– life – bokdrols of wisdom –
1938 – Dad – Maritzburg College, Pietermaritzburg.
1972 – Me – Harrismith se Hoerskool, Vrystaat.
1975 – Aitch at Muizenberg High – head girl!
2016 – My Jessie – Wendon Academy, Westville, KwaZuluNatal.
2019 – My Tommy – home schooling – did the GED course
We went from steam power to cellphone power! Well actually, I spose the internal combustion engine was up and running when the ole man left matric . . .
~~~oo0oo~~~
Geoffrey Kay, birding optometrist, ‘ornithoptometrist’?, put together a trip to Namibia in 1986.
We landed in Windhoek, picked up a VW kombi and rigged it up with a nice big hebcooler in the back. Ice, beer, gin & tonic. Now we were ready for any emergency.
West to Daan Viljoen game park where a lion’s roar welcomed us that first night. On through the Khomas Hochland into the Namib Desert. Then on to the Atlantic Ocean at Swakopmund. On to Spitzkoppen; Usakos; Erongo Mountains; Karabib; Omaruru; Otjiwarongo; and Outjo;
Then up to Etosha: Okakuejo, Halali and Namutoni camps. In Etosha we saw a very rare night ‘bird‘; Seldom seen.
Then on to Tsumeb; the Waterberg; Okahandja; And back down to Windhoek.
Geoff Kay, Jurgen Tolksdorf, Jill Seldon, Mick Doogan, Me & Aitch; Three optometrists and three normal people.
.
.
We spotted 200 bird species that week! Also a new mammal for me: The Damara DikDik.
Jurgen Tolksdorf newbie birder spotted many birds for us with his keen eye. “What’s that?” he’d say. In Etosha one night we woke up to the b-b-b-b-bhooo of a white-faced owl near our tents. We shook everyone awake and grabbed our torches and binocs and went to look for it. Except Jurgen. He said “A WHAT?” and rolled over and went back to sleep with a snort. We searched in vain and got back to bed very late, disappointed.
After a short sleep, on our way back from breakfast we met Jurgen who had risen late after a long night’s sleep and was now on his way to eat. While we chatted he looked up in the tree above our heads and said “What’s that?”.
You know what it was, of course!
~~~oo0oo~~~
~~oo0oo~~
As we were going to have a small wedding out in the sticks, we held a Pre-Nuptial-Party at Kingfisher Canoe Club back in 1988 to celebrate with friends who couldn’t make it or who hadn’t cracked the nod. Who to invite and who to discreetly ignore is one of the things that makes the lead-up to tying the knot vrot with danger as anyone who has gone singing to the gallows well knows.
I was reminded yesterday about that happy gathering by Barbara Mason, who I only occasionally see as she lives a normal and sane life, parallel to the madcap canoeing world that links me to her hubby Charles (him a legendary paddler, me a used-to-be wannabe).
She told me she quotes from my speech of that night to this day. I had forgotten that I’d even spoken, but she assures me I spake thus:
“Aitch and I gave careful consideration to the pros and cons of getting married, but we decided to go ahead and get married anyway.”
(Check the invite! Remember typewriters?)
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.
Off to school went the album the next day and Jess was the focus of much attention and oohing and aahing. Which she loved.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Every garden should have a resident gnome. Especially if a friend of yours edited the well-known magazine Garden n Gnome. Or was that Garden n Home, Lesley?
My gnome lives in a ‘hanging’ pot on the cottage wall and yesterday morning having breakfast I glanced up and spotted him. Next to him was a packet. One of those paper sacks fancy shops use to put gifts in. String handles and a tag you can write happy birthday on.
Ah, I thought, Annerien has left us a gift as a thank-you for staying in the cottage.
Inside was a green box with Mr NWH Humphrey on it. And Oakleigh Funeral Home.
I found Neil!
I had lost his ashes, forgetting I had put them in such a clever place where the gnome could look after him.
Luckily Janet had said she’s not up to it yet, when I suggested she gooi his ashes where Bella is buried and where we – well, some of us – OK, me – had put Aitch’s ashes. So I didn’t have to confess at the time that I’d lost Neil. I just mumbled vaguely that I had put him “somewhere, I think in the garage.”
Now he can stay right there in the gnome hanging pot till Janet gets back from Maun. And when she’s ready she can go down the special path Tobias cut to the site where, in the middle of me clearing my throat to say “OK, we’re going to put Mom’s ashes here” the kids stomped their feet, slapped their knees, jumped up & down, shouted ANTS! and ran off, leaving me to bury the box on my own.
~~oo0oo~~
Later: Janet did come back and chose to scatter Neil’s ashes where Aitch’s are. Along with Aitch’s favourite mutt Bella, a hamster and a gerbil. Tobias helped her by cutting open the path and steps down to the site, which disappear every summer in the undergrowth.
~~oo0oo~~
Even later, Trish and Janet’s Mom Iona’s ashes joined the gang under the copse of trees down the bank in our front yard.
Venturing forth . .
. . into Deepest Darkest America, we go kitted out in readiness . .
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Eight weeks; Yep, lo-ong leave; Seven destinations in the USA and one week in England;
I got these details from Aitch’s diary
FLORIDA – Miami airport – 3rd March 1988;
Fly on to Orlando, Florida – Sheraton Hotel
Disney World
Epcot Centre
Rent a car and drive east to Merritt Island – sparrows and mosquitoes
Kennedy Space Centre
Fly back to Miami and rent a car
Titusville (Town Motel $28.90 for the room)
Biscayne Nature Reserve
Florida City (Town Motel)
Everglades – Long Pine Key; Mrazek Lake; Mahogany Hammock
Flamingo Lodge in the Everglades
On Saturday, 12 March we drive to Big Cypress along the Tamiami Trail and on to
Everglade City – The Rod & Gun Club – 2 nights
CALIFORNIA – San Francisco, California – Tuesday, 15th March
Aitch said “I want to see an American city, not just nature reserves! so we walked , bussed and rode trams in the city of San Francisco, wearing flowers in our hair. Stay in a Howard Johnson’s Motel, where I use the phone book to enquire about hiring a camping van. It’s more expensive than a small car and motels, so . . we hire a Ford 351 cubic inch V8 RecVee from Western RV Rentals! The first night near Escalon we sleep in a parking lot – maybe illegal, but free!
Yosemite National Park
We walk to Mirror Lake
Badger Pass Ski Resort
Wawona Rail Creek
Camp in Wawona campground (pay $6 in a box – honour system)
Maraposa Grove
Paso Robles
Atascadero
Santa Marguerita – Campground ($8)
Rinconada
Santa Marguerita Lake
Los Osos; Baywood Park
Morro Bay
Cayucos Beach
San Simeon
Los Padres National Forest
Plaskett Creek camp ($8) – Van loo overflowed – Big clean up delayed departure!
Carmel town
Sunset Beach KOA camp ($20.95, ‘all amenities’)
Santa Cruz
Natural Bridges Park
Halfmoon Bay
We return the RecVee – and pay $59 damage for a fender scrape in Yosemite! Ouch!
Total $679 for 7 nights – more than car hire + motels, it’s true. But much more fun!
Hired a car (from Snappy!) and drove around San Francisco as Aitch insisted shecwanted to see ‘one American city’ – Lombard Street, Chinatown, over Golden Gate bridge to Muirwoods Rec area & beach
Marin – Fountain Motel
Downtown San Francisco – Macy’s, Sears, JC Penney – Aitch finally saw a few shops! I bought a telescope – not a good buy!
Slept in the airport; Aitch wrote postcards;
WYOMING – Jackson Hole, Wyoming – Tuesday, 24th March (via Salt Lake City)
Toyota Tercel 4WD – I loved it!
Antler Motel ($28 for the room); Dinner at The Blue Lion (delish. Aitch: “Like St Geran”)
Breakfast at Vernet Cafe
Wilson (saw a Dipper going underwater!)
Dinner at Anthony’s
Turned back before Teton Village – road blocked due to thick snow on the Moose/Jenny Lake road; Yellowstone south gate closed!
Moran Junction to Jackson Lake
Sleigh ride at Teton Village – see a white grouse in a tree
Kelly (NE of Jackson Hole)
WASHINGTON – Seattle, Washington (via Salt Lake City) – Sunday 27th March 1988
Puget Sound
San Juan Islands
We hire another all-wheel-drive Toyota Tercel and drive north to Anacortes – San Juan Motel
Ferry crossing to Guernes (Guemes?)
Orcas Island
Capt Cook’s Resort
Drive up Mt Constitution until snow blocks the road
Walk around Mountain Lake
East Sound
Doe Bay Resort – stay in a rustic cabin (very rustic! but its cheap, Aitch!) called Decatur; lovely hot tubs overlooking an icy bay, where ‘suits are optional.’
Back on the ferry – 30th March; In Seattle we handed back the little Tercel – our 2nd-best vehicle on honeymoon;
OKLAHOMA – Fly south to Dallas / Fort Worth, planning to go to the gulf; But we change our plans and head back north to Lawton, Oklahoma – 30th March; This because the newspaper said: ‘You don’t want to be flying over Easter’ and we asked our air hostess ‘When’s Easter?’ and she said ‘Easter? That’s tomorrow;’
We drive to the farm outside Apache – Apache Oklahoma – 31st March;
Only Jimmy there when we arrive after dark;
Jim & Katie arrive – 4yrs since my last visit; 15yrs since I stayed with them;
Anadarko shopping
Jim gives me the Chevy Suburban 4X4 keys – ours to drive – my best vehicle on honeymoon!
1st April, my birthday – Breakfast in bed!
Lunch with Granma (Patterson)
Mary Kate arrives from OU
Big family gathering at Plantation Restaurant in Wichita Wildlife Reserve, near Meers. We drive past the old Patterson Ranch;
Jim gives Aitch the Cadillac convertible keys – hers to drive! Her best vehicle on honeymoon!
Tuesday 5 Apr – We take the Cadillac convertible to town to the First National Bank of Apache’s drive-in window
Lawton to the drive-thru liquor store
Porter Hill
Clung’s Store
I forgot to go to my Rotary meeting! Damn! That really was a bad slip-up! BIG BAD!! We were searching for a Vermillion Flycatcher and I forgot! Man, that was an unforgivable slip! Ouch!!
Jim and I settle in front of the TV to watch a ballgame. Oklahoma U playing someone. Katie and Trish decide that’s way too boring so they load up on Bloody Marys internally and in a hebcooler and drive off in the night looking for owls. They spot a possum and tail it in the headlights. It shuffles onto the dirt road in front of them and Trish is watching in awesome wonder when Katie asks, ‘Shall I kill it?’ Trish is horrified and gasps ‘No!’ and Katie, seeing what she’s thinking exclaims, ‘Not the possum! The engine!’
They collapsed with laughter as they repeatedly regaled us with the tale when they got home, giggling and unmanageable.
OHIO – Fly away!! Lawton/Dallas/Ft Worth/Little Rock Arkansas/Cincinatti – Akron
Akron, Ohio – Friday 8 April
Dave “Z” picked us up and took us to his condominium and fed us (Larry busy)
On to Larry’s beautiful old home on North Portage Path
Cuyahoga River State Park (Quarry area)
Shopping at a great Deli
Larry cooks delicious steaks and he and Trish hit the piano. They ask me not to sing so loud;
Kendall Lake
Cleveland
Lake Erie
Supper at a French restaurant on Larry; Home to liquers and piano and song; They ask me not to sing so loud;
Bed 2am, rise 5.30am
MASSACHUSETTS – Boston, Massachusetts – 13 April – we rent a car and drive on the busiest highway to date – thru Boston in traffic
Hingham (stay in motel $39)
Cohasset
Cape Cod
Daniel Webster Inn for supper
Sandwich (stay in Country Acres Motel $33)
Wellfleet Bay
Orleans
Meadows Motel ($35)
Back in Boston its late and we have to return the car so we stay in the most convenient place, a Ramada Inn ($89 for the room! Most expensive night in the USA)
Boston/ JFK New York/ London – 18 April 1988
Last flight: Our 30-day Delta pass expired, but we still had a free return ticket we got for giving up our seat on an overbooked flight earlier on; So we use it to get from Boston to JFK
On to England: A week in England on PanAm – to Heathrow, then to Paddock Wood in Kent where Val & Pete Excell, oldtime friends of Trish from Cape Town, host us; We saw another Dipper!
Then they take us on a road tip to Cornwall, through Dartmoor to stay with Mel Spaggiari’s folks Den & Mary Blewett on their farm outside Bodmin. Where we saw a newt and a hedgehog!
Then home – HOME to our Marriott Road flat in Durban.
~~oo0oo~~
