Met old school chum Fluff in Bloemfontein for coffee. We were in pre-school together at Kathy Putterill’s home, went on to the local sandstone Kleinspan school, then the local sandstone Volkskool down the road, all the way to matric up in the yucky modern brick high school on the hill below Platberg. Meantime also Sunday School in the old local sandstone Methylated Spirits church. Also quite often sport on Saturdays – rugby, tennis and cricket for him to shine and me to get ducks for balance – and jolling weekends and after hours, so me n Fluffy shared much of our childhood.
Great chat over coffee, gentleman Fluffy very kind and considerate towards my Jessie; followed by an ussie taken by Fluff (see above) – he remembers to actually take pictures. I too often remember afterwards!
Driving south-west out of Bloem towards the Groot Gariep river, there’s a beep on my phone and there was the image, sent by Fluffy.
I showed it to Jess and asked, “Can you believe we’re the same age?”
NO WAY Dad! says my darling daughter, wide-eyed.
So how much younger do you think he is than me, Jess?
“Dad, I thought he was like, in his early fifties.”
No supper for you tonight! I laughed.
Pointedly explained to her that he is actually 68 and 13 days, whereas I am a mere 67. He is actually a full year older than me for six weeks every year, Jess!
‘Just two schoolboys and me,’ I told the lady at the entrance to Albert Falls dam recreation area.
OK, two adults and one pensioner, she said, totting up the fee. And sizing us up at a glance, bitch. Oh well, she was spot-on – they are in matric after all.
They were after bass and I was after birds. They got one and I got many.
Reason being my young kids still seem to lurv and appreciate me! Weird.
And so we age and move with our times, forever young (we tell ourselves! Us 1955 babies).
~~~oo0oo~~~
Yet again I was caught by an April Fools joke on my birthday, Tommy (17) the perpetrator this time; Not quite 64 in a row, but too many for complacency!
So I was pleased to see one of my heroes also fell for it back in 1832:
Charles Darwin wrote this in his Beagle diary:
April 1st
All hands employed in making April fools. — At midnight almost nearly all the watch below was called up in their shirts; carpenters for a leak: quarter masters that a mast was sprung. — midshipmen to reef top-sails; All turned in to their hammocks again, some growling some laughing. — The hook was much too easily baited for me not to be caught: Sullivan cried out, “Darwin, did you ever see a Grampus: Bear a hand then”. I accordingly rushed out in a transport of Enthusiasm, & was received by a roar of laughter from the whole watch. —
——-ooo000ooo——-
“grampus“ is an old name given to several sea creatures, as well as other animals. Grampus may refer to: Grampus (genus) of the Risso’s dolphin; or a common name for the orca.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~ Paul McCartney was sixteen when he wrote the lyrics to “When I’m Sixty-Four”. When the Beatles released the song in 1967, I was 12. Now when I sing it I realise with a shock ‘Shit! I AM sixty four!’ — When I get older losing my hair Many years from now Will you still be sending me a Valentine Birthday greetings bottle of wine If I’d been out till quarter to three Would you lock the door Will you still need me, will you still feed me? When I’m sixty-four I could be handy, mending a fuse When your lights have gone You can knit a sweater by the fireside Sunday mornings go for a ride Doing the garden, digging the weeds Who could ask for more Will you still need me, will you still feed me? When I’m sixty-four
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
One of the things I remember my Old Man saying when I was a kid was “Please Shoot Me When I Turn Sixty!” Now he’s 96 and planning on reaching 100. Living alone and still driving legally. Life doesn’t always follow the script . .
Do not text and drive. It’s called Distracted Driving and it’s dangerous.
Especially now.
My old man aged 95 and eight months in the shade took himself off to Wartburg and got his drivers licence renewed for a further five years. He will still be driving legally on a street near you at the age of 100 years and eight months.
Look sharp!
~~~oo0oo~~~
Herb Zunckel drove his grey Morris Minor in Bergville till he was over ninety. People would see a seemingly driverless Morris approaching with only some knuckles gripping the steering wheel visible. He said he’d never had an accident. People would mutter ‘that’s cos we scatter out of your way!’ Sheila and Mandy called him Herbicide.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Kevin Stanley-Clarke’s 1974 ouman driving advice to us younger guys newly-arrived in Joburg: Watch out for old toppies wearing hats!
~~~oo0oo~~~
ouman – he was older, wiser toppies – older, wiser ous, maybe driving on memory
I’m coming down to Durban to buy a parrot. Where’s Overport? asks the ole man. Parrots can live for eighty years, so what better to get as a pet when you’re ninety five in the shade yourself?
Then the ole lady phones, all worried – as ever. Can you tell us how to get to West Road in Overport, Koosie? I say I’ll try, I’ll look it up, I’ll phone you back. I need to hatch a plot. I phone back and say, Come to my place for lunch, I’ll leave work early and I’ll take you, it’s not easy to find. She sounds dubious but she’ll try that.
She phones back, amazed. He saw sense. We’re coming for lunch, she says, relieved. A rare visit to the son’s home! She can’t see, he can’t hear, so she was dreading looking for a small parrot in a strange haystack, driving by feel and touch, with a driver very disinclined to listen to anything she has to say, and quick to blame.
When I get home they’re on my stoep and Jess has given them tea and Tommy is busy cooking lunch for everybody – pasta carbonara. My children! Bless them! I had told them, I’d love it if you’d give them a polite hello, but you needn’t stay, just make your excuses and go. They decided to completely exceed all expectations and charm the old bullets, the granma that loves them and the old goat who denies them. Proud of ’em!
Off we go to meet Sumie who has three baby African Grey Parrots in a box. His grandfather breeds them in Utrecht. The old man had asked Sumie to choose his own from the three. He checks them out on the tailgate of my bakkie in West Road Overport, picks one and now I think, Here comes the bargaining.
R2500, says Sumie. No way, says the ole man and shuffles off to the front seat of my bakkie. He comes back slowly on the uneven pavement with the bird magazine in his hand, stabbing his finger at Sumie’s ad: R2300; He gives a pained moaning, Now I have wasted my time coming all the way from Pietermaritzburg. Sumie says to me, ‘I thought I wrote R2500!‘ To the customer he says, Fine, Uncle Pieter, R2300.
And the food for free, says the ole man. That cost me R100, Uncle Pieter, I’ve just fed them, so give me R80, says Sumie. It’s my birthday on Friday (true), counters the ole man, You should give it to me as a gift. How old you’ll be? asks Sumie. Ninety Five says the ole man. So they settle on R50.
Now they debate whose box is better. Sumie has a shoebox – it’s wider. Ole man has a box some electronics came in – it’s deeper. Ole man realises if he takes Sumie’s box he gets both, so he settles on Sumie’s shoebox.
We go back home to eat chef Tom’s delicious pasta lunch, followed by ice cream and coffee, and off they go back to Maritzburg. The ole man changes into second too soon up the steep hill, has to stop and start over. He would have hated it that I heard that.
~~oo0oo~~
And I didn’t take a single photo! The parrot pic is off the internet. Damn! Well, here they are with great-grandkids:
And I just thought: When last did I post a recent pic of my favourite children? Here they are willingly posing for me:
Jessie: Hey Dad! I saw the Detour Trails kombi today! Is he your friend? (we’d been on a cycling trail to the Wild Coast with them, and she knew he was).
Yes Jess, I’ve known Rohan since before you were invented.
She looks at me wide-eyed: And he’s still alive?! she asks, amazed.
Steve Reed in Oz pointed out the symbolism of this pic (taken by Jessie’s friend Minenhle):
She’s sixteen; The jungle gym has been left far behind; The pushbikes have been abandoned; Jess looks ahead to the brave new world of being 16 and really MOBILE!!
I just hope she’s not heading for that garden bench to sit smooching boys!
Just returned from a gathering in Harrismith where my sole function was to bring the average age of the attendants down to a respectable level.
Pierre duP, Jill Venning and Mark Raz Russel threw a joint 60th celebration in Harrismith. Pierrebuilds, Jill farms, Mark runs Finlay’s general trading store – and the golf club – in Harrismith. At their age, a “joint” gathering also describes one of the main topics of discussion among the creaking decrepit.
Swinging 60’s themed, most of the inmates came predictably dressed as hippies. I went as a hippie who admired Elvis’ dress style post-cheeseburgers. I was Sure to Wear some Flowers in my Wig, as a favourite song sang. Some wore safari suits with a comb in vey sock. One worean old English-type boys school uniform: blazer, cap, short pants and polished shoes. Most wore wigs – and many needed them. Oh, and John Venning very predictably – but a lot later than usual – got round to dropping his trousers.
Fine mates from way back!! Posing with young Tuffy Joe Joubert and old Pierre duP du Plessis. Wemight not fit together on the back seat of a Saab, nor in the rear compartment of a Beetle anymore.
The evening was saved visually and average age-wise by a flock of the birthday gang’s kids and their friends. They’re now adults, of course, so we could relax and act second-childhood. There were two of Pierre’s blondes there, Michele & Natasha, Mark’s son & daughter and Jill’s two as well, Kirsty was one. They were also dressed as hippies, and they were looking like how we all imagined we were looking. Luckily, there were no mirrors at the venue. Some aesthetically-delightful sixties-style minis and boots on show.
An excellent one-man band played all the right stuff, so it was a good thing it was loud or it would have been ruined by everyone singing along. Myself I would have had half-hour gaps with no music so we could hear each others’ lies, but no, when the band-man was resting, someone cranked on some good ole vinyl LP or other. Probably the bloody youngsters (we must start practicing to grumble).
Pierre gave a speech! Well, he joined Jill & Raz in a well-rehearsed threesome form of poetry rending in which they painted themselves in a good light and we listened politely.
Sheila rounded up a flock of ancient Methodists for a group shot, so three Swanepoels, three du Plessis, three Woods, and Tuffy Joubert posed for the Methylated Spirits Revival. Lulu tried to join in, but we wouldn’t have it, her being blerrie NG Kerk an’ all. She protested that she had come to guild once, to no avail.
Funniest thing was the youngsters drilling us for tales of yore. We told them tales of what their Moms and Dads got up to when they were their age to gasps of outrage when they thought of how their folks had raised them all strictly and with rules and curfews. I had to tell Lettuce Leaf’s kids the old one about how all the trouble started in the Garden of Eden when Adam said to Eve “Ek het your leaf.”
I went home soon after 2.30am leaving quite a few senior citizens and even more young uns still dancing. A few were slurring so that I couldn’t get what the hell they were saying, but they seemed happy with my nods and smiles and ‘Quite right!’s and ‘Serious?’s. Of course some of those were nearer 70 than 60 which makes the ‘hoesê?’s quite frequent!
We stayed at Heritage House, Pierre & Erika’s beautifully restored old house-next-door which they run as a bed & breakfast, so post-party we gathered in the kitchen till after 3am.
Later we gathered for a big breakfast at the Table of Knowledge in Heike’s restaurant on the slopes of 42-second Hill just below the quarry where Jock Grant would blast his dynamite, rattling the dorp’s windows.
Some of the Harrismith farmers are doing spectacularly well. Lodges in Tuli Block, Lodges near the Olifants river, big herds of disease-free Ramaposas, massive wild free-range earthworm farms, lodges on their farms (see https://www.buffalohillspgr.co.za/ and https://lalanathi.co.za/)
Some are also buying “townhouses” – big old sandstone houses in town which they revamp and extend for staying over if they’re a bit too aled to drive home to their farms! I spose you could call them Safe Houses.
And so some more upstanding citizens became senior citizens!
So here’s an update, you “youngsters”: That whistling noise you hear in your ears is not tinnitis. It’s the sound of the plummeting reaching terminal velocity . . . . .
