Vrystaat Confessions

Category: 3_USA

A Swanepoel-Solomon Stone

A memorial stone. This story started in Pietermaritzburg, grew in Pretoria – and ended up here:

– The Skagit River splits, then feeds into Skagit Bay –

The beautiful delta of the Skagit River in North-West Washington state! Up on the Pacific coast; up near Canada; not too far off the exact opposite side of the world. Here’s where South Africa lies if you could look right through the world from Above the Pacific Ocean:

It happened like this:

My dear cousins: On Sunday August 11 my family and I are holding a memorial for my mother. When she died so unexpectedly in March 1974 I was a long way away. I did not participate in any of the funeral arrangements and I did not attend the funeral.

After cousin Lizzie died I had a “conversation” with Koosie and he asked me where my mother was buried and I realized, to my shame, that I did not know and have not since been able to find out.

So on Sunday, a day before her 109th birthday and 45 years after she died, I am symbolically bringing her home to me and to my family. We have chosen for her headstone a rock we collected from a nearby river and it will pass from me, to my daughter, to my grandson and beyond in ongoing commemoration.

Please send your prayers and loving thoughts our way and join us in recognition of Adriana Wilhelmina Swanepoel Solomon, my beloved mother and your Auntie Janie.

Much love to you all, Shirley

Afterwards:

My dear Cousins: Thanks and appreciation to all of you for your thoughts and prayers. We spent a heartfelt couple of hours together talking about Adriana and the Swanepoels. Warren was not with us as he is visiting friends in Nebraska. We looked through the old shoebox of pictures and told the old stories that, by this time, are part of the family cannon and are probably quite richly embellished. We laughed, we teared up, we remembered other family members who are no longer with us. We brought out the big Atlas and checked out where exactly South Africa is, we took down the pictures that have been on the wall for years and examined them more closely: the four Swanepoel siblings taken when Pieter was around two, the montage of the ten cousins that I cherish, the wedding picture of my parents. All in all, it was a lovely time, topped off by my reading the kind and thoughtful messages that you sent us. Our love from our family to yours. Shirley

Hi Shirley, What a beautiful gesture. Our thoughts will be with you on Sunday. I can still remember the time that my dad went to Aunt Liz’s funeral and ended up having to bury two sisters. He was so sad at the time. May they all rest in peace. Love from us. Solly

That’s beautiful Shirley. My thoughts are with you and I have put a reminder on my phone. I’ll drink a toast Sunday! ( I did – Jerepigo!). Auntie Janie will enjoy Washington, the Northwest and the river, I’m sure! Love, Koos – P.S. The last time I saw her was 1973 in Apache, Oklahoma and friends took a polaroid picture:

– Janie Solomon – Dad’s eldest sister – visits me in Apache Oklahoma – my host siblings Mary-Kate and Jimmy Patterson

Dear Shirley, You and your family are in our thoughts and prayers today. May your commemoration bring the peace in your heart that you so long sought for. Remember, those we so dearly love, don’t go away, they walk beside us every day. Love you all, Johan

Dear Cousin Shirley, Thank you for sharing the family memorial for your mother with your cousins. May your family be richly blessed for placing her at the centre of your lives on this day.

Although 10 200 plus miles separate us, know that we will be with you in heart and spirit on this memorable occasion. To this end, a proverb, a prayer, a photo and a couple of fond memories for you.

An appropriate Hebrew proverb: Say not in grief ‘she is no more’ but live in thankfulness that she was.

A prayer for the occasion: Lord of all, we praise you for Aunty A who rests peacefully in your presence. Give all who remember her grace to follow in her footsteps as she followed the way of your Son. Thank you for the memory of Aunty A who you unexpectedly gathered to you. May our memories of her lead our hearts from the things we can see to the unseen things we trust you for. Lead us too until we enter the eternal rest you have prepared for us. We ask this in your precious name Lord. Amen.

A photo of the Swanepoel sisters taken in Camperdown when Aunty A visited. Two ladies who remain dear to me to this day.

– Janie, Jack, Lizzie –

A couple of fond memories of a lady with class: Aunty A was the only Aunt I knew – I can’t remember meeting any of my Dad’s sisters. Aunty A was always very kind to me. When given our first pass from the Air Force Gymnasium in 1964 it was Aunty A who collected me to spend a delightful Sunday in their home at 54?Prospect Street, Hatfield, Pretoria. It only occurred to me much later why she and Uncle Solly gave me a spare box set of King Lear long-player records with the subtle suggestion that it would improve my English! Clearly Mathematics and Science was my forte and not languages. After having qualified to give flying instruction at Central Flying School Dunnottar and trying to be an officer and a gentleman whilst vigorously courting the East Rand chicks, it was Aunty A who suggested that taking them to ballet shows at the Aula Theatre at Pretoria University would impress them favourably. She accompanied us on occasion but didn’t seem too impressed with the company I was keeping at that stage. Aunty A helped me select and purchase a 1968 painting of the artist Christiaan Saint Peter Nice one Sunday afternoon at the Magnolia Dell. This artist has since passed on but subsequently became well known and his paintings continue to grow in value. The painting hangs in the study serving as a reminder of the good times we spent together. Aunty A was not just classy but fun-loving too. Travelling together from Pretoria to Camperdown in my recently acquired MGB GT (before entering the Free State where the traffic cops always laid in wait for unsuspecting speedsters) I can’t quite remember whether it was Aunty A who wanted to know how fast this thing can go or me who wanted to show her? Other than with my lady companions, Aunty A was truly impressed with what the MG could do given that it was a sporting offspring of her Morris Cowley which she used to drive hell-for-leather down Burnett Street heading for the City. Her memory remains indelible in my mind.

Here’s wishing you every success and many happy memories of the day! With love, Cousin Jack G

~~~~oo0oo~~~~

12 Aug 2019
Jean-Prieur du Plessis, Texan

I contacted JP du Plessis wanting to know wassup!? Catch me up on your USA sojourn!

He wrote:

Good to hear from you. We’re living in Austin, Texas – since January 2016.

We spent sixteen years in Mandeville, Lousiana – near New Orleans. We raised our kids there, and still have the house there.

Prior stints in Chicago, Illinois, Las Vegas, Nevada and Los Angeles, California. Can’t believe we’ve been here 30 years.

I fondly (jealously!) followed your past road trips through the States on vrystaat confessions .

Sorry you had to experience Shreveport!? I get to travel quite a bit for work. I have extensively traveled the Gulf States by road and other places by air.

Hopefully you made your way on I-20 through to Vicksburg and saw the mighty Mississippi River on your way up from Shreveport to New York with Larry Wingert?

I still think that is why I came here: because of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer as well as the fascinating origins of American music in the Mississippi Delta.

We had a great time living in New Orleans. Our daughter still lives there. We’re going there for a few days on Wednesday for a bit of Mardi Gras and work.

Our other kids live in Brooklyn, New York City, Chicago and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Funny….I thought so much of you yesterday listening to a “rubriek” on the New Yorker Radio Hour podcast about this guy who traveled all over the States on his canoe for two decades! Saying: Hey I’m not lost and I’m not homeless…..I’m just paddling on the water seeing some fantastic geography and meeting very nice people on the way, (paraphrased). He wrote three books (not published). I will try to find the link for you.

I think that may have been Dick Conant .

We have built a new home:

Take an online walk-through JP’s home here.

….now, after a lot of bloed, sweet en trane, we will take Sweet Melissa the Airstream on the road again – to the loud music of The Allman Brothers!

Sweet Melissa

See, learning from you, I have now almost written my first blog!

Cheers brother. Keep in touch…..even better…come visit and take the Melissa the “karavaan” on a road trip.

J-P

…

Now there’s a tempting offer!

~~oo0oo~~

19 Jun 2019
Who Knew Harry Hart?

Friend Charles got marooned on a Seychellois island from drinking too much. Drink – hard liquor imbibed on dry land – made them forget about their yacht and it broke anchor and drifted off without them. They were marooned like My Man Friday. And his mate, the colonial. He’s writing a book about his adventures, of which more later, when he has published and become famous. On this lonely island he met ‘an Empire Games javelin champion.’

I went looking for who that might be. I didn’t find a javelin gold medalist, but I found:

Henry Beltsazer “Harry” Hart – a South African athlete born in Harrismith, Orange River Colony on the 2nd of September 1905.

At the 1930 Empire Games in Canada he won the gold medals in the discus and shot put competitions, and bronze in the javelin throw. He finished fifth in the 120 yards hurdles.

In 1932 he went to the Olympics in Los Angeles, USA and finished tenth in shot put, twelfth in the discus and eleventh in the decathlon.

At the 1934 Empire Games in London (originally awarded to Johannesburg, but changed to London due to concerns regarding the treatment of black and Asian athletes by South African officials and fans) he won his second brace of Empire gold medals in the discus throw and shot put competitions. In the javelin throw contest he won silver.

Oh well, any Free State javelin-gooier is a friend of mine!

Hart was the owner of the Royal Hotel in Reitz, Orange Free State, South Africa. He was friends with Hollywood actors Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, US swimmer and Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller and CR ‘Blackie’ Swart – at that time a cowboy actor, later the first state president of South Africa. His study at the Reitz Royal Hotel – not really ‘Royal’ – displayed hundreds of photographs of himself in the company of these famous stars, as well as with US swimmer and actress Esther Williams, and Irish actress Maureen O’Sullivan – she played Jane in six Tarzan movies.

Henry Harry Hart himself was apparently offered the part of Tarzan but refused as he had to return home to his farm to practice for the Empire Games. Hmm – I can just hear him: ‘Hollywood? Reitz? Ag, fanks, I’ll take Reitz, OK?’

Read the comments below to see more, as two of Harry’s descendants found this post.

– the Reitz Royal Hotel – ask to see the pub and Harry’s study –

So Johnny Weissmuller got lucky. Here he is with Maureen O’Sullivan, shouting AAH ee YA ee YAAAH!! She’s a good actress: She’s not blocking her ears.

The SA team to Canada in 1930. Where’s Harry?

– kneeling left holding a guitar – see the comments –

Harry died in Reitz on the 10th of November 1979.

~~oo0oo~~

26 May 2019
Kayak the Ocoee

Fresh from trying to drink an aeroplane dry we sauntered up to the car hire counter in the Atlanta airport and asked the lovely lady for a medium-sized American car. We had decided American cars were so big that a medium would be plenty big enough for the five of us. We got into our car, drove fifty metres – OK, fifty yards in America – and threw a u-turn. We sauntered back up to the car hire counter in the Atlanta airport and asked the lovely lady if we could swap it for a fullsize American car. She said, Sure Thing, I have a Lincoln Continental Town Car (check a review of the Lincoln at the end of this post!), Will that be good? We said if its fullsize and can take roofracks it’ll be good. Oh, No-one Puts Roofracks on a Lincoln Continental Town Car, she said, so we kept quiet. Diplomatically.

– Herve, me, Chris and Jurie with our 1984 Lincoln Town Car –

Now this was a car. A Lang en Slap car. This was like the one Fat Frank Cannon drove in the Cannon TV series; Jock Ewing drove in Dallas; Also Frank Sinatra and Jack Kennedy, but theirs were convertibles and we needed a roof.

– me, Herve, Dave, Jurie and Steve and the Lincoln with roofrack – which the rental lady said no-one would do –

Trip lead-stirrer Chris drove us straight to the outfitters to fit a roofrack. He’s a legendary kayaker who has his national colours and has won national and international kayak races. He’s also a military man and a dentist and a fine beer drinker. With roofracks on he drove us to his friend’s home where we to spend the night. Dave Jones is a legendary kayaker who has his national colours and has won national and international kayak races. He’s also a military man and a dentist and a fine beer drinker. True’s Bob, I kid you not – talk about double trouble!

The next morning, after the hospitality of Dave’s home pub, we headed North to the Ocoee River in Tennessee. Which was completely empty. Not low. Empty.

Then they turned on the tap at twelve noon and we could paddle. The full flow of the Ocoee gets diverted to generate power! How criminal is that!? That it even flows occasionally is only thanks to hard lobbying by paddlers and environmentalists. From around 1913 to 1977 the river was mostly bone dry – all the water diverted to generate power. Now sections of it flow again at certain times.

I’m in orange.

Here’s a description of the short stretch of river we paddled:

The Middle Ocoee
The Middle Ocoee is the portion of whitewater, on this stretch of water, paddlers and rafting enthusiasts, have been paddling for decades. Beginning at Rogers Branch and just over 5 miles long, this class 3-4 section of whitewater is an adrenaline junkies dream, crammed with waves and holes.

Entrance rapid gives you whitewater from the get-go. As soon as you launch onto the middle Ocoee you are in a class 4 rapid, paddling through waves and dropping ledges. It’s a fun and exciting way to begin your trip.
Broken Nose begins with a large S-shaped wave. Swirling water behind it will send you to a series of ledges. This is a great place for pictures, so smile.
Next, Slice and Dice: two widely spaced ledges, fun to drop, especially the second ledge. If done correctly, you can get a great surf here “on the fly”.
An interesting and humorous set of rock formations highlights the rapid, Moon Chute. After making your way behind the elephant shaped rock, do some 360’s in front of “sweet-cheeks,” then drop through the chute and over the ledge at the bottom.
Double Suck, an appropriately named rapid, where a good-sized ledge drops you into two hydraulics. Paddle hard or you might catch another surf here.
Double Trouble, which is more ominous in name than in structure, is a set of three large waves, which will have everybody yelling. This is another great photo spot. You won’t find an easier, more fun rapid.
Next is Flipper (No, it’s not named after the dolphin). Here, a great ledge drop puts you into a diagonal wave. Hit this wave with a right hand angle and enjoy the ride, or angle left to eddy out. Then enjoy one of the best surfs on the river.
Table saw was originally named for a giant saw-blade shaped wave in the middle of it. The rock forming the wave was moved during a flood several years ago, making this one of the most exciting rapids on the Middle Ocoee. The big waves in this one will make the boat buck like a bronco.
At Diamond Splitter, point your boat upstream and ferry it between two rocks. Once there get a couple of 360’s in before dropping through the chute and into the hydraulic.

Slingshot is where most of the water in the river is pushed through a narrow space, making a deep channel with a very swift current. To make this one a little more interesting, see how many 360’s you can complete from top to bottom.
Cat’s Pajamas start with a couple of good ledges, with nice hydraulics. After those, it will look as though you are paddling toward a big dry rock, but keep going. At the last second, there will be a big splash and you will be pushed clear.
Hell’s Hole is the biggest wave on the river. Start this one in the middle of the river, drifting right. Just above the wave, start paddling! When you crest this 7-8 ft. wave, you will drop into a large hydraulic. Stay focused because just downstream are the last two ledges known as

Powerhouse. Drop these ledges just right of center for a great ride.
Once through Powerhouse, collect yourself and take out at Caney Creek.

–oo0oo~~

The dry river when they turn off the taps. Very sad:

~~oo0oo~~

~~oo0oo~~

Ocoee is Cherokee for the plant we call the granadilla.

Lang en Slap – American. We opened the bonnet – the hood – and stared in awe at the space between the grille and the radiator. It looked like we could have fitted all our suitcases in there!

25 May 2019
Let’s Save Us Some Souls!

The new preacherman at the Christian Church of Apache Oklahoma, looked me up after he’d been in town a while and invited me over to his place. Turns out he was interested in becoming a mission-nary to Africa and wanted to meet one of the real-deal Africans he’d heard and read so much about. Maybe suss out just how much we needed saving?

A HUGE man, six feet and nine inches tall, Ron Elr*ck wore a string tie, a ‘ten gallon’ stetson and cowboy boots, making him damn near eight feet tall fully dressed as he stooped through doors and bent down to shake people’s hands. I met his tiny little wife who was seemingly half his height, and two lil daughters at their house, the church ‘manse’ or ‘vicarage’.

– there’s the house next to the church –

– the actor Mountie in the movie had to be shorter than John Wayne! –

Ron was an ex-Canadian Mountie and a picture on his mantelpiece showed him towering over John Wayne, when Wayne was in Canada to film a movie.

Soon he invited me to join him on a men’s retreat to “God’s Forty Acres” in NE Oklahoma (the yanks are way ahead of Angus Buchan in this “get away from the wife, go camping on a farm, and when you get back tell her you’re the boss, the head of the house, the patriarch – the ‘prophet’” shit. I mean, this was 1973!). I had made it known from my arrival in Apache that I would join anybody and go anywhere to see the state and get out of school – I mean hey! I’d already DONE matric!

So we hopped into his muddy pink wagon with ‘wood’ panelling down the sides – it looked a bit like these in the pictures. We roared off from Caddo county heading north-east, bypassing Oklahoma City and Tulsa to somewhere near Broken Arrow or Cherokee county – towards the Arkansas border, anyway. Me n Ron driving along with the wind in our hair like Thelma and Louise.

Non-stop monologue on the way. He didn’t need any answers, I just had to nod him yes and he could talk non-stop for hours on end. At the retreat there were hundreds of men and boys just like him, no women. Unless you count them in the background who made and served the food. The men were all fired up for the Lawrd, bellowing the Retreat Song at the drop of a hat:

♫ “In Gahd’s Fordy Yacres . . !!”♫

We musta sang it 400 times in that weekend. If I was God I’d have done some smiting.

We left at last and headed back, wafting along like on a mattress in that long slap wagon, when Ron suddenly needed an answer: Had I ever seen a porno movie? WHAT? I hadn’t? Amazing! Well, jeez, I mean goodness, he felt it as sort of like a DUTY to enlighten me and reveal to me just how evil and degraded these movies could be. So we detoured into Tulsa. Maybe he regarded it as practice for the mission-nary work he was wanting to do among us Africans?

We sat through a skin flick in a seedy movie house. It was the most skin ‘n pubic hair ‘n pelvis ‘n pulsating organs this eighteen year old boykie from the Vrystaat had seen to date so it was, after all, educational. Thin plot, though.

I suppose you could say I got saved and damned all on one weekend.

——-ooo000ooo——-

footnote:

Ron did get to Africa as a mission-nary. He was posted to Jo-hannesburg. Lotsa ‘sinners’ in Jo-hannesburg, I suppose. I’m just not sure they need ‘saving’ by a Canadian Mountie.

9 Apr 2019
The Subway

Greg Seibert arrived in Harrismith from Ohio in 1972 as a Rotary exchange student.

In 2014 he was sending sister Sheila some of his pictures from those wayback days. He wrote: Here is one I’m sure you will like. It is one of the very first pics that I took in Harrismith, probably the day after I got there. You or Koos took me down to the field hockey field. I remember people saying it was by the subway. Boy was I impressed! The only subways that I knew were the underground trains in London and New York! Imagine little Harrismith being so advanced as to having one of those!

Well…I was a bit disappointed…lol!

New York subway’s Grand Central Station

The feature pic and this pic are not the Harrismth subway, but do give an idea of what it looks like. I’m looking for some actual pics of our illustrious subway.

24 Mar 2019
Wounded Knee, the A.I.M and Me
The Native Americans in Apache welcomed me very hospitably. One concerned Rotarian drew me aside at the time of the 1973 Wounded Knee incident which was very big news in Oklahoma. Oglala Sioux and AIM activists occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. US Marshals, FBI agents, and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the area.

The activists had chosen the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre for its symbolic value. The military was armed, the protesters were not. The Rotarian told me to be careful; the AIM was restless and could kidnap me to make demands. He certainly meant well, but it sounded far-fetched to me. After 71 days the occupation ended. Two protesters had been shot dead.

I got nothing but inclusive friendliness from the many American Indians, as they called themselves then, at school. At school they were classmates and Apache Warrior teammates in athletics and football. They invited me to a traditional pow wow one evening, and they presented me with gifts at one of their functions.

. . .

Melvin Mithlo was a year my junior at school. He was a keen member of the American Indian Movement AIM and was fascinated by stories he had heard of the Zulus in South Africa. He would ask me about them and teach me about American Indian history. Given my avoidance of history – I gave it up in high school as soon as I could – and the poor white-wash version of history that we were taught anyway, he taught me way more than I taught him. Not that he learnt his history in school. The real history of the American West was so much more crooked, sad and brutal than the star-spangled bullshit taught by teachers. As in South Africa, they would be following the official white-wash school syllabus.

Melvin taught me about the AIM which, just before I got to Apache, had gathered about 800 members and people from other Indian groups from across the United States for a protest in Washington, D.C. known as the Trail of Broken Treaties.

He also taught me about Wounded Knee the tragic last hurrah of Indian independence in 1890. Briefly, Native Americans were squeezed into ever-smaller areas and every time they were allocated land, promises were reneged on and more and more land was stolen by settlers or government. Any resistance was depicted as hostility and the army – and vigilante bands – were sent in to murder any resisters – or even peaceful people. Many settlers believed the only real solution to the “Indian Problem” was extermination.

In broad strokes, U.S. government policy toward the Indians of the Great Plains and Far West went through four phases in the 19th century:
- Removal from lands east of the Mississippi;
- Concentration in a vast “Indian territory” between Oklahoma and North Dakota;
- Confinement to much smaller “reservations” on part of that land; and
- Assimilation of the Indians into white American-style farming and culture, through the allotment of even smaller, individual tracts of barren land. More honestly called the termination of the tribes.
The natives lost at every step, they were lied to and cheated at every turn, and their territory and rights shrunk with each new phase. The saying ‘White Man Speak With Forked Tongue’ was simply the plain truth.

Around 1890 a Paiute holy man in Nevada preached a new sort of nonviolent religion. If Indians gave up alcohol, lived simply and traditionally and danced a certain slow dance, the Great Spirit would return them their lands, and white ways and implements would disappear. By the time the belief reached the Northern Plains and the Sioux tribe, it had garnered a slightly more militant message and spread widely among the hopeless and despondent tribe. The “Ghost Dance” terrified whites and Indian agents, and when a band left the main reservation to dance on the Badlands of South Dakota, the U.S. Army sent in the Cavalry. Tribal police were sent to arrest Sitting Bull at his home, and in the violence that followed, Sitting Bull and more than a dozen other men—both policemen and supporters of the chief—were killed.

490 cavalrymen then set out in the winter snow and surrounded the Ghost Dance band along Wounded Knee Creek. The soldiers began disarming the Sioux when a gun went off. A massacre ensued, and the soldiers fired four new big machine guns down into the encampment from all sides.

Virtually all the Indians – one hundred and forty-six of them – were killed, including 62 women and children. It was a massacre. Twenty-five soldiers were killed, most of them probably shot in crossfire from their own forces.

The U.S. Army – desperate to depict the incident as a “battle”- in a despicable, dishonest aftermath, awarded no fewer than twenty ‘Medals of Honor’ to the troopers at Wounded Knee. They have never been rescinded.

(Shades of the British defence against the Zulus at Rorke’s Drift after their big thrashing at Isandlwana. Eleven Victoria Crosses were dished out there to act as fig leaves and little was said of the equally despicable massacre that followed the defence. I wish I had known that inside story to tell Melvin!)

The Massacre at Wounded Knee was the biggest domestic massacre in U.S. history. One hundred years later both U.S. houses of congress issued a half-baked apology of sorts: only a voice vote was taken, no-one had to stand up and be counted; no reparation was offered; no shameful, undeserved “Massacre Murder Medals of (dis)Honor” were rescinded.

=======ooo000ooo=======
29 Dec 2018
Bugged by Bugs in a Red Bug in Canada

Stage Three (in yellow on the map) of my Great North American Road Trip started in Cobleskill in upstate New York, where Stage Two had ended.

A red VW Bug swept up the drive and out poured three lovely Okies and a handsome longhaired Aussie. Sherry Porter-Steele, owner of the Bug and twins Dottie and Dale Moffett. Sherry had been a favourite young high school teacher of the girls in Ardmore a few years prior, and involved in Rotary exchange student selection. Jonathan Kneebone was an Aussie, a dinkum character, say no more. Liked a beer.

We headed north to the Canadian border. Five laughing, happy peeps in a VW bug. It wasn’t a squeeze at all, we were having so much fun. At the border the man leaned in, asked “All American?” Yeah, we’re American, chimed Sherry, Dottie and Dale. He stepped back and was about to wave us through when Jonathan and I said “Um, no”.

“Australian” said Kneebone and the man made to step back again and wave us through when he registered what I had said.

“Uh, come with me please sir. I need to check your passport,” he said. An hour later we were off again – to Montreal. That’s where you see Dottie sitting on the grass.

On to Ottawa where we bumped into Indira Ghandi on a state visit to Pierre Trudeau. She chose to arrive while we were staring at some government building or other. That’s the only time I’ve seen a head of state in the flesh ever. And one’s enough.

Somewhere around here I dinged Sherry’s car! “I’ll drive!” I shouted as we headed for the pub. I promptly reversed out the driveway, swung, and BANG! I got out and saw to my great relief – how horrible was this!? – that I’d hit a huge Dodge pickup with a bumper a yard deep; not a scratch on it! We could hop back into the red bug and bug off to the pub. Poor Sherry’s prize red VW wasn’t so lucky. I wrecked her left rear fender and light and I had no money to pay for the damage. DAMN!! Sherry was an absolute star about it, bless her! I still owe you, Sherry Porter-Steele!

Then Toronto, Waterloo and up around Lake Superior, Sudbury, Sault St Marie, Thunder Bay. What a sight Superior was! Biggest stretch of fresh water imaginable. For a Vrystater, awe-inspiring! We camped en route wherever we could squirrel away for free. Only once were we shoo-ed off and told ‘I’m Sorry, You Can’t Camp Here.’ This by a Mountie with a big hat, so it was worth it! Yes SIR!

Here we used a rock for a mattress. We had just woken up but Kneebone was already being Australian!

– Me, Dottie, Dale & Jonathan Kneebone (can you guess where from?) –

Once we stayed in an old railway station converted to a sort of backpackers, the track ripped up and turned into a beautiful trail through the pines.

Then, suddenly, we needed to go canoeing. When in Canada, canoe! So we hired two boats in Quetico National Park, Lake of the Woods. All names may not be exact or current – these are 45yr-old memories!

– internet pics of the stunning lakes in Lake of the Woods area –

We planned a three-night trip, but after one night we turned back and ran, tails between our legs! We had spent the day trying to dodge dark clouds of midges and no-see-ems, or black flies. When you ran your hand through your hair it came out covered in blood. That night we pitched the tents on an island in a cloud of mozzies. We lined up with our kit, zipped open, dived in and zipped up immediately. So fast that we only had fourteen million mosquitoes in the tent, a fraction of the hordes that were hovering and zeeeee-ing outside!

– internet pics again – we were too busy to take pictures! –

Ama-azing! Canada sure has bugs! But what beautiful country:

As we’d cut our canoe trip short we decided to carry on into Manitoba, but Canada is vast and we realised we might bite off more than time would allow us to chew; so we soon cut back and headed south for the US border at International Falls, into Minnesota, across the Mississippi River where it’s still quite small and headed south for Iowa, where I had to leave the gang.

They dropped me off and buzzed off into the sunset, three lovely ladies and an Aussie, companions with who I had just spent one of the most unforgettable times of my life. That REALLY was special. So uncomplicated and relaxed and unstructured (unless Sherry was planning as we went – she was, come to think of it! I bet you she was!), and free and friendly. Wonderful people.

– the FOUR legs of my road trip – Summer of ’73 –

My host family from Apache Don & Jackie Lehnertz were up there and would be driving me back to Apache via Iowa, Missouri and Kansas on Stage Four. I’m afraid I slept a lot on this leg of the trip!

~~oo0oo~~

8 Sep 2018
Road Trip Out West
Jim n Katie Patterson, wonderful host family in Apache, took lovely girlfriend Dottie Moffett and me on a special trip out west in the summer of ’73, driving across the Texas panhandle to New Mexico. Dottie and I went part of the way with the Manars in their beautiful new car towing the newest of the Jeeps.

– crossing the Texas panhandle to New Mexico, the Manar’s Lincoln Continental –

Jim’s Mom Merrell Patterson had a lovely cottage outside Red River in the Sangre de Christo mountains. It could sleep a whole bunch of people if they were good friends! Some of the families did stay elsewhere nearby though, so we weren’t crowded. It was great fun.

– Granma Merrill’s Cottage outside Red River –

Here we stayed with the gang – the wonderful group of Apache friends the Pattersons hung out with: Manars, Hrbaceks, Mindemanns and Paynes.

Jim & Mary-Kate

That’s what Seagrams will do for candles! Glen’s worried!

Peggy, Glen, Jim. Pug, Walter, Katie. Jim blows Seagrams breath

– Jim had a birthday – his breath didn’t dowse the candles, it flared them up! –

The Jeeps were perfect for the mountain trails

Hebcoolers on the tailgates – Beer & Bloody Mary

Old Red leads the pack in the Sangre de Cristo mountains

After a terrific stay there, we headed off to Vegas in the Patterson’s Ford LTD via Colorado and Utah

– the LTD, with Dottie Moffett, Katie and Jim Patterson –

In Colorado we rode a historic steam train from Durango north to Silverton.

Then via Utah, where we visited Bryce Canyon and Zion NP.

In Vegas we stayed at The Stardust on The Strip. I learnt to gamble, I learnt to win. I battled to lose. Dottie was a good luck charm! I kept winning small amounts so kept on and on gambling, determined to lose. Finally as dawn approached we were down by a considerable fortune – $10 – and could go to bed.

We saw Joan Rivers being delightfully rude and Petula Clark warbling away (also Joan warbled a song and Petula told a joke!). I learnt a Vegas rule when I saw Jim slip the doorman a cri$p note to get us a good table!

– internet pic of 1973 Vegas strip scene –

After Vegas we stopped off at The Grand Canyon: We stared down at this awesome sight from the lookout on the south rim. We only had a few hours there, so we’re just look-see tourists. Suddenly I couldn’t stand it! I had to get down there. I told Dottie I was going and she said me too!

We started running down the Bright Angel trail. It’s about 10km to the river. I’ll give us an hour, I thought. The run was easy on a well-maintained track with the only real obstacle being the ‘mule trains’. Only once we had to step off the trail and let a bunch of mules pass. We made sure we were on the upside!

At first it was all open desert trail, but at Indian Gardens I was surprised by the amount of greenery in the canyon. From the rim it looks like all desert, but in the protected gorges there’s green shrubbery and even some tall trees.

In well under an hour we got to just above the river. I stared in awesome wonder at the swiftly-moving green water. I had never seen such a large volume of water flowing clear like that. Our South African rivers mostly run muddy brown, and I wasn’t expecting clear water. Right then I thought I MUST get onto this river! I’d started kayaking a couple of years before, but if I’d been asked I’d probably have said on a raft, little knowing that in eleven years time I would kayak past that very spot, under that same bridge in 1984 on a flood-level river!

– in 1973 on foot the water looked like this –

– our kayak trip in 1984 – these are our supporting rafts –

The hike back out was steep, but hey, we were 18yrs old! Cross-country running had been my favourite obsession the year before, and Dottie was Oklahoma’s No.2 tennis player, so no (or an acceptable amount of) sweat!

Then we headed home, by and large following the new I40 – which replaced the famous old historic Route 66 in places. Flagstaff Arizona, Albuquerque New Mexico, Amarillo Texas, and back to Oklahoma. To Apache and then on to take Dottie home to Ardmore. What a wonderful trip with amazing people!

I learned later:
- The name Colorado was for its muddy colour and its clarity is in fact an undesirable artifact because of the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell upstream;
- The 10km climb down Bright Angel is about 1000m vertically, and every metre down you’re going back in geological time! Fascinating. When we paddled through we had a paddler who is a geology prof with us, who regaled us with tales of how old each section was.
- They tell you Do Not try to hike from the rim to the river and back in one day! Why, we thought?
- Jim has hiked the rim to rim hike through the canyon a number of times since – an annual pilgrimage – the last time he did it he was 70!
~~~oo0oo~~~

***most pics off the ‘net – I’ll add my own as I find them!***
8 Sep 2018
Road Trip North with Larry – USA

My four-stage 1973 Road Trip North started in Apache Oklahoma. In Stage One Katie Patterson drove us down in her Ford LTD to stay with her folks, Mama and Papa Hays, in Shreveport, Louisiana. There we ‘visited’ as Oklahomans say; We were spoiled – I was a third, older, honorary grandchild! We played golf – I recall smacking the ball into one inch ‘rough’ under big old trees draped in lichen, or old man’s beard; And we ate superbly.

Papa Hays gave me a beautiful old book:

– Ginny, Katie, Mama Hays, Papa Hays, Jimmy, Larry, Mary-Kate – in Shreveport Louisiana –

Larry and his sister Ginny joined us, having driven down from Cobleskill NY and we got ready for Stage Two of my Great North American Road Trip: Heading north-east in a light greenish-grey Volkswagen Bug, 116 SHE.

– Larry, his ‘red’ VW and the U-Haul –

Larry and Ginny had packed their camping kit on the back seat; One more passenger meant we now needed a U-Haul carrier on the roof.

I remember surprisingly little about this trip north-east! We left the Red River and crossed the Arkansas River near Little Rock; I remember camping:

– Larry, Boy Scout! –

I remember crossing the mighty Mississippi River in or near St Louis, where the Missouri joins it;

The only thing I remember clearly is hoping my ID would be checked at the door when we went for my very first legal beer at a TGIF bar in Missouri. I had drank beer as a schoolboy in the Vrystaat, led astray by good friends, then as a seventeen yr-old in Oklahoma, in a 21 state, I had drank beer in Louisiana and Arkansas, but I turned 18 in the interim, and now at last I was eighteen in an 18 state! Legal at last!

I held my SA passport ready . . I now know (maybe not, it was more likely June or July by now) it was a Sunday; Richard Nixon was the President; We were listening to Killing Me Softly With His Song, and Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree; and NOW, at last, I would be checked and blessed for the first time . .

But the man at the door just waved me through. ** sigh! ** why have I always looked much older than I am? Nowadays people think I’m a hundred in the shade. Next they’ll be wanting to cancel my liquor licence, take away my drivers licence and mop my dribbling . . .

Oh, well, at least some other world-firsts happened that week: The first cellphone call; The World Trade Center twin towers opened; the first international rugby sevens tournament took place; the last American soldier ignominiously left Vietnam; and Pablo Picasso died.

I also remember getting to Larry’s hometown Cobleskill, a beautiful little town in upstate New York, and meeting his parents. I’d heard about Cobleskill since 1969 when Larry breezed into Harrismith and we spent a fun year making memories and amok; early experiments mixing beer and petrol – which he called gas. Well, we had a gas! Fun times!

That’s a really vague and sketchy recollection of a magic route! Larry doesn’t remember much more. In fact he confidently remembered the VW Bug as being red! ‘Tis not only my memory glands that are dodgy, I’m relieved to tell.

He’s going to ask his sister Virginia. She’ll know more. I know we went here, cos my trusty Olympus trip 35 camera recorded it, but where is it?

– someone will know where this is – Missouri River? Mississippi River? –

~~oo0oo~~

A few days later, another VW Bug arrived, full of gorgeous Oklahomans; and one less-than-glamorous Aussie (where are you, Jonathan Kneebone?) . . . and this Bug was red.

– l to r – gorgeous Oklahomans Dottie Moffett, Sherry Porter-Steele and Dale Moffett –

We were headed for Canada!

~~oo0oo~~

Our correspondence in 2017 went:

Subject: Lost in the USA
Hey Larry – Help a lost Vrystater who can’t remember where he has been!
I know we left Shreveport in your lil greyish-greenish VW Bug and headed up to Little Rock (I guess on highways 49 and then 30) but after that I’ve hit a blank.
And I know you took us to some interesting places. Do you remember the route you took? I’d love to hear it. Sort of a trip down Forgettery Lane. Cheers – Koos

Larry:

Forgettery Lane? You’re talking to someone who’s pretty much strolling down Alzheimer’s Avenue! (at least where 40+-year-old memories are concerned). BTW, if we traveled in a VW Beetle, it must have been red.

Fortunately for us both, Ginny tends to be much better in the recall department than I am. I believe we started the trip as a way for me to check out some law schools (which I was sort of seriously considering at the time, but — fortunately — never pursued). She was good enough to volunteer to come along as a companion/navigator, though I’m afraid I was a bit tough on her in that latter capacity, especially when I got freaked out driving in Washington, D.C., where the traffic was a bit intense for a kid from the country and the city center is famously laid out like the spokes of a wheel, as opposed to the more traditional grid pattern. Not what I’d call intuitive.

Thankfully we’re still on speaking terms, which I fear I put in jeopardy there for a while, so I’ll ask her (by means of CC-ing her on this e-mail) for any details she may recall. Unless I traumatized her so badly that she’s repressed the entire experience! Or perhaps it had the opposite effect and seared it into her memory — let’s hope for that. We were just together (in Roanoke) over the Easter holiday; wish I could have asked her about it directly.

That’s a very long way of saying no, I don’t really remember our route — sorry. I’m still hopeful Ginny may be able to save my bacon.

~~oo0oo~~

8 Sep 2018