tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87774171329214824232024-03-27T19:54:39.249-04:00Ancyent MutteringsAn autoBLOGraphy of the Ancyent Marath'nerAncyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-12985127009314252842023-08-05T19:01:00.000-04:002023-08-05T19:01:11.759-04:00Early life -- birth to about 6 years oldAlthough I wasn’t a “honeymoon baby” I did arrive on the scene earlier than my parents had planned to start a family. I was conceived about 6 months after my parents’ wedding and was born a couple of months before my father finished medical school.
The text messages of those days were called telegrams. One had to go to a post office, write out the message on a special form and pay (per word) for it to be sent by telegraph to another post office, where it was printed and then delivered by a messenger, usually on a bicycle. So, not exactly instant messaging, but faster than mailing a letter. I inherited 13 telegrams congratulating my parents on my birth. I recognize the names of a few relatives among the senders, but for many others have no clue who they are (and all have long since passed away).
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-WKlsMiS_SL6oOxMuSdocHbXv0s0wA4srYQmPKtooIowgM9h0ZnPjqQUU5o246A_p7wtR1qnKEh0ca1f_TrE-hP53qe23fDBubh53btQOyY4hEOW-lPcTZ2DhnPUOhFruY7F_vbNF_NZqpckPdyYTQprBuDG7tHw8deLx5vg4dcy8AdV2EL3gg7jiYM/s4830/Telegram%20DJC%20birth.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3288" data-original-width="4830" height="435" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-WKlsMiS_SL6oOxMuSdocHbXv0s0wA4srYQmPKtooIowgM9h0ZnPjqQUU5o246A_p7wtR1qnKEh0ca1f_TrE-hP53qe23fDBubh53btQOyY4hEOW-lPcTZ2DhnPUOhFruY7F_vbNF_NZqpckPdyYTQprBuDG7tHw8deLx5vg4dcy8AdV2EL3gg7jiYM/w640-h435/Telegram%20DJC%20birth.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">One of the 13 congratulatory telegrams sent to
my parents.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHnQyb3nEIpkVw-_eJ-YvixJ7kCiSPgfOKdK19xraQuyb2WE7Grqg0YA77G60twxSnotdCmzF3lbJCe8HMDPUCo4hcQo4fOb5_LRmoKpKC4uPDu0jMg41keOQ9gaT-po_uOP2KjQ-Q-daK5fJs8omPNb1lq7em6RfsxKlzh_W67dxfUSWCi-_qUU-ZjGU/s1986/JL%20Couper%20and%20infant%20David%202.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1986" data-original-width="1392" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHnQyb3nEIpkVw-_eJ-YvixJ7kCiSPgfOKdK19xraQuyb2WE7Grqg0YA77G60twxSnotdCmzF3lbJCe8HMDPUCo4hcQo4fOb5_LRmoKpKC4uPDu0jMg41keOQ9gaT-po_uOP2KjQ-Q-daK5fJs8omPNb1lq7em6RfsxKlzh_W67dxfUSWCi-_qUU-ZjGU/w448-h640/JL%20Couper%20and%20infant%20David%202.jpg" width="448" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Back then the world was still in black-and-white
and out of focus<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div>
It is probably not surprising that I don’t remember anything about the first time I lived in Cape Town. After all, we moved away when I was just a few months old. Next stop was Uitenhage, now renamed Kariega, which at least means the place now has a reasonably consistent pronunciation. If you are not South African, don’t even try to pronounce Uitenhage. Even for South Africans, the English and Afrikaans pronunciations are so different that they sound like entirely different places. In Afrikaans it is pronounced ate-en-HAA-gha, whereas in English it is YOU-ten-haig in English (or YOU-ten-ha-jee if you wanted to rile up an Afrikaner). Uitenhage is a few miles inland from Port Elizabeth (now renamed Gqeberha – good luck trying to pronounce that) and is probably best known as the location of a large Volkswagen factory which, according to Wikipedia, is the biggest car factory on the African continent. The Port Elizabeth / Uitenhage area was the center of the South Africa motor industry back in the day, with Port Elizabeth being home to the country’s Ford and GM assembly plants as well as Bus Bodies (later Busaf), which made buses used by public transport companies around the country. That was well before Japanese cars became ubiquitous.
(From now on I will use the old names, Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth, because that’s what they were called at the time and the names hadn’t yet been changed when we were in South Africa in 2019.)<div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNK_uZHEEaZP9--0Sq4kKEJsVIdOKdfX_y0VoaC6KO3o0I3MqVa9LHmtOIUUkNqb3uiPmMANWYaOQMSqONU9Kn2wzTH7TxTT8PwHzYqRMxAMLcJCyE5MHw44zvHgiX0cnlVCsPWcfxJuMjv4TJ_4P4AnqcjVuNORPxk8baOViYAIaEySR1o-auAt6Ao9M/s1818/Baby%20David%202.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1332" data-original-width="1818" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNK_uZHEEaZP9--0Sq4kKEJsVIdOKdfX_y0VoaC6KO3o0I3MqVa9LHmtOIUUkNqb3uiPmMANWYaOQMSqONU9Kn2wzTH7TxTT8PwHzYqRMxAMLcJCyE5MHw44zvHgiX0cnlVCsPWcfxJuMjv4TJ_4P4AnqcjVuNORPxk8baOViYAIaEySR1o-auAt6Ao9M/s600/Baby%20David%202.jpg" width="600" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Don’t know where this photo was taken. It could have been at the house of my maternal grandparents. The building in the background looks like the rondawel that was close to their main house. That house was demolished by developers many decades ago.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>
My father did his medical residency in Uitenhage. From the Christmas card below, that would have been at the Queen Mary Hospital. There is no longer a hospital of that name there, so either it no longer exists, or its name was changed a long time ago. After his residency he apparently joined a private medical practice. I wrote “apparently” because that’s not something I recall but is suggested by some of his correspondence that I inherited.
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbpVWv8qomimcc45gvtHDzfKKiKIBt4Ur_A-TnWcozSQjIU4eQ8TJP_L7nCRi96X4IAyEXh6e-HXDeBf9wpedec6KliLLCjqEE8zOufzJsm2uBAz0xKe7c3QP7-_E3sKsbg6iK9aksFUsAjOk4YSnDvCrRjqiUYsFoRYk5eJ4k23aPXq_-3MVJrY5SDMU/s2634/Uitenhage%20address.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="2076" data-original-width="2634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbpVWv8qomimcc45gvtHDzfKKiKIBt4Ur_A-TnWcozSQjIU4eQ8TJP_L7nCRi96X4IAyEXh6e-HXDeBf9wpedec6KliLLCjqEE8zOufzJsm2uBAz0xKe7c3QP7-_E3sKsbg6iK9aksFUsAjOk4YSnDvCrRjqiUYsFoRYk5eJ4k23aPXq_-3MVJrY5SDMU/s600/Uitenhage%20address.jpg" width="600" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Christmas card with our Uitenhage address<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>
A friend / playmate that I had when we lived in Uitenhage was Jonathan Levy. Our mothers had been at the same high school and happened across one another when pushing us in strollers. The Levys later emigrated to Israel. They visited us on a trip back to South Africa several years later. A few years ago I did a web search, which turned up a web page maintained by a cousin of Jonathan’s. The cousin passed on a message to Jonathan and we exchanged a few emails (and also with his mother, who has since passed away).
After about two years in Uitenhage, my father moved to a new position, at Livingstone Hospital, a government-run hospital in Port Elizabeth. Until the end of the Apartheid era, Livingstone was reserved for Black patients (actually any race other than white), though the medical staff and administrators included white people. I don’t know whether my father was in anesthesiology right from the start or moved to that specialty somewhat later.
When we moved to Port Elizabeth my parents rented a house in Clevedon Road, in the Central area of the city, very close to the Port Elizabeth Provincial Hospital, the main hospital in the area for white patients. I don’t know what our house number was or any details of the house, other than it was on the northwest side of the road. The houses were quite old, even in those days. It looks like most of them have been refurbished over the past 60+ years. I used Google Street View to capture an image of a representative house in the street. The old photo of me may be outside the house we were renting. The dog may have been “Chips”. We definitely had a dog of that name a few years later but I don’t know when we acquired it or what happened to it.</div><div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijQ6X9UFL5YPPXvZlVBQgPQVbukD5wj12mTi-sKESr3d0eRCtN5FBDUa6iBbzqgk0O1sVgMu1xSy_IoHLOwCsGkYVy2KRMCbZTJBi5ATkg_6ipoaxTLa0brRd91_Lo5Bm496s4HdUCu3mz_62Yi8HYRdznNo9BDVUDVeNqum8aMB2867cdKHUjdcVMu2E/s1041/Clevedon%20Road.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1041" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijQ6X9UFL5YPPXvZlVBQgPQVbukD5wj12mTi-sKESr3d0eRCtN5FBDUa6iBbzqgk0O1sVgMu1xSy_IoHLOwCsGkYVy2KRMCbZTJBi5ATkg_6ipoaxTLa0brRd91_Lo5Bm496s4HdUCu3mz_62Yi8HYRdznNo9BDVUDVeNqum8aMB2867cdKHUjdcVMu2E/s600/Clevedon%20Road.jpg" width="600" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Generic house in Clevedon Road, from Google
Street View<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3auMlST0LVVO880bq8gy2trGcXVfcoY8LTL9gg1fm2CDGl-OBOBynTzGNwZljXlxuBH9YqaiJqUVKt3_axOxX5TwxmwoaadwiU30m-FIktFJZbQwiGazXi4GWI1F2B9MWM4LsKjqf3PisJFdvYI6sCEy19AaHLi2HeA6Zyboa7tQaYAbB43pwslJpWGw/s2544/David%20and%20Chips.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2544" data-original-width="1452" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3auMlST0LVVO880bq8gy2trGcXVfcoY8LTL9gg1fm2CDGl-OBOBynTzGNwZljXlxuBH9YqaiJqUVKt3_axOxX5TwxmwoaadwiU30m-FIktFJZbQwiGazXi4GWI1F2B9MWM4LsKjqf3PisJFdvYI6sCEy19AaHLi2HeA6Zyboa7tQaYAbB43pwslJpWGw/w365-h640/David%20and%20Chips.jpg" width="365" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">This may have been at the house in Clevedon Road<br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
After about a year in Clevedon Road my parents bought a house in Malvern Avenue, Fern Glen, about 4 miles from the city center but closer to Livingstone Hospital. I recall my father mentioning several times in later years that the house cost something like 4,500 pounds. (This was before the South African currency system was changed from the British pounds, shillings, and pence to rands and cents, shortly before the country became a republic in 1961.) My parents thought that was a lot of money and I gather they had to get a loan from my paternal grandfather (as well as a mortgage from a bank) to be able to buy the house.
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUFBIJTvdyC80yzLK_1gKlfLBjrYJt2XsMU_Of5-01T0JQ8zVN-YucDh-ObggbVSVhfalR_mv0a-N4vxXtx4R-N4gAAAQxmBArfe4RSN61rWX9KbI0FuHKjOm_ZInYkJ6YoDLG7LxiPCJYKWNPsn0oDSN1UfxCcoOhRcXzt545X_wKbkJayIrZ_bPnamg/s2058/House%20and%20yard.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1718" data-original-width="2058" height="534" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUFBIJTvdyC80yzLK_1gKlfLBjrYJt2XsMU_Of5-01T0JQ8zVN-YucDh-ObggbVSVhfalR_mv0a-N4vxXtx4R-N4gAAAQxmBArfe4RSN61rWX9KbI0FuHKjOm_ZInYkJ6YoDLG7LxiPCJYKWNPsn0oDSN1UfxCcoOhRcXzt545X_wKbkJayIrZ_bPnamg/w640-h534/House%20and%20yard.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Rough rendition of the floorplan of the house in
Malvern Avenue when we moved it. My
parents had it modified a few times later and subsequent owners have modified
it further.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBxHLSClZ5-PHISXKYzDt6UqGApFUgSaPBYqb4MJ5L15QW4X3v_9cO9qfQf1-Ty___R7o-oaSasH3ipAFm5c-SrMoVNvXyHKsd3fGLK6q_fq7-51VGi9IJJIg6oHjQngUN1gEwp6MzWqn594ubftnRG5sWIsjlm9dTgIQyrjrvluIZAFll0MNhbAA8Fd8/s1314/Malvern%20Avenue.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="692" data-original-width="1314" height="337" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBxHLSClZ5-PHISXKYzDt6UqGApFUgSaPBYqb4MJ5L15QW4X3v_9cO9qfQf1-Ty___R7o-oaSasH3ipAFm5c-SrMoVNvXyHKsd3fGLK6q_fq7-51VGi9IJJIg6oHjQngUN1gEwp6MzWqn594ubftnRG5sWIsjlm9dTgIQyrjrvluIZAFll0MNhbAA8Fd8/w640-h337/Malvern%20Avenue.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">This is what the house looked like from the
street when we visited Port Elizabeth in 2019.
We didn’t try to ask to be allowed to look around inside. When we lived there the front wall was very
low, being more to mark the edge of the property than to keep anyone out (or
in).<br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
Aside: Fern Glen is what South Africans refer to as a suburb, but Americans would call a neighborhood. That is, in South African usage a suburb is an area within the city limits whereas in American usage a suburb is a separate municipality. Many years ago I read somewhere that Port Elizabeth and Pretoria were among the largest cities in the world in terms of the area inside their municipal boundaries. If so, that is probably at least in part because they are not hemmed in by a bunch of separate municipalities.
Apart from being very windy, Port Elizabeth has a mild climate. According to Wikipedia, the record high temperature is 105.3 F / 40.7 C and the record low temperature is -0.5 C / 31 F. It is almost always windy. Sometimes the wind dies down overnight, so it may be relatively calm early in the morning, but invariably it picks up again later. Because of the wind, many trees grow at an angle. It wasn’t until I moved to Pretoria many years later that I realized that trees grow reasonably vertically if not constantly battered by wind.
I don’t know when my brother Mick was born relative to us moving to Malvern Avenue. He was born soon after I turned 3, which is around the time we moved. I was probably too young to notice that my mother was pregnant, either then or when Ian was born a little under 4 years after Mick. It wasn’t until decades later – maybe only after my mother had passed away – that I heard that my mother had had some pregnancy losses between my birth and Ian’s. With me being an “accident” and the pregnancy losses, it would seem that our family turned out quite differently from what my parents may have intended.
Many of my memories from our first several years in the house on Malvern Avenue are very hazy, especially in terms of their timing. For instance, the house below us (marked 2 on the photo below from Google maps) was a vacant lot for the first few years that we were there. One day, while it was still an open lot, one of my mother’s friends, Betty van Tonder, stopped by for a brief visit. She left her car parked at the side of the road, with her two daughters, Annette and Frances, inside. Malvern Avenue is on a hill. One of the daughters released the brake and the car started rolling down the hill. Fortunately it turned into the vacant lot and was slowed by the vegetation growing there. Betty ran after the car to try to stop it, slipped and broke a leg. I recently managed to make contact with Frances and asked her about the incident. She said she was the one who released the brake – because her mom was taking too long for her liking.<div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuT5hrAYWpjsXkWpUeNJLYenrk4_yKxygX_fyffD4zgNsm4l4YHaO71ynbaFshF8eFdkgnkJPDUtSk3LQOu8TI-LaidrHhzPSEukneRp-fCSHw3fMg1A7dywUmk3wUcoVhiOUbbeIOKuvLzuYBleoPj7Ds2u0_Kaea979gLbBJdpUSaDm7IsiRMaMd29k/s1259/Fern%20Glen%202.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="919" data-original-width="1259" height="467" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuT5hrAYWpjsXkWpUeNJLYenrk4_yKxygX_fyffD4zgNsm4l4YHaO71ynbaFshF8eFdkgnkJPDUtSk3LQOu8TI-LaidrHhzPSEukneRp-fCSHw3fMg1A7dywUmk3wUcoVhiOUbbeIOKuvLzuYBleoPj7Ds2u0_Kaea979gLbBJdpUSaDm7IsiRMaMd29k/w640-h467/Fern%20Glen%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>
All I remember about the building of the house marked with a 2 is that we nicknamed one of the builders “Fatty Boom-Boom”. Once it was built Oscar and Ruth Swart moved in. I think their son Anthony was born shortly before or after that and they later had another son, Jonathan, who has Down syndrome. (Strangely, the people who lived in the house marked with an 8 for a short time also had a son with Down syndrome, who died while they were living there.) Ruth was a German Jew who, along with a sister Inge, was able to get out of Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport when Ruth was 13 and Inge was 8. All their other relatives were killed in the Holocaust. Inge died in an airplane crash in Cameroon in 1962. I recall Ruth coming over to our house in tears to tell us the news that she had lost her last relative. When I managed to make contact with Anthony several years ago he’d been with his (male) partner for more than 30 years. Although our families lived next door to one another for 20 years, I hadn’t realized back then that he was gay. Maybe that’s partly because the old South Africa was a rather homophobic society, so he didn’t come out until much later.
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji2JrvRG3HnnhV5lqgIyOJ7L1YeGc52BYT-TclejXFHTK9fB3KC1KhdYKZjDbWd0uRv6Mt8uP9fzIUTz25FdTf7bKR8eNd_hblR0Hxk_c-CQnsU7MdXbsekaFLbZwjdn3Xo9kcp8JdtDohqg7edVxga1AC265QNz5Sk0FnGMDCULcS6mFReexdsT5Y4j0/s1579/Ruth%20Swart.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1186" data-original-width="1579" height="481" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji2JrvRG3HnnhV5lqgIyOJ7L1YeGc52BYT-TclejXFHTK9fB3KC1KhdYKZjDbWd0uRv6Mt8uP9fzIUTz25FdTf7bKR8eNd_hblR0Hxk_c-CQnsU7MdXbsekaFLbZwjdn3Xo9kcp8JdtDohqg7edVxga1AC265QNz5Sk0FnGMDCULcS6mFReexdsT5Y4j0/w640-h481/Ruth%20Swart.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Ruth Swart being interviewed for the USC Shoah
Foundation <a href="https://sfi.usc.edu/">https://sfi.usc.edu/</a><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
Soon after we moved to Malvern Avenue, Edith Hempe started working for us as a live-in housemaid, a role she held for close to 30 years. Most middle-class white families of that era employed a Black housemaid, usually living on site in the “servants’ quarters”. For that our house initially had just a room behind the garage and a separate toilet, but no bath. Edith had to wash in a metal bathtub like the one in the photo, carrying water in jugs from the kitchen to her room. Several years later, the first time my parents added on to the house, the additions included a proper bathroom for Edith. (The other additions at that time included adding a new master bedroom, with en suite bathroom beyond what is marked as my bedroom in the floorplan, and a new second bathroom plus separate shower, with the old bathroom converted to a laundry room.)
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3WnS9YK0xryhuq0_GnPUDG49uvhXeuonK1I0Gb7ewoGAXvDKmK9s3GNRnNSSercOjtxrFpSfMYdeYU2aIlJN6b_M-_YiaI7qo64Uijo1ve8YmKKk1cUJeULM4L-66YwgPb7WmUcc25fME1rxiZvHCUNJTJlmxim1XYlPy-fzgWoLUVDqevz07iPXlfJ4/s640/Metal%20bathtub.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3WnS9YK0xryhuq0_GnPUDG49uvhXeuonK1I0Gb7ewoGAXvDKmK9s3GNRnNSSercOjtxrFpSfMYdeYU2aIlJN6b_M-_YiaI7qo64Uijo1ve8YmKKk1cUJeULM4L-66YwgPb7WmUcc25fME1rxiZvHCUNJTJlmxim1XYlPy-fzgWoLUVDqevz07iPXlfJ4/s320/Metal%20bathtub.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Metal bathtub similar to the one Edith Hempe had
to use<br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
During the Apartheid era Black people were not allowed to live in white areas, with this being codified in the Group Areas Act (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_Areas_Act)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_Areas_Act)</a>. I don’t know how having Black housemaids (and sometimes also gardeners) living on site fitted in to the Act, but it was definitely allowed. Black people had to carry a pass book (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_laws">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_laws</a>) when moving around, and if in a white area at night or over a weekend they also had to have a letter from their employer giving them permission to be there. I remember my mother writing such letters for Edith each time she went home. Edith’s job was more than what I would regard as full time, starting with making breakfast for the family, then making beds and cleaning the house, through to making dinner and washing the dishes afterwards. Housemaids were traditionally given Thursday afternoon and evening off (and local restaurants did good business on Thursday evenings), Edith also had every second weekend off from after lunch on Saturday, when she would go home to her place near Uitenhage. Edith had two children, Reuben who was about my age and Maureen who was a little older. I think that the children lived with Edith’s mother.
Edith was a wonderful person. She was very intelligent and could communicate effectively in several languages. It is one of the tragedies of Apartheid that someone such as Edith did not have an opportunity to be more than a housemaid. She was a great cook and had many amusing sayings. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t try to find out more about her background and interests or to learn her native language (Xhosa). In mitigation at least of the latter, I am terrible at languages other than English (and passable at that probably only because my mother taught high school English for many years). By the time my “baby” brother Ian reached high school, Xhosa was offered as one of the classes, but it hadn’t been available in my day. Ian has also been much better at languages than me, including studying several languages in college before switching to medicine. If my mother had known back then what she learned later when studying linguistics, she would probably have asked Edith to speak to us (the children) in her own language rather than in English. Children can pick up multiple languages and don’t get too confused as long as each person speaking to them uses a single language consistently. At least that’s what my mother told us before our kids were born. My mother didn’t live to see any of her grandchildren, but we stuck to that advice, with Rietta still speaking to our kids in Afrikaans more than 35 years after Steven was born.</div><div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSJbSy_F9HM3IukbuZU-TwZ0pEi5zWHPamW9XmFHX1LTuve-Bq77zuQE1nkdvqCS-9FfnIQaZfkDJGNFMl-APIm0GIG5mXPD1ZI93ABXkXpAUc-2Ia1QXDMEiKR-nGK5rensKqTvs-fKuWGYvyWVx-pl_mQbZgLSEN3Vv1gHiUNLu2vAvXaeW-4-SWSJc/s3024/Edith%20and%20Steven.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2058" data-original-width="3024" height="435" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSJbSy_F9HM3IukbuZU-TwZ0pEi5zWHPamW9XmFHX1LTuve-Bq77zuQE1nkdvqCS-9FfnIQaZfkDJGNFMl-APIm0GIG5mXPD1ZI93ABXkXpAUc-2Ia1QXDMEiKR-nGK5rensKqTvs-fKuWGYvyWVx-pl_mQbZgLSEN3Vv1gHiUNLu2vAvXaeW-4-SWSJc/w640-h435/Edith%20and%20Steven.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Edith Hempe with our son Steven at my parents’
house in Pretoria in 1987 or 1988<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div>
Soon after we moved in to our “new” house, my father built (or had someone build) a sandpit in the corner where I have typed “Sandpit” on the image. My father collected bags of sea-sand from the dunes along the coast. He usually took the family for a drive on a Sunday afternoon. He’d first go to Livingstone Hospital to see the patients he would be anesthetizing the next day, while we waited in the car. Then we would typically drive to the harbor where we would often watch a tug maneuvering a ship. After that we’d drive along and past the beachfront, sometimes stopping further on to fill some bags with sand from sand dunes.
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaG6NymeLQJ45ycop3nbMkXWYthGtXtEz0_nMPc-xaUKb2d-nU6u8Xuvg1C0yuIby5R-gljp5ueCxAyR3aO6TmbX54XrJs5hjH5jmohYDKWcxcvbabqXRvP0lB4Iuk17sVhe0BnIyo8bZMFQm4bbfsIuDroXlGWn6NQSa-EhmjRSnMR2XIlxTCjQVomBk/s1118/Port%20Elizabeth%20Harbor.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="796" data-original-width="1118" height="455" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaG6NymeLQJ45ycop3nbMkXWYthGtXtEz0_nMPc-xaUKb2d-nU6u8Xuvg1C0yuIby5R-gljp5ueCxAyR3aO6TmbX54XrJs5hjH5jmohYDKWcxcvbabqXRvP0lB4Iuk17sVhe0BnIyo8bZMFQm4bbfsIuDroXlGWn6NQSa-EhmjRSnMR2XIlxTCjQVomBk/w640-h455/Port%20Elizabeth%20Harbor.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Port Elizabeth Harbor as it currently looks on
Google Maps. Back in the day there were
usually a couple of ships tied up on the side where it says “Cruise Terminal
Port Elizabeth”.<br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
For a while we had rabbits in a hutch next to the sandpit. I don’t recall how long we had them, but think the hutch stood empty for many years after there were no more rabbits. My brothers and I would sometimes find tortoises in the vacant lot next to our house and bring them to our yard. We often pushed them around as if they were toy cars! Picking up and moving a tortoise may have been illegal even back then.
Like most other South African families, although we had a washing machine we didn’t have a dryer. Laundry was dried by hanging it outside on the washing line.
When I was about 4 years old I started “nursey school”, which is what South Africans called pre-school. Using Google maps and my memory of the approximate location, it was probably a little over 0.6 miles (1 km) from our house. A housemaid used to walk me to there and came to fetch me later. We usually stopped on the way to buy fresh bread at a convenience store. (Milk used to be delivered to our house in glass bottles, but we had to go to a store to buy fresh bread.)
I went to nursey school for two years. All I remember about it, other than walking there and back, is a friend, Bryan Heine, who was also there and then went on to the same schools as me through the end of high school. Later I went to his wedding – the only person who was at school with me whose wedding I attended. It was probably a few years after his wedding that his father died in a boating accident. I think I was away at college or doing compulsory military service when that happened. </div><div><br /></div><div>Next, on to “big” school.
</div></div></div>Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-70300794595119117502021-01-17T15:02:00.008-05:002021-01-30T20:26:09.743-05:00Prehistoric running, part 2<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">And so at last to running-related content …<br /><br /><br /><b>Becoming a runner</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The observant reader may notice that there is no mention of
the word “coach” anywhere in this entry (other than in this paragraph). That’s because I have never been
coached. The less charitable may say
that I am uncoachable.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Maybe I always knew I’d become a runner, even long before I
started running.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 7<sup>th</sup> grade (last year of primary school in
South Africa), one day I saw a number of boys running across our school grounds,
strung out behind one another. It was
apparently a cross country race. I
wondered why I hadn’t know about it and thought it was something I would like
to try. That stayed just a passing
thought for a few more years.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The next year, in our first term in high school (the school
year was divided into 4 terms, with vacations between each) we had to do
various track and field events during the time that the higher grades did
“cadets” (marching around in military style uniforms carrying old rifles that
had had their mechanisms removed; an activity I loathed, of which I will
probably write more in a later entry).
The events we had to do were sprints, jumps and throws – no somewhat
longer distance running. Those all
required speed and/or explosive strength, neither of which I possessed. At the end of the term there was an
inter-class track and field competition for the four 8<sup>th</sup> grade
classes. Apart from the sprints, jumps
and throws, there was an 800m that counted towards the inter-class competition.
Anyone who didn’t do any other event had
to run the mile (and nobody who did another event was allowed to run it). Results of the mile did not count towards the
competition. I wanted to run the mile,
but our class needed another body in the 800m and somehow I became that
body. A classmate, Trevor Hall if I
recall correctly, and I knew we were slow and made a pact to run together. At least I thought we had made such a pact. It may be hard to believe, but apparently I
thought wrong. The race started and, as
expected, Trevor and I found ourselves at the back. We ran together for a while but then Trevor
must have decided I was too slow even for him and left me in the lurch. I finished dead last by a long way. I have no idea what my time was or if it was
even recorded for posterity. At least I
finished, which is more than can be said for another race in which I was last
(or thought I was last). More on that
later as it was also before the dawn of written records.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Around that time a popular method of raising funds for a
good cause was to hold a “Big Walk”. The
distance was typically 20 miles, with participants trying to persuade family,
friends, and businesses to sponsor them for each mile they walked. While I was still in my first year of high
school, our school decided to hold a Big Walk
As South Africa was in the process of switching to the metric system and
30 is a larger number than 20 (and the logic might have been hence it would
raise more money) this one was 30km rather than 20 miles and, I think, was
called the “Kilometer Canter” or maybe “Kilometer Kanter”. (Gordon “Billy” Bauer, one of our teachers
that year, wrote a song called “Grey will give us Culture; Culture with a
capital K”; Grey being our school, named after a former governor of the Cape
Colony, Sir George Grey. Billy Bauer
also rebranded the kids’ game of cops & robbers or cowboys & crooks as
Nationalists & terrorists, the National Party being the party in power
during the Apartheid era.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Everyone in the school was required to participate in the
Kilometer Kanter. I have always been
reticent about asking people for money, even for a good cause, so didn’t manage
to get much in terms of sponsorship. The
starting point was somewhere near the beachfront and the route was roughly C
shaped, ending at the school. We were
taken to the starting point in buses.
Because the buses needed to make multiple trips to get everyone to the
starting point, we didn’t have a massed start but instead could begin walking
(or cantering) as soon as we were dropped off.
Several of my classmates and I decided that walking the whole distance
would take too long, so we ran a substantial proportion of the way. We didn’t try to run all the way, just ran
for a while, walked for a while, stopped to drink at the refreshment stations, and
so on. (A few of the boys in higher
grades did try to run the whole distance.)
The refreshments were bottles of flavored milk (Steri Stumpies – see
photo, though back then the bottles were named of glass rather than plastic). Being a glutton I consumed far too many
bottles. We were among the earlier
finishers, but because of the staggered start it wasn’t clear how much of that
was a function of when we had been dropped off and how much because of running
a good deal of the way. I have no idea
how much of the distance we actually ran, but am quite sure that was the
longest distance in one day until about 7 years later.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuB0sZhqbDkPxLkBO94oxlwZWkG2jZgEEGM7ys9L2Lg9GySbHE4g-IRHMU3khUIRKVi9h99BtLW2V9q80hF61SqxL_DkmCYjdijFOjwrWq5z4mn_h5DAhRp5x1Q2Qh5poBxbVo3ZPPxq8/s600/Steri+stumpies.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="254" data-original-width="600" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuB0sZhqbDkPxLkBO94oxlwZWkG2jZgEEGM7ys9L2Lg9GySbHE4g-IRHMU3khUIRKVi9h99BtLW2V9q80hF61SqxL_DkmCYjdijFOjwrWq5z4mn_h5DAhRp5x1Q2Qh5poBxbVo3ZPPxq8/w640-h270/Steri+stumpies.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Steri Stumpies</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">What remained a sore point for many of us for the rest of
our time in high school was that we were told that part of the money raised
would be so there could be hot showers in the changerooms of the new gymnasium
that was being (or about to be) built.
We were required to shower after the twice-weekly PT classes and also
after participating in sport if we were riding home by bus. As at the school’s swimming pool, there was
no hot water in the showers. Well, by
the time we finished high school more than four years later, there still
weren’t hot showers. The ostensible
excuse was that the school’s electricity supply was not adequate and that until
a new electricity sub-station was constructed there wouldn’t be enough power to
heat water. I suppose I didn’t really
have much right to complain considering my meagre contribution to the
fundraising effort.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I might not have been a runner yet, but I must have taken
some interest in running. Our school had
an annual general knowledge test that we all had to take. My general knowledge was rather pitiful. How could I be expected to know the name of
the South African Prime Minister or which year the 1820 Settlers arrived in
what became Port Elizabeth (the city in which we lived)? One of the few questions I managed to get
right each year was who had won the Comrades (Ultra) Marathon that year. It helped that Dave Bagshaw won it 3 times
while I was in high school. In later
years the whole race was televised live from start to finish, so many people
became aware of who won, but this was still well before the introduction of
television in South Africa. (The
question didn’t have to specify that it was the male winner because in those
days women were still too sensible to want to run long distances.)<br /><br /><br /><b>High school cross country</b></p><p class="MsoNormal">In part 1 of this saga I mentioned that at our high school
participation in sport was compulsory and that in the cooler months those who
didn’t manage to get selected for any other team had to run cross country. However, we all (or nearly all) had to run
one cross country race each year, an intramural inter-house (a la Harry Potter
books) event. There were two races, one
for the younger age group and one for the rest, with 200 competing in each race
(50 per house), making a total of 400 of the around 600 boys in the
school. We were supposed to run the
course on two separate occasions as training and then the race itself. I don’t know how I avoided running it in my
first two years in high school. I didn’t
deliberately try to get out of it. Maybe
the leaders in my house decided I didn’t look as if I could run and so didn’t
select me. I did run it in my last 3
years though, finishing 64<sup>th</sup>, 32<sup>nd</sup>, and then 6<sup>th</sup>
in 10<sup>th</sup>, 11<sup>th</sup> and 12<sup>th</sup> grades, in the latter
case coming in ahead of the captains of the cross country and track teams.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I’ve tried to recall the route of the school’s cross country
course, but after almost 50 years many details are sketchy. The start was on one of the rugby fields,
approximately where I have written an S in the image below. We had to run across the field and then up a
short but steep embankment onto the next rugby field. The arrow in the lower image shows the
direction we were going and the embankment is circled. In the photo it doesn’t look very steep, but
from memory the slope was more than 30 degrees.
I have always been a slow starter in races, so by that point was about
at the back of the field of 200 runners.
I don’t recall where exactly we left the school grounds, but after doing
so we crossed a couple of roads and then went clockwise around the nearby golf
course. From the extreme left in the
image there was a fairly gentle but quite lengthy uphill stretch under
trees. That was my favorite part of the
course, partly because each year I passed several boys there. The uphill may have been gentle but was
enough to punish those who had started too fast. After we exited the golf course property we
re-crossed the roads and eventually finished on the cricket field, about where
I have written an F, though I don’t recall where we re-entered the school
grounds and made our way to the finish.
A rough measurement on Google Maps puts the length of the course at
about 3.6 miles / 5,8 km.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK8W2jVmyyMYPO0SIKDVmC5ffWkl02cPkOzWqkkzWDdq0NnWhlX5Q3Gh2DFEE8bofl2ypPyHeKrEnb2GymKr06XbNH_w7Gnc5Dvwa0T_GFIwZEMq9vN6Aa8ob2FtzJPEnylKUbkbw7fTk/s1263/Grey+cross+country.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="1263" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK8W2jVmyyMYPO0SIKDVmC5ffWkl02cPkOzWqkkzWDdq0NnWhlX5Q3Gh2DFEE8bofl2ypPyHeKrEnb2GymKr06XbNH_w7Gnc5Dvwa0T_GFIwZEMq9vN6Aa8ob2FtzJPEnylKUbkbw7fTk/w640-h310/Grey+cross+country.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Best guess as to the route of our school’s cross
country course.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOXBTHTwZ9YNgUZbWD3ZbfDtibwnGIQpV8fd6yfYwEtF-muhmqEHCEPes5-OdeIrbKGOARJWMOZanQSEZHZOqbbh2QURm8Nk6ooFvlFMi425yyAs8-Vtgimbn-mqg0NCs1omV-bIToxas/s1217/Grey+cross+country+embankment.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="1217" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOXBTHTwZ9YNgUZbWD3ZbfDtibwnGIQpV8fd6yfYwEtF-muhmqEHCEPes5-OdeIrbKGOARJWMOZanQSEZHZOqbbh2QURm8Nk6ooFvlFMi425yyAs8-Vtgimbn-mqg0NCs1omV-bIToxas/w640-h374/Grey+cross+country+embankment.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />The embankment near the start of the course. The arrow shows the direction in which we
started.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYLSCDv5LsPlkWwzKsRJj22kaZUAix8npnYeYrdZ6gCeYoA9zc69BVm2yQOLDQcMt5pQLVrGWoBcGxO8Sz8dHAnvLCgY7l6ScPd8vgl3F-kvG9aYPLkvzEUXuFEhffke_eQnsYH80hQXI/s1253/Grey+cross+country+trees.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="1253" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYLSCDv5LsPlkWwzKsRJj22kaZUAix8npnYeYrdZ6gCeYoA9zc69BVm2yQOLDQcMt5pQLVrGWoBcGxO8Sz8dHAnvLCgY7l6ScPd8vgl3F-kvG9aYPLkvzEUXuFEhffke_eQnsYH80hQXI/w640-h336/Grey+cross+country+trees.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />My favorite part of the cross country
course. The strip of trees looks
narrower than I remembered.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">A few years before the first of those cross country races our
parents acquired a dog for the family, a black Lab named Roly. (We had had another dog several years
previously.) They said that Labs needed
a lot of exercise to prevent them getting fat and that we were responsible for
Roly being exercised. I don’t know
whether I pestered our parents to get the dog or they decided it was a good way
for me to get more exercise and stop getting any fatter, but Roly became my dog
and I was the one who had to exercise him.
So most afternoons Roly and I would take long walks along the
single-track paths in the nearby veld. I
don’t think there were any leash laws back in those days. I may have used a leash for the block or so
that we had to walk to get to the trails but after that I let Roly run free,
often throwing a tennis ball for him to retrieve. At about the time I turned 16, which was also
about when I ran the cross country race in 10<sup>th</sup> grade, I decided to
run rather than walk with Roly. Then at
some point I started running the same route alone. It is ironic that Roly was partly responsible
for me getting more exercise and that eventually resulted in Roly getting less
exercise.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The map below shows where I ran with Roly (and later by
myself). It was always the same route,
out, loop (off the left edge of the image) and back. In those days there were no roads south of
the blue line. (Even after the roads
were laid it was several more years before houses were built.) The red oval is about where the photo below
was taken (also from Google Maps.)
Probably a year or two later there was a German shepherd dog at about
where I’ve drawn a red X. The dog often
used to charge out into the street to try to attack me. For a while I carried a child’s wooden
baseball bat to fend off the dog, once or twice needing to give it a tap on the
snout.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfCc6XOf8VMqECbPL0N4L8GvVL9PzcgaLiMVvUUWkw4rCLtb8IbrsOm2XFjGefP8Q8Gbf1VtwZm5iYhdoYydBElZW0nr0LZxnwFWaqwwN0a6IyAVfYK15XVaHhPX0Cf_BUhacKXB3hNac/s1029/Fern+Glen+trails.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="937" data-original-width="1029" height="582" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfCc6XOf8VMqECbPL0N4L8GvVL9PzcgaLiMVvUUWkw4rCLtb8IbrsOm2XFjGefP8Q8Gbf1VtwZm5iYhdoYydBElZW0nr0LZxnwFWaqwwN0a6IyAVfYK15XVaHhPX0Cf_BUhacKXB3hNac/w640-h582/Fern+Glen+trails.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Route when running with Roly (and later alone)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZCIFMA0m6h80aqYUsIqYbS6iTf-tx9rWhtsJYECJ2R39W53kWEGx6FH0Ah7rgSSA_4nRVP2ODSzO23Gh0KceRiNe0He0luwE4j_ivKXjJZf0Vs769oewGdERG_EF33jreN80XGmm68kA/s1197/Fern+Glen+trails+photo.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="699" data-original-width="1197" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZCIFMA0m6h80aqYUsIqYbS6iTf-tx9rWhtsJYECJ2R39W53kWEGx6FH0Ah7rgSSA_4nRVP2ODSzO23Gh0KceRiNe0He0luwE4j_ivKXjJZf0Vs769oewGdERG_EF33jreN80XGmm68kA/w640-h374/Fern+Glen+trails+photo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />About where the route hit the trails, with the arrow showing the direction on the outward leg</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">How long was the route?
Probably a little over 2 miles / 3 km.
I didn’t have a stopwatch but sometimes worked out my approximate time
from an ordinary analog wristwatch. On
those occasions it was never under 15 minutes or over 20 minutes, though there
was quite a bit of variability from day to day.
I probably ran most days on which I didn’t play sport at school. Occasionally on weekends or holidays I would
run the route in the late morning rather than in the afternoon (and maybe
sometimes both morning and afternoon).
My times when I ran in the morning were usually slower than when I ran
in the afternoon.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">A few years later my parents gave me the watch in the
photo. It has a stopwatch function, with
the upper button starting and stopping the second hand and the lower button
being to reset it to 0. The small dial
in the lower part of the face indicates the minutes – up to 30. Once I started doing long runs many years
later I had to keep track of how many multiples of 30 minutes had elapsed. I probably used that watch for well over 5
years, before getting my first digital watch in about 1979, well after the
start of recorded history.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgYnxOKG81NBI-yn1xpftkAu89kEvL55BstfX8hy8qFr3q6cOn7-1JbaMmivhYdrqlEn14fBVUUPCusuN1-T4wZmxYFXAigV6LdlsTxFhzhnNBTAdGhS4ts_URBfERkJTPLobLVZBj-GE/s2016/Seiko+watch.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="1512" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgYnxOKG81NBI-yn1xpftkAu89kEvL55BstfX8hy8qFr3q6cOn7-1JbaMmivhYdrqlEn14fBVUUPCusuN1-T4wZmxYFXAigV6LdlsTxFhzhnNBTAdGhS4ts_URBfERkJTPLobLVZBj-GE/w480-h640/Seiko+watch.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Seiko watch with stopwatch function. It still works, though one of the buttons
doesn’t spring back out. I’m sure a
watch repair shop could fix that easily.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">After I’d been running for a year or two I came to the
realization that my favorite part of rugby practice at school was when we had
to run around the field a few times to warm up or cool down.<br /><br /><br /><b>High school track</b></p><p class="MsoNormal">My performance in the school’s cross country race when I was
in 12<sup>th</sup> grade must have attracted the attention of the
powers-that-be as it led to me having to run a few track races. A couple of weeks after the inter-house cross
country there was an inter-house track and field competition. First there was a 3,000m race on a separate
day from all the other events. I had to
run the 3,000m for my house.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">All my running to that point had been in soccer boots with
molded rubber studs (cleats). The image
below is the closest I could find on the web to what my boots looked like when
new. On the day of the 3,000m I lined up
with the rest of the field on our school’s cinder track. (The track has gone the way of the dinosaur. There is no track visible on Google Maps now
and so I presume the school uses a nearby municipal synthetic track.) Tommy Dean, the school’s head groundskeeper,
saw my boots and said I couldn’t run in those as they would damage his
track. I showed him the soles, which
were smooth because the running I had done had worn the studs down completely. So he let me run the race. I have no idea what my time or position were
other than that I finished somewhere in the middle of however many took
part. The next day at school a teacher
who I don’t think had ever spoken to me stopped me in the corridor and said
something like “You ran a disappointing race yesterday.” I don’t think I said anything in response,
partly because I hadn’t been disappointed – I hadn’t gone into the race with
any expectations. Also, I was surprised
that a teacher who I didn’t know had expectations of me based on one cross
country race. I had gone through school
trying to stay under the radar. So I
wasn’t quite as invisible as I had thought.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeF_eKaQQ-KAcDxuwA5QMGmL1cGWr1TsRUkfZolJxoGUKO_YY48Y2282YrP72Tx-1huKccwKLi6TyKro1ggPL-eG0ISQAGndRZrabFiUUM6RibvLSabMNZBqWvuQ5Fpx_jQJr6t0LSEU/s800/Soccer+boots.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="800" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeF_eKaQQ-KAcDxuwA5QMGmL1cGWr1TsRUkfZolJxoGUKO_YY48Y2282YrP72Tx-1huKccwKLi6TyKro1ggPL-eG0ISQAGndRZrabFiUUM6RibvLSabMNZBqWvuQ5Fpx_jQJr6t0LSEU/w640-h440/Soccer+boots.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Soccer boots with molded rubber studs</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal">On the day of the rest of the inter-house track meet I may
have run a distance relay, but don’t recall what distance.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Despite the “disappointing” 3,000m I was selected to run for
our school in a couple of competitions against other schools. No-one suggested I should train with the
track team, so I just continued with my usual runs. I wouldn’t glorify them by referring to them
as training. Apart from one day when a
friend, Jeremy Clampett, and I did a run from school, all my running was on my
own. Again, I don’t recall what events I
ran at those track meets, though I think it may have been more 3,000m races and
distance relays. I’m fairly sure I
didn’t run any solo race shorter than 3,000m.
I have no recollection of how I placed and even back then don’t think I
was ever told my time for any of the events, if my times were even recorded.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">At about that time I got my first pair of real running
shoes. They looked very similar to the
ones in the photo below. I wore through
several similar pairs before more substantial ones became available.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEVopMpp-ze_CdMhR7jpkzMIY7QclIH6wV-4jac_dDDAfQB31BcRQZAagBWy8-D0uyF9OjmLMxwJLkH1SVZhuGvPEiVUTpe3eyI_MuxXFcbQ55uZnE7dHmp8MLBB73qXlaXX4MKxwP11w/s640/asics-onitsuka-tiger-marathon-70s.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="640" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEVopMpp-ze_CdMhR7jpkzMIY7QclIH6wV-4jac_dDDAfQB31BcRQZAagBWy8-D0uyF9OjmLMxwJLkH1SVZhuGvPEiVUTpe3eyI_MuxXFcbQ55uZnE7dHmp8MLBB73qXlaXX4MKxwP11w/w640-h326/asics-onitsuka-tiger-marathon-70s.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />My first “proper” running shoes looked much like these. The company that became ASICS was called Onitsuka Tiger back then.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">Several years later the designers of running shoes went
through a phase during which they seemed to think that the thicker the sole the
better. I had a pair that may have been
like the ones below or maybe had an even thicker sole. The thick sole wasn’t very flexible and
running in them was unpleasant. Just one
of the many running shoe “innovations” that didn’t really pan out.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2c9vGmfvlg5qvBxNg-SHkhsqxCK2zBV4Em6l2kNfIl7QnbE0TDjZ6XH0DhCQeuNbEZc8ExdR4pVKJ9PQaCGU-T1Q__34PRdZbyn6XEXxhGrVUzwCfpkTl8-5D0LrqyVmTKill7f7kIOE/s667/Tiger+Corsair.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="667" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2c9vGmfvlg5qvBxNg-SHkhsqxCK2zBV4Em6l2kNfIl7QnbE0TDjZ6XH0DhCQeuNbEZc8ExdR4pVKJ9PQaCGU-T1Q__34PRdZbyn6XEXxhGrVUzwCfpkTl8-5D0LrqyVmTKill7f7kIOE/w640-h332/Tiger+Corsair.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />The thicker the sole the better? Cadbury's “First Law of Chocology” used to be “The
thicker the chocolate the better.”
Thicker definitely better for chocolate, less so for soles of running
shoes.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>On to university<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal">First year students, particularly those who would be living
in dorms, were required (or maybe just requested) to arrive a week before
classes started, for Freshers’ Week.
That was probably when we had to sign up for classes (no online signing
up in those pre-Internet days), as well as learning how to drink
irresponsibly. (The legal drinking age
in South Africa was probably 18 even back then, but I never heard of anyone
being asked for proof of age.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Towards the end of Freshers’ Week there was an intra-mural
track competition. I was persuaded to
sign up for the 800m, 1,500m and 3,000m.
On the day of the meet I was starting to come down with a bad cold or
the flu and so withdrew from the 800m, but not the other two races. The 1,500m was very literally not memorable –
I don’t remember what it was like or where I placed. In the 3,000m I managed to place second to
Graeme Brodrick, who was not only from my res, but had also attended my high
school. He had been a year ahead of me
and had either first done his national (military) service or, if I recall
correctly, spent a gap year in Australia.
Second place was much better than I had ever achieved in any type of
athletic (in the broad sense) event. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Although the Freshers’ Sports event was quite early in 1973
– late February or the beginning of March – I didn’t run another race that
year. I did continue to run when not
playing other sports and usually ran with one or two other students from my res.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Our res was officially then known as Driekoppen Residence,
informally known as “Belsen”, with the official name changed to Kopano after
1994 <a href="https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2011-03-23-kopano-lives-up-to-its-name">https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2011-03-23-kopano-lives-up-to-its-name</a>).
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">More on the “Belsen” nickname from <a href="https://docspike.com/download/uct-building-names-register_pdf">https://docspike.com/download/uct-building-names-register_pdf</a>:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .2in; margin-right: .2in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.2in;"><i>The original Driekoppen was erected
in 1945 near Driekoppen Inn on the De Waal Drive, Mowbray, which the Government
gave to UCT as a "temporary" students residence for about 300 male
ex-servicemen. When the students returned from war they were somewhat dismayed
by the similarities between the accommodation that they were given and the kind
of quarters at the war front which they did not want to be reminded of. It has
been said "the austere bungalows surrounded by barren and dusty earth and
barbed wire fencing, took their minds back to infamous prisoner-of -war camps
in Germany. Because of this irony the residence immediately earned itself the
name BELSEN, a name which stuck to despite objections by UCT authorities. <o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .2in; margin-right: .2in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.2in;"><i>Source: Origins of Names of
Buildings at the University of Cape Town, Mr M. Musemwa (Department of History
UCT, 1993).<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal">My first fairly regular training partner was a fellow Belsen
resident, Steve Harle. We ran together
quite often in 1973 and 1974. In 1974 I
signed up for the Two Oceans (ultra) Marathon (35 miles / 56 km), which is
traditionally held on the Saturday of the Easter weekend. That was more than a little crazy because by
that stage I had probably never run as far as 10 miles. A year or two later the race introduced a
qualifying standard – one had to run a (standard) marathon in under 4:15 in
order to be allowed to sign up for the Two Oceans. (The race web site doesn’t mention when the
qualifying time was introduced, though it does say it was relaxed to 4:30 in
1998 and then to 5:00 in 2001.)
Considering my lack of long distance training it is probably fortunate
that I developed an injury and was unable to start. Steve asked if he could use my number and I
agreed. We were such novices in terms of
running that we didn’t know that that was a no-no. Steve hadn’t done much more training than I
had but managed to get to 20 miles before dropping out. Considering that he was running as me, it is
probably good that he did not finish. I
was eventually able to run Two Oceans, in 1979, 1983, and 1984. It is the longest race I have run and is
probably my all-time favorite event.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I think Steve moved out of Belsen after 1974. He continued to run but in 1978 he and his
wife were tragically murdered by an escaped convict when they were on a hiking
trip. As 1978 is well before the
Internet era Google doesn’t currently turn up anything related to their
murder. A while back a search did find a
mention in a book, Ghosts of South
Africa by Pat Hopkins. From the book:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .2in; margin-right: .2in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.2in;"><i>In November 1978, three schoolboys were exploring the shell when they
came across the body of a woman and her dog.
Six kilometres away, a group of hikers came across a campsite, in the
middle of which was the body of a man. 'Boland detectives are still
"completely in the dark" today about the motive for this gruesome
double murder of Mr and Mrs Steve Harle in Bain's Kloof and the whereabouts of
the killers,' reported the Argus.
"We're as puzzled as you are," said Colonel Izak van der
Vyver, Divisional Criminal Investigations chief in the Boland.<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .2in; margin-right: .2in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.2in;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .2in; margin-right: .2in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.2in;"><i>'The bodies of Mr Harle and his wife Jane, both twenty-four, were found
in the Happy Valley section of Bain's Kloof on Saturday morning - more than six
kilometres apart. Mr Harle, a sixth-year
medical student at the University of Cape Town, was found by mountaineers a few
metres away from the small red tent the couple had pitched near Junction Pool
in the Witte River. He wore a T-shirt
and shorts and had been stabbed several times.
Blood smears and a bent aluminium tent pole inside the tent were
evidence of a violent struggle on the two sleeping bags. Schoolboys found Mrs Harle's body in a corner
of the desolate Spookhuis [ghost house].
She was on her back, her legs drawn up and had been stabbed twice in the
left side of her chest. Beside her was
the couple's small dog Otto. It had been
stabbed between the shoulder blades.'<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .2in; margin-right: .2in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.2in;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .2in; margin-right: .2in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.2in;"><i>A few days later, an escaped convict, John Smith, was arrested and
charged with the murders. He was found
guilty, sentenced to death, and executed.
Since the tragedy, hikers have reported seeing the ghost of a fleeing
woman and her dog near what remains of the Spookhuis.<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal">Although I signed up for Two Oceans, without getting to run
it, and started at least one race, I don’t think I finished any races in
1974. Over the years I have dropped out
of a number of races, but this is the only one I am embarrassed about. Two of the top distance runners at the
University of Cape Town at that time were Dave Levick and Edward “Tiffy”
King. Dave had won the Comrades (ultra) Marathon
the previous year and Tiffy later excelled at Ironman-distance triathlons. In 1974 Dave and Tiffy decided they wanted to
run a fast 3,000m. I don’t know why they
wanted to run it on the main campus rather than at the university’s track
(where the Freshers’ Sports meet had been held) or at a municipal track. A grass track was marked out on one of the
rugby fields and the 3,000m race was held one evening. One side of the field was reasonably well
lit, but the order end was quite dark. I
was one of several students who decided to join Dave and Tiffy for the event. The race got under way and soon I had drifted
way back in the small field. There were
just a handful of spectators. After a
few laps I thought I was being mocked by a group of the spectators, because I
was so slow and partly on account of the purple singlet I was wearing. My (then) fragile psyche couldn’t handle the
mocking, especially as I thought I was dead last, so on the dark side of the
field I slunk off the track and disappeared into the night. I later realized that I probably hadn’t been
last, that Francis Thackeray may have been behind me. He might have been one place ahead of me, in
which case I need to apologize belatedly for abdicating last place to him. Regardless of whether I was last or
next-to-last, I should have completed the race.
[This memory led to me tracking down Francis, who went on to have a
distinguished career as a paleontologist. <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2019/2019-10/new-research-supports-hypothesis-that-asteroid-contributed-to-mass-extinction.html">https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2019/2019-10/new-research-supports-hypothesis-that-asteroid-contributed-to-mass-extinction.html</a>
Although he remembers a race on a track
marked out on the rugby field, he doesn’t recall any more details than I do. Several years later when I had moved to
Pretoria I sometimes ran with his brother Mike, who was a much more talented
runner than Francis. Mike has also had a
very distinguished career, particularly in the field of development of lithium
batteries, initially in South Africa and later in the USA. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_M._Thackeray">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_M._Thackeray</a>]</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Without having any notes or other running-related
memorabilia from those early days to work from, I am unsure of exactly when
some of the events described below occurred.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Another race that I dropped out of, though I am not sure
whether it was in 1974 or early 1975 was my first attempt at running a
marathon. In this case dropping out was
not only justified, but unavoidable.
When I started the race one of my Achilles tendons felt very tight. Initially I ran with a few friends. But to try to get the tendon loosened up I
pulled ahead of them. I was feeling reasonably
good when at what was probably close to 10 miles I stepped on the edge of a
pothole and tore the tight tendon. In
the space of one stride I went from running quite comfortably to not being able
to walk. I don’t think I sought out
medical treatment for the tendon at the time.
After a few weeks it must have healed enough that I could resume
running. The tendon continued to be
tight and sore at the start of each run, though after a few minutes it would
warm up and the pain would disappear.
That pattern lasted for about 10 years until another race, during which
it remained painful and left me hobbling badly for days afterwards. I did finish that race, in my all-time best
for a 15km, including managing my all-time best 10km along the way. But I needed surgery before I could run
properly again. (After the surgery in
December 1984, for the first time in about 10 years I was able to run pain-free
from the start of a run. That tendon has
not bothered me again since then, though the other one later also required
surgery.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I think it was also in 1974 that Tim Noakes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Noakes">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Noakes</a>
used to hold a running injury clinic one evening each week. He would have been a final-year medical
student at the time and so may have been able to give advice but not formally
diagnose or treat injuries. There was so
little known about running and running injuries back then that a medical
student with an interest in running could know as much as anyone about running
injuries. I went to see him about a knee
injury. Perhaps it was what had
prevented me from starting the Two Oceans Marathon. Tim wasn’t able to do anything for my injury,
but gave me a (sealed) letter to take to another doctor, probably at the
student health service. Part of what
makes me think that this was in 1974 is that he gave me a referral to someone
else rather than being able to treat me.
I didn’t go to see the student health doctor and some time later decided
to look at what Tim had written. It is
the one piece of memorabilia that I would most like to have kept. In it he described me as being “totally
unathletic”. That was rather harsh,
considering I had been running with some regularity for a few years by
then. On the other hand, another factor
that makes me think this was in 1974 was that I hadn’t yet lost the flab that
had earned the nickname “Fatty Couper” and so didn’t look much like what most
runners looked like back then, before the running boom brought a wider range of
body types into the sport.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In the early ‘70s Ferdie le Grange was the top marathon
runner in South Africa, setting several South African records. His final record was 2:12:47, in April
1974. At that stage it was the fastest
marathon ever run in Africa and the seventh fastest in the world that
year. After that he retired to
concentrate on his final-year medical exams.
The next year he did his internship at the hospital in Port Elizabeth
where my father worked. My father wanted
me to meet Ferdie to get some tips on running.
I declined, partly because I was very shy and partly because I wasn’t
serious about my running. I was just
running for my own amusement rather than training with any intention of trying
to improve. Not being interested in meeting
Ferdie is one of the few regrets of my life.
Being the world’s worst conversationalist, I have no idea what I would
have said to him if I had met him.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><br /><b>First marathon</b></p><p class="MsoNormal">The fellow students with whom I had run most frequently must
have moved out of our res at the end of 1974.
One of the new students who moved in the following year was Steve Moss,
originally from Britain but whose family had moved to Botswana. Steve and I ran together quite frequently,
not going very far and often running quite late in the evening. Later that year we both signed up for the
Stellenbosch Marathon. I think the race
was officially the South African Marathon Championships for that year because
it was divided into two races. The “A”
race was for those who had qualified for the championships and there was a “B”
or citizen’s race for other runners. The
two races were held in the afternoon on the same course, 6 laps through the picturesque
college town of Stellenbosch, with each lap including a section on the
synthetic track in the university’s stadium.
The two races started at different times – I think the “B” race started
30 minutes after the main event. At that
point in the Apartheid era whites and blacks were allowed to compete against
one another only in an “international” event.
Mike Tagg of Britain was invited to make the race “international” and
duly won the race in 2:19:47. (The next
year South Africa was suspended from the IAAF and so international athletes
could no longer be invited.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Dm11dF8R2sry49nlBqWL0jdch-YYkBCQNhR7UDSrrS7EathuQqxT1EuOrgNZjLXreClMsJ_Z2ivG9AjT1QHwX9RwJbH_JgFn8gV1iAPFh-rf8kVeRRnXRAc1iau_7jOjtLM0ENEhF0g/s2048/Stellenbosch+Marathon+route.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1583" data-original-width="2048" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Dm11dF8R2sry49nlBqWL0jdch-YYkBCQNhR7UDSrrS7EathuQqxT1EuOrgNZjLXreClMsJ_Z2ivG9AjT1QHwX9RwJbH_JgFn8gV1iAPFh-rf8kVeRRnXRAc1iau_7jOjtLM0ENEhF0g/w640-h494/Stellenbosch+Marathon+route.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Stellenbosch Marathon route. I’m not sure if this was the exact route used
in 1975 or if this was from some other year. "Isotonic Game" (the race sponsor) is a sports drink.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt6lqjMraaHtip4C-M19DrnMiIPdo5pjUec2frWz1VQoN5M7eCmX3gUiahw1y7qP0-bso_czvRWiqAZDCIGxxBgvXoZz6XDDZ7FUCAHkMin80nMTTroPnUkBYVgmpuBNlsi3H4jmtpm_c/s2048/Stellenbosch+Marathon+1975.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt6lqjMraaHtip4C-M19DrnMiIPdo5pjUec2frWz1VQoN5M7eCmX3gUiahw1y7qP0-bso_czvRWiqAZDCIGxxBgvXoZz6XDDZ7FUCAHkMin80nMTTroPnUkBYVgmpuBNlsi3H4jmtpm_c/w480-h640/Stellenbosch+Marathon+1975.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />1975 Stellenbosch Marathon T-shirt</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">After 5 laps of the race I needed to make a “pit stop” in
the toilets deep inside the stadium somewhere.
That was already further than I had ever run and when I resumed after
sitting for a few minutes my legs started cramping whenever I tried to break
into a run. So for the last lap I was
reduced to walking interspersed with short attempts at running. (That’s rather like the last several miles of
my most recent marathons.) I eventually
finished in about 3:27. I don’t think I
ever knew what my official time was.
Steve was a slower runner than I was and he finished about 15 minutes
later in what must have been about 3:45.
He didn’t know what his time was because the time-keepers had packed up
the finish line and disappeared.
Time-keepers disappeared before 3:45 into a marathon and this the event
for the “slow” runners in the “B” race?
In most marathons these days well over half the field is still out on
the course at 3:45. For instance, in the
most recent marathon I ran, the 2017 Richmond Marathon, the person who ran exactly
3:45:00 placed 889 out of 4,250 finishers.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I loved that old 6-lap course. But as the running boom started to be felt in
South Africa the number of runners and the broadening race of paces made it
impractical, with slower runners being lapped potentially multiple times,
particularly in the year it was increased to 7 laps (I think because of
construction on part of the old course).
After that it became an out-and-back race held in the morning.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>In the summer of 1975/6 (remember this is in the southern hemisphere), I had a vacation job working in a factory for 6 weeks. I knew that I would be on my feet for long hours and so would probably be too tired to run, at least on weekdays. That may have been the motivation to go on a crash diet. For those six weeks I restricted myself to a few pieces of hard candy and a small evening meal each day. I have no idea how much I weighed before I started the diet or how much weight I lost. Although I have report cards from primary school that give my height and weight, that information is not on my old report cards from high school. So I don’t have any record of what I weighed after I stopped growing (taller). An interesting thing I discovered after that diet was that my stomach seemed to have shrunk and eating a normal size meal was uncomfortable for quite a while afterwards. This was the only time in my life in which I have dieted.<br /><br /><br /><b>Belsen Beer Race</b></p><p class="MsoNormal">This was the first race I won (and the only race in which I
have “cheated”).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Beer mile? A beer
each lap for a single mile on a flat track?
What kind of wimpish modern event is that? Back in the day it was 9 beers in 3 miles up
and down monstrous hills. (It was either
8 or 9 beers, I don’t remember which and using Google maps to approximate the
length of the route puts it at about 2.85 miles / 4.60 km.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I presume this race was held in each of the first three
years that I was in res, but I didn’t try to take part until the 1976
edition. At that point I reckoned that I
was probably a better drinker than most of the good runners and a better runner
than most of the big drinkers and so would have a reasonable shot at winning
the race.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">On the Google Maps image below I have indicated the
approximate route. S/F is where the race
started and finished, at the front entrance to our res, and we went in a
clockwise direction. The route didn’t go
through any buildings – there has been some construction in the intervening 40+
years. The numbers 1, 2 and 3 show where
we went over or under roads. The number
1 is a pedestrian bridge just outside our res, on the way to the main campus. Back in those days probably fewer than 5% of
students used the bridge rather than just walking across the road. I don’t recall whether we were required to
use the bridge in the race. Number 2 is
at a tunnel under a large road and number 3 is another pedestrian bridge over
that road. We definitely went over that
one (more about it later). The oval that
I have drawn on a field quite close to number 2 is where the 3,000m race that I
dropped out of was held. Bright daylight
in the image, unlike during the 3,000m race.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">A substantial number of students took part in the event,
very few tried to run it, with the majority treating it as a social
outing. I wasn’t the only one who took
it more seriously though. The first of
the photos below the image of the race route was at what was probably the site
of the third or fourth beer, at which point I broke away from the competition. That was shortly before we went under the
tunnel marked on the map with a 2. One cannot see it clearly in the photo, but
the T-shirt I am wearing is from the 1974 Two Oceans Marathon and has a cartoon
of a runner trying to hitch a ride from a passing whale. The guy in second place chugging on a beer was
from Zambia and was one of the bigger drinkers.
A little further on we passed what was the Groote Schuur Zoo (which I
have marked on the map as “Zoo”).
Although it had still been open a year or two previously it may have
ceased operation by then. A Wikipedia
entry says it closed “sometime between 1975 and 1985”. It definitely closed well before 1980, even
though for many years after that runners referred to various routes as going
past the zoo. I found this YouTube video
about the zoo: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=CkCDnhCzn9w&feature=emb_logo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=CkCDnhCzn9w&feature=emb_logo</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Those of us who were competing were supposed to keep our
beer down until we finished. But at the
point marked with an X on the map, the combination of about 6 beers and trying
to run fast became too much for my stomach and I involuntarily unloaded its
contents into a bush. I was well clear of
any other competitors and there were no helpers nearby to see. So I’m admitted here (but not for the first
time) that I cheated. Just after the
finish I fertilized another bush. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Having emptied the contents of my stomach, twice not much
alcohol made it into my bloodstream and so I was reasonably sober
afterwards. The same could not be said
of those who treated the event as a social outing. Because they had been walking, there had been
plenty of time for alcohol to get absorbed by the time they reached the
pedestrian bridge marked with a 3 and many of them were quite drunk. At least one emptied his bladder off the
bridge. Unfortunately someone in a
convertible with the top down happened to drive under the bridge at just that
moment. An official complaint was
lodged, which is part of the reason the event was banned the following year and
so I was unable to defend my title.
Also, by dinner time that evening many of the students were very drunk
and there were big food fights in the dining hall. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7AA4dt4Bsmnv1VEaaumDeHliVAXB3Z_sGaze1sQhegLWqZ5m5G5ifPUg1GdLRNAwkOWcR2pfBw_f3uE5GqiqG5F0-11i_G0urUBnufhT0o2NaQIVE982EC7gUCPXwkxnfsuJLS0MT7zE/s1375/Beer+race+map.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1047" data-original-width="1375" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7AA4dt4Bsmnv1VEaaumDeHliVAXB3Z_sGaze1sQhegLWqZ5m5G5ifPUg1GdLRNAwkOWcR2pfBw_f3uE5GqiqG5F0-11i_G0urUBnufhT0o2NaQIVE982EC7gUCPXwkxnfsuJLS0MT7zE/w640-h488/Beer+race+map.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Map of the beer race route.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjluY3s__fOOgiEs4AKtaW28Uq8EUPMmjr640oEHgV6XdBPt9bWXNRRMNxmc4Dtv0BKA2pRd7WT6ACE6fjWzM9uKsvYwnKmr31tLL1L-4DAlclv5VaQ-6iuM1CVsUNvqO8FursyUJwfKAc/s818/beerrace2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="818" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjluY3s__fOOgiEs4AKtaW28Uq8EUPMmjr640oEHgV6XdBPt9bWXNRRMNxmc4Dtv0BKA2pRd7WT6ACE6fjWzM9uKsvYwnKmr31tLL1L-4DAlclv5VaQ-6iuM1CVsUNvqO8FursyUJwfKAc/w640-h400/beerrace2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Breaking away from the competition</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRGgviZRhhFVZD5gMTQEkSMZ-5zKA4TEpKuIvC7WFL6nNAQT3CofzufnrPW_coaGAluvxWw-Zr_vJY3g5p8SvGit6YWBmEcQgnA1Y9G8oGnZm8LXDaQqCfP-kSSr4EpUXlr12U4nSA4M/s804/beerrace4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="804" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRGgviZRhhFVZD5gMTQEkSMZ-5zKA4TEpKuIvC7WFL6nNAQT3CofzufnrPW_coaGAluvxWw-Zr_vJY3g5p8SvGit6YWBmEcQgnA1Y9G8oGnZm8LXDaQqCfP-kSSr4EpUXlr12U4nSA4M/w640-h410/beerrace4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">This may have been the last beer stop. The guy holding two beer bottles is my
brother Mick, who was a freshman and was helping with the event.</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRGgviZRhhFVZD5gMTQEkSMZ-5zKA4TEpKuIvC7WFL6nNAQT3CofzufnrPW_coaGAluvxWw-Zr_vJY3g5p8SvGit6YWBmEcQgnA1Y9G8oGnZm8LXDaQqCfP-kSSr4EpUXlr12U4nSA4M/s804/beerrace4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJgs7zLr8iqxlP7ORtwPSQ9OnJ6InwjWODduKrmHyG-0WjjWBYxa6kFKpgg7x6w3EdMWUEypYI8pbwIORbFM9pMiySeCEh2L-aKEBEaNg2TEF6jbhQ0mwFpLTVeNaE6z3m-4p7rJOqLBs/s804/beerrace5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="526" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJgs7zLr8iqxlP7ORtwPSQ9OnJ6InwjWODduKrmHyG-0WjjWBYxa6kFKpgg7x6w3EdMWUEypYI8pbwIORbFM9pMiySeCEh2L-aKEBEaNg2TEF6jbhQ0mwFpLTVeNaE6z3m-4p7rJOqLBs/w418-h640/beerrace5.jpg" width="418" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />The pedestrian bridge at the point marked 3 on
the map</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">I sometimes say that the reason I started running longer
distances was so that I cold drink more beer without putting on weight. But as I became fitter my tolerance for
alcohol decreased and so I ended up drinking less beer.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><b>Later that year history began</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first entry in my log book is for Monday,
5/31/1976. That it was May 31 is not a
coincidence. (May 31 was the traditional
day of the Comrades Marathon back then.
It was held on what was an annual public holiday that is no longer
celebrated – Republic Day.). On that day
I ran what I wrote down as 8 miles. I
don’t have a record of the time (this was still before digital stop-watches, at
least ones affordable by impecunious students), the route or who I ran with (if
anyone).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first entry for a race was for the 1976 Stellenbosch
Marathon, on 9/18/1976,. The event again
had an “A” and a “B” race (this was the last time there were two separate
races). That year the “B” race was banished
to the early morning and an out-and-back route mainly through the scrubby sand
dunes that can be seen in the photo. I
finished in 19<sup>th</sup> position in 3:00:09, the other three in the photo
managing to get under 3 hours. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbgp9Ommbs5AxNRL3OXBE0O2ZRqyL_Ygf_BDqM4OjhxlMFMXk3Z54kB_pSaueM5EBl4ahSfG2JXAUU4WLKfOT7I7AfhFEiCah1yEdh2OFkZBWe1PnARUJWzgEqY5iTqAeI5uRRCyW5c9k/s613/Stellenbosch+Marathon+1976.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="613" height="544" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbgp9Ommbs5AxNRL3OXBE0O2ZRqyL_Ygf_BDqM4OjhxlMFMXk3Z54kB_pSaueM5EBl4ahSfG2JXAUU4WLKfOT7I7AfhFEiCah1yEdh2OFkZBWe1PnARUJWzgEqY5iTqAeI5uRRCyW5c9k/w640-h544/Stellenbosch+Marathon+1976.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Stellenbosch Marathon 1976. From left to right in this little group Tony
Robertson, Trevor Thorold, Yours Truly, Stephen Granger (who recently reminded
me that he and the other two finished in under 3 hours).</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><div>The rest, as they say, is history. Recorded history.</div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><br /></div>Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-26682340740261640302021-01-10T15:20:00.003-05:002021-01-17T15:03:12.908-05:00Prehistoric Running, Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">The prehistoric in the title has two different meanings
here. On the personal level it refers to
the time before I have any written (or photographic or electronic) record of
anything related to my running. It also
refers to how primitive running was in those days, especially in terms of
equipment. Not only were there no heart
rate monitors, GPS devices, and other gizmos, there weren’t even digital
watches. Also, apart from spikes for
running on a track, shoes designed especially for running were almost unknown. The few people who ran used what South
Africans called “tackies” (known elsewhere as tennis shoes, sneakers, or
plimsolls), which consisted of a thin rubber sole and a canvas upper.<br /><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><b>Fatty Couper</b></div>
<p class="MsoNormal">My nickname in primary school was “Fatty”. Those who have seen me only in the past 45
years may think that was intended to be ironic.
It wasn’t. I may not have been
obese, but I was very definitely chubby.
Through primary school I was one of the tallest in my class, but I had
my growth spurt early and stopped growing (upwards) when I was about 13. At 13 I am sure I weighed more than I do
today. I lost the “Fatty” nickname in
high school, not because I lost the weight but because I acquired another
nickname. I was comfortable with “Fatty”
but hated the later nickname. That’s a
story for another day though. I didn’t
try to lose the flab until I was about 20.
More on that later (in part 2).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite being chubby I was very active. Maybe that should be that despite being very
active I was chubby. I played a variety
of sports, whether organized sports at school or just with friends. My enthusiasm was sadly not matched by my
ability. Success at most sports requires
some level of basic speed and/or strength, as well as hand-eye coordination and
an ability to “read” the game, none of which I had. For instance, in a sprint I was always the
slowest kid in my class. Even much later
when I was a reasonably successful runner, little old ladies with Zimmer frames
would have been able to beat me in a finishing sprint.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We’ll get to running-related development in the second
installment, but first will take a long diversion into other physical
activities.<br /><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Primary school sporting activities</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At my primary school most of us played various school
sports, whether intra-mural or against other schools. In the two summer terms many of us played
intra-mural cricket. In the two winter
terms rugby was the primary sport, with there being several rugby teams
involved in inter-school leagues across various age groups. For rugby, along with the rest of the outfit
we had to have rugby boots (cleats, as they are called in the US). Partly because I wasn’t any good and maybe
partly because I was growing quite fast, my parents were not willing to buy me
new rugby boots. Instead I had to get
secondhand boots from the school’s swap shop.
The secondhand boots were generally ill-fitting and very
uncomfortable. That didn’t improve my
chance of playing well.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Soccer was not an official sport at our school. The school seemed to regard it as low-class,
relative to rugby, Rugby was regarded as
“a sport for hooligans played by gentlemen” whereas soccer was “a sport for
gentleman played by hooligans”. (Whoever
came up with that characterization couldn’t have seen a South African rugby
game.) We were, supposedly, young gentlemen. Although not an official sport, many of us
played pick-up soccer games during recess (and pick-up cricket games or various
children’s games at other times of the year).
Outside school, several of my classmates played soccer for various clubs
in the city.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>For the pick-up games at school we had to supply our own
equipment – bat and ball for cricket, light plastic ball for soccer – rather
than using the school’s equipment.
Usually anyone who wanted to play could take part. But there was one occasion when neither pick-up
team was willing to have me for a cricket game and I was told to go away. I was naturally very unhappy about that. Maybe because of this I decided to bring my
own equipment from home. Then I couldn’t
be left out of the game. The other kids
accepted that and I continued in that role through high school. Perhaps they regarded me as being fairly
dependable in that I always wanted to play and also never forgot to bring the
equipment.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>In fifth grade I started riding my bicycle to school. It wasn’t particularly far, about three miles
in each direction, but was yet another way in which I was active. That bicycle didn’t have gears, nor did the
one I got in high school when I had outgrown the first one. The later one had a light powered by a
dynamo, so I could ride in the dark. As
those who had one will know, that kind of light shone only when the wheels were
turning and even then it wasn’t very bright, certainly nothing like a modern battery-powered
LED light. I also had springy metal
clips to use on the lower part of my school pants to keep them from getting
greasy from the chain or other components.
I continued cycling to school through 11<sup>th</sup> grade. In 12<sup>th</sup> grade I must have decided
it was beneath my dignity to cycle in school uniform. That year I rode home by bus – city bus
because South Africa doesn’t have school buses.
(My mother dropped us off at our school in the mornings as it was
more-or-less on her way to the school where she taught.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYg9-zqwJ-Kmm16d1jd-Lc-XpNbNEQW1gSQrpReebuohJteyVthPWI9aczo_AxHCxtovidC2ZCygbbZ82GjeZIgz6xKtr9yWQR-RwuuS40nTEYCz5YdQUQGguz0gj7zzcdTIBf-oclhf0/s1600/Bicycle+dynamo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYg9-zqwJ-Kmm16d1jd-Lc-XpNbNEQW1gSQrpReebuohJteyVthPWI9aczo_AxHCxtovidC2ZCygbbZ82GjeZIgz6xKtr9yWQR-RwuuS40nTEYCz5YdQUQGguz0gj7zzcdTIBf-oclhf0/w640-h480/Bicycle+dynamo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br />Bicycle light dynamo (photo found somewhere on the Internet of one that looks in about the same condition mine would have been)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><b>High school sporting activities<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Participation in official school sport was compulsory at my
high school. There were a variety of
sports to choose from, though soccer was still not one of them. In the summer terms those of us who weren’t
good enough to make one of the school teams had to play intra-mural
(inter-class) cricket. In the winter
terms, if we didn’t make a team in another sport we had to run cross
country. So cross country seemed to be
regarded as the sport for losers, which may be why I didn’t do that. Instead I played for one of the lower ranked
rugby teams. I think there were 4
under-13 teams (A through D), the same number of under-15 teams, and six “open”
teams (1 through 6). In the first couple
of years I played for either C or D teams.
After I aged out of those I played for the 5<sup>th</sup> or 6<sup>th</sup>
team. Once when there were a number of
boys away for the weekend I made it up to the 3<sup>rd</sup> team, but that was
the only occasion higher than the 5<sup>th</sup> team. (Rugby matches against other schools were on
Saturdays.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On the occasion when I played for the 3<sup>rd</sup> team,
despite being the slowest on the team I played on the left wing. For those who don’t know rugby, the wings are
usually the fastest players on the team.
The right wing was Paul “Pawpaw” Liesching who wasn’t just the fastest
boy on the team, or even in our school, but in the whole region, having set
multiple age-group records for the 100m and 200m sprints. I once overheard a couple of girls about our
age saying that Paul had very nice, shapely legs. Several years later I saw Paul at a marathon,
a distance at which I was much more successful than he was.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Among many (white) South Africans, rugby was almost a
religion. How the school’s first rugby
team did was very important. (It still
is – alumni get very upset when the first team is performing poorly and are
quick to try to replace what I think is now called the director of rugby.) The whole school used to have to get together
in the school hall for “Assembly” in the mornings. The headmaster would make various announcements
and then after the Jewish kids left for their own separate observance there would
be a Christian prayer and hymn. (No
other religions were catered for, nor was lack of religion.) On Mondays, if the first rugby team had won,
the headmaster would say something about the victory. If they had lost, he wouldn’t say that they
had lost but instead that “We made friends”.
(Did that mean that if we had won we didn’t make any friends?)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">[I don’t know if sport is still compulsory, but sport is
still important. According to the
November 2020 newsletter from my old school, Grey High was ranked the “Top
All-round Sports School of the Decade in South Africa.”]</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Our school used to have a fives court (see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fives">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fives</a>)
that later must have gone the way of the dodo, making way for new buildings. Fives is rather like squash except that one
hits the ball with one’s hand rather than with a racquet. There wasn’t a school fives team, perhaps
because no other local schools played it and so there was no-one to compete
against. I sometimes played a pick-up
game of fives (and in later years pick-up games of squash).</p><p class="MsoNormal">Many of us continued to play soccer during recess. Four days of the week we had a 20-minute
recess and a one-hour lunch break. The
fifth day (Wednesdays?) we didn’t have a lunch break and school ended at 2:10
PM rather than 3:20 PM. We played soccer
in our school uniforms (as we had done for games during recess in primary
school). We were allowed to take off our
blazers, but played in our long pants and the leather shoes that we part of the
uniform. In the lunch break we were
supposed to end all physical exertions 15 (or maybe it was 20) minutes before
the end of the break, so as not to be too sweaty when we returned to class. I didn’t need time to eat lunch as I had
always consumed my lunch surreptitiously in class several hours earlier. <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Swimming</b></p><p class="MsoNormal">I learned to swim when I was very young. For a while when I was in primary school my
mother took me to train with a swimming club before school. I don’t recall how many days a week that was
or any other details. I don’t even
recall whether I swam in any competitions while part of that group. Although our school had its own swimming
pool, this club was at the St. George’s Park pool rather than at our
school. I don’t think I did that for
very long – either I lost interest or my mother grew tired of taking me
there. During the two summer terms we
had one class period each week in which we had to swim in the school pool. In primary school it was rather frustrating for
those of us who were already proficient because the whole class had to do the
same thing. We had to wear old inner
tubes as flotation devices and practice kicking using wooden kickboards. We also had to pass various life-saving
exams, both oral and physical. As part
of the latter we had to learn to do “lifesaving kick” which is rather like a
breaststroke kick but on one’s back and holding an object that one is
pretending to rescue. We were taught
“lifesaving kick” instead of butterfly.
Butterfly is the most difficult stroke to learn, particularly for one as
uncoordinated as me, and is best learned when one is young. It still annoys me that I wasn’t taught how
to do butterfly. I can kinda sorta do it
but can’t properly coordinate the arm action with the dolphin kick. (Our daughter, on the other hand, learned it
when very young and can do it beautifully or at least could do it until she
suffered several shoulder dislocations while playing other sports.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The school pool was an unheated outdoor pool, so in the
early part of the season the water was rather chilly. Also, we had to shower before and after
swimming and walk through a shallow disinfectant bath on the way from the
changerooms to the pool. There was no
hot water in the showers! Apart from
swimming class, on some days we were allowed to swim during lunch break or
after school (but still had to shower before and afterwards).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">South Africa switched to the metric system while I was in
grade school. At some point the school
decided to change the length of the pool to meet international (metric)
standards. I don’t recall when that
happened but do remember the pool being closed for a while.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In high school, through 11<sup>th</sup> grade, we continued
to have one swimming class each week in the summer terms, still with the same instructor
and still without being taught butterfly.
(We didn’t have a swimming class in 12<sup>th</sup> grade.) I was a reasonably good swimmer, but not
fast. If I’d been able to do butterfly
I’d have been able to swim the individual medley, which I think was the longest
event at high school level. Having good
endurance might have compensated for my lack of basic speed.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Our high school had a very strong swimming team. I didn’t ever try out for that team. At the end of 11<sup>th</sup> grade there was
a swimming competition between the four classes. As one of the better swimmers in my class, I
had to swim the anchor leg of a 4-person relay.
One of the other classes had 7 boys who had represented not just our
school but our province, so they had two very strong teams. Their faster team had finished the race
before I had a chance to start my leg!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Several years after I left, my old high school added
long-distance open-water swimming as a school sport. That’s something I would probably have done,
because I liked being in the ocean and my flab gave me built-in buoyancy. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Towards the end of my time in high school one of my friends,
Colin Steyl, had swum 5 miles (in an Olympic size pool) as part of some
fundraising effort. (See also the “big
walks” once I get to the running-related stuff in part 2.) That sounded like an interesting challenge so
I decided to do that in our backyard pool at home. I recall that as needing about 630 laps. A quick calculation shows that that must be
about right as it assumes that the length of the pool was about 42 feet, which
sounds correct. I have no idea how long
that took me. (Aside: Colin Steyl is an unusual enough name that a
Google search doesn’t find many results, with none of them being for the right
Colin and I have never been able to find what happened to him. It is as if he disappeared off the face of
the earth.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">When our family went to the beach I spent all the time in
the water, body-surfing or swimming around.
That was partly because I enjoyed being in the ocean but also because I
was self-conscious about my flabby belly. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Several of my classmates belonged to surf lifesaving
clubs. Apart from providing volunteer
rescue services, surf lifesaving is a competitive sport involving several
different events, some entirely on the beach, such as beach sprints and “flags”
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Flags_(sport)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Flags_(sport)</a>. Others are in or on the water, such as surf
ski races. Surf lifesaving had an event
called Ironman long before Ironman triathlons.
The surf lifesaving version is much shorter, though also involves
multiple disciplines, usually including swimming, surf ski, and paddle board <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironman_(surf_lifesaving)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironman_(surf_lifesaving)</a>.
Presumably because I was a reasonably
good swimmer, my classmates tried to persuade me to join one of the clubs. I declined, mostly because getting to the
beachfront regularly would have been a hassle.
I would have had to take two buses in each direction. Driving was out of the question because in
South Africa one was not allowed to drive before turning 18. One couldn’t even get a learner’s permit
before that. Several of my friends had
mopeds (49cc motorcycles, for which one could get a license at 16). I had no interest in motorcycles and,
besides, my parents would not have allowed me to get one. That was because my father had been in a
serious motorcycle accident when he was young.
He continued to need treatment on his legs for the rest of his
life. In fact, when he died the
underlying cause of death listed on his death certificate was an infection from
one of the wounds on his legs.<br /><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Back to other sports and physical activities</b></p><p class="MsoNormal">There are various areas along the coast of South Africa that
have large sand dunes. Our family
sometimes picnicked near large dunes so that we could go sand-boarding. These days it looks like one can get quite
fancy boards for this. Back in those
days we would buy a thin rectangular Masonite board from a hardware store and
use it without any modifications, other than waxing it (rubbing it with a
candle) when the shine on the smooth side started to fade. What comes down first needs to go up. Sand dunes don’t have the equivalent of ski
lifts, so one has to walk (or run) up the dune before one can slide down. And in order to slide down multiple times,
one gets a fair amount of exercise as a bonus.
(The photos are ones I found on the web recently or grabbed from Google
Maps.) During one vacation a friend
(Phil Williams) and I camped at Van Stadens River mouth for a few days so we
could have plenty of time for sand boarding.
Phil and I also each had a 50% stake in a surfboard. I didn’t ever manage to learn to surf though,
partly because I am uncoordinated and partly, as mentioned above, getting to
the beach was a problem, even more so if one had to lug a surfboard. Phil later bought out my share of the board.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaK8aDPxU_x7nhOnm7sD6R0z87t9yEwphfNNk_w-keutQTjiB9V_-WdnO9AUMqZA-iG14FkrnfRekySIQ9HnM8kMimokWJ7f_PBYBQc22db34FQ1fHStYSyQsKxClH_qlGYUiE_m3jAGs/s1600/sandboard2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaK8aDPxU_x7nhOnm7sD6R0z87t9yEwphfNNk_w-keutQTjiB9V_-WdnO9AUMqZA-iG14FkrnfRekySIQ9HnM8kMimokWJ7f_PBYBQc22db34FQ1fHStYSyQsKxClH_qlGYUiE_m3jAGs/w640-h480/sandboard2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Waxing a Masonite board<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvraLV21nJhpZBdfF478bDP95b74MPhI27phD2Gz7z7ODl65LbPbFtsyu3YSGfNhcp68YLr_L3_HYG7STsdKxbBRu6N9R5gcH3HXFGMvr3zFevzcDAAgqmZVFkCbBJvk7jCMAiZikZVLU/s1024/Sandboarding+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvraLV21nJhpZBdfF478bDP95b74MPhI27phD2Gz7z7ODl65LbPbFtsyu3YSGfNhcp68YLr_L3_HYG7STsdKxbBRu6N9R5gcH3HXFGMvr3zFevzcDAAgqmZVFkCbBJvk7jCMAiZikZVLU/w640-h426/Sandboarding+.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Riding a Masonite board. Back in the day we didn’t pull it up that far
in front.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiflERPvwZyH5_2pWX1QloefUNKrwGKIM1Z2GXq4P7JuY50ZEiW0pxrAnKrrtS_W7WYXrWmDCWeOYs5x3DmcTguQxr0o3HrrK_QEbu3MhtiyNEv0Ayn8niZZyvlj-vZN-y2zKS6pYQboAw/s1185/Van+Stadens+dunes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="641" data-original-width="1185" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiflERPvwZyH5_2pWX1QloefUNKrwGKIM1Z2GXq4P7JuY50ZEiW0pxrAnKrrtS_W7WYXrWmDCWeOYs5x3DmcTguQxr0o3HrrK_QEbu3MhtiyNEv0Ayn8niZZyvlj-vZN-y2zKS6pYQboAw/w640-h346/Van+Stadens+dunes.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Dunes at Van Stadens River Mouth. The campground was to the right of the road
on the right. Some people used to walk
across the pipeline on the far right to get to the dunes. I don’t think I was ever brave enough (or
coordinated enough) to do that and went the long way around, off to the left in
the photo. The mouth of the river was
usually very shallow, with minimal water flowing into the ocean, so the long
way wasn’t hazardous.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sporting activities as an undergraduate<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal">My participation in rugby and soccer didn’t end with high
school. In the first year or two at
university I played both sports intramurally for my res (residence hall, i.e.,
dorm). Our res had an A and a B soccer
team. When I was a freshman the A team
was struggling to find a goalkeeper. I agreed
to take on that role as long as I could also play in the outfield for the B
team. At the same time I was playing for
the res rugby team, which we called the Pink Panthers. So I was playing multiple games each
week. One winter break the Pink Panthers
went to what was then Rhodesia to play several games (and to socialize). I had initially planned to be part of that
tour but later backed out for some reason, maybe because I wasn’t doing very
well academically and needed to spend the break trying to catch up. Our res had a number of students from
Rhodesia and also later a few from Zambia, Malawi and Botswana. These were all white students, this being at
the height of the Apartheid era. I’m not
sure whether I lost interest first or these teams faded away when key players
graduated or moved out of the res, but I don’t remember the teams continuing to
function in my later years there.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Apart from more formal rugby games, several of us also used
to play pick-up touch-rugby games on the cricket field opposite our res.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Beyond the regular kinds of sports, at university there were
opportunities to try more exotic pursuits.
“Rag” is a tradition at many South African (and British) universities <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rag_(student_society)">Rag (student
society) - Wikipedia</a>. One focus of
Rag is on raising money for charity. Another
focus is on having fun, in a wide variety of events, usually culminating in a
procession through the city center, with decorated floats, including one for
the Rag Queen and her two princesses. (I
wonder if this is no longer politically correct, though Rag was certainly never
about political correctness.) The
procession was also part of the
fundraising, with students collecting money from spectators.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">One of the events in the “Rag Olympics” involved tobogganing
down Jammie Steps, the steps in front of what used to be called Jameson Hall
(now the Sarah Baartman Memorial Hall).
The event is a relay. The first
person in the team starts at the bottom – the sidewalk at the bottom of the
photo below of the steps – runs up the steps with the toboggan, touches the top
step with a foot and dives off, hopefully on top of the toboggan, and thus down
the steps, where the next team member is waiting his (or her) turn. The black and white photo shows someone in
action during the race. This “sport” is
rather dangerous and there has been at least one fatality. I was never brave enough to enter the race
but did go down the steps a few times – starting off lying on the toboggan
rather than diving onto it. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKT9Og9j0rVV3Px3aHO4X0ZfFHAF8YONa5olb647NNdcH4Qw4O-gM29BXDGmxsYjZk5IQoC84tOmzqQ3y1rjI4vXGxOJFJk8WKbZQxTSa49d20foBATcHt_VhKZLSHXQu4lVdss8oJDKQ/s941/Jammie+Steps.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="819" data-original-width="941" height="558" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKT9Og9j0rVV3Px3aHO4X0ZfFHAF8YONa5olb647NNdcH4Qw4O-gM29BXDGmxsYjZk5IQoC84tOmzqQ3y1rjI4vXGxOJFJk8WKbZQxTSa49d20foBATcHt_VhKZLSHXQu4lVdss8oJDKQ/w640-h558/Jammie+Steps.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Jammie Steps – the steps used for the toboggan
races (photo captured from Google Maps)<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnJinteeXXuk6E7pTo-yF5FHKbIHDkKB2Vw_fywqKJMLmSbI-0S0HPnoOOji-IoKkiLa1-4nChv_bIP8nXBnXCvg-zR1l6R6iiPbIY9UPC3Yd9U4YW7DM8KJjtKZotZwh1eNWW1WPkoAY/s880/Jammie+steps+race.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="880" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnJinteeXXuk6E7pTo-yF5FHKbIHDkKB2Vw_fywqKJMLmSbI-0S0HPnoOOji-IoKkiLa1-4nChv_bIP8nXBnXCvg-zR1l6R6iiPbIY9UPC3Yd9U4YW7DM8KJjtKZotZwh1eNWW1WPkoAY/w640-h392/Jammie+steps+race.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Tobogganing down Jammie steps (photo found on
the Internet)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">Another Rag Olympics event was a pram (baby-jogger) race, a
relay from downtown Cape Town to the campus.
This was before real baby-joggers had been invented, so most of the prams
were contraptions built by engineering students. The “baby” was usually the lightest female
student who was willing to risk her life.
(Somewhat surprisingly, considering the era, most of the “babies” in the
photo are wearing helmets.) I competed
in this event once. From what I am
wearing in the photo it must have been in my second year. I am the one with a white headband. The top I am wearing looks like it is the one
our Pink Panthers rugby team wore. Rag
is early in the year and as rugby is played in the middle of academic year this
photo couldn’t have been from my first year.
I recognize at least one other person.
The guy behind the pram on the far left is Roger Cameron, who was
captain of the cross country team. The
one in the white T-shirt behind me may be Damien Burger, in which case that was
another team from our res. Behind the
pram on the far right might be Peter Whipp, who was one of the best rugby
players in the area and later that year played for the Springboks (the national
rugby team) against the touring British Lions.<o:p></o:p></p><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH8PUhcCu3EaCCYwx1nzxq50whGgYkHkY5UkCScLi5P8sgdfBYTB5h_fkBXZSb5udYK3vmmbTCsv385_3Cuc4WqThgMh13ivN0E_MnfLiMiYMqwLCq3Ik4wC4aE5HTMSIATGtIPBvfe_0/s1167/pram_race.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="1167" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH8PUhcCu3EaCCYwx1nzxq50whGgYkHkY5UkCScLi5P8sgdfBYTB5h_fkBXZSb5udYK3vmmbTCsv385_3Cuc4WqThgMh13ivN0E_MnfLiMiYMqwLCq3Ik4wC4aE5HTMSIATGtIPBvfe_0/w640-h324/pram_race.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Waiting for the start of the pram (relay) race,
from downtown Cape Town to the university.
Solly Kamer’s was a chain of liquor stores, bottle stores as they are
known in South Africa. At the time even beer
and wine could be sold only in bottle stores, not in supermarkets or other
stores.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Not a Rag event, but a more serious one, or at least one
that some teams took seriously, was a pedal car race. There was a university pedal car race series
to which several major universities sent teams with very sophisticated
cars. If I recall correctly, each event
lasted for 6 hours. I don’t remember how
many were on each team. It may have been
six. The report below doesn’t provide
information about either the duration or the number in a team. The top teams not only had good cars and very
fit drivers, they had well trained pit crews.
Their driver changes were slick operations – the incumbent being dragged
out of one side of the car while the next driver hopped in from the other side. (I think drivers had to change after each
lap.) The race at the University of Cape
Town was around the university’s administration building, Bremner Building, in one
of the images below. Several of us from our
res managed to get a hand-me-down car from one of the teams of engineering
students. In the race the car developed various
mechanical issues. For instance, it had
10 bicycle-style gears but after an hour or two something failed and we were
stuck in one gear for the rest of the race.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFxj9SXuxVhPIm5gqt-PnlMaoewkxhXM7JNvMRmCRAzJlP9KSv3N3VS8vTcqYW7W25Czye4KOxXf-DrswJZgcECkkmUpQBDBngKvEDG6yW8EGltnR10Fs84Xq0yKlL1N-cHq2t9cdZZB4/s1817/pedalcar_report.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1817" data-original-width="1672" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFxj9SXuxVhPIm5gqt-PnlMaoewkxhXM7JNvMRmCRAzJlP9KSv3N3VS8vTcqYW7W25Czye4KOxXf-DrswJZgcECkkmUpQBDBngKvEDG6yW8EGltnR10Fs84Xq0yKlL1N-cHq2t9cdZZB4/w588-h640/pedalcar_report.jpg" width="588" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />A report on the pedal car race</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilKgVmqIzB4P-V7fr_OpSGLmonQFez7i_84KL7fTkcyJiX_I5vIrEMmgnL-mlMT2ixiEKjbX2NQeBS27aRc6beeduWnQnX48dEl6VUbRpj5KF_SGkLbKkBMavAHiMHCy3XWIGAMhuj5wc/s746/pedalcar2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="746" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilKgVmqIzB4P-V7fr_OpSGLmonQFez7i_84KL7fTkcyJiX_I5vIrEMmgnL-mlMT2ixiEKjbX2NQeBS27aRc6beeduWnQnX48dEl6VUbRpj5KF_SGkLbKkBMavAHiMHCy3XWIGAMhuj5wc/w640-h440/pedalcar2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Yours truly in action. “Playaway” was the name of our sponsor.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4vTVvYNFUaa7T64p2qdoYy0YQxpXhr-Q4DQusLoN4BFs2qXt5bbeL3dLFFuDcLMbxDIhL9MQ_1wdUjLTkU4F74kAgvp_Mlpi6c_d_w6sKVk0itgdVsmSE_ZtRB7ydshdBntUmJ2UNuK4/s721/pedalcar1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="721" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4vTVvYNFUaa7T64p2qdoYy0YQxpXhr-Q4DQusLoN4BFs2qXt5bbeL3dLFFuDcLMbxDIhL9MQ_1wdUjLTkU4F74kAgvp_Mlpi6c_d_w6sKVk0itgdVsmSE_ZtRB7ydshdBntUmJ2UNuK4/w640-h470/pedalcar1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />View of the side of our car at rest, with some
of the faster cars in the background.
“Belsen” was the nickname of our res, a name given by students who had
fought in the Second World War (more about that in part 2).</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMwSUmBPbT5BX-bibs9H93aeaU1gNrXfVatSa3zxO9xA1L45lXOWgdCiZXOgQEOaaBzPCqLUEXRtTmrK0sVeeVZ_yBHo6DGEkz5P9RBeLR90tCCDm8FTWR9ho9yNpCBLJuTI2UnSV7yk/s1034/Bremner+Building+UCT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="823" data-original-width="1034" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMwSUmBPbT5BX-bibs9H93aeaU1gNrXfVatSa3zxO9xA1L45lXOWgdCiZXOgQEOaaBzPCqLUEXRtTmrK0sVeeVZ_yBHo6DGEkz5P9RBeLR90tCCDm8FTWR9ho9yNpCBLJuTI2UnSV7yk/w640-h510/Bremner+Building+UCT.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Bremner Building, University of Cape Town</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">BTW, the image of Bremner Building, from Google
Maps, reminded me that I still have the proceeds from my life of crime. I presume the statute of limitations has
expired and it is safe to mention this.
See the name of the street running top to bottom on the right in the
photo above? See the sign in the photo
below? Put two and two together. IMHO, for a street with that name it was
rather careless of the authorities to use a sign that could be unbolted so
easily. Alcohol may also have been
involved, that road being on the way home from the Pig ‘n Whistle.</span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo-2mUZhyphenhyphen2w11GQ96izU4kIw5bEDoIlADKbwMNXZb-8S3Lpo2iW2fvk8VPjzIJGjFWguPmFEAd7Cf7aEoEI9SnyaQLYtmZVC2zxNHiPsh2_fouzmfgAJYzv053dLkBLxz5lShu_myV1yA/s1711/Lovers+Walk+sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="1711" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo-2mUZhyphenhyphen2w11GQ96izU4kIw5bEDoIlADKbwMNXZb-8S3Lpo2iW2fvk8VPjzIJGjFWguPmFEAd7Cf7aEoEI9SnyaQLYtmZVC2zxNHiPsh2_fouzmfgAJYzv053dLkBLxz5lShu_myV1yA/w640-h272/Lovers+Walk+sign.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Proceeds from my life of crime</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></o:p></p></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-55004630013583215812020-09-12T17:51:00.001-04:002020-09-12T17:51:54.694-04:00Moving around<p> Eventually I may get around to posting some properly
chronological entries, starting from my earliest memories and going
forward. But I had a request from my
kids to write about how we came to make various international moves. I’ll start way before kids though, from the
first time I moved anywhere on my own.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>It is hard to fathom why someone who doesn’t particularly
like travelling and doesn’t enjoy the stresses associated with moving house
(even within the same city) has moved internationally four times. Someone must be a glutton for punishment.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Most of this story is about being lucky – being in the right
place at the right time and, importantly, having the right qualifications to be
able to accept the opportunities that came my way. My life has been more about doors that have
opened for me rather than me going out and looking for doors to knock on or
kick down.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Off to university<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal">Several of my high school friends had a clear vision of what
they wanted to do in life. At least
three wanted to be doctors and one a lawyer, and those four all made it into
their intended professions. I, on the
other hand, had no idea what I wanted to do or become. My father was a doctor but I had no interest
in following in his footsteps. I was
reasonably good, but certainly not exceptional, at math and liked science. I didn’t see myself as a math teacher and
didn’t know what else one could do with math.
We didn’t have guidance counsellors at my high school back in those days
and though my parents were both college graduates they didn’t know anything
about mathematically-related fields.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>My parents had both attended the University of Cape Town
(UCT) and that is the only college I applied to. We lived in Port Elizabeth and there is a
university there, then called the University of Port Elizabeth (now Nelson
Mandela University). But my parents had
a low opinion of it and it was a dual-language university with some fields
taught in English and others in Afrikaans.
Mathematics was one of the latter.
My Afrikaans was very poor at that stage and I didn’t want to have to
struggle with that language any more than I had already done in high
school. (We had to take both the
official languages at the time through high school.) Fortunately I was accepted into UCT.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>So early in 1973 my parents took me to the railway station
in Port Elizabeth and put me on the train to Cape Town. From there I was on my own. The train journey used to take well over 24
hours, partly because it wasn’t very direct.
Port Elizabeth and Cape Town are at about the same latitude and the
direct route by road is about 500 miles, but the railway line first goes many
miles in a northerly direction before turning south-west. There were several other students on the same
train heading off to UCT. I became friendly
with a bunch of Chinese guys, a couple of whom were going to be in the same
residence hall as me. (I took the train
on at least one other occasion, which I remember because of a girl I met and
later dated briefly. The briefly is
partly because I wasn’t a serious runner yet and didn’t understand the stresses
a competitive sportsperson feels the evening before a major game.) I didn’t have a car at that time and,
besides, first-year students weren’t allowed to have cars on campus. One who did manage to have a car – a
brand-new Alfa Romeo Alfetta – was a classmate, Norm Adami. He went on to have an illustrious career in
the beer industry, including being President and CEO of Miller Brewing Company
and later of SABMiller Americas.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Why I mentioned that the fellow-students were Chinese is for
a digression on one of the vagaries of Apartheid. At the time South Africa had a small Chinese
community, who had been in the country for a few generations. (South Africa now has re-established close
ties with China, after having had essentially no contact during the Apartheid
years.) In terms of the Group Areas Act,
most of the Chinese had to live in their own special areas, but they were
allowed to attend “white” universities and were the only race other than whites
who were allowed to stay in “white” residence halls at these universities. What was particularly bizarre was that on the
long-distance trains they were allowed to travel in “white” sleeper cars, BUT
they were not allowed to eat in the “white” dining saloon – they had to get a
steward to bring them meals in their sleeper compartment.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Most of these students were first-years, like me. One, Patrick Wong Fung, was in his third or
fourth year and so knew his way around.
I don’t recall how we got from the Cape Town station to our residence
hall, but presume Patrick helped organize that.
A year or so later Patrick turned 21 and I was part of the group that
helped him celebrate. As part of the
“celebration” later that evening we took him a few miles from the residence
call, stripped him down to his underwear and left him to make his way back in
that state of undress. “Streaking” was
in the news quite often at the time, As
Patrick was making his way along Main Road, Rondebosch, he thought to himself
that he should do a proper streak and so took off his underwear. Unfortunately, just then a police vehicle
happened by and he was hauled off to the local police station. They let him go eventually but I don’t recall
whether he was fined or had to go to court.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Patrick is at least partly responsible for me becoming a
statistician. He majored in mathematical
statistics and a couple of years after we met he suggested I take a class in math
stat. The rest, as they say, is history. In the mid- to late-70s his family moved to
Canada, after which I lost contact with him.
I’ve tried searching for him on the Internet but so far without any
success.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>As I mentioned at the start of this section, I didn’t know
what I wanted to study. I changed
direction a few times and so spent 5 years at UCT. Then I had to do compulsory military
service. If I had had more get-up-and-go
or been more mature, perhaps I would have considered leaving South Africa at
that point, to study further in the US or Britain. But that thought never crossed my mind.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj59c2KlmqpSbu-1QgHfLGZtYKQQh-gLE5CIhtyvzZf8ITsUtb13scskUDa2obFaNxbS9lgOWQ93XlcqxOtFGCTcULZw6JJF7oBfvC7z2kivjN56jPmyvs-0vE3vcOK4jTkrcaJO8PNNtA/s1187/UCT_Upper_Campus_seen_from_Kopano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="1187" height="373" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj59c2KlmqpSbu-1QgHfLGZtYKQQh-gLE5CIhtyvzZf8ITsUtb13scskUDa2obFaNxbS9lgOWQ93XlcqxOtFGCTcULZw6JJF7oBfvC7z2kivjN56jPmyvs-0vE3vcOK4jTkrcaJO8PNNtA/w500-h373/UCT_Upper_Campus_seen_from_Kopano.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">UCT, with Devil’s Peak and the eastern side of
Table Mountain, as seen from the residence hall where I lived for 5 years</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Off to “war”</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal">Most of my high school classmates had done their initial
service directly after high school. A
few of us, including the three who wanted to be doctors, were granted deferment
to go to college first. That had
advantages and disadvantage. The major
downside was that if we had gone in 1973 like the rest, our initial service
would have been just 9-11 months, but in the interim that had been increased to
2 years. On the other hand, most of
those who went in 1973 were in the army and many saw active combat. Those of us who had graduated from college
with degrees that were at least semi-useful were put into positions that made
some use of our education.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>One or two of the people who came to the seminars in the
Department of Mathematical Statistics at UCT were statisticians who worked at
the Institute for Maritime Technology (IMT), the naval branch of Armscor (the
government’s military research organization).
I think they knew I was about to graduate and managed to pull strings to
get me into the Navy and from there seconded to IMT. (I hadn’t asked them to do that and don’t
recall whether they had even told me they were trying to arrange that. This is one of the examples of being in the
right place at the right time with the right qualifications.) So, my call-up for service was to the Navy.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>In early January of 1978 my parents again dropped me off at
the Port Elizabeth railway station, this time for the journey on a troop train
to the Naval training base at Saldanha Bay.
When we got there, those of us who had been to college were separated
from the rest of the conscripts while the brass worked out what to do with
us. (The commanding officer heard that I
had studied operations research and so got me working on optimizing schedules
for guard duty. When not doing that I
was allowed to run as much as I wanted.) </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>After a few days they drove us to the Naval training base at
Simon’s Town, on the south-western outskirts of greater Cape Town. There we were put on a three-month Officers’
Orientation Course (OOC). For more on
that, see the entry from December 30, 2017 titled “SFAD; self harm; or Daddy,
what did you do in the war?” As noted in
that entry, for those three months I was not allowed to run, other than in
squad formation. At the end of the OOC
we were assigned to various places, with several of us going to IMT (which is
also in Simon’s Town). Full-time
employees at IMT are civilians and so don’t wear uniform. Those of us doing national service had to
wear Navy uniforms and also periodically had Navy duties, such as being the
Officer of the Day overnight or on weekends (that is, we were in charge of the
naval base and responsible for giving permission for ships to enter or leave
the harbor, directing firefighters if there was a bushfire on the mountain behind
the town, and generally responding to any crisis that might occur, such as an
enemy invasion. There was a pistol in a
safe for us to use if we needed it to repel the enemy). That previous blog post doesn’t mention what
I did at IMT, so I should probably add a separate entry on that, explaining
what a digital blimp filter is and why I wasn’t supposed to read the reports I
wrote (because they were secret and a conscript wasn’t allowed to have a
security rating of Secret).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>As my two year stint in the Navy was drawing to a close it
was time to think of looking for a job!</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx_mwQnwDAxuu34Em1lC2-NS-sYzhJUM3HN1PS9Y-ixg8KHqZ-TLNtMhEZizeR-UUh48OvMr9zCSLt59XlYUZ7NzDLC1VvMDIPTQHOa35gyRYWrbam8cK8o4blJ9Z7LaPPrZz11wG8CX8/s764/simonstown2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="764" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx_mwQnwDAxuu34Em1lC2-NS-sYzhJUM3HN1PS9Y-ixg8KHqZ-TLNtMhEZizeR-UUh48OvMr9zCSLt59XlYUZ7NzDLC1VvMDIPTQHOa35gyRYWrbam8cK8o4blJ9Z7LaPPrZz11wG8CX8/w500-h333/simonstown2.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Simon’s Town</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Gainfully employed!<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Along with some of the other statisticians at IMT, I had
been attending statistics seminars at UCT.
I was reasonably confident of being able to get an appointment as a
lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Statistics. In fact, I was so sure that I would be there
that several months before the end of my Navy service my brother Mick and I
leased an apartment together in Rondebosch, near UCT, and I commuted to IMT
from there. But I had also applied for a
position in the Department of Statistics and Operations Research at the
University of South Africa (UNISA) in Pretoria, partly because my parents had
just moved to that city. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>UCT did indeed offer me a position and so did UNISA. The offer from UNISA was substantially
higher. UNISA is a distance-learning
institution, using just ordinary mail back in those pre-Internet days. So I wouldn’t have to stand in front of a class. On the other hand, it provided materials in
both English and Afrikaans and I would need to become much more proficient in
the latter language. At the time UNISA
had several outstanding professors in the statistics side of the
department. They would have fitted in
well at a top university anywhere in the world.
A couple of them did later move to the US and Europe and some others
spent sabbaticals in highly-ranked departments internationally.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>After much vacillation, I accepted the offer from UNISA. I can claim to have been way ahead of my
time, doing something that now seems quite commonplace – I moved back in with
my parents.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBQrG27myQGgD_E4sMZMQoXN9ruzmg7GJPkY_F-D9dPI4yqjy8zjH7xZBaXQIfpkb5PNYDDFick-0HIf8ZAVuUU91S5rNU01_ieXZvP3ffWmf-glBsFZZvIUUjOi70w9__vI0ZTVxxAnU/s1011/UNISA_1979_p1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1011" data-original-width="761" height="625" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBQrG27myQGgD_E4sMZMQoXN9ruzmg7GJPkY_F-D9dPI4yqjy8zjH7xZBaXQIfpkb5PNYDDFick-0HIf8ZAVuUU91S5rNU01_ieXZvP3ffWmf-glBsFZZvIUUjOi70w9__vI0ZTVxxAnU/w470-h625/UNISA_1979_p1.jpg" width="470" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UNISA offer letter<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgf58vYmkpj40yxO21Vxp027mAFlfZXUY7-7wVq2L1D7CU4g8-AtJF7Wcc3xIN5HgZnCiJs5FPY_SkBTBOKWVykcVg_KdSQQ0-0T1gZNqT8YoxB0cTyaVicFE9GD8Oys5bv9UtJS6w9lw/s1139/UNISA_1979_p2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1139" data-original-width="785" height="625" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgf58vYmkpj40yxO21Vxp027mAFlfZXUY7-7wVq2L1D7CU4g8-AtJF7Wcc3xIN5HgZnCiJs5FPY_SkBTBOKWVykcVg_KdSQQ0-0T1gZNqT8YoxB0cTyaVicFE9GD8Oys5bv9UtJS6w9lw/w431-h625/UNISA_1979_p2.jpg" width="431" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UNISA offer conditions<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Back to Cape Town<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>As part of the national service obligation of white males,
after the initial two-year period we were eligible to be called up for “camps”
of 1-3 months duration every two years for the next 12 years. We were also supposed to attend regular
meetings or parades (which I somehow managed to avoid).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Pretoria was okay, but it is very conservative and a long
way from the coast. In February/March
1981 I was called up for a one-month “camp” which I spent back at IMT. While there I started negotiating for a
permanent (civilian) position at IMT.
Part of that was so as to get back to Cape Town. Another, more compelling, reason was to try
to get in on the property market. Back
then (and presumably still now) in South Africa part of the benefits package
when employed by large organizations, including the government, was a housing
subsidy – subsidized mortgage payments.
However, for government positions, including at universities, the
housing subsidy was restricted to married men (presumably at that time
specifically white married men). Armscor
(and hence IMT) was one of the few exceptions that provided a housing subsidy
for single men too, which was a major draw for me at the time. (As it happened, between beginning to try to
get a job at IMT and starting to work there, I met and married Riëtta, so the
“single men” part was no longer relevant.)
Long story short, we bought a house (actually a townhouse/duplex) in
Tokai, greater Cape Town. I moved down
there first and then Riëtta followed after she had finished teaching at the end
of the semester.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpI0AkVMkG_Io9F0Hbrq2HXIKPphg2gx3H7-ETjNawoJJm-xoGSQg8gg-1gAAkS74ys7_5fKEyyxKtXOtvQ8OF27jfiGGn3DWUrh27OB5OCvQ4_RrkdW1NrlH1K57Z9UaJN-erECFxt-Q/s1169/IMT_offer_p1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1169" data-original-width="817" height="625" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpI0AkVMkG_Io9F0Hbrq2HXIKPphg2gx3H7-ETjNawoJJm-xoGSQg8gg-1gAAkS74ys7_5fKEyyxKtXOtvQ8OF27jfiGGn3DWUrh27OB5OCvQ4_RrkdW1NrlH1K57Z9UaJN-erECFxt-Q/w438-h625/IMT_offer_p1.jpg" width="438" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">IMT offer letter page 1<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvJEx67n5qjI4Ibp5K7jdi2eTb8ki7K_w6h7emrmkhjKUkNDICvBJBrXVIQHiQREs-W7yA4aWcnK47vlKaxgCI9F_So9b8NKkfMIaLDmOCj1pnuK3uSk248OAEialmwXSKRG7uNeMhV5g/s1061/IMT_offer_p2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1061" data-original-width="713" height="625" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvJEx67n5qjI4Ibp5K7jdi2eTb8ki7K_w6h7emrmkhjKUkNDICvBJBrXVIQHiQREs-W7yA4aWcnK47vlKaxgCI9F_So9b8NKkfMIaLDmOCj1pnuK3uSk248OAEialmwXSKRG7uNeMhV5g/w420-h625/IMT_offer_p2.jpg" width="420" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">IMT offer letter page 2<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgX9tmXjKZ_3X8wsEVupl1aIcrZW94gxQ_yXfqW2VNe2XzxukSavqeb92WrVllLtzG9VKKMCO3kN1lmXyMeanvnixn2S7u8hf9cSBij6F4L8tA0tLUsGq5a3YnqouF3MKfVxR4d3pQDDQ/s731/IMT_offer_p3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="731" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgX9tmXjKZ_3X8wsEVupl1aIcrZW94gxQ_yXfqW2VNe2XzxukSavqeb92WrVllLtzG9VKKMCO3kN1lmXyMeanvnixn2S7u8hf9cSBij6F4L8tA0tLUsGq5a3YnqouF3MKfVxR4d3pQDDQ/w400-h324/IMT_offer_p3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">IMT offer letter page 3</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDdUiJokBfLDxo_QJNvCrm-pmmhLcbBDj8DTONhci7bNQXkD6HTcOpQEKzjT2OGPYnXBNDTh_DvFOBmvthoi3oXj2Y5LC25hlqRFfc3_RKMPVom6L5Gvt1r0Sal8zqfBDKz-QeIQX-tV0/s2048/Tokai+times+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1026" height="976" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDdUiJokBfLDxo_QJNvCrm-pmmhLcbBDj8DTONhci7bNQXkD6HTcOpQEKzjT2OGPYnXBNDTh_DvFOBmvthoi3oXj2Y5LC25hlqRFfc3_RKMPVom6L5Gvt1r0Sal8zqfBDKz-QeIQX-tV0/w489-h976/Tokai+times+3.jpg" width="489" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tokai.<br /> Top: a view of the trails in the forest behind our house<br />Middle: the Tokai Manor House<br />Bottom: our house<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">I worked at IMT for about a year. I wasn’t particularly happy there that time
around. That was probably mostly because
of my supervisor, with whom I had to work closely. He seemed to be out of it much of the
time. It wasn’t until later that I heard
he was quite ill and that it was either the illness or the medication for it
that made him drowsy. The work was
interesting – helping to devise tactics for avoiding anti-ship missiles. I had started at IMT just as the Royal Navy
was discovering in the Falklands War how vulnerable surface ships are to
anti-ship missiles.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, a former colleague at UNISA, Peter Salemink, had
been teaching Applied Business Statistics in the Department of Business Science
at UCT. He wanted to move back to
Pretoria and was looking for someone to take over his position. Here was an opportunity to leave IMT and to
work at UNT. Once again I was in the
right place at the right time, with appropriate qualifications. I applied and was offered the position. That didn’t require a move, not even to a new
house as our house in Tokai was about halfway between UCT and IMT.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF1GDzFbyLi92QAcJa5bjVpDQpL0_eehZrEmU4RLYydlxVPxwrLxjwxPh6R-ga_pI-Bqx0yvBQV9K93XycaZvvBDbtMu0-ogSnRz3fH0Hu5zFV0lSe5orXnA-Wb-h18s6wWkY42PlPMio/s1143/UCT_offer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1143" data-original-width="745" height="781" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF1GDzFbyLi92QAcJa5bjVpDQpL0_eehZrEmU4RLYydlxVPxwrLxjwxPh6R-ga_pI-Bqx0yvBQV9K93XycaZvvBDbtMu0-ogSnRz3fH0Hu5zFV0lSe5orXnA-Wb-h18s6wWkY42PlPMio/w510-h781/UCT_offer.jpg" width="510" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UCT Business Science offer<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b>And back to Pretoria<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Being in Cape Town was generally good, but it was a long way
away from our families and the position at UCT didn’t have much in the way of
long-term prospects (unless I found a way to move to what became the Department
of Statistical Sciences). So when an
opportunity arose to move back to Pretoria I grabbed it. We sold our house, bought one in Pretoria and
moved at the end of 1985. My old
department had split, with the Operations Research component renamed and moving
out. So I joined what had become the
Department of Statistics.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfenkd8wxW9V2y4-5p_wrEUjRBQJcyNSAkWNTC1PN6D5ovcAiw79fvXl0kKvXtrlrpByQScgZFm2gHXA58QR0QqGFUu-zYrOXYDlX7HLBMoKI2L_XIGykMspM-2NHiRwc3J0ljUt1J4yo/s1159/UNISA+1985+offer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1159" data-original-width="839" height="625" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfenkd8wxW9V2y4-5p_wrEUjRBQJcyNSAkWNTC1PN6D5ovcAiw79fvXl0kKvXtrlrpByQScgZFm2gHXA58QR0QqGFUu-zYrOXYDlX7HLBMoKI2L_XIGykMspM-2NHiRwc3J0ljUt1J4yo/w454-h625/UNISA+1985+offer.jpg" width="454" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UNISA 1985 offer<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">In the middle of 1986 my mother was diagnosed with advanced
colon cancer. So it was good that we had
moved back to Pretoria because it meant we got to see her quite often in what
turned out to be the last year of her life.
One aspect of the timing of her death that was particularly unfortunate
was that she just missed seeing her first grandchild – Steven was born 19 days
after she passed away. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>To Seattle<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>When my mother knew she probably didn’t have much longer to
live, she wrote letters to me, each of my brothers, and my father, to be found
and opened after her death. In my letter
she urged me to try to study overseas. (My
brother Mick was already preparing to move to the US, initially to do an MS at
the University of Michigan, while finishing his PhD thesis at a South African
university. If our mother had lived few
more months he would have left and probably not have come back for her
funeral.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Unlike Mick, who was still single, I had a family to
support, so the financial implications of becoming a full-time student again
were more substantial. But I had been at
UNISA long enough to have earned paid sabbatical leave and my mother had left
me (and my two brothers) a small amount of money. So I started looking for places to do a PhD
in the US, with a view to starting in 1990.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">It is hard to imagine it now, but back in those days the web
didn’t exist yet. It wasn’t possible to
look up information about universities and courses online, because there wasn’t
such a thing as online. Even email was
still a novelty and I wasn’t yet aware of its existence. Somehow I obtained a copy of a booklet that
had information about all the US universities offering PhD programs in
statistics or biostatics. Using that, I
took a systematic approach to deciding where to apply. As Riëtta and I were keen runners, I crossed
off all universities in places where it seemed to be too hot in summer or too
cold in winter for running to be pleasant.
That left me with a list containing … nothing! So I had to revise my opinion of what was too
hot or too cold. I ended up applying to
three programs, in biostatistics at the University of Washington (UW) and at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and in statistics at the
University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).
The last of those was because a colleague at UNISA had spent a
sabbatical there and spoke highly of the program.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In order to apply to those graduate programs I first had to
take the GRE (Graduate Record Examinations) and the TOEFL (Test of English as a
Foreign Language). I thought the latter requirement
was a bit of a cheek considering that (a) English is my mother tongue and (b)
the language used in the US should be called American because it is not
standard English. I don’t recall where I
took those exams, though it must have been somewhere in either Pretoria or
Johannesburg. I must have done well
enough to persuade at least one university that I wasn’t a total idiot.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The UW had had a small entering class in their graduate
programs in the 1989/1990 academic year.
Because I already had a master’s degree in statistics they offered me a
place in their program starting in the middle of the academic year. The offer including “full support”, that is,
reasonable financial assistance. So we
moved to Seattle in March of 1990. At
that stage UNC was still trying to determine whether my math background was
adequate for entry into their program. I
don’t recall whether I ever heard back from UTEP.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcrWumjbZH0-P62pIjob1dhopM6jF4hny195-tbTB6gQpxuj4w2mkVyHzH1WchoLE67PgNa0mBKDeczjBqyvqD1kXfpN6vH6uGADRIqF8OzjBNRANXT7GfT7bVOn5qPlI8pDqiqKda-K0/s1013/University+of+Washington+admission.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1013" data-original-width="799" height="625" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcrWumjbZH0-P62pIjob1dhopM6jF4hny195-tbTB6gQpxuj4w2mkVyHzH1WchoLE67PgNa0mBKDeczjBqyvqD1kXfpN6vH6uGADRIqF8OzjBNRANXT7GfT7bVOn5qPlI8pDqiqKda-K0/w493-h625/University+of+Washington+admission.jpg" width="493" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">University of Washington admission letter<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">We found an apartment within the first few days and settled
in. That December we saw snow falling
for the first time. I was 36 years old
and had never seen snow falling or even touched fresh snow (we’d seen some old
snow when we’d gone on a hike back in April or May). For the first few hours it was very exciting,
but by the next day when the whole city had shut down and we were trapped
inside it was no longer so wonderful. I
had gone downtown to do Christmas shopping and returned just as the snow
began. The timing and the amount of snow
caught the city by surprise. By the
evening commute the snow was already quite deep. Many people were trapped in their cars and
took hours to get home, some not making it until the next day. Buses were sliding down the steep Seattle
hills. It was a mess. YouTube has several videos of cars and buses
sliding in the snow on other occasions, such as this one (with a bus sliding at
about 3:30 in):<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhZCyQ3emQg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhZCyQ3emQg</a>
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDF9Jcjoi2uhtCEWQ0FCar8PNPyIlkNJYQMsXrNqz8oG-S1GLAvNLHgfcB0BB2d3zzg1aUMSwRGzwTZ6KiLvqN2ALiemnZnZ7772PchDnHhyphenhyphenU7NbmBCp2ZYjAFErmXO4uVnR9YQ-HMsXw/s1095/Seattle+apartment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="735" data-original-width="1095" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDF9Jcjoi2uhtCEWQ0FCar8PNPyIlkNJYQMsXrNqz8oG-S1GLAvNLHgfcB0BB2d3zzg1aUMSwRGzwTZ6KiLvqN2ALiemnZnZ7772PchDnHhyphenhyphenU7NbmBCp2ZYjAFErmXO4uVnR9YQ-HMsXw/w625-h420/Seattle+apartment.jpg" width="625" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Google Street View of the apartment where we
lived in Seattle. Ours was the one of
the ground floor to the right of the entrance.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTQD4C05i1T51Mcrke95GnIeZC7AJNmgytTluT4OvI0pTjqiucMw_U9dlhZH9gVTaAzGGvZqXK-g_lPGkBgsFqaqEmSg5rET7d6GGyR2sF1rwsLHDF-OTHXmFTKgNbRPe1ZY5-N5245M4/s2048/Seattle+snow+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1464" data-original-width="2048" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTQD4C05i1T51Mcrke95GnIeZC7AJNmgytTluT4OvI0pTjqiucMw_U9dlhZH9gVTaAzGGvZqXK-g_lPGkBgsFqaqEmSg5rET7d6GGyR2sF1rwsLHDF-OTHXmFTKgNbRPe1ZY5-N5245M4/w625-h448/Seattle+snow+1.jpg" width="625" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Seeing snow fall for the first time was exciting</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSYs90p8rOnnq6bjTESvIwfgia4dMXa5FjLEKB2UWh0BXcaFfguuHEFxQKLsvPIGSyI8wBTUZq0Q0oYYyKPEyfrUB0xu2D4_R4ZTNqn4_jYPXpJ8_8ily66mSNjFXY1pmJzzleKmnHGTk/s2048/Seattle+snow+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1461" data-original-width="2048" height="445" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSYs90p8rOnnq6bjTESvIwfgia4dMXa5FjLEKB2UWh0BXcaFfguuHEFxQKLsvPIGSyI8wBTUZq0Q0oYYyKPEyfrUB0xu2D4_R4ZTNqn4_jYPXpJ8_8ily66mSNjFXY1pmJzzleKmnHGTk/w625-h445/Seattle+snow+2.jpg" width="625" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">A few hours later it was still falling and soon
becoming much less fun</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">The bus system in Seattle is excellent (except when the
buses are sliding around in the snow).
We didn’t buy a car when we lived there.
We rented one on a few occasions to go on vacation and to be mobile for
the period in 1992 when my father visited us and Lisa was about to be born. My father and his new wife came to see us
(and my brother Mick) in the US on their honeymoon. Shortly after returning to South Africa my
father had his first stroke. (He had a
few more before passing away almost 5 years later.)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The “full support” would have been adequate to live on if I
had been single. One of the conditions
of my student visa was that Riëtta was not allowed to work. With our savings and the money my mother had
left me running out, plus a now-expanded family, we couldn’t afford to stay in
Seattle. Having received sabbatical
support from UNISA, I was contractually obliged to return there for at least 6
months. So in June 1993 we reluctantly
headed back to Pretoria. The reluctance
was mostly because we had grown very fond of Seattle.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Some students in the UW Department of Biostatistics who had
moved away from Seattle took a long time to finish their PhDs, with some
bumping up against the university’s 10-year limit. So I was sent an official letter outlining
the department’s concerns about me leaving the area.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGDVc0nQEEyKACXtCVGcWATDlk85rkVC0bv2E-6b4jUoH1EgGLx5GKNz9p1JLrYXjHradvZRd6byM-nPiEjuEHFXvDwksOeo1M8GdZLu4KlKLYPIF5jEc4xER2i10C9E-xfTrbslcNjbg/s1069/University+of+Washington+warning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1069" data-original-width="837" height="781" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGDVc0nQEEyKACXtCVGcWATDlk85rkVC0bv2E-6b4jUoH1EgGLx5GKNz9p1JLrYXjHradvZRd6byM-nPiEjuEHFXvDwksOeo1M8GdZLu4KlKLYPIF5jEc4xER2i10C9E-xfTrbslcNjbg/w614-h781/University+of+Washington+warning.jpg" width="614" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">University of Washington warning letter</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b>In Pretoria once
again<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal">Back in Pretoria we rented a house a few blocks from my
father. As we didn’t expect to stay
there very long, we didn’t buy a car but borrowed one from my father. (He had recovered reasonably well, though not
completely, from his first stroke and managed to return to work for a while.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Steven had completed his first year of school in
Seattle. It was the middle of the South
African school year when we moved back.
Initially when we tried to get him into a nearby public school they
wanted him to wait until the next school year because he wasn’t quite 6
yet. But we persuaded them that as he
had already had a full year of schooling that didn’t make sense and they relented
and allowed him in.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>On to Hobart<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal">At some point towards the end of our time in Seattle a
notice had appeared on our department’s noticeboard saying that Terry Dwyer,
the Director of the Menzies Center for Population Health Research (as it was
then called, now the Menzies Institute for Medical Research), an epidemiology
research center at the University of Tasmania, would be visiting the UW and any
biostatistics student who was interested in a job in Australia could meet him
for lunch. I was the only one who turned
up. Terry was also a runner and we ended
up talking more about running than work.
He was a shorter distance runner and 10K was about the upper limit of
his racing, whereas it was towards the lower end of mine. Our best times for 10K (or 10,000m on the
track) were almost identical. Apart from
being a medical doctor and professor of Epidemiology, Terry was also involved
in athletic administration. In our time
in Hobart he served as President of Athletics Tasmania, the governing body for
track and field in the state, and later was President of Athletics Australia,
the corresponding body for the whole country.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Terry asked me to apply for a position at the Menzies
Center, with our lunch together serving as my interview. Again, I was at the right place, at the right
time, with the right qualifications (right 10K time?). A few months later I was offered the
position. So we then made plans to pack
up again for the move to Australia. We
first had to get temporary residence permits approved. The paperwork came through eventually and we
left South Africa in February 1994.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigVNOJ1PT1bP000KsqEcyBP1BZkeNNuNsRm6t7YxsjnTwlBSH4s5W9a58FOiQBDnChn5kKi7OyShNq37bQFjlm9d1WD0hQVnuRZqH42CQMfFLVlcOPTOtR_PwNHCjkK-Wow-jtq6v_6I8/s1145/UTAS+offer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1145" data-original-width="845" height="781" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigVNOJ1PT1bP000KsqEcyBP1BZkeNNuNsRm6t7YxsjnTwlBSH4s5W9a58FOiQBDnChn5kKi7OyShNq37bQFjlm9d1WD0hQVnuRZqH42CQMfFLVlcOPTOtR_PwNHCjkK-Wow-jtq6v_6I8/w576-h781/UTAS+offer.jpg" width="576" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">University of Tasmania offer </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">We quickly found a house to rent in Hobart and bought a
car.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">(We became
friendly with Geoff and Helen, the couple from whom we rented the house.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Geoff was also a runner and he and Riëtta
often dueled in races.)</span> We got Steven enrolled in a nearby
school. That meant that in less than 12
months he had been in schools in three countries. Fortunately he adapted well.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I was still working on my dissertation, corresponding with
my advisor, Margaret Pepe, by email.
Margaret had also gone to the US as a graduate student, from Ireland. She is at least 5 years younger than me! She was a great advisor and very
patient. In November 1994, a couple of
months after I had turned 40, I flew back to Seattle for my final (oral) exam
and to turn in my dissertation. Fortunately
I passed the exam and, more importantly, didn’t have to make any last-minute
changes to the dissertation. (Passing
the final exam for a PhD is usually a formality. Although it may be nerve-wracking, an advisor
shouldn’t let a student take the exam unless the student is ready. So about the only time a student may fail is
if he/she insists on taking the exam before the advisor thinks he/she is ready.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The Menzies Centre was doing important work. Their research contributed substantially to the
SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) death rate declining to about one third of
what it had been just a few years earlier.
(The size and scope of the organization has increased substantially in
the years since I left.) I learned a lot
in my time there, particularly about epidemiology and about the vagaries of
data collection. I have never regretted
dragging the family off to the far end of the earth.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">While at the Menzies Centre I came to realize how important
it is for a statistician to have a good understanding of how the data in a
study are actually collected – not just how they are supposed to be
collected. That helps provide insight
into the sources of variability in the data and what kinds of errors can
occur. You would probably be surprised
by how easily things can be screwed up, even for something as supposedly
elementary as measuring height. One of
our studies was of exercise induced asthma in young children. We measured their lung function before and
after having them run for a few minutes.
Lung function is dependent on body size, so we needed to measure their
heights. We had a stadiometer that we
were planning to use for the height measurements. Our stadiometer had a fixed scale for very
short heights, and a sliding part to use beyond that. The kids were of an age at which some of them
were measurable with the fixed part of the stadiometer while for others we
needed to use the sliding part. Whoever
had assembled the stadiometer had messed something up, so that the sliding part
gave incorrect readings. The
instructions had been lost and I couldn’t fix the instrument to work
correctly. So I said we should stick a
tape measure against a wall and use that.
Once the pilot study was over and the real study began, some bright
spark decided that as we had a stadiometer, it should be used rather than the
tape measure. Whoever made that decision
didn’t tell me. When it came time to
analyze the results the heights were a mess.
Many of the kids had become shorter than when they had been measured a
couple of years earlier! That obviously
shouldn’t happen with kids in the age range 6-9 years. So the data were essentially unusable.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisYZZtl7lGzReiovZ4i3_d6uTnhdEhnModJs8n-BmvlWf-0CqlNGubtI-CoQL8Oms2VwFXbZ1-KreR70KnSh-ApFzcDqMJsyGzcsoejVuRaYI020PdyHyfRz-26SubdP1p6gak1wo3It4/s700/Stadiometer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="680" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisYZZtl7lGzReiovZ4i3_d6uTnhdEhnModJs8n-BmvlWf-0CqlNGubtI-CoQL8Oms2VwFXbZ1-KreR70KnSh-ApFzcDqMJsyGzcsoejVuRaYI020PdyHyfRz-26SubdP1p6gak1wo3It4/w486-h500/Stadiometer.jpg" width="486" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">A stadiometer – not the same as the one we used</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">Tasmania is very scenic and is a great place to visit. Living there year-round is less
pleasant. It is rather isolated and the
weather is often poor as it is situated slap-bang in the middle of the Roaring
Forties. I was the only PhD-level
biostatistician in the state and being a newly-minted PhD I didn’t have anyone
who could mentor me professionally. So I
started to look for other positions, either elsewhere in Australia or in the
US. Another factor was that we had done
some house-hunting in Hobart but couldn’t find anything affordable that was
reasonably well built. If we’d managed
to buy a house we might still have been there now. Further, public schools in Tasmania are not
very good, particularly in the higher grades, and we couldn’t afford to send
our kids to private schools. The running
scene was also rather primitive, reminiscent of that in South Africa 15+ years
earlier.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I applied unsuccessfully for at least one position elsewhere
in Australia, I think it was in Newcastle.
I probably have a rejection letter packed away somewhere, or maybe the
advertisement for the job. I also
applied and was flown over to the US for an interview at the University of
Arizona in Tucson. A year or so later I
was invited for another interview at the University of Arizona. This time I took the family along too for a
vacation. Apart from going to Tucson, we
went to Disney World (and Gatorland) and to Seattle. Shortly before leaving for the US I applied
for a position in the Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center (CSCC) at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
They interviewed me by telephone and when they heard I was going to be
in the US, invited me for an in-person interview. (They wouldn’t have paid for me to fly all
the way from Tasmania, though were willing to pay for a flight from Seattle. So, again, I was going to be in more-or-less
the right place at the right time with the right qualifications.) We hastily changed our plans, with the rest
of the family flying home from Seattle and me first going on to Chapel
Hill. My interview was on a Friday and
Monday, straddling the weekend in which UNC was playing in the 1998 NCAA Final
Four (basketball, for those who don’t know – which I certainly didn’t). I was told that if UNC won there would be big
parties in downtown Chapel Hill and I would hear plenty of noise. UNC lost in the semi-final, so I didn’t get
to hear/see what the celebrations are like.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I ended up being offered positions by both the University of
Arizona and UNC. I think UNC offered
somewhat more money. A bigger factor was
that Arizona didn’t have a school of public health yet and I would have been in
a very small biostatistics group, whereas UNC had a highly ranked school of
public health and a large and well-regarded Department of Biostatistics. So I accepted the UNC offer.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcQtpg9CU-aXb7EAc6vd5iSnI293JPqXaarVIuUpGo3ljEhd7iAb4JAp1zB4jE6wC4_KhKiqQTbYLY8P8CXBAoavteokcxSjJfVHpUQf3XF6hmiLV462G3xuJCjm6TvLRpBsfenutJj0Q/s1111/UNC+offer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1111" data-original-width="859" height="781" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcQtpg9CU-aXb7EAc6vd5iSnI293JPqXaarVIuUpGo3ljEhd7iAb4JAp1zB4jE6wC4_KhKiqQTbYLY8P8CXBAoavteokcxSjJfVHpUQf3XF6hmiLV462G3xuJCjm6TvLRpBsfenutJj0Q/w604-h781/UNC+offer.jpg" width="604" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">UNC offer</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Moving to Chapel Hill<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>We left Hobart in the depths of winter. The rest of the family first went to Pretoria
for a week while I tidied up various loose ends in Australia. I then joined them in Pretoria and we flew
out the same day. We arrived in Chapel
Hill in early August. Moving from winter
to the heat and humidity of summer in North Carolina was quite a shock. For the first few days I was desperately
unhappy, not just because of the weather but also other factors such as how
run-down the building that housed the CSCC was.
Many of the (sealed) windows leaked when it rained and I was issued with
plastic sheeting to put over my office computer when it rained. The office furniture should have been
surplussed decades earlier. We didn’t
have proper computer desks, just very old desks with computers plonked on
top. I wanted to head straight back to
Hobart. Fortunately the rest of the
family vetoed that idea.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>We found a place to rent, bought a car, and got the kids
enrolled in schools, ready for the new academic year. Steven was ready to go into middle
school. Lisa had started school earlier
that year in Hobart. Near the end of the
first school year the Chapel Hill/Carrboro school district released plans for
redistricting for the next school year.
(One is assigned to schools based on where one lives, but the catchment
areas are updated periodically as new schools are opened because of demographic
changes.) Lisa was going to have to move
to a school much further away. We hadn’t
been thinking of buying a house, but this prompted us to start house-hunting. We managed to find one that we could afford
and, a big plus, that was zoned for the schools that Steven and Lisa were
attending. An added plus was that the
house was within walking distance of the two schools. A move that didn’t involve going to another
country or even another city? That was a
first for us. We moved into our house in
June 1999 and have been here ever since.
Chapel Hill turned out to be a great place for the kids to grow up, with
one of the best public school systems in the US. They also both went on to do their
undergraduate degrees at UNC before moving to more exciting cities.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW2SFdhg-b6iNuIoc2q8yBT-0ygzI4ZQced2mzNKka3pLQ_L0Gq7MN7-P_GRl-H57mXjnU0CJRWs0Psbpgnrfp1ueOzbu8tHYrIdgt9E5808JNE7hUnv1NOuVpettQ-ghCje7InJBryAI/s2048/Chapel+Hill+house.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="469" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW2SFdhg-b6iNuIoc2q8yBT-0ygzI4ZQced2mzNKka3pLQ_L0Gq7MN7-P_GRl-H57mXjnU0CJRWs0Psbpgnrfp1ueOzbu8tHYrIdgt9E5808JNE7hUnv1NOuVpettQ-ghCje7InJBryAI/w625-h469/Chapel+Hill+house.JPG" width="625" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Our house in Chapel Hill</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal">In the first few years here I was sometimes very frustrated
by the CSCC leadership and UNC more generally.
For instance, they made minimal effort to help us obtain permanent
residence status, even though it was in their interests if they wanted to keep
me. At one point I applied for a
position at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. They flew the whole family out for an
interview and eventually offered me a position.
But they didn’t yet have a school of public health or a biostatistics
department and it wasn’t clear that I would be any better off. So we stayed put.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I’ve had a couple ore interviews since then, both after I
had been contacted by a recruiter rather than me looking for a new
position. One of them was with a private
company in this area. They made me a
quite substantial offer. We had had a
change of leadership in our center and department. Our department chair immediately made me a
counter-offer. It wasn’t as much as I
was being offered, but that they bothered to counter so quickly showed that
they cared and that was part of the reason I turned down the position. Another interview was in the Washington, DC,
area. I was reluctant even to go for the
interview, but they were quite persistent.
However, just after that there was a leadership change in their
organization and maybe because of that, plus my expressed reluctance, they
didn’t make me an offer. I wasn’t
disappointed. Now I expect to stay where
I am until I retire (or am fired).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Although I don’t expect to move to another job, at some
point we may move house, perhaps to a nearby retirement community, before I go
to my final resting place. For the
latter I presume I will once again be in the right place, with the right qualifications
and hope it will be right time – neither too early nor too late.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-71945570847984345032020-02-03T19:47:00.000-05:002020-02-03T19:50:41.201-05:00Our old neighborhood, part 2<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Disclaimer:</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being autobiographical, these entries depend
on my memory of events around half a century ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t take any notes or keep a diary (either
then or now).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being a time before
digital cameras (and because I was very camera-shy), I don’t even have photos
to serve as reminders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why write a
disclaimer for this particular episode?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I mention more names of living people than in most previous episodes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am happy to correct any facts or add extra
details that those who are mentioned point out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Opinions are my own and others may have different perspectives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would also be happy to include differing
perspectives of those who are willing to share them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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First, a somewhat related public health message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make sure you get all recommended
immunizations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The polio vaccine, for
instance, has now eliminated the threat of that often-serious disease from much
of the world, including Europe and the Americas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How is this somewhat-related to the topic of our old
neighborhood?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stewart and Shirley
McCurdie were friends of my parents who weren’t quite in our neighborhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They and their children (the oldest, Ron,
being a little older than me, if I remember correctly) at one stage lived a
couple of blocks away from us, on the other side of Cape Road, a major arterial
which at that point has Fen Glen on one side and Cotswold on the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At some point in the ’60s Shirley McCurdie
contracted polio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think she was even
in an iron lung at one stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although
she mostly recovered, after that she always walked with a limp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recently managed to re-establish contact
with Ron on Facebook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He now lives in
Limoges, France. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Cape Road is labelled near the top of the image, towards the right. Even back then I think there were two lanes
in each direction, with a center island (and in this stretch, a service road
running parallel to the main road). <o:p></o:p></div>
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Back to our side of Cape Road. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Swarts<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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In the previous episode there was an open lot where the
house marked 2 below now stands. I don’t
know exactly when that house was built but from a date mentioned below it must
have been completed before 1962. The
couple who lived there from the time the house was built and for as long as my
parents were in Port Elizabeth were Oscar and Ruth Swart. Oscar was an Afrikaner who worked for the
Post Office. Ruth was a nurse. She was a German Jew and with her sister Inge
were the only members of their family who survived the Holocaust. Although I knew that at the time, it wasn’t
until recently that I found out how they had managed to get out of Nazi Germany
– on the Kindertransport to Britain (Glasgow in their case) when Ruth was 13
and Inge 8. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertransport" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertransport</a>. More on that below. I also hadn’t known until then how Ruth and
Oscar had met. They met when they were
both on vacation in Switzerland. Oscar was
touring Europe for 6 months with some friends.
Ruth eventually decided to emigrate to South Africa (from Britain).<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ruth and Oscar had a son, Anthony, born in 1958, so about a
year younger than my brother Mick. They
had a second son, Jonathan, who was born in 1962. Jonathan has Down syndrome (trisomy 21). Children with Down syndrome often have
congenital heart disease and other health problems. Life expectancy used to be quite short (25
years in the 1980s according to Wikipedia) though is now 50-60 years in the
developed world. Apart from Down
syndrome itself, Jonathan was healthy and is now in his late 50s. <o:p></o:p></div>
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One day Ruth came over to our house, absolutely devastated,
to tell my parents that Inge had died in an airplane crash. I must have been just 7 year old, though I
remember having met Inge a few times. (I
think Anthony used to refer to Inge as “Aunty Gaga”.) I hadn’t known when or where the crash
occurred until I managed to make contact with Anthony a few years ago. From information he gave me I was able to
find accounts of the accident, which happened soon after taking off from Douala
Airport in Cameroon on March 4, 1962, with the loss of all 111 passengers and
crew.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Airways_Flight_153">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Airways_Flight_153</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19620304-0">https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19620304-0</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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My father sometimes referred to Oscar as the ancient
mariner, because when Oscar started talking to my father it was hard to get him
to stop. Oscar became interested in
horticulture and constructed large hothouses in their back yard. He eventually had at least two, maybe
three. They aren’t visible in the Google
Maps image, so I presume they were demolished at some stage in the past 40
years.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Oscar passed away in about 1982, quite soon after my parents
left Port Elizabeth, and Ruth in 2014 aged 89.
Considering that Ruth left Germany at the age of 13, it is surprising
that she still had a strong German accent more than 50 years later. Despite all she went through, I never heard
her express any bitterness and she spent her whole working life caring for other
people. She was a good person. While that is true of most people I have
known, few of them have had to cope with what she went through.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anthony is now a realtor (what South Africans refer to as a
“real estate agent”). When I first
re-established contact with him about 4 years ago he mentioned that he is
married to Karel and that they’d been together for 30 years. Although our families lived next door to one
another for 20 years, I hadn’t realized back then that he was gay. Maybe that’s partly because the old South
Africa was a rather homophobic society, so he didn’t come out. In late 2006 South Africa became the fifth
country in the world to legalize marriages between same-sex couples! Anthony also wrote “You know I’ve got a German
passport and have at times thought about leaving here, but our lifestyle is
still too good to even really consider a major move?!!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0mwi4BZarDwvXPN-GU8EPh3A9-Zc0LOlJ3zYsL7rNcgm1urrP_dg12j2-jksDbnSbELpNasOG5uwie72McLW1vmDg_xaZFReWLktX4-IMTgDHMDN51t3nDbllup5NhFrHGS92K4MaW3g/s1600/Anthony+Swart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="144" data-original-width="108" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0mwi4BZarDwvXPN-GU8EPh3A9-Zc0LOlJ3zYsL7rNcgm1urrP_dg12j2-jksDbnSbELpNasOG5uwie72McLW1vmDg_xaZFReWLktX4-IMTgDHMDN51t3nDbllup5NhFrHGS92K4MaW3g/s320/Anthony+Swart.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Photo of Anthony Swart from his realtor web page. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Parrys<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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In the previous episode I mentioned that the people in the
house marked 8 had two sons, one of whom had Down syndrome and died young. (South Africa doesn’t have a particularly
high incidence of Down syndrome. It is
just a coincidence that neighbors on either side of us had a son with Down
syndrome.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t recall if there was another family that lived there
after that but before Errol and Margaret Parry moved in with their three
children – Neville, who is my age, Gail, who is a couple of years younger, and
Kim, who is several more years younger. Their
address was 366 Cape Road and to help people remember the number Margaret Parry
used to refer to it as Leap Year Cape Road.
I think they occasionally even had mail addressed to them like
that. Margaret also sometimes used to
use the expression “what doesn’t kill, fattens”. Although I was a chubby youngster, I didn’t
associate “fattens” with being bad and thought she was contrasting a bad versus
a good outcome! <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsi7aMgsf5H-IcJwisB78mVfJXgCXphRiQtl0-C5InJ2ZMXAkAjZLnA_zhfvO28_IVPDapQ9uHiSpJPRiVEQ-uCZKFVPgBZT2EmbaPXW4o3EGMpU3i9TIuCUjmoa3ebXuBwcBRV4LHhU/s1600/Dad+funeral+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1162" data-original-width="1600" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsi7aMgsf5H-IcJwisB78mVfJXgCXphRiQtl0-C5InJ2ZMXAkAjZLnA_zhfvO28_IVPDapQ9uHiSpJPRiVEQ-uCZKFVPgBZT2EmbaPXW4o3EGMpU3i9TIuCUjmoa3ebXuBwcBRV4LHhU/s640/Dad+funeral+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Margaret and Errol Parry are on the right in this photo
taken after my father’s funeral.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
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<o:p> </o:p> </div>
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Neville and I quickly became good friends. We played a lot of backyard cricket together,
usually just the two of us. Backyard
cricket is part of the folklore of Australia in particular, but also most of
the other main cricket-playing countries. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backyard_cricket">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backyard_cricket</a> We usually played at the Parrys’ house, in
which case it was sideyard cricket rather than backyard, with the wicket
running north to south parallel with the words “Malvern Ave” in the image from
Google Maps. We pretended to be the
great players of that and earlier eras, including those who played for the
then-mighty West Indies – fearsome fast bowlers Wesley (later Sir Wes) Hall and
Charlie Griffith, wonderful batsmen such as Rohan Kanhai and Clive (now Sir
Clive) Lloyd, and Garfield (now Sir Garry) Sobers, still regarded as the
greatest al-rounder ever to have played the game. Apart from a few of the South African stars,
we didn’t ever get to see any of these players in action, either live or on
TV. At that stage of the Apartheid era the
government would not allow black players, such as the West Indians, to play
against. Also, the country didn’t get TV
until the mid 1970s, when the government woke up to the fact that
state-controlled television is a powerful propaganda weapon.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<Aside><o:p></o:p></div>
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White South African cricket administrators later began
throwing money around, paying players from other countries to participate in
“rebel” tours. They even managed to pay
a group of West Indian players to tour.
The latter were probably poorly advised.
Although they were mostly near the end of their careers and may have
thought it was an opportunity to cash in before retiring, they may not have
been fully aware that not only would they subsequently be banned from playing
cricket in their own countries again, but also that many would actually become
outcasts back home. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This article is about a “rebel” team from the West
Indies: <a href="https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/21298477/the-unforgiven">https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/21298477/the-unforgiven</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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This one describes the lead-up to a tour by a team from
England:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22754920/the-dirty-dozen">https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22754920/the-dirty-dozen</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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In this one it is clear from the Australian players
themselves that they were generally past their primes. <a href="http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/959689/-prime-minister-hawke-called-us-traitors">http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/959689/-prime-minister-hawke-called-us-traitors</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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My opinion at the time was that the “rebel” tours were
misguided. Even putting aside political
issues, they weren’t going to provide a true reflection of the strength of
(white) South African cricket. If a
touring team beat the South African team, then we would realize that we were no
longer world beaters. But if the South
African team won (which it did in most instances), that wouldn’t tell us much –
that we had beaten a team of mercenaries from another country, rather than the
best team that that country had to offer.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</Aside><o:p></o:p></div>
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Neville and I were very evenly matched in backyard
cricket. In the real thing? It wasn’t even close. He was much better and played at a high level
through high school and beyond and he also excelled at rugby. I had minimal athletic talent. I played several sports with much enthusiasm
but little ability. In cricket I didn’t
progress beyond intermural level at high school, and even in those inter-class
games I was more of a liability than an asset.
(As I probably mentioned in an earlier episode, participation in sport
was compulsory at our high school.
Intramural cricket was the default option in the warmer months for those
of us who weren’t good enough to make one of the school’s many teams for
cricket or any other sport.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
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When the Parrys lived there in the ’60s, there was a
structure, rather like an open carport, in front of a one-car garage, where I
have drawn a red circle below. There
were brick/concrete pillars, with beams along the tops of the pillars and going
across the driveway. The beams across
the driveway were probably spaced about 3 feet apart. At one stage Neville and I built a “tree”
house on top of these beams. (What does
one call a tree house if it isn’t in a tree??)
We even stayed in it overnight on at least one occasion, partly because
my mother promised to bake us a chocolate cake if we spent the night up there.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
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The red circle indicates where Neville and I built a “tree”
house.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My father used to keep some money in various drawers in
their bedroom. I found some of these
places and, presuming he wouldn’t notice, took some of the money from time to
time. Well, he did notice and confronted
me. I confessed. He was very angry – the only time I can
recall him being really angry with me.
One of the things he said was “What would Neville think if he heard
about this?” Well, honor among thieves
and all that, plus I didn’t want to rile my father up even further, so I didn’t
mention where I had got the idea. (Even
later in my life I never said to my father “You remember when you caught me
stealing money from your drawer and asked what Neville would think ….?”)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Soccer trading cards were big at one stage back then. The cards came in “lucky packets” which had a
couple of cards plus some candy. A few
players’ cards were rare and there were rumors about how many lucky packets one
had to buy to have a good chance of getting these rare cards. One of the things we did with the money I
purloined was to buy a box containing a gross of lucky packets. I/we reasoned that each box would include at
least one card for every player. (I
obviously didn’t know much about probability theory back then.) We bought the box and opened all of the lucky
packets. Although we found a few cards
that we didn’t yet have in our collection, we didn’t get all the ones we had
hoped for (and did end up with many, many, of the more common cards). When we started to lose interest in
collecting those cards Neville’s mother donated our collection to some
organization.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Neville and I were in different primary schools. Then we were at the same high school for what
I think was just one year. After that he
went to boarding school at Graeme College, which his father had attended, for a
couple of years. In 1970 the Parrys
moved to the Johannesburg area and he completed high school there. After that I occasionally heard news of him
through my parents, but didn’t have any direct contact with him until
connecting with him on Facebook a while back.
He is now also part of the South African diaspora, living in Prague. According to Linkedin he is Chairman of the “Woodcote
Group a.s”, a company in Czech Republic, with head office in Prague and which operates
in the Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services
industry. Neville’s sister Gail lives in
Germany and his other sister, Kim, is still in South Africa, though I haven’t
tried to make contact with either of them.
Their father, Errol, was (and presumably still is) a great
character. He turned 90 in 2019.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkSGfSwMq2NmA5FbctNJEvapqv_pgFbci8jZtXpCJn5Ol-ai3L8Ik4BkpbTtK-tz7PJNikejFnV7CIVXLg4K0LQKNfxjg1yICGBVEtAQAhAwIR_CSLVvaLCJ-47pOe7B4LGeWRGbL0vDY/s1600/Neville+Parry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="259" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkSGfSwMq2NmA5FbctNJEvapqv_pgFbci8jZtXpCJn5Ol-ai3L8Ik4BkpbTtK-tz7PJNikejFnV7CIVXLg4K0LQKNfxjg1yICGBVEtAQAhAwIR_CSLVvaLCJ-47pOe7B4LGeWRGbL0vDY/s400/Neville+Parry.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Neville Parry – profile photo “borrowed” from Facebook<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Ashbys<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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In the previous episode I mentioned that the people in the
house marked 9 had a boogie man who lived in a shed at the bottom of the
garden. Later the Ashbys lived there –
Ken, Tania and their children Kevin and Clifford. I think Kevin is two years younger than me
and Clifford another year or two younger, so they are closer in age to my
brother Mick than to me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A while back I found Kevin on Facebook. He is in Brisbane (Australia). He trained as a chemical engineer and is now
a patent attorney. Clifford doesn’t
appear to be on Facebook but is on Linkedin, though he hasn’t uploaded a
profile photo. He is CEO of “Coleambally
Irrigation Co-operative” in New South Wales, Australia, having previously been
CEO of various other companies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1gn7OmLr868kSpQv8s5HGtHGVfNP_8NPorul1DzbXU9ocvJr9v8rZJz0b93pWVJlhzhsISVod7C8sM2zEH2dXv8VvhblQGb62Xdhl5D2erPdxooFVWHAft1BmEoe7NLHfhV30jDaxbc/s1600/Kevin+Ashby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="693" data-original-width="693" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1gn7OmLr868kSpQv8s5HGtHGVfNP_8NPorul1DzbXU9ocvJr9v8rZJz0b93pWVJlhzhsISVod7C8sM2zEH2dXv8VvhblQGb62Xdhl5D2erPdxooFVWHAft1BmEoe7NLHfhV30jDaxbc/s400/Kevin+Ashby.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Kevin Ashby – profile photo “borrowed” from Facebook<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Toppers<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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At some point after the woman who enticed Marmalade the cat
to move from our house to the one marked 5, the Toppers moved in. I don’t recall the names of the parents, but
there was a son, Desmond, who is my age.
Initially we were good friends.
We often used to play the strategy board game Risk. It was his copy and he taught me/us the
rules. When we were later given our own
copy, I read the rules carefully and found that they differed quite
substantially from what Desmond had said.
(His version didn’t give anyone an unfair advantage, so it wasn’t that
he was trying to cheat.) Desmond and I
both had Scalextric <a href="https://www.scalextric.com/us-en/">https://www.scalextric.com/us-en/</a>
slot-car racing sets and we often combined our sets to make longer tracks. (A new slot car is one of the things I bought
with money purloined from my father.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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I said above that “initially” we were good friends. Later Desmond formed a “gang” consisting of
the younger boys in the neighborhood – my brothers, Anthony Swart and the
Ashbys. Neville and I were supposedly
their rival gang. We didn’t consider
ourselves a gang and mostly just avoided the younger kids. I think they used to “spy” on us, though we
didn’t ever do anything worth spying on.
Recently I asked my brother Mick what he remembered of this “gang”. He claimed not to recall who Desmond Topper
was. Maybe he didn’t want to be reminded
of someone who in hindsight might have been a little like a cult leader.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It looks like Desmond is on Facebook. I have sent him a message but haven’t had a
response yet. If it is the same Desmond
Topper, he retired a couple of years ago, most recently having run IGCS
(Industrial Gas Consultancy Services).
The web site for that doesn’t appear to exist now and even the Wayback
Machine didn’t turn up anything, so maybe he was a solo consultant and shut
down the web site when he retired. Previously
he was Regional Manager at the local branch of Air Liquide.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Stirks<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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After the Parrys moved to Johannesburg, our new neighbors in
the house marked 8 were Bill and Joan Stirk and their lovely your daughters,
Sandra and Marilyn. Sandy is about a
year younger than me and Marilyn a further two years younger, making her the
same age as my brother Mick. They moved
in some time in 1970.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sandy and I hit it off for a short while. Then the Stirks went away for two weeks on
summer vacation. I counted down the days
(maybe even the minutes <span style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>) until their return.
But on their vacation Sandy found someone else. My fragile sixteen-year-old heart was
broken. For a long while after that I
hoped we could get back together, but it was not to be. She occasionally agreed to go to a movie with
me and even to the South African equivalent of my high school prom, but just as
a friend. I still often visited her
after school and pestered her. I don’t
know why my parents (or hers) didn’t have a little word in my ear. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I recall watching Wimbledon tennis matches on TV at the
Stirks’ house. That must have been
several years later though, during winter break from college, because Port Elizabeth
didn’t get TV until early 1976. (Test
transmissions in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban had started several months
before that.) My parents didn’t get a TV
while we lived in Port Elizabeth, not because they couldn’t afford it but because
they thought it was a waste of time.
Later my father became quite fond of some programs, particularly The
Golden Girls. While on the subject of
early South African TV … for the 1976 Olympics all that was broadcast was a
30-minute highlights package each evening.
I remember nothing of what was shown, partly because it was hard to see
anything through the throng of students crowded around the one set in our
college dorm. (After 1960 South Africa
was barred from taking part in the Olympics until 1992.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Somewhat surprisingly in hindsight, although I was unhappy
about being dumped, I didn’t feel any resentment or jealousy towards Sandy’s
new or subsequent boyfriends. They were
nice guys and better than me – certainly more dynamic. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Mick and Marilyn later started dating and I think that
continued for at least two years. I don’t
know what caused them to break up, though going to colleges in different cities
may have played a role.<o:p></o:p></div>
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After my parents sold their house in Port Elizabeth and
moved to Pretoria I lost contact with Sandy and Marilyn for three decades! Then in 2010, using the no-longer so
new-fangled Internet that you may have read about, and remembering Marilyn’s
married name, I found her email address on the web site for the Nelson Mandela
University (previously called the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, and
prior to that the University of Port Elizabeth), where she was lecturing in
Physical Science education. (I think she
has since become the victim of a peculiar South African disease called “compulsory
retirement”. I understand the thinking
behind that, creating more opportunities for younger people to advance, but it
seems counter-productive for a country that has a shortage of highly qualified
people in STEM – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – fields.) Marilyn replied to my email and also gave me
Sandy’s email address. Sandy is an
elementary school teacher in Cape Town. In
my first message to her I apologized for having been such a pest when we were
young. It was great to catch up on
news. I later became Facebook friends
with both of them and with Sandy’s husband, Julian. When we were in South Africa in March 2019 we
had a chance to meet up with Sandy and Julian.
Unfortunately we didn’t get to see Marilyn and her husband, Keith, when
we were in Port Elizabeth. Maybe if I go
to my high school class’s 50-year reunion in a couple of years … <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXwe7CAcFoqilAFfRhSA4dJp1tH-qITqrPyhkmCrU7W5449a3ZRWV_q8QISIBTzRpoB5gjkBQSvad4_t_e7lpHxYGcjpxjgv0yEoLAQeEP2LsyMDDCmOwTirhVQysh4bCxfnvoLTeLgF4/s1600/Hares+and+Coupers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXwe7CAcFoqilAFfRhSA4dJp1tH-qITqrPyhkmCrU7W5449a3ZRWV_q8QISIBTzRpoB5gjkBQSvad4_t_e7lpHxYGcjpxjgv0yEoLAQeEP2LsyMDDCmOwTirhVQysh4bCxfnvoLTeLgF4/s640/Hares+and+Coupers.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Cape Town, March 2019, my “little” brother Ian, some old
guy, Riëtta, Sandy
and Julian.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
<br />Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-82237536600923188202020-01-19T21:08:00.002-05:002023-07-31T17:46:02.954-04:00Our old neighborhood, part 1<br />
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n an earlier episode I mentioned that my parents bought
their first house in Fern Glen, Port Elizabeth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We moved in when I was about 3 years old, in 1957.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that stage there weren’t any houses south
of the red line in the image below, just open veld.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The highway, William Moffet Expressway, at
the right hand end of the red line, hadn’t been constructed and there was no
road of any description through the Baakens River valley at that point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Most of the roads in Fern Glen, including the one past our
house, were still unpaved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A grader used
to come by occasionally to smooth out the gravel surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t until several years later that the
roads were paved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In contrast, for the
development below the red line paved roads were put in and stood idle for a few
years before any houses were built. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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The fancy-pants label “Fernglen Forest” is recent – it
definitely wasn’t called that when we lived there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(And none of those businesses that Google
shows were there even by the time my parents sold the house in 1979.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkWOFNKJOdK_sK2GxXrj7bkoLuUuPHdbmBdpu3ne2TM_iB7JdwAcRB2b7lMBQwhW4Sq1NT4jEHIy_vNtnfZ3fHjFN-O2ZhQ047S_bfrEekzPkvDg0tE3AiIsypWbM2tObpmkxNDtzvt64/s1600/Fern+Glen+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1013" data-original-width="1233" height="525" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkWOFNKJOdK_sK2GxXrj7bkoLuUuPHdbmBdpu3ne2TM_iB7JdwAcRB2b7lMBQwhW4Sq1NT4jEHIy_vNtnfZ3fHjFN-O2ZhQ047S_bfrEekzPkvDg0tE3AiIsypWbM2tObpmkxNDtzvt64/s640/Fern+Glen+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Google Maps image of Fern Glen. The superimposed red 1 indicates our old
house.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At about the point marked with a red 2 was the open end of a
large concrete storm-water pipe. My
friends and I sometimes crawled a short distance into that, or looked for small
fish and crabs in the water. We didn’t
go very far into the pipe. I have since
heard from some of my contemporaries that they explored extensively inside such
pipes in other parts of the city.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not only were there no houses (or roads) south of the red
line, but the vegetation in the veld was mostly scrub, whereas now it is more
substantial. The first of the photos
below was taken when we visited the area in March 2019. It shows the view looking west from from the
point marked with a red star on the Google Maps image. The photo shows much more substantial
vegetation than existed back in the day.
The second image is from Google Street View, at the same point and in
the same direction. That’s somewhat more
like the veld used to look. The third
photo was also taken in March 2019, aiming south from the same point. The name “Upper Guineafowl Trail” is
recent. Not only was it not called that
back then, I don’t even remember seeing guineafowl there, though I often walked
my dog or ran through that area. Part of
the reason there was less vegetation in the ’60s and ’70s may be that back then
there were occasional veld-fires that burned back most of the scrub. The fires sometimes came worryingly close to
the houses. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvfj4jXh9jcJNKkDAQGfJ7jvxCx8NuHmsbzMnLGkGRDmvvdOn7TQfoH15lgNpIh08qutPYE6g2foUs-7IKJPlobGyad2UXkmMHEBIgdJLo9XlITW8vtMPz5MzUz_R59_c11mH3Vha3d-U/s1600/Fern+Glen+veld+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvfj4jXh9jcJNKkDAQGfJ7jvxCx8NuHmsbzMnLGkGRDmvvdOn7TQfoH15lgNpIh08qutPYE6g2foUs-7IKJPlobGyad2UXkmMHEBIgdJLo9XlITW8vtMPz5MzUz_R59_c11mH3Vha3d-U/s640/Fern+Glen+veld+1.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Photo taken in March 2019<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwsOeFJzl0OV1kvaWplrrtcfeECJGOBJTNAoPBKVR2CZTpH1bUdGC4fM58bXyfHkSHJz7dhvyujOZan7oRWn_0GzkaG6uWu0znZ9EEyt5Wr6xstB77PtDrRnd5zTR6jgmYFuC9IGg6-2Y/s1600/Fern+Glen+veld+Google.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="715" data-original-width="1163" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwsOeFJzl0OV1kvaWplrrtcfeECJGOBJTNAoPBKVR2CZTpH1bUdGC4fM58bXyfHkSHJz7dhvyujOZan7oRWn_0GzkaG6uWu0znZ9EEyt5Wr6xstB77PtDrRnd5zTR6jgmYFuC9IGg6-2Y/s640/Fern+Glen+veld+Google.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<o:p></o:p>Image in the same direction from Google Street View</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8twCB9K-_CDYEXjhrCdsM1OhcbZhneQNVahTVb4dIHvN8fjLYl7HfnRDpzoRMzh8nM6x14GZsl5LKwqKRG5LqMKjzyfxrWd0Xb5UUEuK0ybtNMU9ncjMGFR6hm4Cfup6hsTXwkFQZ_b4/s1600/Fern+Glen+veld+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8twCB9K-_CDYEXjhrCdsM1OhcbZhneQNVahTVb4dIHvN8fjLYl7HfnRDpzoRMzh8nM6x14GZsl5LKwqKRG5LqMKjzyfxrWd0Xb5UUEuK0ybtNMU9ncjMGFR6hm4Cfup6hsTXwkFQZ_b4/s640/Fern+Glen+veld+2.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Photo taken in March 2019<o:p></o:p></div>
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A few trails are visible in the Google Maps image. There used to be many more, crisscrossing the
veld, made by people walking to and from the ‘coloured’ township of Fairview,
which was on the other side of the Baakens River valley, south of the part
shown in the Google Maps image. I knew that
most of these people were forced to move out of Fairview at some point but I
didn’t know when until I searched the Internet for information. I found the following Master of Arts
dissertation “More than an Apartheid loss: Recovering and Remembering Fairview,
a ‘lost’ Group Areas history” by Inge Salo, from my alma mater (the University
of Cape Town). The quotes below are from
the dissertation:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/13746/thesis_hum_2014_salo_i.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/13746/thesis_hum_2014_salo_i.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y</a>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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Fairview was declared a “white” area in terms of the Group
Areas Act in 1968. Removals of the
people who had been living there took place between 1969 and 1973. (There were other parts of Port Elizabeth and
Cape Town where local residents were moved to make way for “whites”, District
Six in Cape Town being the most famous. In
many instances these communities had been living harmoniously adjacent to “white”
areas. The forced removals obviously
caused much resentment, fracturing the communities and moving people much
further from employment and other opportunities.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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“For all former residents who had to
leave Fairview described the removals as a traumatic experience. If not
personally, because they were too young to grasp what was happening, then
certainly for their parents.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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A quote from a former resident:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“It was hard, it was hard, as I said my
husband didn't want to move, he didn't want to move…You know....the day when we
moved people from ‘Joburg’ [Johannesburg], English people, ‘<i>nie Boere nie</i>’ [not Afrikaners] … they
bought the house, while we were in the house they bought the house, and they
were waiting for us, sitting in the car outside wait[ing] for us to get out”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Although the ruling National Party government had
overwhelming support from (white) Afrikaners, there were also plenty of
English-speaking whites who supported Apartheid. Essentially all white South Africans of that
era benefitted to at least some extend from Apartheid, even those who opposed
the system.<o:p></o:p></div>
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From the dates given above, the removals must have been
taking place while I was in high school.
I probably didn’t read newspapers back then and wasn’t really aware of
the removals. After I went off to
university in Cape Town and later to compulsory military service, I do remember
on trips back home during breaks seeing that buildings in Fairview had been
razed and that no new development occurred while my parents were still in Port
Elizabeth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“After the majority of its residents
were forcibly removed, Fairview stood scarred and under-populated for almost a
decade before development finally began (Evening Post, 14 March 1989). This is
depicted best in the 1980 aerial photograph of Fairview (Figure 6) in which
there are visibly a lot less buildings and houses and more trees that fill the
empty spaces.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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In contrast, District Six remained mostly undeveloped from
the time the old buildings were razed until the end of the Apartheid era.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Back to more pleasant memories … <o:p></o:p></div>
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Below is a closer view of the area around our house. (In a later episode there are even closer
views. I have kept the numbering the
same across the image below and those in the later episode. For instance, the red 1 always indicates our
house.) In 1957 when we moved in, it
wasn’t just the area below the red line in the image near the top of this
episode, some of the houses marked below hadn’t been built yet. What were then still initially vacant lots
include where there are now houses indicated with a 2 and a 6. Most of the other houses were already there,
including 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. Even many
of the ones that were there have been modified substantially in the past 40+
years. There were no swimming pools in
the area in 1960 either.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The house marked 6 was a vacant lot for many years. A few days ago I remembered something about
it that I hadn’t thought of for more than 50 years. While the lot was still vacant some of the
older kids in the neighborhood cleared much of the vegetation and made a
cricket pitch in the middle of the lot.
I have no recollection of the names of the other kids who played cricket
on that makeshift field.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The house marked 2 was built just a few years after we moved
in. One day while the lot was still
vacant, one of my mother’s friends, Betty van Tonder came for a brief
visit. Betty had two daughters, Annette
and Frances. The visit was intended to
be so brief that Betty left her daughters in the car, which was parked out in
the street (with the engine off). We
were standing the front yard when one of the girls managed to release the
handbrake and the car started rolling down the rather steep hill. (Either the car had been left in neutral or
one of the girls had managed to get it into neutral. As is still the case today, most South
African cars have a manual gearbox – what Americans refer to as a stick shift –
rather than an automatic one.)
Fortunately they managed to steer into the vacant lot rather than going
straight down the hill. Betty ran to try
to stop the car and fell (or was hit) breaking a leg. The bushes in the lot eventually stopped the
car.<o:p></o:p></div>
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All I remember about when the house marked 2 was being built
was that one of the workers was rather overweight and we kids rather nastily
referred to him as “Fatty Boom Boom”. More
on the people who moved into house 2 in the next episode.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The people who were in the house marked 3 were the
Drennans. They moved out after a few
years. About all I remember is that they
had a son, Evan, who was several years older than me. I managed to find Evan on yesterday Facebook. He remembered our family and noted that my
father was master of ceremonies at his wedding in 1973! Evan said they moved away in 1964 when his
father was appointed to a position at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, about
80 miles from Port Elizabeth.
(Grahamstown is now called Makhanda but, somewhat surprisingly, Rhodes
University hasn’t changed its name, at least not ). In searching for information I came across
this article mentioning Evan and others being savaged by a dog:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/comments/959mfr/dog_killed_and_4_adults_attacked_3_severely/">https://www.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/comments/959mfr/dog_killed_and_4_adults_attacked_3_severely/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Heines lived in the house marked 4 for several
years. They had 4 sons, the second of
whom, Bryan, was at school with me from pre-school through 12<sup>th</sup> grade. He is the only high school classmate whose
wedding I attended. The Heines moved
about a mile away, probably when we were still in elementary school. The father was an owner of Heine and Strydom,
a company that operated breakdown trucks (tow trucks) and currently sells car
parts, though I don’t know if it did the latter back then. The father died tragically in a boating
accident at some time in the ’70s.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At one stage we had a marmalade cat called Marmalade. The cat later disappeared. According to my mother a woman living in the
house marked 5 enticed the cat to move there.
More on a subsequent resident of that house in the next episode.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Doubells lived in the house marked 7. My father had what seemed to be a running
battle with Mr. Doubell. Not a physical
battle, I should note. The Doubells
sometimes hosted noisy parties, which disturbed my father’s sleep. I suspect that on some occasions he called
the police to complain about the noise.
Mr. Doubell had a racing car – like a Formula 1 car (what Americans
refer to as an open-wheel car) that he sometimes drove up and down our
street. It was probably not licensed for
use on public roads and my father complained about that too (maybe even to the
police). Evan Drennan reminded me that
the Du Preez family, who lived next to the Doubells, had a baboon that
sometimes used to escape. In recent
years I have seen some of my Facebook friends from Port Elizabeth mention
attending wild parties at the Doubells’ house!<o:p></o:p></div>
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The first residents I recall the house marked 8 had two
sons. I don’t recall the name of the
family or of the sons. One son was about
my age and we used to play together. The
other son was younger and had Down syndrome.
That son died while the family was still living next to us. More on subsequent residents of that house in
the next episode.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In our early years in the neighborhood there were two older
boys living in the house marked 9. I
sometimes climbed over the fence between our houses to play with them (the
fences of 4 of the houses met at that point).
There used to be a shed at the bottom of their yard. A boogie man (bogeyman) lived in the
shed. At least that’s what the kids who
lived there told me. Who was I to doubt
them, especially as I even saw the boogie man on a few occasions! It probably wasn’t until after that family
had moved that I realized what was supposedly the boogie man was one of the
older kids wearing a deep sea diving suit similar to the one in the photo
below. When one is very young it is
quite scary when a creature like that comes lumbering towards one. More on the subsequent residents of that
house in the next episode.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A diving suit, similar to the one that the people in the
house marked 9 had in their shed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-27066304766388662652020-01-10T21:06:00.001-05:002020-01-10T21:10:43.327-05:00Parents, part 5, through to my father's death<br />
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At the end of the previous episode we had moved to Seattle
and my Dad was searching for a new wife.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My father had long been interested in the history of his
profession and over the years collected related information and artefacts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He eventually enrolled for a Ph.D. in Medical
History through MEDUNSA and in 1991 was awarded that degree for his thesis “The
Introduction of Ether Anaesthesia into South Africa”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was very proud of this achievement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sent me (and presumably also my brothers)
a signed copy of his thesis and a large hard-copy of the photo below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In contrast, he didn’t seem particularly interested
in my Ph.D. and didn’t ever ask to see a copy of my dissertation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I presume he showed a similar lack of
interest in Mick’s Ph.D.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(That’s not to
say he wasn’t proud of our achievements, probably just not interested in
details.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t have sent him a
photo of me receiving my Ph.D. or photos from any of my other graduations,
because I didn’t ever attend one (partly because I was never in the same city
at the time of the ceremony).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Image: My father being awarded his Ph.D. In case it is not obvious, he is the one on
the right.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t recall from my father’s letters to us when he met
Margie Sandilands, a divorced mother of two girls. (Sometimes she writes her name as Margi,
other times as Margie.) The divorced part
is relevant because, although Anglican rather than Catholic, my father and
Margie attended a rather conservative Anglican church and they apparently had
to get the church to annul Margie’s first marriage before she and my father
could wed. They were married in 1992 and
on their honeymoon visited us in Seattle.
Unlike the other women my father had dated, we felt that Margie was very
suitable and we had no qualms about welcoming her into the family. If I remember correctly, at the time one of
her daughters was finishing high school and the other was in college. So in my late thirties I acquired a
step-mother and two step-sisters. I
still find it hard to think of them as step-sisters though because we have
never lived under the same roof. (I am
Facebook friends with my step-sisters and with my sisters-in-law, though not
with my brothers as they are not on Facebook.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Image: Dad and
Margie’s wedding, with my brother Ian on the left and Margie’s daughters, Janet
and Lyndall, on the right.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Riëtta was pregnant with Lisa when Dad and Margie married
and they were hoping to see the new grandchild when they visited us in
Seattle. But Lisa inherited a stubborn
streak from both sides of the family (on my side it bypassed me <span style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>)
and she waited until after they had left before making her appearance. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Shortly after Dad and Margie arrived back in South Africa my
father suffered a stroke. He was
scrubbing up to go into the operating theater when it happened. He apparently hadn’t been aware that his
blood pressure was very high. He
survived the stroke, but his speech and ability to read were somewhat
compromised. He eventually recovered
sufficiently to be able to return to work, though from being in quite robust
good health that was the beginning of a downward spiral. It was a cruel blow for Margie, after a few
short weeks of marriage she had to take on what became more and more of a
caregiver role.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We moved back to Pretoria in June 1993 and for a little over
6 months rented a house a couple of blocks away from Dad and Margie. That provided an opportunity for my father to
be reacquainted with Steven and to get to know his only grand-daughter.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Image: Christmas
dinner at my father’s house, 1993. In the
foreground is our daughter Lisa, who was then about 20 months old. Others round the table, clockwise from the
left, are Margie’s daughter Lyndall, my Dad, Margie, my brother Ian, Ian’s wife
Jacqui, their son Tim (whose wedding we attended in March 2019), and our son
Steven. I don’t recall what Steven was
looking at. If this had bene a recent
photo, I would have suspected a smartphone, but 1993 was well before
smartphones and most other small hand-held electronics.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In February 1994 we left South Africa again, this time for Hobart,
Australia. Despite his declining health,
my father was still interested in travelling internationally. In 1995 he and Margie (and my brother Ian)
visited us in Hobart. Dad was clearly
struggling mentally and physically but was still trying to make plans for
further trips. If I remember correctly,
he was wanting to visit Russia again. He
had last been there when it was still part of the USSR.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Image: Dad and Margie
in March 1996<o:p></o:p></div>
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Image: Dad and my
brother Mick, visiting from the US, on the same trip in March 1996 <o:p></o:p></div>
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My father had long had a keen interest in photography. He mostly took slides, rather than making
prints. One of my brothers has all the
slides and the other has the cine film he took on some occasions. Both those formats make it difficult to sort
through and share images and movies, so they haven’t had a chance to pass on
much to me yet. I have older prints from
an earlier time, including many of relatives I don’t recognize. The slides my father took – and he took
thousands – included many of family gatherings and of his travels, both within
South Africa and internationally. But
even by the time he and Margie visited us in Hobart he was struggling to
operate his fancy camera. I’m not sure
how aware he was of his difficulties.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Although he hadn’t been in a hurry to retire, and probably
would have continued working for several more years had he been able to, he had
plans for doing a lot of reading, writing and photography once he eventually
retired. Unfortunately the series of
strokes affected his reading and writing so badly that he was unable to do any
of what he had planned. (Moral of the
story – don’t put off things you’d like to do for some vague time in the
future. That time might not happen for
you and even if it does you may not be capable of doing what you had planned.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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We were still living in Hobart when my father passed away in
January 1997. When he was on his
deathbed I was asked whether he should be kept alive on machines so I could see
him one last time before he passed away.
I didn’t see any point in that, particularly because he wouldn’t even
have known I was there. I did fly back
for the funeral though. I was somewhat
surprised when I saw his death certificate in that it had the underlying cause
of death as infection – from the leg wound he had suffered more than 45 years
previously (mentioned in part 1 of the sequence of posts about my parents). <o:p></o:p></div>
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After the funeral there was a reception at my father’s old
house. It was great to see family and
some of my parents’ friends who I hadn’t seen in many years. Some photos from the reception:<o:p></o:p></div>
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From the left: My
brother Ian’s good friend Rowan Duval, my mother’s cousin Jenni Law, my brother
Mick, our cousin Paul and his wife Bronwen, my parents’ friends Margaret and
Errol Parry, who lived next door to us in Port Elizabeth for several years
before they moved to Johannesburg about 10 years before my parents left Port
Elizabeth. Errol celebrated his 90<sup>th</sup>
birthday a few months ago. </div>
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Family photo: My
Dad’s sister Ruth, my brother Ian with his son Tim, Yours Truly, my other
brother Mick with Ian’s son Mike, my Dad’s brother Derrick.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My Dad’s brother Derrick, Hank Doeg, a long-time friend of
my parents who moved to Pretoria several years before my parents. For the first 6 months after my father moved
to Pretoria he boarded with Hank and Jerice Doeg. Hank passed away last August, aged 85. Jerice survives him after 61 years of
marriage! I don’t recognize the guy on
the right in the photo, though the belt and tie are both in my possession. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The Three Stooges.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In one version of the photo above this one, we were holding
a photo take when we were young. When we
were in South Africa last March someone hauled out a copy of that photo and
made us pose again, holding that photo containing the earlier photo.<o:p></o:p></div>
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While I was in Pretoria, Margie and my brothers and I went
through the house marking the artworks and other objects we each wanted when
Margie eventually wanted to move to a smaller place. We managed to divide things up without any
wrangling. Several years later Margie
shipped to the US everything that I had marked as wanting, including the
painting below (because I had been the one who remembered when my father won it
in a raffle – see an earlier episode).</div>
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<o:p></o:p>We are very grateful that Margie came into my father’s life
(and into ours). We saw her most
recently in March 2019 when we were in South Africa for the wedding of Ian’s
son Tim. Margie, her daughter Janet, and
Janet’s son Matthew, represented their side of the family at the wedding.</div>
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Image: Mick’s wife, Mary Beth, Margie, Matthew, Janet.</div>
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Neither of my parents had a visitation/wake/viewing or an
open casket funeral as these are not parts of our tradition. Also, both were cremated. I have no idea what happened to their ashes
and don’t care. I don’t need a
gravestone, ashes or other physical reminder.
It is enough to know that they provided a good home environment and
opportunities for their kids that many others have not been fortunate enough to
receive. What does, however, make me
very sad is that they didn’t live long enough to see how well their
grandchildren (not just our kids but those of Ian and Jacqui too) have turned
out.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That's the end of the series about my parents. Now perhaps I’ll write more about myself
again. Nah, I think I’ll first write
something about our old neighborhood in Port Elizabeth and some of my parents’
friends.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-13098120679383696682020-01-04T13:29:00.002-05:002020-01-04T16:46:24.363-05:00Parents, part 4, through to my mother's death<br />
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The previous episode ended with the parents having a few
drinks with some “very relaxed” guests.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Religion:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father
had been brought up as a Presbyterian (Church of Scotland) and my mother as
Anglican (Church of England or, in South Africa, Church of the Province of South
Afrca).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we were young my parents
went to church once a year – they took us to the family service on Christmas
Day at St. Columba’s Presbyterian Church (now Greenacres Presbyterian
Church).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the Christmas service the
church had an angel that at one point in the service flew up (or down) on a
rope/pulley system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few years later we
started attending Sunday School at St. Hugh’s Anglican Church, which was about
a mile from our house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our parents used
to drop us off just before 9 AM and then picked us up again at around 10
AM.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later I began cycling there and
back, even when my brothers were still driven each way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Image: St. Hugh's Church<br />
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At some point I started “singing” in the church choir and
continued doing that through high school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Towards the end of that period I was losing my religion<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paradoxically, as I was losing mine my father
was finding, or maybe re-discovering, his. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He started attending St. Hugh’s Church
regularly and became very involved in church business, including being on
various committees in the diocese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
later years he used to “credit” me for his “conversion” though I had never made
any attempt to get him to go to church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He remained involved in religious activities for the rest of his
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mother used to go to church
with my father, though I didn’t ever get the sense she was a true
believer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through his involvement in
church affairs, my father became friendly with Phillip Russell, who was bishop
of the Anglican Diocese of Port Elizabeth from 1970 to 1974 (later Archbishop
of Cape Town from 1981-1986, where his successor was Desmond Tutu).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One winter Bishop Russell came to dinner at
my parents’ house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had come from a
meeting near the top of Ford House, which was one of the taller buildings in
the city and may have been where his office was located.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said he had seen snow falling past the
window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it had been anyone other than
a bishop telling the story no-one would have believed it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Snow is unheard of in Port Elizabeth, and
this snow must have melted before it reached ground level.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZp8k4kxfHo">R.E.M. -- Losing My Religion</a><br />
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Another visitor at around that time was a “Coloured”
minister and his two young sons, who were just a little older than toddler age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think one boy was Ben, but I don’t recall
the name of the father or the other son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They had come from a walk along the sidewalk near the beachfront.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The boys had wanted to go and play on the
sand where they saw other kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As that
was still deep in the Apartheid era, the father had to explain to them that
that was not allowed because of their race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How does one explain something like that to young kids?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(How does one explain something like that to
anyone!)<o:p></o:p></div>
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My parents seemed to like being in charge of things and to
organize events (traits that I very definitely did not inherit).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that as undergrads both chaired the
“House Committees” of their respective residence halls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1976 my father headed the organizing
committee for the annual conference of the South African Society of
Anaesthetists (SASA) in Port Elizabeth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a rather Trumpian manner he used to claim that people said it was the
most successful SASA conference ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
was also in charge of two subsequent SASA conferences, in Sun City (about 100
miles from Johannesburg) in 1983 and at MEDUNSA in 1988 (more on MEDUNSA
below).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I mentioned in a previous post,
he represented South Africa on the World Federation of Societies of
Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) and attended WFSA assemblies between 1976 and
1988.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until reading his obituary I
hadn’t been aware that he served on the WFSA Membership Committee and later the
Education and Scientific Committee, was President of SASA in 1978 and 1987 and
chaired the Association of University Anaesthetists from 1987 to 1989.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was also active in committees in his
church and in the local Anglican diocese more broadly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My mother served on the committee of the Medical Wives
Association in Port Elizabeth (back when almost all doctors in South Africa
were male), including being President in 1977.
Towards the end of their time in Port Elizabeth my mother was Principal
and chaired the Board of Directors of the small private school where she had
taught for many years. As I mentioned in
the previous episode, my mother and some of the other teachers had bought out
ownership of the school from its founder.</div>
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In 1979 my father was appointed as professor and Head of the
Department of Anaesthesiology at the Medical University of South Africa
(MEDUNSA), now the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, outside
Pretoria. This was still deep in the
Apartheid era and MEDUNSA was exclusively for black students. Several years later, as racial restrictions
were easing, two young white men who had not managed to get accepted into any “white”
medical schools sued to be admitted to MEDUNSA, partly on the grounds that their
academic records were good enough for acceptance into MEDUNSA. They eventually lost their case, probably at
least in part because of pressure from black students who hadn’t had the same
academic opportunities.<br />
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Taking up the position at MEDUNSA meant that my parents had
to move from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria.
My father started his new job in the middle of 1979 and for the rest of
that year boarded with friends who had moved from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria
several years previously. My mother
stayed in Port Elizabeth until late in the year so that my brother Ian could
finish high school without having to move to a new school for one
semester. Pretoria is a predominantly
Afrikaner city and my parents wanted to live in a part of the city with a
larger English-speaking community, so they ended up buying a house on the far
side of the city from MEDUNSA, even though that meant about a 25-mile / 40km commute
each way for my father.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One of the accomplishments at MEDUNSA about which my father
seemed to take much pride was his mentoring of Dr. “Bommie” Bomela. (My father always called him “Bommie” so I
don’t know what his actual name is. The
Internet has not been helpful in this regard.)
I believe that Dr. Bomela became the first black professor of
Anaesthetics in South Africa. I think he
later went on to senior academic management positions, though from what little
information I can find on the web it seems he is now in private practice as an
anaesthetist in Port Elizabeth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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An aside about me rather than my parents: After I finished my two years of conscription
in the Navy, I was appointed as a lecturer in what was then the Department of
Statistics and Operations Research at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in
Pretoria. I moved back in with my
parents, in their new home, staying with them for more than two years, until
some time after Riëtta and I were married.
So I was ahead of my time, foreshadowing the boomerang kids of
today. Part of the reason that we stayed
there those extra few months is that Riëtta and I were about to move to Cape
Town and so it didn’t make sense for us to rent a place for a very short period
while she completed the semester at the school where she was teaching. Riëtta actually lived with my parents for a
few months after I moved, even though her parents also lived in Pretoria
(though on the opposite side of the city and much further from her school). <o:p></o:p></div>
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Several years before moving to Pretoria my mother had begun
studying further, while continuing to teach high school. She first took French classes through the Alliance
Française and then more French plus several linguistics classes through
UNISA. (UNISA is, or at least was at
that stage, the largest distance learning tertiary institution in the
world.) She continued with linguistics
classes after moving to Pretoria and within about a year she was appointed as a
Junior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Early in 1980 my brother Ian began his undergraduate studies
at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. The rest of the family – both parents, my
other brother, Mick, and I had all attended the University of Cape Town. Ian started out studying languages, for which
he seems to have a flair, or maybe it is just that he is less self-conscious
than I am. I have no talent for
languages. I struggle enough to speak or
write coherently in English. Ian
completed a BA in languages although he had switched to studying medicine part
way through.<o:p></o:p></div>
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After Riëtta and I had lived in Cape Town for a few years,
we moved back to Pretoria at the end of 1985 when I returned to UNISA, in the
Department of Statistics, the Operations Research part having split off in the
interim. Subsequent events made us
particularly grateful that we had moved back then. In 1986 my mother began having strange pains
in her back and elsewhere. The symptoms
were unusual for what later turned out to be advanced colon cancer. At some point it was decided to cut my mother
open to try to find the reason for her symptoms. That’s when they found the extent of the
colon cancer and immediately performed a colostomy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Despite being a doctor, my father didn’t want to face
reality. He seemed to cling to some hope
that my mother would recover. He didn’t
ever talk to my brothers or me about her real prognosis. I think he believed (or at least had
persuaded my mother) that if/when she recovered the colostomy could be
reversed. My mother had chemotherapy and
my father also persuaded her to take some other substances that I believe were
not yet approved for human use but were recommended by one of my father’s
colleagues. My mother was a model
patient and put up with all of this with minimal complaining. She had also been a model patient when she
had had a stomach ulcer about a decade earlier, sticking to the bland diet that
was then thought to be necessary to allow the ulcer to heal. (This was before it was found that many such
ulcers are caused by an infection with H. pylori bacteria and can be treated
effectively with antibiotics.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ian, partly because a medical student and partly because he
is more out-going, called one of the doctors to try to get some information
about our mother’s prognosis. The doctor
said she probably had a year to live (from the time of her surgery). That estimate turned out to be almost spot
on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Mom just missed seeing her first grandchild. She went downhill very quickly towards the
end. We hadn’t realized quite how bad
things were until she was admitted to the Little Company of Mary Hospice. The last time we saw her was three weeks
before Steven was born. Earlier that day
Riëtta had been held up at gunpoint while walking home from a nearby
supermarket. Riëtta refused to hand over
her purse, because it was one that my mother had given her and, given my mother’s
condition, had particularly sentimental value.
Fortunately the gunman gave up on this crazy very pregnant woman. Riëtta was still in shock when we went to see
my mother. Mom was barely conscious, but
the moment she saw Riëtta she asked her what was wrong. My father claimed later that my mother had
not been conscious enough to be aware of anything, but Riëtta knows that right
up to the end Mom was thinking of other people, not just her own dire
situation. Mom died two days later.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That was the third death in the family in little over a
year. First, my paternal grandfather had
passed away in June 1986 at the age of 99.
Then, in November of that year, it was the turn of my maternal
grandmother (Mom’s mother), who was born in 1906 and so was 79 or 80.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Towards the end, realizing she didn’t have much longer, my
mother wrote letters to my father, my brothers and me, to be opened after her
death. My father may have known about the
letters but my brothers and I weren’t aware of them until after she had
died. The most heart-breaking part of my
letter was: “You’re not an outwardly emotional person but there has been many a
day when I have wanted to ask you just to put your arms around me & hold me
tight when I have felt really lost and alone.
Maybe I’ll still pluck up the courage to do it.” (Our family had never been big huggers, or
even little huggers.) It was painful to
read that, particularly because I would have loved to have hugged her if I’d
known that was what she wanted. Even
re-reading it now, this not outwardly emotional person has tears rolling down
his cheeks. More positive was her
writing “Don’t have any regrets about my life.
I’ve seen & done much more than most women my age have”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The letter to me also had one for Riëtta. That one included: “I have come to love you as a real
daughter. I feel closer to you as a
mother than as a mother-in-law.” Writing
about the future grandchild (we didn’t try to find out ahead of time whether it
would be a boy or a girl): “You have no
idea how much I long to hold it just once in my arms. Then I’ll die happy.” Unfortunately that was not to be.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Image: My mother's obituary</div>
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My father was devastated by my mother’s death. But after a period of mourning he was
desperate to marry again. He started
dating a series of entirely unsuitable women.
This is not a criticism of the women, just that they were not
appropriate for my father, generally being much younger than he was and some had
very young children. I think he even
proposed to a few of them, though they must have realized they weren’t a good
match for my father and turned him down.
In my mother’s letter to me she had written “If he wishes to marry again
vet his choice.” Although I had my
concerns, I didn’t actually say anything to my father and, as explained below,
I didn’t have an opportunity to vet the one he ended up marrying. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My mother also wrote “please go ahead with your Ph.D. &
try to get overseas. Don’t let yourself
be stifled in S.A.” Taking heed of that
advice I applied to PhD programs in the US, and was accepted into the one in
biostatistics at the University of Washington.
They had had a smaller entering class than usual for the 1989-1990
academic year and because I already had a masters degree in statistics, invited
me to start in the middle of the academic year.
So we left Pretoria for Seattle in March 1990.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-5758798232690664792019-08-03T21:12:00.000-04:002019-08-03T21:13:39.893-04:00Parents, part 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the previous entry we left off with our family just
having moved to Fern Glen, Port Elizabeth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The move to Port Elizabeth was because my father took a new
job, at Livingstone Hospital which, during the Apartheid era, was reserved for
non-white patients (not just blacks, but anyone not classified as white).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, many of the doctors plus some of the
nursing staff and administrators were white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There were relatively few black doctors, but larger numbers of Indians,
some of whom had trained in India and others in South Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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My father sometimes hosted parties at our house for his
colleagues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of Apartheid they
couldn’t have parties in restaurants or other public places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to the laws at the time, a white
person was not allowed to give a black person alcohol.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So any black guests were supposed to bring their
own alcohol, though my father always ignored this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The law was specific to blacks, rather than
all non-whites, so it was legal to give alcohol to Indians and other
races.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This law did at least have a
somewhat reasonable background, supposedly to stop black workers being paid in
alcohol rather than proper wages.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
father sometimes joked that the secret service used to spy on his parties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Through my father’s work, my parents made many good friends
of other races.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also meant that from
a relatively early age I was exposed to educated people of other races whereas
most of my contemporaries would have met almost exclusively poorly educated working-class
blacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of the friends they made through
my father’s work, probably the closest were Nagin and Ramola Parbhoo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Parbhoos later moved to Cape Town (and my
parents to Pretoria).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I managed to make
contact with Ramola through Facebook a few years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She and Nagin had divorced many years
previously and he passed away about a decade ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ramola wrote in a message to me: “I remember
you Mom and Dad with such fondness. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your
mother was one lady who took it on her to empower me as a young medical wife
and nominated me as President of the Medical Wives Association in Port
Elizabeth. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We even travelled to Mexico
and South America whilst I was expecting my second baby. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never forget the fun parties we had at you
home when you were still quite young.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ramola has written a few books on Indian cooking in South
Africa, such as the one in the image.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t know whether my father became an anesthetist (what
Americans refer to as an anesthesiologist) when he started at Livingstone
Hospital or moved into that field some time later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do recall that in order to become a
specialist anesthetist he had to spend a year training at an academic hospital
and had to pass various exams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To this
end he spent 1965 in Cape Town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rest
of the family stayed in our house in Fern Glen for the first half of 1965 and
then for the second half of the year we went to live with my maternal
grandmother in Knysna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know why
we went for just half of the year rather than either the whole year or not at
all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it was for financial
reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do know our house was rented
out while we were in Knysna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The renters
were still in the house when we returned to Port Elizabeth for the start of the
school year in January 1966, so we spent a few weeks in Humewood Mansions, a
residential hotel opposite Humewood beach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(It is now called the Humewood Hotel, with the photo below being from
its web site.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was great because it
meant I could swim in the ocean after school each day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My father and Nagin Parbhoo were both very interested in the
history of their profession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The official
South African Society of Anaesthesiology (SASA) Museum, housed in the
University of Cape Town (UCT) Department of Anaesthesia, is called the Nagin
Parbhoo History of Anaesthesia Museum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My father eventually obtained a PhD on the history of anesthesia in
South Africa (see a later entry).<o:p></o:p></div>
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While in Cape Town one of the people my father apparently
worked with was Chris Barnard, the cardiac surgeon who performed the world’s
first heart transplant a few years later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My father had a very poor opinion of surgeons in general and Chris
Barnard in particular, sometimes saying that a monkey could be taught to
perform surgery but that it is the anesthetist who keeps the patient
alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t ever try to argue the
point with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I had, I would have
mentioned that may be all very well, but putting someone to sleep, keeping them
alive during an operation and then waking them up again doesn’t actually fix
anything – the surgery is the only reason for putting the patient to sleep in
the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect there was at
least a little bit of envy tainting my father’s dislike of Chris Barnard.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My father had been a heavy smoker, of cigarettes and
pipes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember his pipe rack and him
using pipe-cleaners similar to the ones in the photo below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At some stage while my father was in Cape
Town he decided to stop smoking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said
he smoked all the cigarettes he had on hand one after the other (or maybe
multiple at once) and then stopped cold turkey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t think my mother ever smoked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If she did, she must have stopped long before my earliest memories.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Both my parents were rather heavy drinkers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father could probably have been classified
as a high-functioning alcoholic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
never drank during working hours, but over the weekends drank at lunchtime and
in the evening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe from when I was
young, but at least later in his life, he had several drinks most weeknights
too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From an early age my brothers and I
were allowed to have wine when we ate in a restaurant or, on special occasions,
at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The earliest such occurrence
that I can pinpoint to an exact date (thanks to the Internet) was September 29,
1969, soon after I had turned 15.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We were heading to Cape Town on vacation and spent the night
of September 29 in a hotel in the town of Ladismith in the Karoo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(At least I think that’s where we
stayed.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had dinner in the
hotel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some time after I had gone to
bed, it felt as if the bed was moving up and down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I assumed that I must have had too much wine
with dinner and was a bit tipsy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
breakfast the next morning my grandmother mentioned she must have had too much
wine because she’d felt as if her bed had moved up and down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(How my parents, my maternal grandmother and
three kids all fitted in one car is a mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That was way before the days of minivans or SUVs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I presume we had a station-wagon – I know we
had one at various stages, but don’t recall when.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Later that day we heard on the news that there had been a
magnitude 6.3 earthquake near Tulbagh, another town about 125 miles / 200 km
away at 10:04 PM the previous evening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So it hadn’t been the wine – the beds had actually moved up and down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Earthquakes are rare in South Africa and that
was apparently the most destructive one in South African history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/earthquake-shakes-tulbagh">Earthquake shakes Tulbagh</a> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulbagh">Tulbagh</a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Although my parents drank quite substantially, I never saw
them visibly drunk – certainly not to the point of staggering around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About the only sign that they had been
drinking was that they sometimes became quite argumentative, though never
abusive (either verbally or physically).<o:p></o:p></div>
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They also weren’t strict disciplinarians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can count the number of times I recall my
brothers and me being punished on the fingers of one hand, maybe even on my
thumbs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quiz question for you:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was the lack of punishment because we were
reasonably well-behaved or were we reasonably well-behaved because we didn’t
have a need to rebel against stern discipline?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My father sometimes used to say “pull up [or straighten] your socks; you
look like a cheap prostitute” when we were still too young to know what a
prostitute was, cheap or otherwise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(In
that regard, a year or two ago I came across a few surprising entries in the
diary my father kept when he was serving in North Africa and Italy during the
closing stages of the Second World War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For weirdness nothing beats what I mentioned in the “Parents, part 1”
episode when in the entry in which wrote that victory in Japan had just been declared
and followed that statement with “Have been very depressed today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything seems to have gone wrong since
I’ve joined up.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m still having
trouble processing those comments.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Along with not being very strict, they didn’t put pressure
on us to do well academically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
didn’t offer incentives/rewards for good grades nor were there consequences for
poorer grades, even though teachers frequently commented in my school report
cards that I could (or should) do better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe my parents realized that motivation needs to come from
within.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I adopted a similar attitude
with our kids, helping them when asked and praising but not otherwise rewarding
good performances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another quiz:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did they do well because of this benign
attitude or did I get away with being benign because we were fortunate to have
kids who were reasonably strong academically.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Below are two examples of my report cards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first is from grade 7 (what in South Africa
was called Standard 5 back then) with comment “David does not work to the peak
of his capabilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second is from
grade 9 with a warning that I should care about more subjects than just math
and science lest I become “an absent-minded Chemistry professor.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did I do better or worse than that by becoming
an absent-minded biostatistics professor? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY7WxQKBHq_2YxkzLVKCggDyD9EIwB-ILj3cNg3j38GgUwEu9ZwIz4GiuvMjTBIIxu8uOp1fKcW0XpoESWc3DcbK2obQSMoUAwHvSUZ1sQN0_zcbh71F-izzVOU10FlPjqy_Y2qRyyaKc/s1600/Report+std+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1017" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY7WxQKBHq_2YxkzLVKCggDyD9EIwB-ILj3cNg3j38GgUwEu9ZwIz4GiuvMjTBIIxu8uOp1fKcW0XpoESWc3DcbK2obQSMoUAwHvSUZ1sQN0_zcbh71F-izzVOU10FlPjqy_Y2qRyyaKc/s640/Report+std+5.jpg" width="404" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlnPjboveq2p3LXMQ379J3_cHDtCzS9KVSFRl6gApR8iqamzL5d3Ro20E0tthk7LKIyJVKDB5XKWGzjxQDvYnIafi1BD6M5F6jRR5y9dSyaw3Jn5kl2D8vObAkFeFuJiZ_wWc7DU_8Y8/s1600/Report+std+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1172" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlnPjboveq2p3LXMQ379J3_cHDtCzS9KVSFRl6gApR8iqamzL5d3Ro20E0tthk7LKIyJVKDB5XKWGzjxQDvYnIafi1BD6M5F6jRR5y9dSyaw3Jn5kl2D8vObAkFeFuJiZ_wWc7DU_8Y8/s640/Report+std+7.jpg" width="468" /></a></div>
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Although I could pinpoint the earthquake episode above to a
specific date, there are other instances I will mention in this and subsequent entries
that I can’t place to within even a couple of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following is one such.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the dates I give, it must have been at
some time between 1959 and 1965.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My father entered what I presume was a raffle and won first
prize, the choice of a painting by the artist Stewart Titcombe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Titcombe (1898-1965) was British.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1948 he was offered work at an advertising
agency in Port Elizabeth, so moved there with his family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember going to the artist’s studio with
my father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In later years my father
sometimes mentioned that the painting he chose was hidden away behind other works,
implying Titcombe didn’t want my father to find it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The undated newspaper clipping below documents
that my father won a painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(An
Internet search didn’t provide any information about the “Dorlaine Benefit
Fund”.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwIXp9BBxckpPe3_HdBqB3wMC7YGG67WDGrcMV4Nfq38w8UgBoNnq9boNklpHxGSuNko2qMYNVhxrpmWFdJTKF3VslVitTU_TOIZ3uL-IOw7cow6erjQT_l1lnWIPUSfejtmwuBsbe6Hc/s1600/Titcombe+painting+prize.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1189" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwIXp9BBxckpPe3_HdBqB3wMC7YGG67WDGrcMV4Nfq38w8UgBoNnq9boNklpHxGSuNko2qMYNVhxrpmWFdJTKF3VslVitTU_TOIZ3uL-IOw7cow6erjQT_l1lnWIPUSfejtmwuBsbe6Hc/s400/Titcombe+painting+prize.jpg" width="296" /></a></div>
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The painting now hangs in our bedroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The date next to the artist’s signature in
the bottom right corner looks like ’59, though it might be ’54.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter seems unlikely since we didn’t
move to Port Elizabeth until 1957.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
have always liked this painting, probably because I love being near the ocean
and find it very soothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The South
African coastline is a wonderful mix of very rocky sections and magnificent
sandy beaches.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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I think this was the first piece of original artwork that my
parents acquired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the years their
collection expanded substantially and included not only paintings but also
sculptures and other items.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When our
father passed away, my brothers and I and our stepmother went through the house
marking the items each of us wanted if/when our stepmother eventually sold the
house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(We managed to complete the
distribution without any blows being struck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Actually the whole process was entirely amicable.) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have a few other items from my parents’
collection, but this one is my favorite.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD8rkH47DszzrgqjSyXG3NwK48vuTd1eCJgV7G8k7qrkoG4pifgR0gbsMys7kngxy29q2e1bBhUrILfeW8uoXPgDlgbngzJn37xaiHISz0oyyTOkcJJw-hPg9QeSTNC34oCsUCkKMRvZE/s1600/Titcombe+painting.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD8rkH47DszzrgqjSyXG3NwK48vuTd1eCJgV7G8k7qrkoG4pifgR0gbsMys7kngxy29q2e1bBhUrILfeW8uoXPgDlgbngzJn37xaiHISz0oyyTOkcJJw-hPg9QeSTNC34oCsUCkKMRvZE/s640/Titcombe+painting.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Here are two more of the art works I inherited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know where this road in this one is,
but the colors are typical of parts of South Africa.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitQypu3nhpAshci824f04nXgXtiPN5OqV0au2OUTrh37Cm3YxNck66GUkLmgkwCkEYQjFMhy8G6ABTm7HjQRrGyxlZYbqA5ZaMCRKC_9HlSToQ0Pchyo9Yc0_zFrr0BwdgGTggtAmbU28/s1600/Painting+of+pass.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitQypu3nhpAshci824f04nXgXtiPN5OqV0au2OUTrh37Cm3YxNck66GUkLmgkwCkEYQjFMhy8G6ABTm7HjQRrGyxlZYbqA5ZaMCRKC_9HlSToQ0Pchyo9Yc0_zFrr0BwdgGTggtAmbU28/s640/Painting+of+pass.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<o:p> </o:p>The Campanile is one of the most recognizable landmarks in
Port Elizabeth. It was completed in 1923
and commemorates the first British settlers in South Africa, known as the 1820
Settlers. There is now a freeway just this
side of the Campanile and the interesting-looking building to the right has
disappeared. (Sorry about the reflection
in the glass. This is hanging high up on
a wall and I wasn’t going to risk life and limb to get it down just to take a
photo in better lighting.)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_vq0936Sw3Rg9m6pFVcc64LWWWcCVfucV8UPw7N9P3-e-KbWu8uuL2CTrC9kwVYXPzdpPBo27JBpv_I4gn8NsEQx3sCNKvt7JnM6V95-Og9A-iD_yoJTyBCea_zA7ZKX-JifQPWjZ4c4/s1600/Campanile.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_vq0936Sw3Rg9m6pFVcc64LWWWcCVfucV8UPw7N9P3-e-KbWu8uuL2CTrC9kwVYXPzdpPBo27JBpv_I4gn8NsEQx3sCNKvt7JnM6V95-Og9A-iD_yoJTyBCea_zA7ZKX-JifQPWjZ4c4/s640/Campanile.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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In terms of the arts, my parents also liked going to plays
and musicals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apart from local
productions, they also went to some when traveling internationally, such as
seeing the London version of Hair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
have the LP recording of Hair that they bought in London (photo of album sleeve
below). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also saw various Tim Rice /
Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, including Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and probably also Evita and Cats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter would have appealed particularly
to my mother who, as an English teacher, appreciated T.S. Elliot (“There’s a
whisper down the line at 11:39 …).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
not sure whether they saw the London version of Joseph, but I went with them to
see the South African version. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As far as
I know, they weren’t into opera or classical music though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t recall them ever going to an opera or
a symphony concert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZnLZq-tW3Llc1J7M_3mwtuUcsRskeAhLq8gbJ-oglWHLwZUCUiL3VAsX9_RS7mOAOI0AzRpJrs7MTi2WpnujyGaXTlTRMTr_EPBtKbNiiHCLAok65u1gYhxuT9IVuKet_H9-ywAkfOo/s1600/Hair+album+sleeve.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1467" data-original-width="1447" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZnLZq-tW3Llc1J7M_3mwtuUcsRskeAhLq8gbJ-oglWHLwZUCUiL3VAsX9_RS7mOAOI0AzRpJrs7MTi2WpnujyGaXTlTRMTr_EPBtKbNiiHCLAok65u1gYhxuT9IVuKet_H9-ywAkfOo/s400/Hair+album+sleeve.JPG" width="393" /></a></div>
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There were (and continue to be) performances in Port
Elizabeth of several of Shakespeare’s plays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My parents typically attended these as my mother was a Shakespeare
buff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we studied some of his plays
in high school I also went to these productions, either with my parents or with
a school group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still have copies of
some of the plays we studied in high school – see the image below (spot the odd
one out).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhedxzfnwrpUmAV-yqHydQAC74jkfXmi0CfI78FOlUcDRhAsSL1fIjv1VqyxRTgWaZA64IXkFblJK9uLaOpdE6_Pvk2R_1mUEjFXJ2W-J-SIWYgzbrXszLYIv6__6khc1Gdlj8mG6HUek4/s1600/Plays.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhedxzfnwrpUmAV-yqHydQAC74jkfXmi0CfI78FOlUcDRhAsSL1fIjv1VqyxRTgWaZA64IXkFblJK9uLaOpdE6_Pvk2R_1mUEjFXJ2W-J-SIWYgzbrXszLYIv6__6khc1Gdlj8mG6HUek4/s400/Plays.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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Some of the Shakespeare productions were staged in the Port
Elizabeth Opera House.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others were in a theatre-in-the-park
setting in what is now known as the Mannville Open Air Theatre, named after a
couple who were responsible for many of the productions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><a href="https://ivormarkman0.wixsite.com/mannville/open-air-history">Mannville Open-air History</a> </o:p></div>
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On Sunday afternoons my father often needed to see his
patients for the next day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He usually
took the whole family with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
waited in the car while he saw the patients and then we went on a Sunday drive,
often going past the Campanile to drive around the harbor and then along the
beachfront, occasionally going further out along Marine Drive to feed peanuts
(in their shells) to monkeys that lived in the bushes along that road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember a couple of billboards we often
passed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One for the Salvation Army had
images of people bouncing on (and falling off) springs with wording “You may
think alcohol puts springs under you, but it always lets you down”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other was an ad for a Toyota dealership,
but because we usually saw it from the rear it looked like “ATOYOT” rather than
“TOYOTA”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As I mentioned in an earlier episode, my mother had been a
high school teacher (English and history).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For a while when I was young she was a stay-at-home mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My brother Mick was born about three years
after me and Ian came along another four years or so later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was only decades later, maybe even after
my mother had passed away, that I learned that she had suffered a few pregnancy
losses (miscarriages and/or spontaneous abortions) between my birth and Ian’s
arrival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know when these
occurred or even how many there were, but it seems that I could have ended up
with a very different set of siblings.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Eventually my mother went back to teaching, though I don’t
recall when..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As noted in an earlier
episode, in that era and even well into the 1980s, in South Africa a married
woman couldn’t be appointed to a permanent teaching position in a public
school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So my mother taught at a small
private school, The Hill School.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Hill was a “cram” school, catering for kids who had failed one of the last two
years of high school and wanted to earn a school-leaving certificate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The school “crammed” the material of the last
two years of high school into a single year, by focusing just on academics,
with no sport or other activities offered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The original owner/principal of the school, Nigel Baughan (sp?) was
apparently a very good teacher but not as good a businessman and the school
eventually had financial problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
mother and a few other teachers then bought and took over the school, with my
mother nominally being the principal.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When my mother was young her father had the Ford dealership
in Knysna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through his position, my
grandfather apparently was on good terms with the local traffic police.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when my mother was old enough to get her
driver’s license her father took her to the local licensing office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She told us later that she was asked to drive
around the block and was then given her license.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But she really didn’t know how to drive and
didn’t try to do so for a number of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But with young children she felt a need to be able to drive at least
occasionally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So she took lessons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that my parents bought a second car, a
used Mini Cooper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hoped my mother
would keep that long enough that I could eventually take it over but after a
few years she sold it and bought a (new) first generation Ford Escort (that I
did eventually take over).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Mini Cooper looked similar to this one, but the color
was cream.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrjg-yZ0yXB1J7JbsC636B3vXkTPfDP58Nc04NOY2PJpe72wIOoNdNDkiAo-mENYi1oqeKErEXr7UpfZ3Q6m76pz84pn_aPLCGqq5AqCfh31pHPEjkH-Tq9w4AVz78mnHdSJzMIGOo2WY/s1600/Mini+Cooper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="1000" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrjg-yZ0yXB1J7JbsC636B3vXkTPfDP58Nc04NOY2PJpe72wIOoNdNDkiAo-mENYi1oqeKErEXr7UpfZ3Q6m76pz84pn_aPLCGqq5AqCfh31pHPEjkH-Tq9w4AVz78mnHdSJzMIGOo2WY/s400/Mini+Cooper.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The first generation Ford Escort was this shape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mother’s (later mine) was a 4-door version
though and was white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Photo from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10291800">https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10291800</a>)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6e9pYUQ_4fxn_7IrvzpBZzctRE9rt4mSlvxP2ObI2adU4cM95lcDM-kHTDpS3oGrhwmbbg5TC80FG54HmHg3oWbxlqMy2GQxMPfUvs-h7HLwUB_W_yxKXA2nns_YGbEjv6RVGUZYS7So/s1600/Ford+Escort.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="800" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6e9pYUQ_4fxn_7IrvzpBZzctRE9rt4mSlvxP2ObI2adU4cM95lcDM-kHTDpS3oGrhwmbbg5TC80FG54HmHg3oWbxlqMy2GQxMPfUvs-h7HLwUB_W_yxKXA2nns_YGbEjv6RVGUZYS7So/s400/Ford+Escort.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Because of my grandfather’s Ford dealership, which was taken
over by my Uncle David when his father died, all the cars that my parents
bought new were Fords.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The Mini Cooper
was the last used car they bought.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
almost felt like a traitor to the family when I bought a new Volkswagen Golf in
1980.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cars that my father had that I can
recall are Ford 17M and 20M (one of which was a station wagon), Ford Cortina
(wagon), second generation Ford Escort (my mother had one of those too) and
Ford Grenada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I seem to recall my father
having some model of Humber when I was very young but I have no memory of what
it looked like. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1969 or 1970 my parents went on a package tour of
Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was their first
international trip, but they caught the travel bug and travelled very
extensively through the rest of their lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some of these trips were when my father was the official South African
representative to a World Congress of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being an official representative of one of
the member societies enabled him (and my mother) to get to a few places South
Africans were generally not able to visit during the Apartheid era, such as the
(then) Soviet Union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other places I
recall them visiting included several South American countries, Mexico, India
and Japan.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When my parents went on that first trip to Europe I was
about 15 and my brothers about 12 and 8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We were too young to be left to fend for ourselves for 6 weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So my parents’ friends Ron and Ann Whitehead
moved in with us for 6 weeks to take care of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ann was one of my mother’s teacher
colleagues, which is how I presume the two couples met.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ron was a prominent architect and also
president of the Summerstrand Surf Lifesaving Club.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From Wikipedia: “Surf lifesaving is a
multifaceted movement that comprises key aspects of voluntary lifeguard
services and competitive surf sport. Originating in early 20th century
Australia, the movement has expanded globally to other countries including New
Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, the United Kingdom.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was probably also a fairly open secret
that Ron was gay, though I didn’t know it at the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ron’s mother apparently didn’t like Ann and
was nasty to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Ron eventually
“came out” to his mother, her attitude to Ann changed substantially for the
better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time the Whiteheads
stayed with us Ron drove an MGB GT much like the one in the photo below (it was
also white).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone had assembled the
logo on the back of Ron’s car incorrectly and instead of MGB it read MBG.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The only “international” trip we took as a family was in
1971 or 1972, to what was then Rhodesia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t remember very much about the trip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We went to Victoria Falls and at various
places had some of the most succulent meat I have ever tasted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also visited one of my father’s sisters
and her family in what was then Salisbury.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One evening when we were there I went to a rock concert with my cousin
Rory, who was about my age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another
evening I was in a bad car accident with Lesley, who was a year or two older
than Rory. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I accompanied Lesley when she
drove her brother back to his boarding school an hour or two away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the return journey it was dark and we were
going at about 70 miles per hour, which I think was the speed limit on that
two-lane road, when Lesley leaned forward to adjust the radio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She must have gone off the road and then
over-corrected because the next thing I remember was being churned around much
like when caught by a big wave while body-surfing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Considering the era, I am sure we weren’t
wearing seatbelts – if the car even had them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I crawled out of the car unscathed, other than probably being in a state
of shock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The driver of a car that had
been ahead of us said he saw the headlights doing cartwheels and turned back to
investigate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lesley was hurt – it turned
out later that she had broken some vertebrae.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The other driver helped get Lesley out of the car and then drove us back
to my uncle and aunt’s house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lesley was
in pain and lying down on the back seat, unable to help navigate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow I managed to guide the driver back to
the house, despite it being dark and with me having been just a back-seat
passenger on the couple of occasions we had been there.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Above I wrote “was” rather than “is” in “was about my age”
because I haven’t heard anything about these cousins since the 1970s and have
no idea whether they are even still alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have just one other cousin on my father’s side of the family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t recall ever meeting Blair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did meet his father on a couple of
occasions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He may have divorced Blair’s
mother and re-married by then, which may be why Blair was not with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I believe he was married three times.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did manage to make contact with Blair
through Facebook a while back, so at least I know he is still alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have two cousins on my mother’s side of
the family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have had relatively
frequent contact (including on Facebook) with Paul, but none with his brother,
Patrick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, when my brother Ian sent
a message last December saying Patrick’s wife had died of breast cancer I
hadn’t even known he was married and had two sons.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My parents took my brothers on a later trip, in 1975 to
England where they rented a barge and traversed various canals and waterways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could have gone too but at the age of 20
the idea of being cooped up on a barge with my parents and younger brothers was
not very appealing, so I declined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
presume the barge they were on is similar to one of those in this photo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Photo found in a web search, but with no
information about who owns the copyright.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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My parents liked to entertain guests, whether just one
couple for a game of contract bridge or fairly large parties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regardless of the size of the gathering,
alcohol usually flowed freely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
several occasions, when my mother told us ahead of time about some guests she
described them as being “very relaxed”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When she said this the “very relaxed” couple usually turned out to be
quite the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think my
mother was intentionally misleading, though maybe she used this description
only when she felt a subconscious need to justify hosting the particular
couple. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether intentional or not, it
didn’t take long for me to decipher this “code”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like most of my parents’ friends, except
those who were “very relaxed”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-42140611440615799822019-07-20T17:29:00.000-04:002019-07-20T17:31:16.085-04:00Parents, part 2<br />
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In the previous entry we left off with the wedding invitations
(to my parents’ wedding) having been sent out <o:p></o:p></div>
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Here the wedding party is standing on the steps of the
Anglican church in Knysna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no
idea who half the people in the photo are.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My parents later told me that whenever we drove past that
church when I was young I used to embarrass them by telling people “That’s
where my parents were married.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
playing outside while they were inside getting married.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back in those days it was a “scandal” if one
had a child before being married.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
don’t know where I got the idea I was playing outside because I wasn’t even
conceived until several months later. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What would also have been at least a little embarrassing is
if anyone had known the real story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
father was still a medical student, and so assumed he knew how babies were
made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, even more importantly,
supposedly also how not to make a baby when one didn’t want one (yet).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I obviously didn’t get the memo because
I arrived on the scene a few months before his final medical school exams,
though more than a year after their wedding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My father said that he had to hold me in one arm while holding a
textbook in the other arm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I must have
been a good baby if I didn’t require his full attention.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Two of the professors in the medical school were Prof. Cock
and Prof. Bull (and that’s supposedly not a cock and bull story).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was another student in the class with
the last name Cooper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the students
had had their final exams, but before the results were released, my father
happened to see one of the Cock and Bull duo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He said “Congratulations Couper, you have passed.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father wanted to be sure, so questioned
further and the prof said, yes, there is one Couper/Cooper in the list of those
who passed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to my father,
Cooper was a much better student, so if there was just one of them on the list
it would have been Cooper rather than Couper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The rather embarrassed prof decided that after speaking out of turn (he
shouldn’t have been saying anything before the results were official) he needed
to go and check.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately for my
father, he was indeed the one who had passed. <o:p></o:p></div>
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After graduating from medical school at the University of
Cape Town my parents moved to Uitenhage, a small town near Port Elizabeth,
where my father did his internship and then went into private practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The card below is presumably from when he was
still busy with his internship.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One day my mother was out for a walk, pushing me in a
stroller, when she encountered another woman also pushing an infant in a
stroller.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They recognized one another as
having been at the same high school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They hadn’t known one another well, having been in different years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the two young families soon became close
friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father had just started in a
private medical practice and Malia’s husband Abe Levy had just opened a law
practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their son Jonathan was my
first friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Levys immigrated to
Israel a few years later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As far as I
know we saw them just once after that, when they visited South Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must still have been quite young because I
remember playing with Lego blocks with Jonathan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our parents stayed in contact until some time
after my mother passed away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2018 I
managed to make email contact with Jonathan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Malia and I also exchanged a couple of messages, which is how I found
out that she and my mother had happened upon one another while each pushing a
stroller.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abe had passed away in 2001
(and my parents had passed way before that).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The only other friends of my parents from their time in
Uitenhage whose names I recall were Reeve and Reeva Schauder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to a genealogy entry I came across,
they had several children, though I don’t remember any, probably because they
were born after we had left Uitenhage (though we still lived close enough for
the adults to get together from time to time).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Later my parents moved to Port Elizabeth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It must have been around the time I turned
three because my brother Mick was born a little more than month after my third
birthday and I know both my brothers were born in Port Elizabeth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage are a little over 10 miles
apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time they were the center
of the automobile manufacturing industry in South Africa, with Ford and General
Motors having plants in Port Elizabeth and Volkswagen in Uitenhage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition, Bus Bodies (later BUSAF), a
major manufacturer of busses, had its headquarters in Port Elizabeth. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The harbor in Port Elizabeth was used for
exports of bauxite, manganese, wool and other products.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For the first year or so that we lived in Port Elizabeth my
parents rented a house in the central city area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the photo below is at that house and
that the dog in the foreground was called Chips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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After that they bought a house in the Fern Glen area of Port
Elizabeth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They stayed in the same house
until they moved to Pretoria at the end of 1979.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Considering how long we lived there, I am
somewhat surprised that I don’t have a photo of how the house looked in those
days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The photo below is from when we
visited South Africa in March 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
house now looks nothing like it did when I last saw it in 1979.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It used to have a low stone and concrete
wall, mostly to indicate the boundary of the property rather than to keep
anyone out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back then, apart from an old
gate for the driveway, there was a smaller gate towards the left for people to
use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There weren’t any rooms above the
garages then either.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The second image, from Google Maps, in which I have drawn a
small red circle on the roof of our old house, shows more changes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no idea what the structure is behind
the garage or above the pool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither
was there when we left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pool was
there and looks much the same as the one my parents had put in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apart from the pool, my parents remodeled and
extended the house a couple of times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Initially it had just one bathroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their first addition was a new master bedroom plus bathroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later they built a new living room, moved the
dining room to part of where the old living room had been and turned the rest
of that area into a study/library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
also added a laundry and bathing facilities for the house staff, who had
previously had just a toilet and had to wash in a portable metal bath.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Aside on house staff:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was common for middle-class white families to employ black women as
housemaids and black men as gardeners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many of the housemaids (and some of the gardeners) lived on the property
in “servants’ quarters”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Typical duties
of the housemaids included not just cleaning the house but also childcare and
cooking meals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most live-in housemaids
worked long hours, often with just Thursday evenings and every other weekend
off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Restaurants did particularly good
business on “maids’ night off” (Thursday evenings).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Edith Hempe worked for my parents for about 30 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When my brothers were young my parents also
employed a second woman at least part-time to help with childcare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, for much of the time that they lived in
the house in the photo above they had a gardener who worked for them 1-2 days a
week and for neighbors on other days. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The photo shows Edith many years later, in
Pretoria, holding our son.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-2999133094718616192018-01-21T20:14:00.001-05:002018-01-21T20:14:31.201-05:00Parents, part 1.This is the first of what will be at least a couple of entries about my parents, John and Patricia ("Tish"). This one is about before they were married.<br />
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(For some of the terminology it may be worth referring to the separate entry <a href="http://ancyent.blogspot.com/2018/01/background-on-schools-and-universities.html"><i>Background on schools and universities in South Africa (during the Apartheid era</i>)</a> posted on 1/20/18.)<br />
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<b>Patricia</b><br />
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My mother, Patricia (though I never heard her called anything other than "Tish" or Mrs. Couper) was born in the small coastal town of Knysna. I don't know where she attended primary school but for high school she was a boarder at the Collegiate School for Girls in Port Elizabeth <a href="http://www.collegiatehigh.co.za/">http://www.collegiatehigh.co.za/</a> (the sister school of the school I later attended). Both of my parents must have showed signs of leadership quite early (a trait that passed me by completely). For instance, my mother was appointed Head Prefect in her final year of high school. The only information I have about her from that time is this school report from her last quarter: The date on it shows that World War II ended while she was still in high school.<br />
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After high school my mother went to the University of Cape Town (UCT) <a href="http://www.uct.ac.za/">http://www.uct.ac.za/</a> where I think she majored in English and History. She didn't do an honours year but instead jumped straight to doing an MA in history. She later expressed regret about not doing an honours year (that is, more coursework) before starting on a thesis. I believe my mother served on the House Committee of her residence hall and may even have been chair of the House Committee. After finishing her MA she obtained a teaching post at a high school in Cape Town. I think it was at St. Cyprian's School <a href="http://www.stcyprians.co.za/">http://www.stcyprians.co.za/</a>. I don't know whether she started there before they were married. Married women couldn't have a permanent teaching post at a public school (that was still true even in the mid 1980s) but that wouldn't have been an issue at a private school such as St. Cyprian's.<br />
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In this photo my mother is on the steps outside Jameson Hall at UCT. (I don't have a date for this photo so don't know whether it was before or after meeting my father.)<br />
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<b>John</b><br />
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My father, John, attended high school at Kearsney College, a private boarding school for boys near Durban <a href="https://www.kearsney.com/">https://www.kearsney.com/</a>. I must have inherited my pack-rat tendencies from my father - I have much more material that he saved than I have for my mother. Like my mother, he was appointed to a leadership role quite early, though just as a House Prefect:<br />
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My father was in the marching band. He is the one wearing the leopard-skin, fourth from the right in the front row. That's the only evidence I have of any musical ability on either side of the family. I seem to remember there being a piano in my maternal grandmother's old house, but don't recall anyone ever playing it.<br />
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This letter gives what I believe are my father's final high school grades. I wish I'd known about these less-than-stellar grades when I was in high school!<br />
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After high school my father started medical school at the University of Cape Town. World War II was still in progress at that stage. In 1944 my father decided he wanted to serve in the war. In those days one was not legally an adult until 21. Prior to that age one had to get a parent's signature on any legal documents, including to sign up for the military. My father sent his father a telegram saying "Want permission join up leave studies immediately stop. Will make arrangement come home pending reply. Love John". I don't have a copy of that telegram, just a scrap of paper on which my father had composed what he wanted to send. I do have a couple of replies from his father though. From the telegrams sent in reply, his father obviously didn't think much of the idea, though he seemed to be more concerned about finances than the dangers of going to war (despite having himself been wounded in World War I).<br />
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Permission must eventually have been given. Even before I came across these documents after his death, I knew that my father served in North Africa and Italy. I don't think he was in any actual combat and he never talked about his military service. <br />
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After initial training, he was called up for active duty in 1945. <br />
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My father kept a diary for at least some of the time he was in the military. I haven't read all of it yet, partly because his handwriting is difficult to decipher. The strangest entry is this one:<br />
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15th August (1945) <i>Victory over Japan was announced today - while we are in the Red Sea on our way to the East. Have been very depressed today. Everything seems to have gone wrong since I've joined up</i> [after that unreadable]<br />
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Everything seems to have gone wrong? Victory in Europe? Victory in Japan? Gone wrong??<br />
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My father received a couple of service medals:<br />
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In September (1945) the troop ship arrived back in Durban. There are a few more rather interesting entries among those before the last diary entry on October 3.<br />
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12th September: <i>Slept in late, about 10:30. I awoke to find Aunty Mabel and Uncle Percy here. God, if only they knew how I hate some of my relations. I simply cannot stand Aunty Mabel.</i><br />
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The "hate some of my relations" may partly explain why we seldom saw anyone from my father's side of the family. Another reason is that they were much further away than my mother's side.<br />
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18th September: <i>Seriously thinking of taking up Pelmanism. Think it will do me a world of good. Also today gave serious thought to going overseas to finish my studies. Weak points are whether an overseas trained man will be as popular as a S.A. trained man in five or six years' time & finances. Strong points - education, better tuition, away from home.</i><br />
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2nd October: <i>Bioscope with the family. Quite an enjoyable picture - "Weekend at the Waldorf". Had a fight with the family on our return. I seem a proper misfit at home which I hate. May I never get married & have children if the family's idea of "home life" is anything like it is at 38.</i> [The 38 was presumably the number of their house.]<br />
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Despite what he wrote on September 18, he did resume his medical school studies at the University of Cape Town. I think that like my mother he was later elected chair of his residence hall's House Committee, which may have been how they met. I don't know when exactly they met, but do have evidence that it was no later than 1950. Below are the cover and the inside pages of the program from his residence hall's farewell dance at the end of the 1950 academic year, with my mother listed as his partner. (Being in the southern hemisphere the academic year falls within a single calendar year.) I also have his dance program from the previous year, with "Miss Thelma Loots" listed as his partner. I wonder what became of Miss Loots.<br />
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What occasioned the photo below I don't know. The only information with the photo is that it was taken in 1947, which would have been after my father resumed his studies. It looks like it is at the University of Cape Town, in which case the large rectangular object behind my father is a memorial to those who died in the two world wars.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Zqg4l9gTdx0iah5EgN1fLudGMWNpBn7aAtcTN1KbO54ujCeCps_PRg4Yt7A__sJZTU9lOpkuvqHgX9ZwiWz_liCWNpXxTYFk4LwTRiLOwyM4gEAGtlzI_g-i0VtJQB6oGzDkcquctFY/s1600/JL+Couper+1947.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="987" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Zqg4l9gTdx0iah5EgN1fLudGMWNpBn7aAtcTN1KbO54ujCeCps_PRg4Yt7A__sJZTU9lOpkuvqHgX9ZwiWz_liCWNpXxTYFk4LwTRiLOwyM4gEAGtlzI_g-i0VtJQB6oGzDkcquctFY/s320/JL+Couper+1947.jpg" width="197" /></a></div>
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In this photo the war memorial is the large white object directly behind the statue of Cecil Rhodes (that has since been removed, as a result of the Rhodes Must Fall protests in 2015). The first building on the left is what used to be called "Women's Residence" and the first one on the right used to be "Men's Residence" back when there was just one residence hall for women and one for me. By the time I was a student there were several more and these had been renamed Fuller Hall and Smuts Hall, respectively. The building in the middle with the columns is Jameson Hall (see a photo further up of my mother sitting on the steps outside it). The mountain directly behind the university is Devil's Peak, with part of Table Mountain visible to the left.<br />
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At some time after this my father's medical studies were interrupted again when he had a serious motorcycle accident. Apparently a motorist who hadn't seen him made a U-turn directly in front of him and he couldn't avoid crashing. He lost a substantial amount of flesh and muscle tissue in the lower part of both legs. He continued to receive medical treatment for many years after that - I remember that when I was about 5 I went with him by train to Johannesburg so he could consult a specialist about the wound. His legs never fully recovered - he always walked with a limp and usually had to wear bandages on his legs. When he died more than 40 years later the underlying cause of death on his death certificate was listed as infection from the leg wound.<br />
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This photo was from a year or so before their wedding. It looks like it was taken in Knysna.<br />
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Below is the invitation to my parents' wedding. Note that this was a winter wedding (June in the southern hemisphere).<br />
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To be scandalously continued … with me playing outside the church while my parents were inside getting married. (Don't believe everything a toddler Couper tells you.)<br />
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Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-24935247854013380032018-01-20T21:00:00.001-05:002018-01-21T17:53:26.912-05:00Background on schools and universities in South Africa (during the Apartheid era)<b>A whole entry on background</b><br />
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Some background and terminology on the school and university system in South Africa for my American (and in some cases other) friends:<br />
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<b>Apartheid</b><br />
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First some related comments about Apartheid, because all of this was before and during the Apartheid era. Prior to the National Party coming to power in 1948, South African society was probably about as segregated as the US was at that time. The National Party formalized segregation as Apartheid, which can be translated as "separateness". Apartheid involved "aparte ontwikkeling" - separate development, with separate and supposedly equal facilities for all race groups. The "separate" was attained in many areas, the "equal" not so much. After 1948 the National Party enshrined more and more segregation into law. While the US was struggling with breaking down various racial barriers in the 1960s and 1970s, South Africa was moving in the opposite direction.<br />
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Race in South Africa was not just divided into black and white. There were so-called Coloureds (mixed race), Cape Malays (originating from Southeast Asia and usually legally regarded as being Coloureds <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Malays">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Malays</a>), Indians (from India, not the African equivalent of American Indian), plus very small numbers of Chinese. Although many of the Indians were brought to South Africa as laborers, to work in the sugar cane fields, there have also long been many doctors and other professionals. The Coloureds faced discrimination from whites during Apartheid, but at least some of them were also concerned about discrimination from blacks and were worried about being just as much of a minority under a black government. During the later years of Apartheid the Coloureds and Indians were given their own political systems and some control over their own affairs. Blacks, on the other hand, were all supposed to belong to "independent" self-governing countries (usually referred to in English as "homelands"). The only countries that recognized the independence of these homelands were South Africa and each other. How much of a sham this was is illustrated by the fact that as soon as Apartheid ended they all became part of South Africa again.<br />
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Schools were segregated on racial lines, though the segregation was probably more strict in terms of white versus other than between the others. Different race groups were also confined to living in different areas. A wealthy Indian doctor, for instance, could not buy a house in a white area. What caused a great amount of bitterness was that in cities such as Cape Town and Port Elizabeth there had been Coloured/Cape Malay/Indian communities quite close to the city centers but during Apartheid they were relocated to much more remote and less convenient areas. District Six in Cape Town is probably the best known example of such forced removal. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_Six">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_Six</a> As noted in Wikipedia "Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime. … By 1982, more than 60,000 people had been relocated to the sandy, bleak Cape Flats township complex some 25 kilometres away. The old houses were bulldozed. The only buildings left standing were places of worship. International and local pressure made redevelopment difficult for the government, however." What had been a vibrant and cohesive community was destroyed. The area remained essentially undeveloped until the end of Apartheid.<br />
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At university level there was a little more mixing (at least by the '70s when I was a student). There were some Coloured and Indian students at "white" universities, though they were not allowed to live in "white" residence halls. Black students could study at a white university only if they could prove that there wasn't a reasonably equivalent option at any black university.<br />
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The small Chinese community lived in a rather strange twilight zone. For some purposes they were accepted as whites. They had their own residential areas and schools. On the other hand, they could not only study at white universities but even live in white residence halls at these universities. I met a bunch of Chinese undergraduates on the long train journey when I went off to college for the first time. The Chinese students were allowed to reserve a sleeping compartment in a white carriage on the train, but were not allowed to eat meals in the white dining car!<br />
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South Africa was not only divided alone race lines, it was divided along language lines too. There was probably less animosity between whites and blacks than there was between some English- and Afrikaans-speaking whites. The two language groups went to (mostly) separate schools, with each group being taught in its own language (apart from also having to study the other language). Rugby, which is stylized war even at the best of times, provided a wonderful opportunity for the two groups to get stuck into one another. One of my college friends, who used to play rugby at an advanced level, used to come back from matches against the police (predominantly Afrikaners at that stage) with bite marks on his back and elsewhere.<br />
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<b>Schools</b><br />
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In South Africa there are two levels of school - primary (or junior) school encompasses grades 1 through 7 (back in my day called sub A and sub B followed by standards 1 through 5) and high (or senior) school, encompassing grades 8 through 12 (back then called standards 6 through 10). One could earn a school-leaving certificate at the end of grade 10 ("junior certificate") or at the end of grade 12 ("senior certificate" or "matric certificate"; with grade 12 also being referred to as "matric") by passing national or provincial exams (depending on one's school).<br />
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What are called private schools in the US and in South Africa are, strangely, called public schools (or independent schools) in Britain. What in the US are called public schools are sometimes called government schools in South Africa (because they are funded by either the central or the relevant provincial government). Unlike in the US, government schools can charge fees. The level of the fees varies, so high-quality government schools may charge fairly hefty fees whereas schools in deprived areas may be free. The better government schools can also be more selective about who they admit, rather than having strict zoning such as in the US.<br />
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Many of the better private and public schools in South Africa are partly boarding schools, attracting students from rural areas and smaller towns, as well as legacy students (that is, who parents went to those schools but now live in other cities). Most of the better schools have a "house" system, like in the Harry Potter books, with not just boarders but also each day student assigned to a specific house, with intra-mural competitions between the houses.<br />
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My old school even has an entry in Wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_High_School">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_High_School</a>. You may be shocked to see that I am NOT listed under the "Notable alumni". Also, how can something be a "tradition" if it dates to AFTER when I was there ("Quad Races")? 😃<br />
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This (very recent) article about a cricket player from a disadvantaged background ("His mother and father toiled in other people's grand homes, a legacy of the apartheid system that was officially dismantled in 1994 but affects people's lives to this very day.") touches on some of the background above.<br />
<a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22151406/firdose-moonda-lungi-ngidi-journey-international-stage">http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22151406/firdose-moonda-lungi-ngidi-journey-international-stage</a><br />
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Passing grades at high school level are A, B, C, etc., based on percentage scores, with A = 80-100, B = 70-79, C = 60-69, D = 50-59, E = 40-49. I think F = 33-39 and is still a pass, with below 33 being a fail. If I recall correctly, below 40 was a fail for English and Afrikaans. Back then when these were the (only) official languages, students had to take both through high school. I have no idea what the language requirements are now that there are 11 official languages. What Americans call a grade point average (GPA) was called an aggregate and was a (weighted) average of the scores of the individual subjects and was also a symbol using the same conversion from percentages as above. The weighting gave extra weight to one's first language.<br />
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Prefects (edited version of a Wikipedia entry): In some British and Commonwealth schools, prefects, usually students in their final year of that level of school (primary or high school), have considerable power; in some cases they effectively run the school outside the classroom. They were once allowed to administer school corporal punishment in some schools. They usually answer to a senior prefect known as the Head of School, Head Prefect, or Head Boy or Head Girl. In schools with boarding houses, there may be house prefects within each boarding house. House prefects typically have authority only over the students in their house rather than over students more generally.<br />
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<b>Universities</b><br />
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At university level a standard bachelor of arts (BA) or bachelor of science (BSc) degree takes 3 years. One can spend an extra year after the BA or BSc to obtain an honours degree (a second degree) in a particular discipline, usually one in which one has majored. Unlike at American universities, there is no "general education" requirement forcing one to take classes in a wide variety of disciplines - I could have done my undergraduate degree taking only classes in mathematical fields. Most coursework is restricted to undergraduate level, with masters and doctoral degrees typically (though not always) requiring just a thesis rather than additional coursework. Medicine is (or was back then) a 6-year undergraduate degree, with the first-year classes being physics, chemistry and biology, second-year being anatomy and physiology and then 4 years of more clinical training.<br />
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Grades at university level are first class (75-100%), upper second class (70-74%), lower second class (60-69%), third class (50-59%) and fail (below 50%). There is no equivalent of a GPA at university level. The degree is awarded with distinction in one's major (or majors) if one gets a first class pass at the end of the major and the degree as a whole is awarded with distinction if one gets a distinction for each major (including if one has just one major).<br />
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Residence halls (res., or what in America are often called dorms) typically elect a House Committee for self-government, organization of social events, etc. A faculty member serves as the Warden of the res., often living in a house adjacent to the res. A few senior students may be appointed as sub-wardens, to act as advisors to other students. (Sub-wardens are generally appointed by the Warden whereas House Committee members are elected by the students in the res.)<br />
<br />Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-59197709883758290222018-01-01T17:53:00.001-05:002018-01-03T11:25:41.352-05:00Grandparents<div class="MsoNormal">
Our son Steven put in a request for me to write something about my family. First up, an entry on my grandparents.</div>
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As far as I have been able to ascertain, all four of my grandparents were born in South Africa but all eight of my great-grandparents emigrated from various parts of the British Isles. The Couper branch came from Scotland. The image shows the postcodes where the last name Couper is currently most common in the UK - around Glasgow and in some islands off to the north-east. The map was produced using <a href="http://named.publicprofiler.org/">http://named.publicprofiler.org/</a>. </div>
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Three of my four grandparents lived to an older age than either of my parents (or either of Riëtta's parents). The only one who didn't was my maternal grandfather Patrick Cuthbert, who died of cancer (of the stomach, I think) when he was 62 and I was just 5. He was older than my mother, but not than my father or Riëtta's parents.</div>
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<b>Maternal grandparents</b></div>
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Patrick and Iona Cuthbert lived in Knysna, a coastal resort where Patrick had the local Ford dealership and the Shell petrol / gas franchise. (In South Africa, particularly in small towns, new car dealerships and gas stations were usually co-located, much like gas stations and convenience stores in the US.) Their house, called "Patriona" was at the edge of the Knysna lagoon, about where the upward-pointing arrow is in the aerial photo. The image was clearly taken at low tide - at high tide water would cover most of where that arrow is placed as well as most of the downward-facing arrow. Patrick and Iona had two children, my mother and a younger brother, David.</div>
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The photo below shows Patrick and Iona with my parents (and me).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ48KCY3F0R9C-MpdwdVhgak_ZJAfBBWj5g3jGGGJrMOe_Ehog2W2JSGs_ZaeGcwC967wmrogv7cq7_KC9TaDo_gpj5x0ybtpb-apg8UC-KWAygwK4hlvijcCh8oZXZeC1-cxvKtOGETs/s1600/Baby+David+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1215" data-original-width="1600" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ48KCY3F0R9C-MpdwdVhgak_ZJAfBBWj5g3jGGGJrMOe_Ehog2W2JSGs_ZaeGcwC967wmrogv7cq7_KC9TaDo_gpj5x0ybtpb-apg8UC-KWAygwK4hlvijcCh8oZXZeC1-cxvKtOGETs/s320/Baby+David+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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After Patrick passed away Iona continued to live at Patriona for several more years. She was still there when we lived with her when I was in the second half of 5th grade, which I spent at Knysna Primary School. I think David was in college when his father passed away and abandoned his studies to take over the family business. David later married Isabel and they in turn had two children, my cousins Paul and Patrick. (After having lost contact with them for a number of years, I was pleased to be able to re-connect with Paul through Facebook. When Steven and Stephany visited South Africa in 2016 they met Paul and his family, plus various other relatives.) Some time later Iona sold out to a developer and moved to a new house in the Hunters Home area, just above the golf course. The rightward-pointing arrow shows the approximate location. We had several other relatives in the Knsyna area, including some who lived in a rather gloomy old house at The Heads (the downward-pointing arrow). David and Isabel initially had a house at Hunters Home but then bought the house at The Heads from the elderly relatives. They remodeled and turned what had been such a gloomy house into a wonderful bright, sunny home. (I was not just sad but also a little annoyed when David, my favorite uncle, died of colon cancer. The reason for the annoyance is that after my mother - his sister - died of colon cancer he should have been screened frequently.)</div>
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This photo is from the (previously gloomy) house at The Heads.<br />
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Iona was a feisty old lady. We (or at least I presume my brothers felt likewise) enjoyed staying with her because she always fed us so well, including buying wonderful cakes from the local bakery. Because Knysna is relatively close to Port Elizabeth, we often spent summer vacations there and I have good memories of the area. Iona not only fed us well, she ate (and drank) well too and later in life became quite rotund. It is ironic that my mother was much more careful about what she ate and watched her weight yet passed away just a year or so after her mother. (I presume Iona was in her late '70s or early '80s when she died but don't know either her actual age or exactly when she passed away.)</div>
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<b>Paternal grandparents</b></div>
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I have fewer memories though more printed material about my paternal grandparents, particularly my grandfather. John and Grace Couper lived in Gillitts, a small town near Durban. Partly because Durban is much further from Port Elizabeth, we seldom saw those grandparents. I think we visited Gillitts just twice when I was young. Grace was ill for several years before she passed away in 1971, aged 78. According to her death certificate, she had a stroke (which is also what later killed my father) and bronchopneumonia, as well as coronary sclerosis. (I should add that from my line of work I know that death certificates are notoriously inaccurate about the exact cause of death.)</div>
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This photo of John and Grace was probably taken at their house in Gillitts.</div>
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My grandfather and my father used to write to one another quite frequently, with my grandfather always typing his. I think this was the last letter from my grandfather, when he was 99.</div>
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John and Grace had four children, first two girls, Elizabeth ("Beth") and Ruth, then my father John and his brother Derrick. Beth and her husband lived in what was then Rhodesia. They had two children, Lesley and Rory, who I last saw in 1971 or 1972 when I was still in high school. Our family visited them in Rhodesia. While we were there I accompanied Lesley when she drove Rory back to his boarding school, quite some distance away. On the return journey (in the dark), we were travelling at around 70 miles/hr when Lesley tried to change the channel on the car radio, went off the road, over-corrected and flipped the car multiple times. I am reasonably sure we weren't wearing seatbelts (most cars probably didn't even have them then). The rolling of the car felt like being caught in a big wave at the beach. I managed to crawl out of the car unscathed. People in a car ahead of us had noticed our headlights making strange movements and came back to see what had happened. Lesley was in a lot of pain (it turned out she had broken some vertebrae, though fortunately without damaging the spinal cord). The people who had stopped to help drove us home. Lesley was in too much pain to provide directions yet somehow even though I'd been on that road just once before, in daylight and going the other way, I managed to guide them. That was obviously long before smartphones with maps and GPS. (The trip was the first time I'd been outside South Africa and also the first time I saw TV - South Africa didn't get TV until a few years later.) </div>
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Ruth and her husband didn't have children. Several years after her husband died, Ruth married Bill Cochrane, who had won the Comrades (ultra) Marathon in 1935 and 1946 (the race was not held in 1941-45 because of World War II). Bill's running days were many years behind him when he became part of the family rather late in his life (at age 63). </div>
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Derrick and his first wife had a son Blair, who I am not sure I have ever met. Derrick married at least three times - as far as I know he is the only one on either side of my family to have been through a divorce. I think Blair is his only child though.</div>
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John lived to be 99. One of his brothers reached 100 and John had hoped to do so too but apparently lost interest in life rather suddenly somewhere in his 100th year. He'd been doing well until shortly before that - see the article at the end of this piece about him still playing bridge at 99. The article has some interesting historical notes such as this one about headlamps on cars:"… he bought a second hand Ford Tin Lizzie for 25 pounds in 1919. It had no self starter, only a crank. There were no headlamps, one had to stop when darkness fell, to light the gas carbide lamps."</div>
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As the article about John playing bridge at 99 notes, in the First World War he was wounded at Delville Wood, a historic battle in which South African troops performed heroically despite a very high casualty rate <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Delville_Wood">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Delville_Wood</a>. </div>
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[I have just a very poor copy of the clipping of the newspaper article from which the transcription below was taken. One of our relatives transcribed the article.]</div>
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Highway Mail April 26, 1986</div>
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John is still playing bridge at age 99</div>
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by Liz Gower-Jackson</div>
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Wounded at the battle of Delville Wood in 1916, living in Durban at the turn of the century and filled with intriguing memories of those early days, John Couper of Hillcrest turned 99 on April 17.</div>
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He rises at 5.00am each day, polishes his own shoes and dresses neatly to face the day. He is charming and dapper, and has a memory better than many half his age. He told me of taking up playing bridge seriously when he was 92 because he broke his leg and could no longer play bowls. His twice weekly bridge afternoons add interest and a social fullness to his life.</div>
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Always bright and cheerful, John is grateful for his long and happy life. He has given much time to his fellow man through those years. Well over 50 years as an elder of the Presbyterian Church and 25 years as Sunday School Superintendent at the Berea Presbyterian Church, are indicative of his quiet service. When that church celebrated its centenary recently John Couper seemed surprised at the fuss everyone made of him. When asked for an interview he said "But a 99th birthday is not special. I am not 100."</div>
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John lives at Hillcrest with his daughter Ruth and her husband Bill Cochrane. He has shared a home with Ruth since his wife died in 1972. They had married in 1917 and Ruth is one of four children. John is a professor of Anaestheology at the Medical University of South Africa in Pretoria. Elizabeth is a nurse who is married to a man who was in the Indian Army, and Derrick has recently opened a typesetting business in Westville. Ruth is well known in the bowling world, having been president of the Southern Natal Bowling Association. She and Bill are keen bowlers at Hillcrest bowling club.</div>
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John started playing bowls in 1918 at the Maritzburg Bowling Club when he returned to civilian life after being wounded at Delville Wood and found he could not return to tennis, which was his first love.</div>
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In 1923, returning to live in Durban, John joined the Silverton Bowling Club, just over the road from where he had lived as a child. He can remember riding to church each Sunday with his mother in a carriage and pair, and having to pay toll at Tollgate. The toll keeper was a Mr. Hulyone (?) who kept a small store to supplement his meagre income. </div>
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All the discussion of the new toll road on the N3 reminded John of that other toll gate all those years ago. The Coupers had to pay toll when they went to Durban because they lived on the upper side of Ridge Road but many folk slipped through the property of David Don who lived on the corner, to avoid the tollgate and save precious pennies. </div>
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John Couper drove a car until he was 95 but he can still remember his first car. He had ridden a motor cycle from 1912, but after World War I, as a married man, he bought a second hand Ford Tin Lizzie for 25 pounds in 1919. It had no self starter, only a crank. There were no headlamps, one had to stop when darkness fell, to light the gas carbide lamps.</div>
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That car lasted for 10 years before John replaced it with a second hand Buick, and then he had a Chevrolet, and a Zephyr the English Ford was his next car.</div>
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In all his years of driving he had only one minor accident, when a motor cycle ran into him.</div>
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Looking back over the span of his 99 years, John Couper can remember when there was no electricity, no radios, no motor cars, no movies, no aeroplanes and, of course, no television. He watches the news on television, but otherwise he loathes its interrupting influence on our lives. </div>
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He says the first electric lights came to Durban about 1900 when progressive and proud householders had just a single electric light, usually in the parlour of their homes.</div>
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In another tie with contemporary news John tells of how he came to do duty on the border of what is now Libya. He left with the South African Brigade for France in World War I. Arriving in England many of the colonial troops suffered from pulmonary complaints so the South Africans were sent to Egypt where they served on that border, and John's friend, Bob Jones from Durban, was killed.</div>
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After being wounded at Delville Wood in July 1916 John ended up convalescing in Ireland for three months. He says his military service afforded him a veritable Cook's tour.</div>
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Career-wise John had to fend for himself from an early age. He joined a general merchant's business as an office boy at R5 a month, and was earning R10 a month by 1902. When his employer Arthur George May went into milling in 1905 John went over to the new project which was to become the Union Flour Mills and eventually it was taken over by Premier Milling. Mr. May was killed in his late 30s when he was thrown from a horse while riding in New Forest, England, where he was holidaying. Mr. Couper stayed with the firm until he retired at 70. </div>
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Always one to keep up with the times, John has applied for a military pension, feeling that he should qualify under the new rulings announced recently by the Government.</div>
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Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-3236396436483273822017-12-31T17:22:00.000-05:002017-12-31T17:22:05.636-05:00Former girlfriendsList of former girlfriends who were willing to go on a second date with me:<br />
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See, I told you this would be a short entry. No-one even needed to bribe me to keep her name off this list. Young women had impossibly high standards back in the day. They wanted someone who had either looks or a personality, if not both. I have neither. They weren't even willing to put up with me for my money (mostly because I didn't have any, nor even a suggestion that I had prospects of a bright future).<br />
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The list is not a whole lot longer if I include those who went on a first date with me, but I'll leave that for another day.<br />
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Someone did risk a second date and thankfully she isn't "former" even 36 years later.<br />
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Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-7638737466572537812017-12-30T17:20:00.002-05:002017-12-30T17:20:47.851-05:00Prelude to the SFAD; Peninsula MarathonThanks to the Internet I now know how much aspirin is required for a lethal overdose. Back in 1978 when I "needed" to know, there was no Internet. Why did I need to know then? That's a story for another day (SFAD). (Spoiler alert: I wanted to AVOID taking a lethal dose.) <br />
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What does that have to do with the image ("borrowed" from Google Maps)? That will also have to wait for the SFAD. Some of my South African running friends may recognize that landmark, though often having approached it from the opposite direction. That is a naval gun at Lower North Battery, between Glencairn and Simon's Town, a couple of miles before the finish of the Peninsula Marathon (now the Cape Peninsula Marathon) at the SA Naval Sports Ground in Simon's Town. (The marathon and the sports ground are also peripherally related to the SFAD.)<br />
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Back in the '70s and '80s the winners of that marathon were a who's who of the local and (later) the national running scene. Most internationally-famous was 1982 winner, Mark Plaatjes who later sought political asylum in the US and won gold for the US in the marathon at the 1993 World Championships.<br />
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My first Peninsula was in 1977, my third marathon and first sub-3 time. I managed a little under 2:55 despite having to make a pit-stop. There were no Porta-potties in those days - I had to go through and out the back of a convenience store. First and second that year were two fellow University of Cape Town (UCT) students, Bruce Robinson and Peter Hodson. They were running for a new club, Varsity Old Boys, that they had helped form partly with the aim of being one of the first running clubs in the country to be open to all races. Later that year I started running regularly with Bruce and Peter. Trying to keep up with them was a big reason for a 19-minute improvement in my next marathon later in 1977.<br />
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Looking at a clipping from that 1977 race, another finisher was Steve Harle, one of my first regular running partners. A year or two later Steve and his wife were tragically murdered by an escaped convict when they were hiking/camping in a remote wilderness area.<br />
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Didn't run the race in 1978, for a reason that is a big part of the SFAD. Ran it again in 1979, nearly 20 minutes faster than in 1977 but a minute or two slower than two PRs I'd managed in the interim. At the end of 1979 I moved to Pretoria. Didn't run Peninsula in March 1980 because I'd run the Pretoria Marathon a week earlier in 2:30:46 (the one and only time I won a marathon), after setting a PR of 2:30:40 just 3 weeks before that. (I ran 2 more marathons in the next 4 weeks.)<br />
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In February 1981 I managed to get under 2:30 for the first time and then went to Cape Town for a month (related to the SFAD, a required Navy "camp"), which enabled me to run Peninsula again, in a new PR of 2:26:23 (with PRs in a 20-mile road race and for 5,000m and 10,000m on the track between the two marathons, the two track races being on the same day). According to my logbook, I had a DNF in the 1982 edition of the race. I have no recollection of running it - or even being in Cape Town at that time. I was still living in Pretoria and Rietta and I were getting married about a month later and moving to Cape Town soon after.<br />
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In the 1983 edition I ran my all-time PR (2:25:51). The next year the race was run in reverse, to try to avoid the headwind that often made things tough on the point-to-point course. According to my logbook I ran 2:33, though again I have no recollection of running the race or even of ever having run it in that direction. A few FB friends were also in that race, including Ron Boreham, who won in 2:17, Bob de la Motte (4th in 2:20), first veteran (age 40+, called a "master" here in the US) Brian Mather in 2:29 and frequent training partner Graeme Dacomb in 2:30.<br />
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Missed the race in 1985 because I was recovering from Achilles tendon surgery. At the end of 1985 we moved back to Pretoria. Thanks to lack of fitness and surgery on the other Achilles tendon I didn't get to run the race again before we moved to Seattle.<br />
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As the site of several PRs, including what will forever be my 1st and 3rd fastest marathons, I have fond memories of the race despite its association with the SFAD.<br />
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My times in the Peninsula Marathon<br />
1977: 2:54:55 <br />
1979: 2:37:22<br />
1981: 2:26:23<br />
1982: DNF<br />
1983: 2:25:51<br />
1984: 2:33:02<br />
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Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-87140881529545901092017-12-30T12:44:00.000-05:002018-01-01T11:55:26.008-05:00SFAD; self harm; or Daddy, what did you do in the war?A while back, on Facebook I referred to the story for another day (SFAD). It is now another day. The story includes mention of the time I started to attempt self-harm.<br />
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<b>Conscription</b><br />
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Apartheid-era South Africa had universal conscription of white males. One was supposed to do the initial service after completing high school. Those who intended going to university could either serve beforehand or defer service until after graduating (or dropping out). In the '70s there was no allowance for conscientious objection. If one didn't want to serve, one either had to flee the country or be sentenced to a protracted period in a military prison. By the late '80s, if one managed to get classified as a bona fide religious objector it was possible to perform approved alternative service instead of being in the military. My little brother Ian managed to get religious objector status. That wasn't an option for me because it wasn't available in the '70s and in any case I wasn't sufficiently religious.<br />
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Had I served directly after high school, my initial period would have been either 9 or 11 months. But I took deferment and by the time I graduated the initial period had been extended to two years. After the initial service one was still liable to be called up for periodic "camps". The number of these and the period for which one remained liable had also increased. Do I regret opting for deferment? Definitely not. I may have had to serve for longer but I certainly had it easier than I would otherwise, including avoiding being involved in active combat. So, much as I complain below, I know I was very fortunate compared to many of my peers. My other brother, Mick, served a couple of years after me. He ended up in the S.A. Medical Services (SAMS) and was initially assigned to the Navy Medical Center in Simon's Town, but later spent time in the "operational area" either side of the border between (then) South West Africa and Angola. He had trained as a social worker and served in that capacity. He made it his mission to classify as many conscripts as possible as being unfit for combat duties.<br />
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<b>Becoming a marathon runner</b><br />
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Backing up several years … Although I enjoyed playing a variety of ball games (cricket, rugby, soccer, squash in particular) I had neither the basic speed nor the hand-eye coordination to be any good. I started running about the time I turned 16 - because my dog needed exercise. For the first couple of years I always ran alone (other than with the dog, though later the dog became lazy and I left it at home). I usually ran on days I wasn't playing another sport and always ran the same route. I have no idea how far it was, but do recall it taking between 15 and 20 minutes, depending on how I felt on the day. Although I didn't train with the high school track team and was entirely uncoached, I did run a couple of meets in the last month of high school. I have no recollection of what events I ran and never knew what my times were. I certainly didn't come close to winning.<br />
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In college I continued running when not playing other sports (intramural rugby and soccer, sometimes both on the same day). In 1975, soon after turning 21, I completed the Stellenbosch M marathon, though I am fairly sure I didn't go even as far as 10 miles on any training run. I managed to finish shortly before the time-keepers disappeared. Steve Moss, a frequent training partner at that stage, was probably about 15 minutes behind me and the finish line had been packed up and the time-keepers had left when he finished in around 3:45. This was years before digital stopwatches became available, so he had to estimate his time from the stadium clock.<br />
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Over the next couple of years I gradually increased my running and decreased participation in other sports. In March 1977, in my third marathon I managed to get under 3 hours for the first time, finishing the Peninsula Marathon in about 2:55. (The map shows the approximate route of the Peninsula Marathon, running roughly north to south.) A few months later I started running with Bruce Robinson and Peter Hodson, who had placed first and second in the Peninsula Marathon. They were both final-year medical students and most lunchtimes they would run laps around the perimeter of the university's main cricket field (so most of our running was on grass). In July of that year I ran in the South African Universities cross country championships - only because it was in my home town during winter break. My college (University of Cape Town) didn't have a cross country coach, any scholarship athletes, or any travel funds, so the team at the meet consisted of those who lived in Port Elizabeth or were willing to make their own way there. According to my running log I narrowly avoided being lapped and was 49th out of 67 finishers. Back in Cape Town, trying to keep up with Bruce and Peter helped me improve substantially. In my next marathon, in September, I dropped my PR to 2:36, finishing ahead of Bruce and Peter (as well as some other runners who I'd thought of as being much better than I was). For the first time in my life I felt as if I had some athletic talent. In December, after final exams, I was back at home in Port Elizabeth and ran a 10-mile race. That was the first race I won - and the first time I received a prize for anything athletic rather than academic. Not exactly a big prize though. As I recall, the first 2 or 3 finishers were given a 6-pack of cans of guava juice to share (not even a 6-pack each).<br />
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The above is all by way of background, laying out that at the end of 1977 I was starting to think of myself as a reasonable runner. I had no illusions of being a great runner - I had reasonable endurance but didn't have enough basic speed to be very good.<br />
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<b>Off to war (or at least to the Navy)</b><br />
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In the first week of January 1978, I boarded a troop train with a bunch of other conscripts called up to the Navy. I don't recall whether it was one of the items we were told to take with us, but I had a very large bottle of aspirin (probably at least a thousand pills), the relevance of which will become clear later. After a long train ride we reached the naval training base at Saldanha Bay, about 50 miles north of Cape Town, on South Africa's west coast. Then, in good military hurry-up-and-wait style, we spent a few days hanging around waiting to hear our fate. The base was large and as we didn't have much else to do, I was able to run. The base commander somehow heard I had a degree in operations research and so put me to work trying to find an optimal schedule for assigning guard duty. After a few days, those of us who had completed college were loaded up and sent off to a much smaller training base in Simon's Town, which is just short of a marathon distance from central Cape Town (the Peninsula Marathon used to go from Green Point Stadium in Cape Town to the naval sports fields in Simon's Town). See the leftward pointing arrow on the map above. The naval training base there was hardly bigger than a postage stamp. (The whole naval base was much larger, with several contiguous and disjoint components. )<br />
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There were 30 conscripts who had been to college first and we were put directly into an Officers' Orientation Course (OOC) without having to do basic training. The navy didn't seem able to make up its mind how to train graduates, with the plan varying from intake to intake. Both the intakes before us had their officer training at Gordon' Bay, the navy's main officer training base. The rightward pointing arrow on the map indicates Gordon's Bay. I think one of the two intakes first had to do regular basic training, the same as lower ranks, before an OOC whereas the other intake had to go through the full officers' training (not just an orientation course for graduates).<br />
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While on the OOC we had the "rank" midshipman (i.e., candidate officer) Also on the OOC were 6 graduates who had signed up for the permanent force (that is, career military rather than being conscripts). Even though they were also fresh in the military, they had already been assigned actual officer ranks. At least a couple of them were in their 30s and some were heavy smokers and very unfit, especially a Lt. Booysen. In overall charge of the OOC were S/Lt. Morris and Warrant Officer (W/O) Harmse, with a variety of other people responsible for specific aspects of the course.. W/O Harmse liked to remind us that in terms of the naval hierarchy "midshipmen are lower than shark sh*t).<br />
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The photo shows us -- conscripts, permanent force officers on the OOC plus some of the officers in charge of us, in our "ice cream suits" (summer parade uniforms).<br />
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Being the military, we had to do nearly everything in squad formation, including running. But Lt. Booysen and 1-2 of the other permanent force guys were so unfit that they couldn't run for more than about 100 yards without needing to rest. So we didn't get much exercise. As I mentioned, the training base was very small. Unless I was willing to run many laps around the buildings, there was no way I could maintain any running fitness. I put in a written request to be allowed to go running outside the base, but that was turned down. We were kept busy (even if not physically busy), so I was too tired and unmotivated to want to run laps around the buildings.<br />
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Then for part of our course we had a few days with an instructor who was a first-class asshole. Lt. "Gunner" Mead was a gunnery officer, though that wasn't his role in our training. (As a gunnery officer he used to train seamen to load and fire naval guns. The photo shows the Lower North Battery where they used to practice, right next to the main road to Simon's Town. Manual loading of these big guns was probably already obsolete in proper navies by that stage. He used to claim that his gunnery teams were so fast they would be able to shoot down an anti-ship missile. I don't think he had any conception how fast a missile travels.) Gunner Mead seemed to be taking out his frustrations on us. Maybe it was because of a sense of inadequacy - he was middle-aged, yet in a rather lowly officer rank and without any skills needed to progress further, whereas we were recent graduates with supposedly bright futures ahead of us. I won't claim to have been singled out in any way, though I did have my own feeling of inadequacy; in one of the activities in Gunner Mead's part of the course I was the only one with so little upper body strength that I couldn't pull myself up a sheer slope using a rope.<br />
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Part of Gunner Mead's section of the course was on riot control. The Army and Air force we involved in the war to the north, so the Navy was apparently supposed to deal with internal unrest. The formation we had to adopt when facing rioters was called "Form D". The straight edge of the D had to face the rioters and whoever was in charge of the formation would be in the middle, along with soldiers firing tear gas and the like. The idea that we might be required to fire on fellow citizens (most likely of other races) was deeply disturbing to me. I don't think the Navy ever ended up having to do riot control. The police were often involved though, such as in the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpeville_massacre">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpeville_massacre</a>. Other units of the military may also have been involved at later stages of the Apartheid era. (There have been numerous massacres in South Africa over the past couple of hundred years. Not all have been between races. Some were black on black, at least one white on white, and in the nineteenth century several black on white, along with the white on black ones suppressing anti-Apartheid protests. This list on Wikipedia seems rather incomplete: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_South_Africa">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_South_Africa</a>.)<br />
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By the end of the first day of Gunner Mead's training I wanted out. I decided to try to make myself ill. All I had at my disposal was the large bottle of aspirin mentioned previously. I didn't want to cause myself permanent harm, so decided to start with 8 aspirins the first day and then gradually increase the dose until it was enough to make me ill. The next day with Gunner Mead was equally bad. However, early that day I realized he was essentially a caricature, with more bluster than real bite. Even though he may have been serious we didn't have to take him seriously. Instead, I found we could laugh at his over-the-top behavior (as long as we didn't actually laugh in his face). That took all the pressure off and I felt no need to take any more of the aspirin. (I have no idea what happened to all the pills after that.) The rest of our time with Gunner Mead might not exactly have been "fun" though at least it was a source of some amusement. I was still despondent about not being allowed to run and there was no easy fix for that.<br />
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We had a day to two of weapons training, part of which was learning to take apart and reassemble a rifle and a pistol and then some time on the rifle and pistol ranges. On the day we had to do actual shooting, half of us were assigned to the rifle range in the morning while the other half went to the pistol range. In the afternoon we were supposed to switch ranges. But it started raining and the afternoon's shooting was abandoned. So I never got to fire a pistol. Naval officers carry pistols, not rifles. That meant I didn't get a chance to practice with the weapon I would be expected to use, though I had learned how to disassemble it. I used to joke that if I was attacked I would have to say "Hold it right there. I don't know how to shoot you, but look how quickly I can take this pistol apart." We weren't issued our own pistols but for some duties (mentioned below) were allocated one to use while on duty. I usually left it in the safe.<br />
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I don't recall exactly when we had our first "pass" allowing us to go off base for a few hours one afternoon. I seem to think that it happened to be on the day of the Peninsula Marathon, which went right by the main gate of the base, less than a mile from the finish of the race. (See photo below of the main gate.) I didn't watch the runners going by that morning. There must have been a strong headwind though. Brian Chamberlain, who won in 2:32:43 was a better runner than Bruce Robinson who had run 2:30:47 to win the previous year. Also, the winning time in each of the next 10 years was not only under 2:30 but under 2:20. I don't remember what we did with our free time on that first "pass". I know I didn't go for a run. Probably went to a nearby bar.<br />
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Each component of our course lasted a day or two, at the end of which we had an exam on that section. The instructors generally had at most a high school certificate and had little experience setting exams. They usually pretty much just gave us the answers. And as there weren't any consequences for doing poorly, the exams didn't add any stress. One exception was the section on law and the Military Discipline Code. That part was taught by a (uniformed) navy lawyer and he set a more realistic exam. I tried looking for loopholes, such as ways to get off base to go for a run. So I studied the material carefully and ended up with the highest score in the class, even doing better than the 4 fellow midshipmen who had just finished law school.<br />
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One day we got to take a couple of sailboats out on False Bay. The morning was relatively calm, with little wind. The wind picked up nicely as the day wore on, enabling us to sail at a good clip. I say "us" though I didn't exactly do much. I have little interest in sailboats whereas some of the others were keen sailors (and one had qualified as a naval engineer). There were more of them than were needed to man the boat. So I let them do the work. I went below deck and had a very pleasant nap, with our speed across the increasingly choppy water being very soothing.<br />
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At some point we competed in a track meet against some of the other local units. The meet was on a 300m grass track - on the naval sports-fields where the Peninsula Marathon traditionally ended. I ran the 1,500m and maybe also the 800m. What made the 1,500m memorable was that after I finished W/O Harmse accused me of running a lap short! I hadn't even won; I was just a not-very-close second. He obviously didn't think much of my running ability. He wasn't the only one. Several months after the end of the OOC, after I was back in reasonable shape, a fellow conscript said he didn't know how I managed to run so fast because when not running I always looked very lethargic. I hadn't been aware of that and was too taken aback to think of a response such as "That's because I am conserving energy."<br />
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Near the end of the OOC we had a couple of multi-day activities that were referred to as "Leadership Training". There wasn't any formal training involved. At most it was a case of "work things out for yourselves while you do these activities".<br />
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The first part involved hiking in full gear (plus rifles) in the Karbonkelberg (literal translation: Carbuncle Mountain) part of the Table Mountain range. (See downward arrow on map.) I had forgotten that that had included camping out for two nights. (I was reminded by glancing through a copy of the occasional newsletter we produced while on the OOC, in which I had written one of the two articles about the Karbonkelberg experience. I have copied my piece below) We were divided into 4 groups, with each group given a map and a two-way radio. We were told to make our way to various points (in different order for each group) and to report in by radio from each of the points. One group "failed" the test. One of the points was next to the ocean, reached by going down a long and rather steep slope. That group decided they didn't want to go down and then right back up again, so they radioed in from the top of the slope, saying they were at the bottom. What they didn't realize was that the bottom was in a radio shadow from the base camp and so they should not have been able to make contact if they had been at the foot of the mountain. When they returned to base camp they were made to go out again to do the task properly. The group I was in didn't make the same mistake. We went all the way down, though took a different route on the way up because of where we needed to be do reach the next checkpoint. While traversing a steep section of quite thick bushes we disturbed a swarm of bees, which promptly attacked us. Bee stings don't affect me much. Although I was stung multiple times, all I did was hold my helmet over my face to protect it. I was very amused at the big tough guys in the squad crashing through the bushes and screaming as they tried to avoid getting stung. What we didn't realize was that one guy in our group was very allergic to bee stings. Fortunately for him he moved in the opposite direction from where the other guys were hurtling down with the bees in hot pursuit. So he emerged unscathed. Apart from that, our hike was tiring but uneventful. (The least fit of the permanent force guys must have been excused this exercise.)<br />
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The next part of the leadership training was spending two days going down the Palmietrivier (literal translation: Bulrush River) on rafts. We were split up into pairs and had to tie foam-filled fiberglass "logs" together to make the rafts. I was paired with a quiet Afrikaner, Andre Kruger. Or at least initially it was going to be just the two of us. Then we were told that we had to take Lt. Booysen, the least fit of the older guys, along with us on our raft. Most of the first day was spent pulling the raft through the bulrushes giving the river its name. The other pairs merely had to pull their rafts over the bulrushes. But Lt. Booysen not only was unable to help pull, we had to pull him along on top of our raft. Andre was one of those dependable types one wants to have with one in the trenches - no complaining, just get the job done. Even so, the first day was rather tough for the two of us. We all camped together next to the river that evening. In the morning we found that the previous day's work had got us through the bulrushes and we had reached the part of the river where we could actually ride downstream on our rafts. Even better as far as Andre and I were concerned was that the powers-that-be decided we no longer needed to have Lt. Booysen on our raft. So that turned out to be a very pleasant day being carried by the current, over several rapids and across stretches of open water. (I may not have any interest in sailing but I've always enjoyed being in and around water.)<br />
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When we graduated from the OOC we were assigned to the units where we would spend the rest of our two years of initial service. I was among several seconded to the Institute for Maritime Technology (IMT) which, notwithstanding the bland sounding name, was the naval branch of Armscor (the Armaments Corporation of South Africa), a government body doing military research. IMT is located in Simon's Town. Full-time employees of IMT were civilians, could wear regular clothes and were paid a respectable salary plus good benefits. (Very good benefits, which is why a few years later I went to work at IMT as a civilian.) Those of us doing national service had to wear our navy uniforms and were paid the same pittance as other conscripts of the same rank. (Pay scale for conscripts did improve quite substantially during our period of service though.) At the time IMT was in a building less than a stone's throw from the training base where we had endured the OOC. Several years later it moved into a fancy new building on the waterfront. My work at IMT is a subject for another day, though I did mention something about it on Facebook a while back.<br />
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With the OOC behind us, we moved into the naval officers' mess and, outside working hours, could come and go as we pleased. One might think that I would immediately have started running regularly again. As is so often the case, one might be wrong. I was rather unmotivated. I went running a few times before I even bothered resuming writing down the distance of each run. For the week ending April 9, 1978, I recorded just a total (20 miles). Three weeks later (April 29) I ran a marathon in 2:48, so clearly I had retained some running fitness.<br />
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As mentioned, we were each assigned to a regular day job, such as at IMT. But we still "belonged" to the navy and they made sure we did our fair share of naval duties. At first we had to take turns at being Officer of the Day (or night), that is, the person in charge of the whole Simon's Town naval base overnight on weekdays or on weekends. While on duty we had to stay in the command center (but were allowed to sleep). Duties of the Officer of the Day included giving ships permission to enter or leave the harbor, directing firefighters if there was a bushfire on the mountain behind the town, and generally responding to any crisis that might occur, such as an enemy invasion. There was a pistol in a safe for us to use if we needed it to repel the enemy.<br />
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We hadn't been given our proper officer ranks at that stage though and after a while some high ranking officer decided it wasn't appropriate for midshipmen to be in charge of the country's main naval base, even if just overnight or on weekends. So the navy had to come up with some other duties for us. They decided that outside regular working hours we should drive around checking that guards were all at their stations (and signing the logbook at each site to show we had been there). We were supposed to carry a pistol while doing these rounds, but after the first few occasions I left it in the safe. On weekdays we had either a 4 PM to midnight shift or a midnight to 8 AM shift (on top of our regular workdays). Most of my colleagues preferred the 4 PM to midnight shift, whereas I have always preferred running in the late afternoon, which made that shift less desirable for me. If assigned to the midnight to 8 AM shift, most of the others would do a quick tour of the various guardhouses right after midnight, go back to the officers' mess to sleep for several hours and then do another quick tour shortly before 8 AM. I was much more conscientious and so would spend the whole time driving around. To help pass the time I usually tried to accompany the crew of the harbor patrol boat on at least one of their trips around the harbor, rather than just signing their log.<br />
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There weren't very many midshipmen assigned to jobs in Simon's Town, so we had one of these shifts every 3-4 days. Because we also had our regular jobs at IMT or elsewhere, these frequent night duties were rather taxing. Fortunately our proper officer ranks came through and we were able to go back to being Officer of the Day - not only were we allowed to sleep while doing that, but there were many more officers available to take turns with this duty. It took about another 18 months before we received our actual Deed of Commission certificates (see image below).<br />
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Looking at maps and photographs of Simon's Town, much of it seems similar to when I last saw it (probably about 1985). The wardroom (that is, commissioned naval officers' mess) where we were housed after we'd completed the OOC no longer exists though. Update: It turns out that I was wrong. My brother Mick sent an email saying he'd seen it in November 2017. I'd obviously just forgotten the exact location. Here's a photo from Google Maps with the wardroom partly visible in the background. That's the closest I could get to it on Google Maps.<br />
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The wardroom had previously been a hotel (Seaforth Hotel if I recall correctly). It was just over the road from Boulders Beach, a crappy, windswept collection of rocks and sand next to a frigid ocean. The beach has since become world famous. A web site even has it as #40 on a ranking of the world's best beaches: <a href="https://www.flightnetwork.com/blog/boulders-beach/">https://www.flightnetwork.com/blog/boulders-beach/</a> though in my opinion it wouldn't even make the top 40 best beaches in South Africa. A couple of penguins were introduced to the area in 1982 and the penguin colony now numbers around 3,000.(Some sources I've seen say the initial two penguins were introduced to the area, others that they found their way there themselves.)<br />
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Below is the piece I wrote for the "Gunroom Gazette" about our Karbonkelberg adventures [with some attempts at explanation in brackets, like this]. In days of yore midshipmen were housed in the gun rooms of ships and "gunroom" has since become the term for the sleeping quarters for midshipmen.<br />
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<b>Some you win, and some you lose</b><br />
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Karbonkelberg in retrospect<br />
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For many of us, Karbonkelberg was the highlight of the course. Typical Naval organization resulted in the trip taking place on the "wrong" weekend (ask first starboard watch [I presume that group was supposed to have a weekend "pass"]) but apart from that the operation was smoothly run. My memories, as indicated by the title, include a number of contrasting experiences.<br />
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To 32 of us, our rifles were the worst possible curse that could have been inflicted upon us while Alan Woolfson's saved him from an untimely end [not by shooting anyone - we were not issued with ammunition, so he must have used it to stop himself falling]. Adri Smuts drank so much water that his stomach rejected it, while Harry Trisos suffered the same fate from having too little water. For two days we would have paid any price for a beer, whereas on Saturday night most people had more than they were able to drink.<br />
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The star skinniver [Google is no help in finding a good explanation; basically means someone who has a knack of avoiding work or anything requiring effort] of the course lost his unbeaten record when his group succeeded in contacting base from an area previously thought to be "blind" for radio transmitting, and paid the price for their mistake.<br />
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A hot night in luxury at base camp made a welcome change from the two (Southern) uncomfortable nights spent in the bush although many of us woke up exhausted after a collective dream that we had been made to run up an enormous mountain shortly after midnight. [The "Southern" refers to Southern Comfort whiskey, that some people must have taken on the hike to provide "warmth". I presume the "dream" was real - that we were roused from sleep to run up a mountain, though I don't remember that.]<br />
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For all that we suffered (and most of us did) the experience was worthwhile in that many of us dragged ourselves (or were pushed) to levels of endurance not previously reached and there is a (Southern) ring of truth in the idea that we came to see facets of character in others (and ourselves) which could no longer be camouflaged.<br />
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<br />Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-89527016150875949052017-12-25T13:30:00.001-05:002017-12-29T14:30:45.939-05:00Ghosts of Christmases pastDreaming of a white Christmas? About forty of my Christmases, including all of those when I was young, were spent in the southern hemisphere, where Christmas falls in the middle of summer. I was 35 before I first saw snow falling and within 24 hours had decided it would be just fine if I had to wait another 35 years before experiencing another snowfall.<br />
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Apart from the lack of snow, our family Christmases when I was young followed a reasonably typical British model, even though my forebears had lived in South Africa for a couple of generations. (I think all of my grandparents were born in South Africa but all of my great-grandparents emigrated from the British Isles.)<br />
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Christmas was usually spent at home in Port Elizabeth, though some years we went to my maternal grandmother in Knysna a coastal resort about 160 miles to the west. In either case, we always had a real Christmas tree, with strings of lights, ornaments, tinsel. and a star at the top.<br />
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Many kids in the area had their photographs taken with "Father Christmas" at the local O.K. Bazaars (a chain of department stores) and received a gift box containing a bunch of cheap trinkets. Because my brother Mick is still a baby, the photo must have been taken in 1957, when I was 3. That's not a very Ho! Ho! Ho! kind of look that Santa is giving! Our other brother, Ian, is 7 years younger than me so by the time he was old enough to be in such a photo I was no longer interested.<br />
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When we were young (or even not so young) our parents bought all the gifts, including the ones we had to give each other. On Christmas Eve one parent would take us aside to wrap gifts and write cards for the other parent and then the other parents would do likewise. Sometimes in the days before Christmas when our parents were out of the house we would snoop around trying to find what they were going to give us. One year we found a table-top soccer game. But on Christmas morning that didn't show up among the gifts that we unwrapped. We didn't say anything. It turned out that our parents had forgotten about it. They came across it a couple of days later and gave it to us as a belated present.<br />
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Several weeks before Christmas my mother always mailed out many Christmas cards, to relatives and friends both near and far. We received many in return. Those living nearby who my parents say frequently tended to write just our names and their names on the card. Those living further afield usually added at least a few sentences of news. The cards we received were pinned to string strung around our living room.<br />
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My parents had a couple of LPs with Christmassy music - maybe one with carols and another with Christmas songs. At least one of the two was a recording of a choir from a European country where English was a foreign language and their pronunciation of English words a little strange. For instance, it sounded like they were signing about "San Douglas" coming to town.<br />
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When I was in high school I "sang" in the choir at our church (St. Hugh's Anglican church). My "singing" career is a story for another day. The only relevant part is that the choir sang at midnight mass on Christmas Eve and again at the 9 AM service on Christmas morning. I had to be at both services, usually riding my bicycle the mile or so each way. My father had been raised as a Presbyterian and when we were very young we went to the Christmas morning service at a Presbyterian church, long before I started going to the Anglican church. For many years Christmas was the only time my parents went to church, though they started becoming more religious at about the time I was becoming less so. My father later claimed that it was because of me that he started going to church more frequently. I don't know why I got the blame - I did not try to persuade him to go.<br />
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For us Christmas was mostly about gifts and eating. Much eating. Heavy Christmas (fruit) cake with thick white icing for morning and afternoon tea. The main Christmas meal was in the middle of the day, often with neighbors or other friends invited. There were always paper crowns that we had to wear at the table and Christmas crackers to pull (see photo). <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cracker">Christmas crackers</a> The main dishes were roast turkey and glazed ham. (There is no Thanksgiving in South Africa, but those of British descent typically had turkey at Christmas.) From a quite young age even the kids had wine with Christmas dinner. Dessert was Christmas pudding with brandy butter sauce. Low denomination coins were traditionally stuck in the pudding. I liked to help my mother make the brandy butter sauce, mostly so as to do taste testing. Much testing was needed.<br />
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Although our mother did some of the baking, such as making Christmas cakes, much of the credit for the main meal was due to our live-in housemaid, Edith Hempe. She worked for my parents for more than 25 years and even moved with them when they relocated from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria. The photo shows Edith holding Steven in my parents' backyard in Pretoria.<br />
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My kids never had a chance to experience our traditional Christmas. My mother passed away shortly before Steven was born. Lisa was born in Seattle and was less than two years old at the time of the only Christmas she had in South Africa.<br />
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Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-12378573598089258512017-12-24T18:34:00.001-05:002017-12-26T10:24:03.069-05:00Why I hate writingWriting? I hate writing. Always have, always will, and that's the truth, or my name isn't George Washington and I didn't cut down that cherry tree.<br />
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Can I place the blame for my dislike of writing on an 8th grade teacher? (In South Africa, high school starts with grade 8 and lasts 5 years if one doesn't drop out or have to repeat a grade.) Gordon "Billy" Bauer was an English and Latin teacher - a good teacher, if a little eccentric. Something he made us do for English class was to keep a diary. We were supposed to write an entry every day. I hated that, partly because I am lazy and partly because I didn't have anything to write about. Days were pretty much like this: Woke up. Ate breakfast. Cycled to school. Sat in class. Played soccer at recess. Sat in class some more. Played rugby after class. Cycled home. Ate dinner. Avoided doing homework. Went to bed. (If you note an absence of "Watched TV" that's because South Africa didn't have TV at that stage. It would be several years before the government realized what a wonderful propaganda tool state-controlled TV is.) Billy tried to get us to write about our thoughts, rather than just facts. But I don't have any imagination, so didn't have any thoughts worth noting.<br />
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Later that year, on Sunday, September 1, 1968, Port Elizabeth was hit by one of the few big natural disasters ever to strike South Africa. In just a few hours our city had as much rain as it usually receives in a year, resulting in extensive flooding, major damage and loss of several lives. See: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1leO6N2YJs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1leO6N2YJs </a> There was no school on the Monday because at the time the first Monday in September was a holiday - Settlers' Day. So Tuesday was the first day of school after the flooding. Naturally Bill Bauer made us write about our experiences in the floods. That was all very well, except that our family had been many miles away (and underground for much of the day). For the long weekend we had gone to visit my maternal grandmother in Knysna, a coastal resort about 165 miles to the west. We had spent much of the Sunday in the Cango Caves, near the inland town of Oudtshoorn, a further 90 or so miles away. A classmate, Jeremy Clampett, had spent the weekend with us. (As I recall, he was staying with us for a few weeks while his parents were on an overseas trip.) Jeremy and I had missed the "excitement" of the floods and our house and neighborhood were relatively unscathed, so we hadn't even seen much damage. What could we write about? We ended up jointly composing a poem.<br />
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Our school, Grey High School, <a href="http://www.greyhighschool.com/">http://www.greyhighschool.com/</a> was founded in 1856 and named after the governor of the Cape Colony at the time, Sir George Grey. It is a public school, in the American meaning of the term, rather than the British (for whom "public school" means private school), though it was/is modeled on British public schools such as Eton. It is exclusively for boys -- in those days deep in the Apartheid era, exclusively white boys. Billy Bauer composed a campfire song about the school called "Grey will give us culture" with refrain "Grey will give us culture; Grey will give us culture; Culture with a capital K." That song must have gone the way of the dodo though it hasn't even left fossilized traces of its existence on the interwebs.<br />
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I don't recall whether it was Billy Bauer or some other teacher of about the same era who arranged for each of us to be pen-pals with kids in a school somewhere in Germany. I corresponded with my pen-pal a couple of times before succumbing to my usual laziness and hatred of letter writing. (BTW, I haven't forgotten about the gift you sent me for my birthday 3 years ago. I am going to send a thank-you note real soon now, just as soon as I find a pen and some decent stationery.)<br />
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My dislike of writing continued through high school and college (and beyond). As far as possible I avoided classes that involved writing (or any kind of hard work). For essay questions in exams I was concise and to the point, especially when I found that in doing so my grade was no worse than that of classmates who wrote many times as much. At college level I stuck mostly to math classes, apart from a couple of years of Economics where I had to sweat blood to come away with a passing grade.<br />
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When did I discover that I no longer hated writing quite so much? Perhaps it was when I began running longer distances on my own. That gave me time to think my own little thoughts and compose poems or articles in my head as I ran. Most of those didn't ever get committed to paper (or electrons). Maybe there was more of an incentive once I thought I had an audience, real or imagined - whether readers of a running club newsletter, a running listserv or, much later, Facebook. Another factor may have been that I was writing because I wanted to, not because I had to either for class or for work.<br />
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I've never made any money out of writing and have no ambition to do so. I was once given an award. I didn't "win" the award because there wasn't any competition. It was more along the lines of "Thanks for being the sucker who was willing to produce the running club's newsletter on a (somewhat) regular basis." (The award is rather shiny and I couldn't find a way to take a photo without having a reflection of me holding my cell phone.)<br />
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Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8777417132921482423.post-37164503485283336412017-12-24T14:01:00.001-05:002017-12-24T14:15:30.639-05:00How old is Ancyent?How old am I if I am ancyent?<br />
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Age is a moving target. I am older today than when I started this blog. Being ancyent is a state of mind unrelated to physical age. The Ancyent Marath'ner is a pseudonym I have used from time to time since I was in my mid 30s.<br />
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The Rime of Ancyent Marath'ner first saw the light of day in 1988. At the time I was newsletter editor for Magnolia Road Runners (MRR), a running club in Pretoria, South Africa. As the editor I had an opportunity to publish my own ramblings. After all, someone has to fill the pages of a newsletter. I wasn't very persuasive at soliciting contributions, so most issues had a few pieces written more-or-less pseudonymously. Apart from Ancyent, a regular "contributor" was Red Ed (or Ed Red, sometimes expanded to Ed Reddy or similar). That is a play on words. Back then, South Africa had two official languages, English and Afrikaans. (It now has 11.) "Redakteur" is the Afrikaans for "editor". So Red Ed is short for Redakteur / Editor. The play on words part is because "Red" was synonymous with Communism. South Africa was involved in a shooting war against the forces of Communism along the border between Angola and what was then South West Africa (at that time governed by South Africa). The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) forces were supported by advisors and troops from the USSR and its allies (primarily Cuba). South Africa supported Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). South African government propaganda was that anyone who opposed Apartheid must be a Communist. When I moved from liberal Cape Town to conservative Pretoria, some members of the running club I joined initially (the Pretoria Marathon Club) called me a Communist, probably only partly in jest. That may have been not just because I had attended the den of iniquity that is the University of Cape Town but also because I tried to suggest that the all-white PMC should open its membership to other races. The running club I had belonged to in Cape Town was one of the first in the country to be open to all races, from the time it was founded in 1977. (I should add that I have never been a Communist, nor even a Communist sympathizer.)<br />
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The first "online" appearance of the Ancyent Marath'ner was in November 1995, in a post to the Dead Runners Society listserv.<br />
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My friend Jim Puckett is good at what he calls filking, that is, modifying the words of a song, similar to what Weird Al Yankovic has made a career out of (though I have never heard Jim singing any of his filks). I hadn't heard the term (or even of Weird Al) at the time I wrote The Rime of the Ancyent Marath'ner, but it is obviously from the same genre. The spelling of "rime' and "ancient" and the notes next to the body of the text are as in an old version I found of Coleridge's masterpiece.<br />
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Herewith,<br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> THE RIME OF THE ANCYENT MARATH'NER</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> With apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and poetry lovers everywhere</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Part I</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">An ancient Marathoner It is an ancient Marath'ner,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">meeteth three gallopers And he stoppeth one of three.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">bidden to a running 'By thy sweaty vest and glittering eye,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">race and detaineth one. Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> The competition's open wide,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> And I would like to win;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> The field has met, the gun is set:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> May'st hear the merry din.'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> He holds him with his skinny hand,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 'There was a race,' quoth he.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 'Hold off! unhand me sweaty loon!'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Eftsoons his hand dropt he.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">The race entrant is He holds him with his glittering eye -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">spell-bound by the The Race-Entrant stood still,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">eye of the Grand And listens like a novice yet:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">Master and constrained The Marath'ner has his will.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">to hear his tale.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> The Race-Entrant sat on a stone :</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> He cannot choose but hear;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> And thus spake on that ancient man,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> The bright-eyed Marath'ner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> 'The field was cheered, the start-line cleared,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Merrily did we run</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Beyond the kirk and o'er the hill,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">The Marathoner tells Beneath the rising sun.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">how the race began</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">with a good course The sun came out upon the left,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">and warm weather, Out o'er the hill came he</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">till they hit And he shone bright, an awesome sight</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">the wall. No water could have we (*).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Higher and higher every kay,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> It climbed into the sky-'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> The Race-Entrant here beat his breast,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> For he saw the field go by.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">The Race-Entrant The hare hath sprinted up ahead</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">heareth the Chariots Fleet of foot is he;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">of Fire; but the Bobbing their heads behind him goes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">Marathoner continueth The mass of humanity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;">his tale.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> The Race-Entrant here beat his breast,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Yet he cannot choose but hear;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> And thus spake on that ancient man,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"> The bright-eyed Marath'ner.</span><br />
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(At that point my Muse upped and left, never to return to this spot again.)</div>
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(*) In ancient times seconding was not allowed so early in a race. Even if water was available, one was not allowed to drink, hence later in the poem the famous lines:</div>
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"Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink"</div>
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Not just in ancient times. The first few marathons I ran were conducted according to the Olympic rules of the time. The only seconding allowed was from refreshment stations at mile 8 and every 5 miles thereafter. Oh, the good old days :-).</div>
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Ancyent Marath'nerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15425450435304732901noreply@blogger.com0