Vrystaat Confessions

Category: 8_Nostalgia

Looking back with fondness on those things we couldn’t wait to get rid of, or away from, back then . .

Kayak the Canyon

1984 was one of the very few years since 1960 that Colorado river water from the Grand Canyon actually reached the sea. High snow melt pushed it past the
point where golf courses and old-age homes drain it of all its water
and so – at last! – the waters of the Colorado reached the beautiful
estuary at Baja California and flowed into the Sea of Cortez again!

Unknown to many, 1984 was also the ONLY year Mexicans would have been able to taste Mainstay cane spirits, distilled from South African sugar cane, mixed into that Colorado river water. Well, recycled Mainstay and river water, as the Mainstay that reached the sea had first passed through the kidneys of a mad bunch of South Africans that Chris Greeff had assembled to paddle through the famous American Canyon.

– Dave Jones’ place – Our host in Atlanta – He paddled for the USA –
– See the SAA hooch we had decanted into 2litre bottles! –

That’s because we were on the river sponsored by Mainstay Cane Spirits and South African Airways. The ‘Mainstay’ we drank was actually an SAA Boeing 747’s supply of tot bottles of whisky, brandy, gin, vodka, rum – and Mainstay cane spirits. We decanted all the little bottles we could find into two two-litre plastic bottles to help the stewardesses on board with their end-of-Atlantic-crossing stock-take. We had resolved to drink the plane dry, but man, they carry a lot of hooch on those big babies. Maybe in case they end up with all 350 passengers happening to be as thirsty as paddlers are? Here we are in Atlanta with the loot. Note the Mainstay sticker on one bottle held by our host Dave Jones, a paddler himself. Paddled for the USA in K1, C1 and C2 wildwater, US national champ and also coached the USA team. So we were saddled with not one but TWO national paddling champs who are dentists and military men, like beer and do crazy things!

Personally I reckon mixing guns, boats and teeth with beer can only bring trouble . .

– Saffers busy ‘outfitting’ as the Yanks say –

From Atlanta we jetted on to Phoenix Arizona. There we hired another lang slap car and took a slow drive to Flagstaff where we got ‘outfitted’ with kit for the trip. Fifteen canoeists from South Africa joined our guide Cully Erdman and his delightful partner JoJo Suchowiejko on a trip down the Grand Canyon from Lee’s Ferry to the take-out on Lake Mead three hundred miles downstream. We were accompanied by one other paddler, an Argentine José Luis Fonrouge who was ticking off his bucket list, having climbed Everest. Five rubber inflatable rafts crewed by experienced canyon runners carried the food and the ‘Mainstay’ and hundreds of beers, plus a motley assortment of tag-along raft passengers from South Africa. Talking of motley: Us paddlers ranged from capable rough water paddlers to flatwater sprinters to happy trippers to complete novices. Some had Springbok colours, others had a lot of cheek.

Outfitting was also needed for supplies and Greeff put himself in charge of catering for the liquid refreshments. He was good at maths back in Parys se hoerskool so he did some sums: Seventeen kayakers plus some rafters times 12 days times 10 beers each is, lessee . . . OK, and then after breakfast we’ll need . . .

Apparently the yanks thought he’d grossly over-catered and they were worried about how they were going to carry the left-over beer out of the canyon at the end. That’s if the rafts stayed afloat. Well, ons sal sien . .

– ‘our’ five rafts with the beer – high water had shrunk this beach, but we stopped to walk up a side canyon –

– our river guide Cully Erdman shows us how – he has done it before –

– massive Redwall Cavern at mile 33 – pics National Geographic and oars.com – thanks! –

– Herve, George & Jojo with her bikini ON –

Some twists in the tale:

My boyhood kayaking heroes had been the van Riet brothers, Willem and Roelof, who won the Dusi three times just as I was first learning about the race ca 1970. As I started to participate in the race in 1972 Graeme Pope-Ellis won the first of his eventual fifteen Dusi wins. Both Willem and Graeme were with us on this trip, along with other paddling legends I had met in my recent entry into the world of canoeing. Having ‘paddled lonely‘ from 1970 to 1982, I was now rubbing shoulders with legends!

– legends of paddling – and me – out of respect for them, I’m wearing long pants –

Another twist: In the year I first saw the Colorado river after walking/running down the Bright Angel trail from the South Rim to the Colorado’s swiftly-flowing clear green water – 1973 – Willem had launched a boat at Lee’s Ferry, done an eskimo roll and come up with ice in his hair, causing him to postpone his trip. Now he was back, eleven years later – in the summer! And so was I.

The trip was put together by yet another iconic paddler Chris Greeff, winner of more kayak races than I’d had breakfasts. One of the craziest races he won was the Arctic Canoe Race on the border between Finland and Sweden. About 500km of good pool and drop rapids in cold water. When he arrived at the start with his sleek flatwater racing kayak the other paddlers and the officials looked at their wider, slower, more stable canoes and thought ‘Ha! he intends portaging around all the rapids!’ They had heard of the Dusi and how mad South Africans run with kayaks on their heads, so they amended the rules: Every rapid avoided would incur a stiff time penalty. You portage, you pay! Chris grinned and agreed enthusiastically with their ruling: He was no Dusi runner and he had no intention of getting out of his boat!

Later: On the trip, our American kayak and raft guides kept asking us about the sponsors stickers we had attached to kayaks and rafts. SAA they understood, South African Airways; but what was this “Mainstay” stuff? Ooh! You’ll see! was all we’d say.
At ___ rapid on Day __ around the campfire we hauled out our two-litre bottles filled with a suspicious amber liquid. THIS we said, was that famous stuff!

Colorado Toekoe – Pre- and Post a shot of Mainstay –

The first thing about Mainstay, we told them, was its medicinal properties. Toekoe Egerton had turned blue from too much swimming, but after a slug of Mainstay he got his colour back as the ‘before and after’ pictures above clearly show.

As more Mainstay was swallowed, hilarity and a bit of insanity ensued. I have a picture frozen in my mind of Willem sprinting past me, running nimbly across the pontoons of a raft and launching himself in the darkness into the swift current of the Colorado running at 50 000 cfs shouting Yee-ha!! – A bit like this, but at night and in the summer:

– Willem could stay as he was for the rest of his life; But he chose to change to Mainstay – Mainstay –

IQ’s soared:

– George, Allie, Swys & Toekoe, full of Mainstay –

– John Lee of Lee’s Ferry – a striking resemblance to our own John Lee – obviously separated at birth –

Besides this fortified and fortifying SAA loot, Greeff had also arranged for beers on the trip. John Lee tells the story:

I recall how our Yankee rafting crew were somewhat taken aback at the rather large drinks order they received prior to the departure from Lees Ferry! Despite the huge stocks, somewhere downstream in the depths of the Grand Canyon, to their utter disbelief, the only liquid left was the raging Colorado River. Stocks had run dry .

There were some thirsty, desperate river runners in camp. We were way upstream from the next available beer at Phantom Ranch’s shop.

Desperate times call for desperate measures …….

Some of us (hello Felix!) resorted to performing like trained seals, executing dashing eskimo rolls for passing J-Rigs, and being rewarded with frosties for our efforts!

One Captain (PF) Christiaan Lodewikus Greeff called quietly for volunteers, and assembled a raiding party – could also call them ‘SEALs’, one was a parabat – to address the situation. This unbeknown to our unsuspecting, law-abiding river crew.

In the dead of night, wearing beanies, faces blackened, they slid silently into the icy waters of the flooded Colorado River and headed into an upstream eddy towards the distant sounds of happy laughter from a neighbouring campsite.

Reaching tethered rafts, they found the holy Grand Canyon grail . . . multiple nets strung from the rafts, laden with tins of sunset amber liquid.

Their return to our camp was triumphant.

I cannot recall the composition of that courageous group. Suffice it to say, that I am certain that it included one Lieutenant-Colonel A Gordon-Peter (SAB with bar).

The reaction of our guides, later, was somewhat different!

Mules heavily laden with liquor were later cajoled down the treacherous track from Phantom Ranch, and our evenings were once again fueled with fun, laughter and Willie’s moerse yarns!

In closing, who will ever forget that wonderful mirage in the middle of the shimmering Lake Mead – a very naked, very tall and statuesque blonde River Goddess on a drifting raft … … or was it ?

– some of our wonderful American rafters – law-abiding folk –

– lawyer lee ponders –

Well, I dunno – but there was at least one naked lady that I do know of: JoJo posed butt naked for a stealthily-taken pic on George’s camera. What a sport, she removed her bikini top and bottom for the gentlemen doing research on just how much trouble George would get into with his wife back home.

Lee plans his arguments for the court cases sure to follow: YaRonna! These were just Merry Pranksters, M’Lord . . .

– Felix – looking semi-naked – caught trout in the Little Colorado –

– Foreground and background: Muddy and warm water of the Little Colorado. In the middle: Clear cold Colorado water from deep down in Lake Powell. Ryan practices the roll that didn’t work in Lava Falls a few days later –

At the confluence of the Colorado and the Little Colorado the Little was flooding and massively silt-laden. We stopped on a skinny sandbank and had mud fights and mud rolls. The muddy water from the flooding Little Colorado was so thick that the two trout Felix Unite caught thanked him for rescuing them!

It merged here with the clear water coming out of Lake Powell – seen behind Felix – and from here on we had traditionally red-coloured water – ‘colorado.’

Just downstream of the confluence I got sucked under by a big whirlpool that formed under my boat that I couldn’t escape. As I went down I set up to roll but stayed down until I thought ‘I’m outa here’ as I was now loose in the cockpit and my splashie had leaked. So I bailed. Up on the surface the guys told a more dramatic tale: ‘Swanie! You disappeared for AGES! Then your boat popped up; Then your paddle popped up; And still there was no you! Then at last you popped up!’ So then they started calling me Pete Whirlpool. Lots of that muddy water stayed up my snout and I had a few bad sinus headaches but Wendy – Dave Walker’s connection – very kindly stepped in and saved my butt with strong painkillers and nightly TLC. Back in Durban a month later I was rushed into theatre by another very kind lady, my boss at Addington Hospital, ophthalmology professor Anne Peters. She took me to her ENT friend for an emergency sinus washout! As Saffeffricans say ‘Ah neely dahd!’ Some Little Colorado River mud was washed down Durban’s St Augustine Hospital’s outlet pipes into the Indian Ocean that day. Probly also had a smattering of Mainstay in it.

– lunch on a small sandbank – five rafts, seventeen kayaks squeeze on – the water level was up –

– seated among legends as I was, I wore my langbroek out of respect – Graeme & Wendy Pope-Ellis; Wendy Walwyn; John Lee; Cully Erdman; Me; Willem van Riet; Jannie Claassens; Herve de Rauville in red cap –

– Expedition Leader Greeff bombs through –

– Me in Crystal rapid –

Hikes up the side-canyons:

– Thunder River Falls up a side canyon. Canyon lore has it that the ‘river’ flows into a ‘creek’ which flows into the Colorado River –

– splendid desert scenery; and always the river’s presence below –

– council of elder map readers – see my map at the end of this post –

Map reading: I had a lovely large-scale map of the river through the canyon showing all the rapids. We would pore over it, going over the day and plotting our tomorrow. Here Jannie Claassens stands left, Swys du Plessis is prominent in red shorts, I am just visible behind him, Dave Walker wears a cap, Willem van Riet sports a ducktail probly cos of his last swim, Herve de Rauville kneels like a good Catholic, Allie Peter lying down in the background cursing his shoulder, Chris Greeff in the Mainstay cap ponders his next move, Bernie The Jet Garcin has a beer in his hand and a sock in his speedo, Wendy Walwyn is planning her first eskimo roll soon, and Cully Erdman in blue shorts thinks ‘Wwho ARE these okes? and where was that huge rapid Willem is talking about!?’

– internet pic – river at a lower level –

– Bernie Garcin – great mate; – – and WHAT a campsite! – nice paddle, too –

Happy daze drifting in the current, lying back gazing up at the cliffs and watching the waterline as century after millenium of geological lines rose up out of the water and each day rose higher and higher above us. Willem the geologist would explain some of it to us. The latest view seems to be that the river is around six million years old, and it has exposed rocks up to two billion years old as it carves downwards, aided also by wind erosion.

– at 50 000cfs, Vulcan’s Anvil, one mile above Lava, was covered up to where the dark grey meets the brown –

Then every so often you would sit up and listen intently. Then peer ahead with a stretched neck and drift in a quickening current as the roar of the next rapid grew in the canyon air. The river was running at an estimated high of 50 000cfs – that’s about 1650 cumecs, big water. 1984 was a high year. Once you could see where the rapid was, you pulled over and got out to scout it and plot your way through it. It was no use asking Greeff. His stock answer was ‘Down The Middle!’

– Lava Falls –

For days before Lava, the bullshit build-up built up: ‘Rain? That’s not rain! That’s the mist from LAVA FALLS!’

Arriving at Lava we hopped out and checked it out, butterflies no longer flying in formation. After scouting carefully most of us went left; a few went right. One – Ryan – went snorkeling straight into the big hole and got chomped, rinsed and spat out. His blue helmet can be seen in the picture if you have a magnifying glass.

– Lava Falls – there’s a paddler there somewhere –

– an all-girl team gets coached down Lava Falls –

And then typical ladies: As we strutted and boasted of derring-do, they quietly commandeered one of the rafts and rowed it ladies-only down Lava! They took one yank with them, just to show him they could . .

– Team Mainstay SAA from South Africa; At the usual take-out before Lake Mead –

At the usual take-out at Diamond Creek before Lake Mead, we stopped for a rest and some team photos. The high water had washed away the road. We had to keep going. Some miles later we hit the dead waters of Lake Mead. The river ran out of push, tamed by a damn dam. Paddling was over for most of us! We piled our kayaks onto the rafts and lay on them – there were still a few beers that needed polishing. Our five-raft flotilla was tugged out by a motorboat to another take-out point, Pearce Ferry on Lake Mead miles downstream.

– final take-out on the lake at Pearce Ferry – the river bottom right, flowing right to left into the lake –

Downstream? Except of course there was now no longer any ‘stream’ – we were on flat water. Greeff and a few other crazies – including Wendy Walwyn – you know, the types who weren’t issued with handbrakes, brains or limits, paddled the whole flat water way! Holy shit! I drank beer lying on a raft, gazing at the blue Arizona sky.

Too soon, it was over.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Drifting downstream, Dave Walker led the singing:

The canyon burro is a mournful bloke
He very seldom gets a poke
But when he DOES . . .
He . LETS . it soak
As he revels in the joys of forni- CA-TION!

and (to the tune of He Ain’t Heavy):

Hy’s nie Swaar nie

Hy’s my Swaer . a . a . aer

~~~oo0oo~~~

We went down the Canyon twice

I always say we did the Canyon twice. Once we would bomb down in our kayaks, crashing through the exhilarating big water; The second time was much hairier, with bigger rapids, higher water and far more danger: That was around the campfire at night when Willem would regale us with tales of his day on the water. ‘Raconteur’ is too mild a word! The word ‘MOERSE’ featured prominently in his epic tales and his long arm would be held high to show you where the crest of the wave sat. And this from a man who bombed ‘blind’ down the Cunene River ca.1965.

~~~oo0oo~~~

When? I wanted to know when exactly we were on the water to look up the flow on those days, but no-one knew. Now! Aha! I found an old letter (or Sheila did) written just before we flew to Arizona). I think we paddled – near as dammit – from 18 to 30 July 1984.

~- Monday? 16 July in 1984 was a Monday –

~~oo0oo!!

Postscript: While we were paddling Chris spoke of attempting to beat the record for the fastest non-stop descent of the Canyon – the 277 mile stretch we had just done from Lee’s Ferry to our eventual take-out at Pearce Ferry.

– The Dory ‘Emerald Mile’ – our 12-day trip in 36 hours non-stop – no thanks –

Only
a handful of boaters have been crazy enough to undertake such a
mission. After all, doing it non-stop means having to shoot Lava
Falls at night! The Riggs brothers made what could be considered the
first speed run in 1951 when they rowed a cataract-style wooden boat
through the canyon in 53 hours; Fletcher Anderson, a pioneering
Southwestern boater, made a 49-hour solo kayak descent in the late
1970s; and then in 1983, just a year before our leisure trip, Kenton
Grua, Rudi Petschek, and Steve Reynolds completed a now-legendary run
on a flood of 70,000 cfs in a wooden dory named the Emerald Mile.
Their record of 36 hours and 38 minutes was the time to beat.

– Ben Orkin – saw little of the canyon –

Nothing came of it – it would have been a very expensive undertaking from South Africa for an obscure record only the small expedition rafting and kayaking fraternity would have known of; and anyway, why do it? But the record is ever-present in some people’s minds. In January 2016 the record was beaten twice. First by ‘Team Beer’: Ben Luck, Matt and Nate Klemas and Ryan Casey in three Piranha Speeders and a Perception Wavehopper, boats much like the ones we used. Then three days later by Ben Orkin, paddling solo in a composite Epic 18X sea kayak, a boat lighter than the models Team Beer had used and with a metre longer waterline. He reduced the time to 34 hours and 2 minutes. The Emerald Mile’s record, which had stood for over three decades, had been broken twice in three days.

I do (sort of) understand the quest for records (sort of), humans always will go for fastest; but for me,

. . floating down in awesome wonder is really the way to do it.

Before the river became crowded and the park service slapped restrictions on trip lengths, private boatmen in the ’70s vied at ‘slow-boating’, or making a trip last as long as possible. The crowning glory of slow-boating has gone down in river history as the Hundred Day Trip. Legendary boatman Regan Dale and his extended family floated away from Lees Ferry and spent a whopping 103 days in the canyon. They hiked every side canyon, spent as long as a week in favorite camps like Nankoweap and Granite Park, baked their own bread and wallowed in the vast silence of stone cathedrals broken only by the rustle of the river. The moon waxed and waned three times while they were there. It was roughly as long as the very first trip down the canyon led by John Wesley Powell in 1869, over a hundred years earlier – and 150 years ago now; and this over 300 miles whereas Powell had done 1000 miles. So the Regan Dale trip really was the slowboating trip supreme. I wonder if there will ever be trips like that again.

~~~~oo0oo~~~~

In 2019 the Magnificent Grand Canyon National Park is 100 years old – what a laugh that we shortlived humans think that’s old! In 2026 unscrupulous and greedy politicians and fortune-seekers tried to have the Grand Canyon deproclaimed so it could be privatised and mined. A judge ruled against them. This time.

….

Later: A letter from Cully and JoJo – “do come again!” and “boknaai!”

John Lee wrote:

…running Crystal Creek down the left , Lava down the right was all complete childs play when compared to what felix , Cully and Bridgette put me through at Havasu Falls .

The four of us did that looooong hike up that pristine side canyon .

When we reached the aquamarine coloured waters below the falls , the travertine rimmed pools below , I immediately saw the photo-opp.

I had them climb to the rock above the falls from which they launched themselves , simultaneously and spectacularly , into space and fell about forty to fifty foot into the waters below .

Magnificent photos it turned out a long time later …….

It took them about half an hour to talk me , in turn , off that ledge .

That is by far the single most courageous thing I’ve done to date !

My fear of heights is a raging mental all-encompassing melt down …..

Still don’t know how I did it .

Then …..there was the Rattler I very nearly stood on, on the way back …..

Felix Unite wrote:

What memories! For me that GC trip remains one of my life’s highlights/milestones!

Location, action and memories of great friendship and camaraderie – not to mention how much I kakked myself!!!

Thank you all.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Chris Greeff wrote in May 2018:

R.I.P Herve de Rauville, Graeme Pope-Ellis, Swys du Plessis, Johan Claassen and Arthur Egerton ! – Also R.I.P Jose Luis Fonrouge

That Map

And here’s my famous map that was such a boon on the trip. Fifteen pages each 30cm long, the map was 4,5m long all told. Lots of detail. Which I then added to from our experiences.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Our quiet, laid-back fellow kayaker from Argentina

Jose Luis Fonrouge had climbed Mt Everest, we heard. He had also done much more:

Fitz Roy: First Alpine Style New Route – Report by Marcelo Eduardo Espejo

January 16, 1965 two climbers accomplished what is still today considered as one of the most remarkable climbs on the Patagonian spires. Jose Luis Fonrouge and Carlos Comesana reached the summit of Fitz Roy for the second time in history. They had climbed the virgin super-couloir known as the Supercanaleta. For summit proof, they retrieved a carabiner left there by the 1952’s French expedition and left an Argentinean flag in its place. See route 18 below.

Toekoe and Jose hang out:

– Jose (foreground) chills after another day paddling with us in 1984 –

Of the few words Jose spoke in the Canyon, these I remember: He had flipped in Lava and semi-rolled up three times while we watched. I asked him about it and he said, roughly, ‘Every time I looked up it looked crazy, so I thought I’d just stay upside down – it was more peaceful underneath.’

~~~oo0oo~~~

Old-Fashioned Photo Album

Pics from my photo album – copied and now discarded:

Sundry reports in the SA press afterwards

(all uploaded here as the hardcopies are being tossed)

Oh, and JoJo was cute as a kid, too:

~~~oo0oo~~~

17 Feb 2017
It Was Like a Military Operation

Bouncing around on the back of a Bedford we would roar to a halt in the veld. Well, really the mixed thornveld somewhere north of Pretoria, which should properly be called Tshwane, ancestral home of the Tshwanepoels to which we have land claim rights. But that’s another (important) story. In a cloud of dust. We were a highly mobile, highly efficient ‘Field Hospital.’

. . . Right.

Seeking the shelter of trees so as not to be too visible to the enemy, and to have the shelter of trees, we would leap eagerly to the ground, pitch our big tents and carry in the stretchers, placing them in neat rows one left and one right. Then up would go the drip stands, each with a drip hanging down. Sundry balsaks and trommels would be lined up and unpacked and in no time we’d be ready to receive the wounded, the sick, the lame and the lazy who had been drilled or scared by the kommuniste nearby, us being an advance field hospital. We were much like this:

Well. In theory.

In reality the only thing that happened with any sense of urgency was the roaring to a halt by the Bedfords in a cloud of dust. After that there would be consultation and various opinions about whether the tents should be lined up like this (maybe east-west) or like this (maybe west-east). And how could we put it here? Look at this big stump in the ground here. The neat rows would be more haphazard and boiling water for tea would be accomplished before any drip stands were placed. Lots of hanging back and ‘after you.’ It was like a military operation.

Which is seldom like this:

And more often like this: A strategic planning session in the bush.

– some literal ballas-bakking caught on camera –

The most organised of the troops was our mate Rhynie Fritsch. From Durban, natch. Of the Fritsch Plumbers dynasty. As the lorry stopped he would step off with his blanket over his shoulder and his paperback in his hand and immediately stroll off till just out of sight but still well within earshot for a ballasbak. As the Bedfords started up again after we had struck camp and packed up he would reappear in time to clamber on, miffed that us workers hadn’t kept him any tea. Everyone loved ole Rhynie so you could only admire his gippo’ing.

~~oo0oo~~

In the evenings we ate well.

~~oo0oo~~

balsaks – literally scrotums; big all-purpose canvas bags; used as seats, totes, wardrobes, pillows, laundry bags, etc;

trommels – big all-purpose tin trunks; used as seats, bedside tables, cupboards, etc;

kommuniste – vaguely-defined bad ous who refused to believe we were Ve Chosen Race;

ballasbak – ball-baking; testicle-tanning; sitting or lying back in the sun, basking with your crotch exposed to the warm rays. See the picture: The sunglass fella is doing it well, the other two not bad. In the barracks you’d usually be leaning against a wall, hidden from the corporal’s sight. On a camp, though, the corporal might be next to you, doing it better than you; an early form of solar recharging;

gippo’ing – wisely dodging what you were meant to be doing. The opposite of volunteering; Probably slang from the Egypt campaign in WW2?

8 Feb 2017
Cannot be

When I was around six years old Sheila came marching up to me and demanded: –

“Do you know what Dad’s name is?”

Well, of course I did! I was the older brother.

It’s “Dad”

“No man, his real name!”

What did she mean? Oh, of course – I’d heard Mom call him that lots of times.

“Peter”

“No. It’s PIETER GERHARDUS!!”

What rubbish! I’d never heard such foul language! And this from my MUCH younger sister! She was a whole year younger’n me. Which was like: All of living memory!

Amazingly, investigation and enquiry proved her right!

~~~oo0oo~~~

(this snippet had an interesting sort-of replay years later)

2 Feb 2017
Thank You Ernie!

Ernie van Biljon wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I got to go to America as a Rotary exchange student back in 1973.

You persevered where others lost interest.

What a lovely man. He should have lived to a hundred.

Rotary held their interview and selection sessions at Greystones outside Estcourt (where I had attended a Veld & Vlei leadership course earlier that year):

Which three countries would you like to go to, they asked?
America, America, and America I replied – and I want to go to a small town, not a big city.

Well, they selected me anyway, but decided, “OK, smartass,” and dispatched me to Apache, Oklahoma, USA, population 1500.

“There are two strict rules” they told us sternly: “No Falling In Love; and Strictly No Driving while you’re there.”

Of course not . . .

Well, I got none out of two right but it was just infatuation; and the owner of the Chev Camaro covered for me in Apache; and the owner of the VW Beetle covered for me in Canada. Turned out I double-failed at both the Two Commandments. I broke them and I was useless at them.

Thank you, Ernie! It was a life-changing, unforgettable year!

~~oo0oo~~

For Apache Adventures, see here

…

Ernie was a great character, full of smiles and laughs. Mother Mary (96 in 2025 when she told me the story) tells how he was worried about his smoking; and how everyone, including “The Englishman,” as he sometimes called Margie, his lovely wife, wanted him to quit. “But I don’t know what to do with my hands!” he complained. Well, Mary had an answer for that: “I’ll show you what to do with your hands,” she said, “Here, put them together like this,” Ernie dutifully followed her instructions. Then put them between your legs like this, she said, putting her hands between her legs. With his mischievous grin Ernie said, “OK,” and made to also place his hands between Mary’s legs, causing great hilarity all round and distracting everyone so he could carry on smoking unchallenged.

~~oo0oo~~

2 Feb 2017
Harrismith Methodist Guild

Posed at the seldom-used front door. The side door on the left was where we filed in to get saved.

They demolished the old sandstone church! Demolish and Build! was the fashion. Pity.

Sunday school – Stella Euthemiou was my Sunday School teacher. We would gather in the hall on the left and she would lead us on the path to heaven. Well, try anyway. We would have followed her anywhere!

26 Jan 2017
Waddayamean You’ve Never Heard Of Him!?

Jim Stainton was aghast! He had just invited me along to a rock concert in Oklahoma City and I had immediately accepted. My motto in Apache was I only say YES to all invitations to travel. Only got a year, gotta go everywhere! His follow-up questions had forced me to admit my ignorance.

Don’t say that! Don’t say you don’t know who Chuck Berry is!

Hey! I was a seventeen-year-old Vrystater. I was lucky enough to know a lot about modern music, but turns out there was this gap in the fifties when I was one month and twenty days old and Maybellene hit the charts!

But I was willing to learn, I had a ball at that concert with Jim, and I have been a Chuck Berry fan ever since!

What I didn’t tell Jim is I had even less heard of Bo Diddley! He featured with Chuck and they rocked up a storm. ‘My ding-a-ling’ was really big just then! (ok, that didn’t sound just right, but anyway . . . knowaddimean . . )

He played all his hits with huge energy, holding the big stadium in the palm of his hand. He played ‘Johnny B. Goode’, ‘Maybelline’, ‘Nadine’, ‘No Particular Place to Go’, ‘Reelin’ and Rockin’’ ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Surfin’ U.S.A’, ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ etc. etc And ‘My ding-a-ling’.

That was 1973. I recently found a 2014 pic of Jim on the internets. That’s him in the red T:

Some Chuck Berry:

– “People don’t want to see seventeen pieces in neckties. They wanna see some jeans, some gettin’ down and some wigglin’.”

– “I love poetry. I love rhyming. Do you know, there are poets who don’t rhyme? Shakespeare don’ rhyme most of the time and that’s why I don’ like him.”

– “It amazes me when I hear people say ‘I want to go out and find out who I am’. I always knew who I was. I was going to be famous if it killed me.”

– “I would sing the blues if I had the blues.”

————-

Bo

In 1963, Bo Diddley starred in a UK concert tour with the Everly Brothers and Little Richard. The supporting act was a little up-and-coming outfit called The Rolling Stones.

~~oo0oo~~

footnote: I asked a friend last year to bring some Chuck Berry to a gathering on my patio. I decided to catch up before so I looked him up on wikipedia – to learn he had died a few days before at the ripe ole age of 90. R.I.P Chuck Berry.

23 Jan 2017
Safe as a Guinea

On Tabbo’s Warden farm ‘Rust.’ Mine host Tabbo is second from right, yet another ale in hand.

– Tony Porrell, Koos Swanepoel, Nev Shave, Charlie Deane, Dirk Odendaal, Ian Fyvie, Rob Spilsbury – Nick Leslie, Doug Wright, John Venning, Mike Curnow, Tabs Fyvie and Guy Kirk –
– front: Gillon Thake – son of Doug Wright’s sister, Yomi Thake –

None of those guineas were killed by me (second from left) with my old man’s cheap Russian Baikal shotgun, R139 from Musgraves in Bloem, even though the barrel was smoking. A marksman I am not! I was ‘Rust’-y. The fowls of the air are safe when I’m aiming at them.

Kai Reitz once tried to cure my handicap of not being able to hit a cow’s arse with a banjo. On his farm, The Bend on the Tugela river outside Bergville, he gently lobbed up big sandclods in a ploughed field and I filled the air surrounding them with birdshot. Then they plonked to earth. Thud! Unharmed.

It was for naught – he had to give up.

With the last two shells Kai took the shotgun. I hurled two empty shell cases as hard as I could. Blap! Blap! he hit both of them. Bang went the gun and bang went my chance of using faulty Russian alignment as an excuse.

Bloody guineas better watch out, I’ll bring my mate Kai next time!

~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~

As always, Sheila has the details:

This was taken on 1 September 1974, at a shoot at the Fyvies’ farm ‘Rust’ near Warden. According to my 1974 diary, we had had a wonderful party at Nick & Anne Leslie’s farm ‘Heritage’ the night before – “Had delicious supper. Danced. Sat & chatted” – most of us spent the night there, then moved over to Rust the next day, where the guys “shot about 60 fowls.”

~~oo0oo~~

15 Jan 2017
Colorado USA

I was going to ski – we would have called it snow ski! – for the first time in my life. Wolf Creek Pass in the San Juan mountains in Colorado. We’d be catching a bus from Oklahoma, driving there and staying at the lodge. Jim Patterson was taking me on a host-Dad and Son special treat. It was 1973, and in the previous summer he and Katie had taken friend Dottie Moffett and I on a steam train ride nearby – the Durango to Silverton narrow gauge railroad.

My pic of the Animas River out the train window:

That was a glorious summer. But now we were going in winter:

As the day approached we watched the snow reports with bated breath. Nothing. No snow. The day before we were to leave the bad news came: Trip cancelled.

True to form Jim looked on the bright side – he always did! – and invited me to join him in drowning our sorrows as he opened up the big heb cooler full of Coors beer he had packed for the trip! Jim always put a good spin on everything!

I would have to wait fifteen years till 1988 before my first snow skiing – in Austria.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Also, another new sport I had started but wouldn’t really get into for another nine years, took place on the Colorado rivers next to that railway line: White-water kayaking:

~~~oo0oo~~~

7 Jan 2017
Basket Weaving

When I got to Apache Oklahoma in 1973 I had already finished high school. Not much academic enthusiasm or effort had gone into my matric and I was keen to put minimal effort into this second matric, or ‘senior year’, at Apache High. In my mind I had been sent to America to socialise and be an ambassador, ‘period’.
So I carefully selected my subjects – I had to take American history – I was OK with that. I learnt about George Washington. I had to take English (compulsory for all foreigners). I added typing, ag shop (agricultural workshop – farming, welding, etc making me a member of the FFA – Future Farmers of America), annual staff (making the school annual, acting as a journalist, and selling ads in town – a hoot! Actually, they chose me, you couldn’t just elect to do it. I was lucky). I’m sure there was a sixth. Yes, Oklahoman history, I think. My mind wasn’t really on these details. No wait, it was Phys Ed.
Here’s me focusing on my typing. I’m with fellow annual staffers Robbie Swanda and David Lodes slaving over our hot typewriters. I reached a blistering 19 words a minute with ten mistakes.

Typing – roaring along at 19wpm with 10 mistakes

Robbie Swanda & David Lodes, fellow typists and Annual Staff members bashing out the Apache 1973 school annual

When I told host Dad Jim Patterson my subjects he grimaced. Then he grinned and said – “Peter, are you sure they didn’t offer Basket Weavin’!”
Jim was a great teacher. He taught me all about ‘counting fence posts’. He would pack a sixpack of Coors into a coolerbox full of ice and we would drive around the district in his old red Ford F150 pickup along the farm roads with Jim recounting all the tales of who lived where, what they farmed and some history of the area. We were ‘counting fence posts’.
Here’s Jim waking up on the back of that pickup one camping trip:

3 Jan 2017
Mary Bland Grew Up On A Farm

This was taken on my grandparents’ Frank and Annie Bland’s farm, Nuwejaarsvlei in the Harrismith district, eighteen miles out on the road to Witsieshoek. The farm is now under Sterkfontein Dam.

The solid sandstone stables (‘five loose boxes’) were more stable (!) than the house, which was a long thin prefabricated structure bought from the British army on Kings Hill when they finally left town in 1913, eleven years after the end of the Boer War. Grandpa Frank bred and raced race horses. For a while . . . Mary’s uncle Stuart Bain also trained racehorses.

Frank had the prefab carted out to the farm, then cut off a portion of the long house so they only lived in four rooms: A lounge, a kitchen and two bedrooms. They bathed in a zinc bath in the kitchen while Frank showered with cold water in a reed enclosure outside. In all seasons. In the Eastern Freestate. At five thousand feet above sea level. Near the Drakensberg escarpment Brrr!

Bath water was heated in paraffin tins on the coal stove, then poured into tge xinc bath. Lighting was by lamplight. The toilet was a long-drop outside, positioned under trees along a path of white-washed stones leading from the kitchen door. Past Frank’s shower.

Here’s older sis Pat pushing Mother Mary in their dolls pram in the farmyard. See the stable sandstone stables in the background.

Frank started to build a big stone house from sandstone quarried on the farm. Built on a slope, it was level with the ground at the back, but ended in a high drop in front, which never did get the grand steps that were to lead up to the big veranda. The walls went up and the kids would roam around the big house, four bedrooms, big rooms, big kitchen but Mom says, “No bathroom.” Frank believed in an outside bathroom.

The roof never went on. The builder wanted many sheep (Mom thinks 200!) to do the roof and Frank balked at that / couldn’t afford it.

Other buildings on the farm were a workshop, Frank’s office and a garage for his yellow ‘Erskine’ tourer. Mom remembers: “It had open sides; when it rained you stopped, hopped out and quickly put up the side flaps.”

– an Erskine Tourer –

Later Frank bought a 1936 Chev Standard – perhaps like this one, but ‘light brown’:

Mom Mary remembers cousin Janet leaving the door open after she and older sister Pat had jumped out just before Frank drove into the garage. The door, she says, was “damaged forever.”

The Nuwejaarspruit runs from Nuwejaarsvlei down to the Wilge river downstream of Harrismith and then into the Vaal Dam. Sterkfontein dam was built on the spruit and drowned the farm under Tugela river water pumped up from KwaZulu Natal. You would now have to scuba dive in the clear water to see the farmhouse. This picture is taken from roughly above the farm looking back towards Harrismith’s long Platberg mountain with Baker’s Kop on the left:

They called the hills on the farm ‘Sugar Loaf’ and ‘Horseshoe’. Mom loved her walks with her Dad Frank and fondly remembers them ninety (gasp!) years later. Her favourite part: He would day, “Take my hand… “

Mom says she and friends would argue, ‘whose Dad is best?’ One friend was Dossie Farquhar, who ‘came back to Harrismith from Benoni.’

I wish we had more pictures of the farm. Here are the only ones I have found so far of areas near the farm before it was flooded:

Annie also always drove. Frank said she always drove too fast. Years later the younger crowd John Taylor and Mike Malcolm-Smith said she always drove too slow, and that she should speed up – “to the speed limit”!!

Annie & dog in a _____

Then the farming ended. The Blands moved into town – the metropolis of Harrismith – ca.1939 to start a petrol station and garage, having lost the farms. In September 1943 Frank had a colosistectomy for gallstones’ performed by his friend and GP Dr Frank Reitz. Mom went to visit him in hospital on her fifteenth birthday, 18 September. He died two months later, aged fifty. The next year, when Annie needed an op, she sent Mary off by train with Granny Bland to Durban to stay with Mrs Jim Caskie – ‘a huge fat lady’ – in the Echoes Hotel.

While in Durban they saw a 1943 Irving Berlin movie “This Is The Army.”

Luckily Annie came through the ordeal intact. She would live for many a year yet. About forty nine of them.

~~oo0oo~~

Nearby farm neighbours on Kindrochart were the Shannons, George and Belle, with son Jack, a few years older than Pat and Mary. The Shannons also bred racehorses and achieved forever fame when they won the Gold Cup with their horse Rinmaher.

When Jack had outgrown his Shetland Pony named ____, his parents suggested to him that he give it to the Bland girls on Nuwejaarsvlei. He looked dubious but his parents encouraged him.

“Will you do that?” they prodded him.

“Yes, but not with pleasure” said Jack.

Recently Sheila found a pic of Jack – probably on that very pony!

Jack and Peter Bell

Peter Bell (or Hastings-Bell) became a pilot in the Rhodesian airforce and tragically went missing in action in WW2.

~~oo0oo~~

Jessie & Annie sitting with Janet & Mary between them – (then two unnamed guests) – Frank lying on the lawn with Pat

~~oo0oo~~

Decades later, here’s Mary in 1990 cruising above Nuwejaarsvlei in a boat the ole man built, with her old family home somewhere underwater below her:

~~oo0oo~~

More decades later and I phoned Mary (now aged 92). She said she’d had a lovely night’s sleep and . . . see here.

The Erskine was an American Automobile built by The Studebaker Corp. in South Bend, Indiana from 1926 to 1930.

2 Jan 2017