on the tiled shower floor!
Waaah! he squawked when he got his breath back after a deadly-silent second! What’s wrong? call Aitch and Jessie from the ladies section next door (separated from us by a thin reed wall). YIKES!! I picked him up hurriedly and spent the next few hours watching him intently. He was fine, thank goodness! a sueto continua! (the holiday continues!)
Much safer to hang our own shower in a tree on a sandy floor! (also in Zambia).
Two versions of “pace” on this morning’s school run:
Tom – Dad, I PACED him (telling how he had run around some hapless defender on the rugby field).
Faatima – I have to learn to PASTE myself when running (telling how she runs with her 18-Comrades-medals Dad).
Got caught again this year (2012). TomTom came through early Sunday morning and said “Dad, Flaky died!” Flaky: Original name for his snaky – an American corn snake.
I said “NO! What happened?”
“April fool, Dad!! – and happy birthday”.
OK, I said grabbing him and tickling the blighter.
I encouraged Jess to shoot some videos with her 2011 xmas-prezzie Canon camcorder. Set it up on the tripod, showed her how and said “Go for it, girl. Get footage of Black Sambucca the lazy labrador, or birds in the birdbath. Experiment!”
Over lunch I press her: “Let’s see what you‘ve done”. Much giggling and No Dad!, but I insist on looking.
Loud sounds of International Love by girlfriend-beater Chris Brown and Pitbull, with Jess dancing joyously to the beat dressed in her hiphop best.
One day sunny and windless outdoor fun, including wading in the Mooi River;
The next a howling gale and chilly rain coming in at an angle; Forced to snuggle in the chalets, kids in one chalet watching DVD’s and eating biltong, potato crisps and sweets; Adults in the other drinking red wine, eating red meat and dark chocolate;
Solved the world’s problems, and I would patent those thoughts if I could remember them.
TomTom was after yet another new must-have: A Hero factory something-or-other. The Wizard, or Rocka or something.
No. – “Aw, Pleeez Dad”. – No – too expensive.
Withdrawing for a while, he decides pleading isn’t working, gotta try a new tactic: Strolling up to me, he grabs me around the shoulder and lays his head against mine.
“Let’s just get this thing behind us, Dad” he says, like man-to-man, “Face your fears”.
Played football in Apache Oklahoma in ’73 for the Apache Warriors. The coaches did their best to bring this African up to speed on the rules and objectives of gridiron. We played two pre-season warm-up games followed by five league games. And lost all seven encounters!
Myself I was kinda lost on the field, what without me specs! So here’s me: Myopically peering between the bars of the unfamiliar helmet at the glare of the night-time spotlights! Hello-o! Occasionally forgetting that I could be tackled or blocked even if the ball was way on the other side of the field! Ooof! Hey, what was that for?
At that point I thought: Five more weeks in America, five more games in the season, football practice four days a week, game nights on Fridays. I wanted out! There was so much I still wanted to do in Oklahoma and in preparing for the trip home. I went up to Coach Rick Hulett with trepidation and told him I wanted to quit football. Well, he wasn’t pleased, but he was gracious. We were a small team and needed every available man, how would they manage without me?
By winning every single one of the last remaining five games, that’s how!!
Coach Hulett won the Most Improved Coach Award and the team ended up with one of their best seasons for years!
– amazingly, Coach Hulett could manage without me! –
I like to think the turnaround was in some small way helped by the way I cheered my former team-mates on from the sideline at the remaining Friday night games! Ahem . . .
Before you listen to any music, girls, outside for some exercise. Off the couch! Moan, grumble, whinge. Not a one of them wants to do anything remotely strenuous. Nothing that would make them glow. ‘Cos as we know, ‘horses sweat, gentlemen perspire and ladies just glow.’
Aw, Dad! But they start. All three are very happy to suggest tough burpees and squats to the others, but DO them? Aikona! So we have three sadistic teenage instructors and three reluctant teenage instructees (giving a total of three girls).
Once they finally get going they love it and do some enthusiastic bop n jive, raising a good sweat and much laughter.
I skipped rugby in matric. Then I played one season of high school football in Oklahoma. When I got to Johannesburg I was ready to play rugby again, but as there was little sport at the Wits Tech, friend Glen joined Wanderers club. He had a car, so I joined him and off we would go in his Gran’s green 1969-ish Toyota Corona 1600 NX 106 to the field in Corlett Drive for practice.
I doubt there were 30 players in u/21 so we made the B side – probably by default; Games I remember were Oostelikes; Strathvaal; Diggers; None of these guys were delicate flowers.
At Strathvaal near Potchefstroom we played and lost and I was removing my boots at the side of the field when a senior coach asked me to please fill in for the senior 3rds – they were short. The game had already started so I laced up and waited on the sideline for a gap. I ran on as a scrum formed and they got the ball. Moving up from inside centre I went to tackle my man – and was carried off on a stretcher.
Who knows what happened, but at about five or six seconds it was the shortest game of any kind I’ve ever played! Those miners were built like brick shithouses and liked them nothing more than some explosive contact! Here’s one of the more nimble Strathvaalians skopping daai bal:
LEGO ‘hero factory’ (you didn’t know?)
