A Bit of a Change

     A short message to all those who step into my blog. I apologize if the changes you see took you by surprise. If you find them in any way not to your liking, please let me know. The new look was decided upon for a couple of reasons. 1. I wanted to change the name of the blog as I felt it did not relay exactly what I wanted. 2. I was having trouble with certain areas of the template and decided it wasn't worth constantly making attempts to rectifying them. I am pleased with the change, and hope you will be as well. Thanks!

Traveling the new road

  

  
     Who would of thought, that a fellow who'd shied away from all sports except baseball, (well shucks man), who, during the four years he was in high school, had successfully sneaked out of mandatory weekly army practice drill, and who made a point of leaving active physical work to others, would become a dancer? Who? I stand before you, guilty as charged!
    My father, a cabinet maker, gave body building and gymnastic instruction in his spare time. He had a Charles Atlas physique. Twice a week, for I don't know how long, he would drag me off to one of his classes in a futile attempt to put some muscle on my skinny frame, and hopefully instill in me the wonders of athleticism. I failed miserably to learn or achieve anything. I couldn't even develop a tiny bump on my upper arms. I had no desire whatsoever in learning to do anything physically demanding.  I was a bit of a nerd,  though nerd was a word unknown in those days. (Dr. Suess introduced it in 1951 and it was not seen in print again until 1957. A bit of trivia for you). It could, I suppose, be used nowadays to include a wallflower personality.
     Oh, let's face it, I was simply an introverted kid who loved music and books; I didn't like attention drawn to myself, therefore I did my best to escape from any activity in which I would have to compete with others I knew were more capable.
     Hello! Central? Give me heaven - put Dr. Freud on the line!       Now little skinny me, was about to enter a realm where not only physical but self inflicted torture was worshiped! A grueling pain filled world unlike anything my father had come near to introducing me to in his gym classes. On top of which I was about to put myself right in the center of a profession where you were supposed to be noticed! Noticed? I mean, well, not to put too fine a face on it, but for starters there would come a time when I would have to wear tights!  You want noticed? Put on tights! 

David’s House

"Home is where one starts from."
T.S. Eliot
    My brother-in-law's house burned down. One week ago, in Johannesburg South Africa. It was his house, but he did not live in it, it became too large for one man, his family had their own homes. David, that's his name, moved out of his house and into an attractive apartment, the right size for a single man.
His house burned down. Yes, and like all house fires, a time of sadness. So much lost, so many wonderful moments in comfortable rooms. Evenings on the patio, the built in barbecue, the straw roof sloping down - almost to the height of the man himself - keeping the hot South African sun off those many of us who, over the years, had spent hours of easy pleasure beneath its canopy. How sweetly remembered are the many times I stayed there with my wife, his sister. They are dearly treasured, and remembered with much thanks, and warmth.
It was a beautiful house, and happily did not stay unoccupied for long. It soon entered into its next incarnation as a luxury bed and breakfast. Though it is still David's house, it is open now for new visitors to enjoy.

Here it is as it was. What stories, what times, what memories lingered behind in the walls and room when each visitor left. The house may have succumbed to the unforgiving, uncaring fury of fire, but no fire can take away the remembrances of its yesterdays.
                                           In its incarnation as a Luxury Bed & Breakfast












                                     So many good times were enjoyed in that lovely house.
  These photos begin in 1992 although I could go back further. I decided that that really wasn't necessary, besides it is painful to see oneself so many years younger, 'the way we were.' I'm trying to get used to myself at 80, never mind being reminded of what the years 'hath wrought'. So, first a return visit to South Africa in January of that year. Janet and I traveled there with Simon our eldest boy, and though I could extend this post to include a Safari and other equally exciting adventures I will concentrate only on the house of David.

       This view of the house is the same as the one above from a different angle. The rose bush and the Yesterday Today and Tomorrow bush are much larger above. The single window in the ground floor room looks into the kitchen, and the railed verandah fronting the large upper windows leads directly out of the Master Suite .On the left hand are the windows of the living room.

Standing on the edge of the Koi fish pond to take a picture of the house from that angle and to capture Janet hiding from the unusually hot sun of that summer.
     The Koi were removed from the larger pond to a smaller  below. Where the fishes once swam was turned into a - albeit small - wading, splashing and short laps pool, much used on hot afternoons.

David and Janet's cousin, Jenefer celebrated her 80th birthday at David's home in 2006. Jenefer has lived in England most of her life but was born in South Africa. David's birthday gift to her was trip to celebrate her momentous moment in South Africa. As an extra surprise he invited Janet and me, Jen's sister, Prue (also living in England), her husband Raul and Jen's closest friend, Thelma.
It was a most wonderful time. David went out of his way to make her 80th memorable to the extreme. An incredible few days at a luxury Game Lodge. A safari trip into the veldt where elephants, lions, zebra, rhinos and many other exotic animals ended up in our photos, taken helter-skelter. To end it off a feast in an African Kraal before heading back to Hyde Park and a birthday celebration on the patio.
And what a celebration!                                                
                                                                     The tables before the crowd arrived.
                                          Jen at the helm!

      Extended family members and friends came from all over to help Jen celebrate. She was, quite naturally, thrilled to bits. What a way to enter into the ninth decade of her life. Memories were stored away in abundance that night, for all of us.
                                 
                                      Oh yes, there were joyous times - and then this!
                                                                       
                                         The Fire!                                            

                                                          
                               Fire, the great leveler!
   
  A perfectly aimed bolt of lightning and . . . . .Poof! How easily the 'Leveler' doomed David's beautiful house.
    A South African electric storm! Its awesome fury; the blazing glory of its immense power; these cannot be fully imagined until experienced first hand. The brilliant terrifying display of its demonic energy usually comes into being as day ends, when colors which herald the approaching evening begin to mellow the sky. Often lasting only a short period of time, the ferocity of its fury fires the violent clouds with lighting's jagged flames. The downpour of the accompanying rain is so brutal, it as though the deluge itself had arrived to wash all away.

As I study the photos I wonder - along with many others I'm sure -of its future, and trust that it may again, like the Phoenix, rise from the flames and be whole again.

One little fishie in a little bitty pool

      It is certainly not large, but for one middling sized goldfish you would think it’d be just fine. His even smaller friend passed away last winter so he couldn’t possibly feel crowded! I mean, after all, if what I’ve heard is correct a fish's memory is so short that by the time it gets from one side of whatever it’s been given as a home it’s forgotten what the other side looks like. It doesn’t even know it just came from there. Sooo every move it makes is filled with adventure. Fish don’t suffer from memory loss, because they never had a memory function in the first place. I wonder if that’s good or bad. (No, I will not go there, my head hurts already, and it was only a thought!)
     Anyway, our little goldfish must have been having a nightmare or something, and decided it didn’t want to be a fish any longer - living in water that was either frozen in the winter or too hot in the summer - and for some reason had gotten it into its head that he would rather be a bird. In his erratic somnambulant state he obviously believed that his fins had become wings. Eager to prove this hypothesis he flew from his watery home, and sailed heavenward into the blue. Unfortunately, a fatal case of sleep swimming. 
     Whatever the reason or cause little bitty fishie was found, by my wife, Janet, lying still and seemingly lifeless approximately 3 feet from his home tub. 
     I had been watching the fish about 5 minutes earlier as it swam around in its pretty little home, appreciating its golden/orange body’s underwater antics. I then moved away to inspect some rose or other. Janet, a moment later, sauntered over to stand at the glass patio door and gaze at the sea, and garden -always a delightful view. As she took in the sparkle of the sun glancing off the wave tips a glint of orange from a spot near the fish's tub caught her eye; there on the patio floor lay her beloved little goldfish; a sad quick end to its attempt at flight; or had it been a bid to make his escape to the sea, some 60 odd feet away? Poor lonely, little creature, it had no one to tell him that there truly is no place like home.      At this point one might imagine him being gently lifted, mourned, and then interred in a shallow grave, beneath a beautiful rose. His passing nobly enriching another life form. But that would not be. It was not in the cards that he should become another’s compost (well not at this point). He was gently lifted - by me - and mourned. We’d had him for nearly 6 years, and were most upset because the little tyke had only the year before narrowly missed death when he was inadvertently (his tub being cleaned) left in a water collecting barrel beneath a drain pipe. He had spent 5 months, surviving we know not how, being whooshed around by heavy rains from the many fierce storms that had raged that winter. To come to this after that was truly too cruel.
     We gazed in sorrow at the little thing, lying still, and forlorn, his golden sheen drying in the open air, his gills no longer filtering water when his tail suddenly flicked up, and down. It was startling to say the least; he must have been out of his tub 4 or 5 minutes, but I took it as some last death contraction which caused it. I decided anyway to put him back in the water, and was about to do so when a sudden rise and fall, as though he had taken a deep breath, lifted his small frame. Carefully lowering my hand into the tub, careful not to make a quick movement, I held him firmly but gently, waiting to see if what had taken place was simply an aberration of some sort or if it truly was alive, and had survived such a lengthy time out of its natural habitat.
     I began to squeeze his body, very conscious that I could do him injury if he were coming back from the dead, and began an in and out compression in hopes that it might help. Suddenly a large bubble came from its mouth, and he began that gulping thing fish do. He was soon gulping and gulping away, and a moment later began wiggling around inside my semi-closed hand. When I unclenched it he slowly, and groggily swam away. 
     Our little fish was alive! Janet and I looked at each other in stunned amazement. It took a while, but he finally began swimming with his usual vigor around the tub. By the next day he was eating and acting no differently than before his resurrection. Now all as it was, and we have our little bitty fishie back with us.
     Oh! And he has gained a name after all these years; one we feel suits him perfectly – Lazarus! 

A room with a view

        Photo-sketched from a shot taken through the window of my computer room, the view seen here is the one I look out on as I type. While not usually viewed while I’m typing it certainly does distract me at times, and in a most pleasant way. 
     I touch type, and if I look down at the keyboard my fingers seem to go all over the place; I need to watch the page as the letters appear, otherwise I get into a lot of finger fumbling trouble. That applies if I’m writing a story, or an email; the same if I’m typing from text. The reason is simple: the draconian way in which I was taught. 
      I was fourteen when I sat down in front of my first typewriter at John Oliver High – sixty six years ago - having enrolled in a two year typing course which I soon learned was taught under the evil eye of Morgan La Fey! A witch of the first order, believe me.
     You see, my friend Calvin, and I were the only two fellows in her class of twenty-five or so girls. She frowned – horribly – at the mere thought that men should want to learn to type - caring not a whit that at the time a man, a male, a member of the opposite sex, was the world’s fastest typist. She was a card carrying feminist, using every chance she found to portray, and put into effect, her vision of the God given right of ‘Woman’ to be the Totem at the top of the Pole. Equality of sharing be damned.
     She loved to start each class by calling to the attention of the - mostly unimpressed - girls to the crass shortcomings inherent in the human male. We (males), she pointed out, were basically stupid, clumsy, and too inept for the finer pursuits (typing?), therefore incapable of using a typewriter. Apparently we were without finesse, our crude male fingers did not float over the keys, no, we ‘tortured’ the instrument with our graceless hands. Poor deluded woman! She had such a deep dislike of the “male animal” – as she was wont to call us – that any attempt to disprove the error of her implicit unwavering beliefs was met with total contempt. 
     Poor dear (!) Miss Whatever, her overriding contempt towards common human faults and weaknesses, particularly in men, bordered on some learned loathing. A form of misanthropy, born undoubtedly from an immense cruelty perpetrated upon her by some animalistic male: a member of her family; maybe even a once loved beau; or possibly a terrible  sexual experience forced upon her by a stranger. Well, whatever it was it certainly made a mess of her emotional life ( I hate to think of what it must have been like for those she was in contact with socially). It certainly was no easy picnic for me, and especially for Calvin, whose ability to charm almost everyone found himself treated with derision by our resident Nemesis: the goddess of  Divine retribution and revenge.  
    Unfortunately for her she was as much disliked by the girls she taught as by the two of us. Over the years her hatred and anger had developed into a misanthropic miasma which she spell-cast over all and sundry. The strangest of things was that her manner terrified her students into being excellent typists. We dared not be otherwise, for no matter how good you were if you were not excellent in your tests you could be sure of finding a “D “ next to ‘typing’ on your report card.
     The reason Calvin and I became students in her class I told of in my blog of April 9. We had, in all unknowing innocence, traded the dreaded Math Ogre for the  “Much of a Bitch of a Witch she Was! “
     Oh, how happily we strode across the school yard the day we changed courses, as we made our way to Commercial Studies School, sequestered away across a busy street. (Its positioning suggested quite strongly that it served a subservient position in the school's value system). How smugly we turned our backs on the red bricked walls of the ‘main school,' in which university hopefuls slaved away under the Math Ogre, and ‘wide eyed and bushy tailed,' walked blindly into the lion’s den – in this case the lionesses – and became fresh meat for her fierce hatred. Yes, unknowingly Calvin and I had made one fatal error, and for two long years paid for it. 
     Well, fatal may be too strong a word for our particular error, but to the ‘Witch of the Typewriter’ it was tantamount to having treated her with contempt. Our crime? We had missed her first class! For that we became her enemies forever, and even though forever in our case only lasted 2 years, it did seem as though an hour spent in her classes was equal to two or even three hours in another teacher’s class. She was relentless with us, we could do no right although we had done no wrong. It mattered not how hard we worked, or how proficient we became under her tutelage, we were hopeless dolts. 
     To carry on with this tale of woe would be as cruel as the ‘Witch La Fey’ herself, and I would not wish that on anyone, so I shall conclude with a delicious, may I say, utterly delicious little tale of a punishment for dear Morgan, and one that was so rightly deserved.  
     Near the end of our two year sentence in the ‘Witches Cauldron’ - we never found out as to whether she knew that was the epithet commonly used to describe her home room – students in the first class of the day, Calvin and I included, were seated before our typewriters, hands properly in our laps, waiting for ‘Her Witchness’ to arrive on the nine o’clock broom. Silence before she entered must be absolute or she would reign fire and brimstone down upon us, and proceed to ruin a perfectly good day. We tried, but we were young, and total unalloyed silence is anathema to youth, and so we erred. Someone, I have no idea who, began to giggle. Have just one person trying to hold back a snigger, or a snicker, or a chocking desire to laugh, and soon the entire room will erupt, and so it did, at the exact moment Miss Witch La Fey came through the door.
     Every eye found her at the same moment, and as if a musical conductor had signaled with his baton the laughter ceased. Pins dropping would have sounded like hail falling in the ensuing silence. Then from some cavern inside Miss Much of a Which came a hair curling cry that would have made a banshee cringe, and she was off.
     From the door to her desk she railed and wailed. All our various shortcomings were bounced from wall to wall. She opened her dictionary of nasty synonyms before us, and read them from beginning to end. She was so expressive we became less frightened and more intrigued by her prowess as a declaimer of obscure nasty phrases, and our fascination became even more intent as she moved behind her desk, placed both hands on the desk, leaned forward slightly, made a sudden backward movement as if to settle herself down on her chair, and disappeared. So intent on berating us she had failed to notice its absence.
     One moment she was ranting the next moment she was gone. The effect her amazing vanishing act had on the students can only be imagined. Pandemonium became the order of the day, not a single one of us could stop the laughter that took hold, and as tears poured down our faces we watched as from the vacant space behind the desk two hands slowly rose, slipped along the surface, and came to a stop. Shortly afterwards a face appeared, a look of stunned disbelief frozen upon it. It was as though we were watching a Buster Keaton enactment crossed with a Saturday matinee cartoon film. Classic slap-stick. But it was obvious Madam did not see her predicament as we did.
     Taking in the condition of the class - weeping from mirth, coughing from repressed laughter, concern, and wonder - the distraught, confused woman who had a moment before been a raging virago - our Nemesis – was now, herself, ready to burst into tears; though certainly for a much different reason than our own.
     Chivalry, a virtue denied existence by our ‘damsel’ in distress , reared its ugly head as Calvin and I rushed to to the aid of our downed teacher. The idea of having to touch her, possibly even grasp her while we rendered assistance did not sit easily with either of us, but it sat even less easily with the Bitch of a Which, who flailed out at us with one arm as she struggled with other to push herself up. I would like to say she was simply distraught but that would be too kind, no, she was simply horrified that a man – especially a young man – should lay a hand upon her, even to help her get to her feet. She had used some great language earlier to berate us for our outburst as she came into the room, but I cannot in all conscience put down the short phrase she used upon the two of us as she fought to escape our help. Suffice it to say that it stopped us in our quest and quieted the room as naught else ever had. 
     Blazing a murderous look at each and everyone of us she pulled her skirt back to below her knees, straightened her blouse - which had twisted around her back - patted her marcelled hair back into position, and strode from the room in the manner of a general, slapping her right hand along her leg as though she were wielding a riding whip.
     The episode is verifiable history to all who witnessed it and folklore for those who were told of it from second or third hand. As for Morgan La Fey, she absented herself from the school for some days, returning only to preside - no more than that - over the few remaining classes of the school year. Though nothing was said, no retribution instigated against the class for something we had not done – although I imagine she thought otherwise – there was a further coldness in her approach to our particular class, aimed  directly at Calvin, and me. It would have been a prank either of us could have instigated, and one I would have perpetrated had I been dared, but in this singular incident we had no hand.
    If I remember correctly, Miss Whatever left the school sometime in the middle of my last year there, and went I know not where. Yet, she is certainly not forgotten. Sad to think, her memory has been kept alive all these years not as a person respected, but of one feared when she stood, therefore not pitied when she fell. What a terrible legacy. Ah, well, she certainly gave us a good laugh, and lest we forget, a delicious memory.