Vrystaat Confessions

Tag: Jock

  • My Jock

    My Jock

    This post was over at bewilderbeast.org, but it belongs here, in the Olden Daze blog.

    I read Jock of the Bushveld again for the how-manieth time. I enjoy it every time. Percy Fitzpatrick wrote his classic tales of his days with trek oxen and wagons on the lowveld on the highveld: On his farm Buckland Downs in the Harrismith district.

    – famous Jock – almost as handsome as my Jock –

    Always gets me thinking of my wonderful dog Jock in high school:

    – 95 Stuart Street back yard with my room left and Jock’s luxury carpeted kennel right –
    Jock with the Swanie/Bellato Vulgar River Expedition Voortrekkers' canoe
    – Jock with the Voortrekkers’ canoe wreck after the ill-fated Swanie/Bellato Vulgar River Expedition –
    – my favourite of all – Mom Mary knew –

    We got Jock from Reg and Jo Jelliman. They farmed very near Buckland Downs out on the Meul river side of town, out Verkykerskop way. He was apparently a registered Staffordshire Bull Terrier, with the formal name Copperdog-Something on his papers. They wanted to get rid of him. Something about eating eggs.

    He sullied the Copperdog family name ever so slightly again one night by wandering over to Charles Shadford’s place and slaughtering a number of his rabbits. Carnage! Staffies are wonderful and soppy with people, but can be wild with other animals! Eish!

    I spent hours with ole Jock in lieu of doing homework. He was my mate. Learnt his sit stay come etc well, but would probly rather just have lolled about grinning.

    I say, as many do, I’m a dog person, I lurved my dog. But when the time came to go overseas as an exchange student I left for a year without a backward glance. Yeah, we love our dogs. Some people do go thru hoops and over obstacles at great expense to take their dogs with them when they emigrate. Some.

    When I was away one time as a student in Joburg the ole man had Jock ‘put down.’ He was a nuisance? The prior rabbit thing maybe? And anyway, it was his dog, not mine.

    ~~~oo0oo~~

    . . and then in Westville many years later our first dog in our first home was TC – to me she was a mini-Jock:

    scan0127.jpg
    TC

    She lived to a ripe old thirteen years. I buried her at the bottom of that beautiful garden in River Drive, alongside Matt (above) and Bogart who both came after her but died before her.

    No idea where Jock was buried.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    June 2025: Out of nowhere, Mom said on a phone call, “I’ve no idea why Dad had Jock put down. He never said.”

    Ja, Mom. I’ve an idea.

  • Did You Got A Licence?

    Did You Got A Licence?

    When I got back to Harrismith in December 1973, we were moving house. The ole man had sold the old house . .

    . . and built a new one in Piet Uys street uptown.

    I filled the blue kombi with stuff – small furniture, paintings and odds – and drove it the kilometre or so down Stuart Street to Piet Uys street; then back, again and again. Load after load. I loved it, I had driven very little in the USA.

    We had LOTS of stuff to go. Including Jock, the brindle staffie terrier, who was unimpressed.

    Finally when I’d moved all the stuff I went for my drivers licence. Overdue. I had turned eighteen eight months prior. I drove myself there. After a short drive the traffic cop turned to me and said “You’ve driven before”. I said Um, Ja and he told me to turn round, go back and he signed on the dotted line.

    As I was leaving he asked “Who drove you here?” Um, Me I said. He just grinned.

    ~~oo0oo~~