We used to do ballet and a bit of tap dancing in the Masonic Hall. Cathy Bain gave us dancing lessons. Dossie and Ursula were very supple, me not so much.
Singing: Sometimes we’d get together at the Methodist Manse. Tommy vd Bosch would play his guitar and sing ‘Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care, the master’s gone away!
Trudi Els and I would sing, Heigh Ho Come to the Fair; Kom Dans Klaradyn; and Because, as a trio, with PietNel van Reenen’s sister Dalene. Mamie Smith (Putterill) would play the piano.
I was the hockey captain even though Sylvia Bain was a better player than me. I played centre forward and Sylvia was centre half. Joey de Beer was in charge of getting the balls back to school. We would walk back, crossing over the railway line on the pedestrian bridge with zinc tin sidings. We would hit the sides with our hockey sticks and make a big noise!
Bobbie or Bertie Bland died in WW2 of malaria.
Me: Wasn’t it WW1 Mom?
Or was it WW1? she muses.
~~oo0oo~~
The bird? Just holding the place till I find a relevant picture.
Now (Feb 2025) Mom learned her dear friend Trudi Els passed away.
They actually called it stoei, and it was considered character-building, but all I could think of was sweaty smelly bodies, encountered way too intimately for my liking. I dunno why, but I wasn’t fond of smelling okes’ buttholes. Same when I played slot and 8th man in rugby. But this was early in my life, before under 11 rugby, and before Heilige Giel made me a man.
Stoei oefening was in the Harrismith Masonic Hall in Bester Street, across the road west of the town hall. And when you’re secretly more interested in the petrified tree lying on the lawn outside than in a new stranglehold to grip a sweaty ou in, you should perhaps realise you’re never going to go far in this, the sport of kings (ja, ja, depends who you ask). Maybe I’d have done better wrestling in the Pharaohs’ days, when it seems they weren’t quite into ‘grappling’ as much. I’d still be the oke on the left, though.
When you arrived at the Masonic Hall back in my heyday of wrestling, ca.1964, you’d first have to go up the beautiful wooden staircase with its carved banisters and get a grip on the thick heavy mats stored against the wall, then dump them over onto the ground floor, then roll them out. They were there to prevent you getting hurt by the hard floor, as hurting you was the job of the other ous. When the torture ended and Ma came to fetch you in the light blue Volksie you had to schlep them back up the stairs and store them away before you could escape.
The coach was a meneer Joubert, and his sons – Anton and Leon – were kranige stoeiers. And kranig is what you needed to be if you wanted to advance in stoei. To the next level, where stronger okes could bend you into even tighter shapes and get you to smell your own butthole if they felt like it. That wasn’t really one of my sporting goals and I think it showed.
Around about then I developed asthma and I suspect the smell caused it.
Inside the hall – now a furniture shop – showing the ceiling I stared at while knotted; that petrified tree; the Masonic Hall foundation stone laid by an ancestor ‘Worshipful Master’ Alex Caskie, with another ancestor ‘Warden’ James Bain – Thanks for the pics are due to Horst Muller of https://www.ruralexploration.co.za – his site is very interesting, worth a visit!
~~oo0oo~~
See what I mean about stoei? – “Cave paintings in the Bayankhongor Province of Mongolia dating back to Neolithic age ca.7000 BCE show grappling of two naked men surrounded by crowds.” Give me the 150 million year old tree any day, thanks, it seems more civilised.
After a five-night wilderness trail in Mfolosi Game Reserve, we went for a game drive in my kombi on the way out of the park. We being Doug, Andre co-pilot and me driving. Kingfisher Canoe Club canoeists all. Needing a leak after a few bitterly cold brews I left the wheel with the kombi trundling along amiably on the gravel road and walked to the side door of the kombi, ordering Hawarden to take over the driving.
Not good at taking orders, he looked at me, waited till I was in mid-stream out of the open sliding door and leant over with his hiking stick and pressed the accelerator.
The driverless kombi picked up speed and I watched it start to veer off-road, necessitating a fast shake, a squeezed premature end to my leak, and a dive for the wheel.
I agree not a completely successful trial, but it predated Musk. And I’d suggest better than his efforts, as no-one died.
Phoned Mom on my birthday. I’m 69, she’s 95. She joked that she would not be posting any pictures on the computer today. That’s selfies on social media to you. Reason being she had bitten down on a hard old chocolate biscuit and broken half a tooth. This leaves her with one and a half missing front teeth, hence no self-taken photos of her this year.
Do you remember Una Elphick? asks Mom. I do, and I can see their flat in Herano Hof* in my mind’s eye, I say. A baby grand piano in their small little lounge. That’s right, says Mary, impressed at my longterm memory. This would have been ca.1960. Ever complimentary, she continues, She played the piano beautifully. As well as you? I ask. A slight, telling hesitation, then, I think better. Ja? I query. Well, she could play anything reading the music, but not so much by memory. Miss Underwood would give us a star once we had learnt a piece to her satisfaction, and another, different star when we could play it by heart. I could learn to play by heart quite quickly. She stuck stars on, but later she didn’t buy stars anymore, she just drew stars with crayon on her noticeboard. I quietly think, I bet you had the most stars, but of course I’m biased.
Molly had a birthday today and I got a cupcake which Sheila ate, she says. That triggers memories of baking. Scottie – legendary Harrismith English teacher Helen Scott – made wonderful cupcakes. With little wings – butterfly cupcakes. It was quite a performance when I picked her up (inherVW Beetle)to take her to cake sales. Trays on the back seat and she would balance a tray on her lap. Mrs Hartley, _____’s mother, made delicious coffee cakes which I would buy for you kids’ birthday parties.
She’s on a roll. They owned Hartleys Cafe. Once at Hartleys I went in and there was a Black person ahead of me and she barked at him, Can’t you see there’s a person here who I must help? I was mortified, says Mom. I should have walked out. Yep, but that would have been regarded as very strange and wrong at that time, I reassure her. I’ve always known where I get my underdog bias from!
As we’re saying goodbye she remembers: We got cut off the night before last, she says. ‘Yes,’ I said, impressed at her short-term memory, ‘just when we were about to say something profound!’ Mary hoses herself and says, Yes, like, ‘It was a lovely day today,’ or ‘The wind blew today.’ Yep, something like that, I agreed.
~~oo0oo~~
Herano Hof visible in the background, behind the pomptroppies. Hey! BEHIND the pomptroppies! Focus!
Music came in handy back then too. Polly du Plessis and Verster de Wet loved listening to me play. Your popular songs? No, they loved the classics. Beethoven, Chopin, etc. OK! I think she could have played chopsticks, those teenage okes loved Mary and would have sat staring at her!
There are many “Methodist” denominations throughout the world, not only the 1960s Harrismith, Orange Free State version, although that is the most important one. About 112 are listed in wikipedia. So there must be around 112 methylated ways to get to heaven, I spose. Do you think methamphetamines . . Nah! Many – or most maybe? – Methylated dominees will deny whatever I mutter on the topic of their booze doctrine, but this is sort-of what they sort-of think, I think.
They gloss over Jesus and His wine. Jesus was a lot more pragmatic and accommodating than His Methodists. If He tried that water into wine trick in 2023, He’d be in trouble with this modern-day kerk! They would turn that trick of His into a whine. While it seems Meths are at pains to say they don’t actually BAN grog – no fatwas – they tut tut about it, and suggest that much-ignored Evangelical and Catholic tactic called ‘abstinence.’ The one that doesn’t work. That tactic. This is surely an opportunity for someone to start a 113th Meth sect: One that fearlessly BANS Booze! Methodists seem to have very few Thunderous Hellfire-and-Brimstone Sermons! There’s a gap in the market, surely?
This from one of the many Methodist websites out there: Abstinence from alcohol “witnesses to God’s liberating and redeeming love, and is part of living into the life God has prepared for us. We start there. We start with abstinence as faithful witness, and as the norm for guiding our behavior.” The fact that ‘where they start’ is 100% non-biblical? Well, the Bible is full of suggestions . . it’s a guideline . .
In 1960s Harrismith we didn’t get any of the above doctrine, sanks goodness. We got Mary Methodist who played the organ beautifully, coached the choir, sang in the choir, served on the Women’s Auxiliary (where women were kept away from any thoughts of usurping the patriarchy), kept us kids in line, or tried to, AND ran a bottle store. Which bottles contained liquor. She did all of these things well, and with love, did my Mom Mary of the Methodist Church and of the Platberg Bottle Store / Drankwinkel. Sanks goodness, Amen.
Do Methodists call for prohibition? Almost. They want “public policy calling for the strict administration of laws regulating the sale and distribution of alcohol.” Give them half a chance and they’ll prohibit, bottle stores will close, and the mafia will have a new income stream.
Well, despite the best efforts and misinformed intentions of the Grog Police, if there is a place as boring as heaven, if it is a good place, and if anyone is going there, Mary Methodist is most definitely at the front of that queue. St Peter won’t even ask to see her ID or her liquor licence. He’ll just wave her right through. I have no doubt about that. Especially if I happen to be doing St Peter duty at the time.
~~oo0oo~~
Sundry wafflings about booze by sundry Methodist if you’re interested:
Important Harrismith History: Our dorp’s two bottle stores dutifully providing much-needed succour to the grateful townsfolk, including many good Methodists, were the Platberg Drankwinkel and the Horseshoe Drankwinkel. Sister Sheila tells the lovely story of the Aberfeldy farm school where the subject one day was Engels. The teacher asked, Class, who knows the Afrikaans word for Horseshoe? And quick as a flash her friend Elsa du Plessis answered “Drankwinkel.”
Platberg bottle store, Annie’s Caltex garage, and the Flamingo Cafe. OHS 155 parked illegally in the foreground.
Mom tells of Sparrow Bester’s father coming to our place in Stuart Street – actually, he’d probably have come in the usual way in Hector street as he lived just a block away in Warden Street – to ask to borrow some sheet music. The Besters were a really musical family, says Mom. Sparrow was chosen for The Canaries, nickname of the Free State Jeug Koor.
Sure, said Mom, What are you looking for? She had a big collection of sheet music kept in a wood and glass cabinet and under the seat of her piano chair. “Rajah’s Team,” said Mnr Bester. Or so Mom heard.
Mom said no, sorry she didn’t have that and thought to herself, I’ve never even heard of it!
“Oh,” he said, puzzled that she didn’t seem to know it, “From that new movie Dr Zhivago.“
Ah, said Mary, figuring it out: Lara’s Theme. And she did have it.
“I thought so,” said Mnr Bester.
~~oo0oo~~
Jeug Koor – Yech Koor we would say jokingly, but actually Youth Choir
That was ca.1965 and now is 2024 and Mary at 95 still plays Lara’s Theme to “the oldies” at the home.
I’m at that happy age when I can be idle with impunity. And . . maybe . . be a chronicle of the old times.
– quote paraphrased from ‘Rip Van Winkle’ by Washington Irving
~~oo0oo~~
“In every age ‘the good old days’ were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.”
– Brooks Atkinson, New York theatre critic
~~oo0oo~~
“Nostalgia is simply the result of aging and liking the life you’ve lived. Be happy you can feel it. It’s a good sign.”
– Anthony Marais, American writer, musician, and academic
– – – Corollary: Try not to use it to berate, bemoan, belittle today. Remember, to many young people, today is wonderful! and exciting! and filled with potential! Don’t piss on their battery, ole toppie.
~~oo0oo~~
Nostalgia: Looking back with fondness at places and times you couldn’t wait to leave! – unknown
~~oo0oo~~
I don’t like nostalgia unless it’s my own. – Lou Reed
Hey, we had written four exams already and we had a five day gap before our last two exam papers. Fluffy and I were on the loose, and when Gabba said Kom Plaas Toe, we were bok for that. Gabba had a bakkie and a plaas. For us footbound townies that was Nirvana! Or heaven. Or an attractive proposition ek sê.
Let’s go!
First we made a brief stop for Gabba to buy beer with the pooled monies. He was legal, we were still currently unfairly disadvantaged – underage – so we subcontracted the tender.
We waai’d via the tar N3 to near Swinburne, then level with the gravel to Kiesbeen.
Gabba’s was an interesting farmhouse. You walked over the ruins of a fallen room or two in full sunlight till you got to what used to be an inside door, but was now Gabba’s main entrance. This section had some roof. Just inside the door was his fridge with a big glass jug on top – one of those with two ears to lift it by. That full jug would come into play later.
First the beers – we finished them talking n laughing. Then that jar filled with umqombothi – traditional beer – and we finished that. Now we were thirsty. You know how it is: Een is genoeg; Twee is te veel; En drie is te min. Shakespeare, I think.
Gabba was the brains of this outfit: We’ll phone Frank! he announced. Frank Aveling said Kom Plaas Toe, so we drove over there. More beer. We finished Frank’s beer. Now Frank was the brains trust: No problem, we’ll drive to town. I know a guy. We piled into his green Datsun 1800SSS. And then I thought I’m Gonna Die.
Low-flying on the gravel road behind the mountain to the gravel Verkykerskop road, then down 42nd Hill on the tar N3 into town. Loud WHUMPS as we hit dips followed by road silence but high revs, and then louder THUMPS as we hit the ground again. Narrow bridges flash by with Frank not moving his foot from where it was planted in die hoek. He and Gabba talking away as Fluffy and I sat in the back, me (and maybe Fluff as well?) shitting myself, thinking, We Gonna Die! Buh-liksem! I was used to low flying with Steph de Witt, but this was ‘nother level! Maybe I’d had too little beer?
In town Frank had a connection who topped us up with a small case of marginally illegal after-hours beer from behind the Royal Hotel pub. Another stop to throw stones at a first storey window for Penny to shimmy down the drainpipe and join us, and we were off like a dirty shirt. Back to Frank’s place, and now he seemed to be in even more of a hurry, very keen to get home! I’m Gonna Die!
The next night there was a helluva thunderstorm and I remembered I should maybe tell Mother Mary where I was, I slingered the phone hanging on the wall at Gabbas. 260 asseblief.
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!? Mas can be a bit dramatic, nê? I’m here at Rudolph’s with Leon, I said formally, hoping using their formal klasregister names would make Ma think I was with two august and responsible gentlemen. Well, you better stay there in this storm. Come home tomorrow, said ever-wise Ma Mary.
This we obediently did.
~~oo0oo~~
Postscript: I think I got higher marks for my four pre-Kiesbeen subjects than my two post-Kiesbeen subjects. Maybe cos my head was filled with adventure! I wonder how Fluffy and Gabba’s pre- and post- marks compared?
~~oo0oo~~
Kom Plaas Toe – Let’s do some hard, focused group swotting and exam preparation in quiet surroundings – Gabba’s sensible suggestion
ek sê – verily
waai’d – sallied forth
Een is genoeg; Twee is te veel; En drie is te min – Ah, some Yankee oke called James Thurber, not William: One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough
(voet) in die hoek – pedal to the metal
Buh-liksem! – gosh
slingered – wound the phone handle
260 asseblief – two six oh please; To the live person at the telephone exchange; Sometimes Oom Lappies Labuschagne
klasregister – like a police docket
~~oo0oo~~
Gabba’s classmate Leon Strachan sent me a glimpse of his non-rugby talents with the comment: 😊 😊 kan jy glo dat Gabba ʼn koppie so kon vashou!
kan jy glo dat Gabba ʼn koppie so kon vashou! – Gabba was not only a three-times Craven Week rugby player. He also was skilled in the arts.
(reposted as I received a surprise visit – see the end of the post)
Made of Beech, Birch, Cherry and Maple wood*, it has a hollow laminated oval shaft, the oval at right angles so each hand has its own correct oval. The blade is also laminated, then kevlar-clad and teflon-tipped.
Bruce the Moose Clark of Gauteng and Umko paddling fame was waxing lyrical about Struer sprinting paddles and that got me thinking about my Nimbus river paddle from Port Coquitlam in British Columbia. Not a racing paddle, not a flatwater paddle. A wild rivers work of art for slow-boating. See, I have an arrangement with rivers: I bring a boat to keep afloat, and a paddle to keep upright; All forward motion must be provided by the current.
I ordered two from our trip leader Cully Erdman before we paddled the Colorado in 1984. Being left feather I didn’t want to risk being stuck up a canyon without a paddle. Or with a dreaded right feather paddle.
Dave ‘Lang Dawid’ Walker is also left feather so he used the second paddle for the twelve days. The river was running high, so I didn’t touch a rock the whole 480km way. The only person I heard did touch a rock was Dave in Crystal and the gentleman he is, he immediately came to me to show me the damage: a slight scratch on the kevlar! Chris Greeff, who led the South African trip through the Canyon in Arizona, is also a left feather paddler aus Parys, Vrystaat!
Good friend and tripping companion Bernie Garcin is holding my paddle in the top picture.
Here’s some more paddle porn; Feast your eyes:
~~oo0oo~~
I Meet My Maker!
We paddled thru the Grand Canyon back in 1984; I wrote this post in 2018, and now in 2023, this pleasant surprise: My Paddle Maker!
Since I am the one who designed and build most of the Nimbus wooden paddles in the 1970s and 80s, here the scoop. *The shaft was made of American Ash, the inner laminates are Sitka spruce hollowed a bit more than 3/8 inch. The blades are Sitka spruce, the hardwood edges usually african mahogany. the blades were reinforced with 2 oz. kevlar / epoxy. The tips are urethane, the same material for roller blade wheels. the tips were also cross reinforced with carbon fiber / fiberglass (the black stripes – carbon fiber).
Vrystaat Confessions 