I know its true because he said so..........(part 2)

I already introduced you to my Grandfather in a previous blog, like I said a man of character!
Another 'truth' form his youth came to me whist talking to Louis recently in London, its about the biggest fish he ever caught.
In his later life Oupa was a keen fisherman, not necessarily because he liked it, but rather because times were tough and he had to provide for his family.
I remember how he used to sit on the stoep and point at the then barren Santos Beach and relate stories of how he came back from there with four big bags full of fish.
However that is a story for another day. This one goes back to when he was a young man with 16 (yes as I mentioned before 16) siblings.

Food was scarce and the family needed to eat, the roof of the house was in a dilapidated state and the wet Western Cape winter was approaching fast.
Oupa and one of his brothers were playing marble (actually marbles but as they were very poor they only had one!) when his father came home from town with no food in sight!
The old man told the youngsters to go to the river and try to catch some fish. Without hesitating they set of for the river, with the hunger pains making them walking faster and faster until they stumbled over a piece of oddly shaped wood. They dug it out, and what do you know, an old muzzle loader rifle! they took it with them to the river as it was a nice toy to play with.
Using some old twine, cat-gut and a rusty safety pin they tried to fish for hours but to no avail, and out of boredom they decided to take a closer look at the muzzle loader, and found that it still had a old rusty percussion cap in place but could not see any bullet in the barrel. The strange thing was that they saw a piece of cotton cloth in the barrel which might mean that there is still some powder in the chamber! 'Could this thing still fire?' they wondered.
Just at that moment they saw the biggest Kudu ever, moving out of the bush to drink water at the river! Being on a sandy strip, there where no pebbles that they could use as bullets, then it struck Oupa that he still had the marble in his pocket.
He loaded it into the muzzle, and what do you know, it was a perfect fit! Thinking quickly, he ripped a piece off his shirt to use as packing and rammed it into the barrel with a stick. With sweat pearling on his forehead, he cocked the Voorlaaier, he took carefull aim at the Kudu, slowly he squeezed the trigger!
Then with a big bang the shot went off, the only thing you could see was smoke and Oupa sitting on his backside with his eyes as big as his mouth!

Bewildered he stood up and saw the strangest thing, on the other bank of the river, the huge Kudu was lying motionless, and floating in the river, a silver "submarine" (the biggest Kabeljou in the history of mankind) as dead as a door nail!
As he fired at the Kudu, this Jona fish jumped out of the water and he shot him through the eyes, and the bullet kept going to hit the Kudu in the head.
Looking behind him to see why he had such a soft landing, he saw that he fell on a mother rabbit with six young ones, all dead!

And his brother?, well seeing what happened, he ran to the house  to get everybody to come and help.
To get the Kudu to the house, all 17 children, as well as the old people, had to help, they had to quarter it and use the cart to get the meat to the house, the skin was so heavy, the house could not pull the cart and the had to use four oxen as well.
The fish was so big, they had to call the extended family to help, it took them two days to cut it into manageable pieces, the fish was so big, they used the scales as roofing shingles and the bones as fencing poles.
The Kudu was so big, they made leather throes for 2 double beds and used the offcuts to make a pair of shoes for each of the children.

Only shows you, when you need it, you get it!

Well till next time.

Being a all-rounder is bloody hard

Surviving a week of building circuit boards, African Musical instruments and refreshing the memory on Grade 4 and 7 maths, you sometimes ask yourself, "what is school all about these days?", how do they expect the kids to perform when they do this kind of work at such a young age!

In Grade 7 (for the people who went to proper school, Std 5), we still played touches, marbles or Kings, we ran around school and had a blast. There was no such a thing as letters of the alphabet in maths, x was a letter that you knew about and seldom used, there was no solving of its problems and tangents to the best of my knowledge was a swear word, until at least std 6!
Sport was something you did when school came out and holidays equated to fun, there was no such a thing as "pre-season preparation" or "off season conditioning" we had cricket in the summer, rugby in the winter and somewhere in between there was athletics.
I had no need to know the history of Tap-Dancing, Jan van Riebeeck was still a hero and not a criminal, and sexual education was knowledge shared in a secret place when somebody heard or saw something and was then treated like "the man" because he knew more than the others! In many a man of my age the Scope played a important part of growing up, I still remember when I saw the first girl topless I thought she was disabled because there was no stars!

But alas, times have changed, today parents drop their kids at the mall with a credit card or some cash to go and watch a "movie", and then they are very surprised if their 12 year old child become sexually active or gets hooked on drugs!
Parents feel that its the responsibility of the school to teach their children social skills, they feel that they work hard  and "deserves a break", as a parent myself, believe me it also crossed my mind, but then I started to observe my kids carefully, and to my shock (no actually I felt very good about it). I saw that kids "absorbs" their homes!

Kids sees the parents always having a drink when socializing, and then make the connection that
socializing =  alcohol consumption,
they see how sometimes we "lie" to our friends and then make the connections,
friendship = backstabbing,
they see how parents bring stationary from work and then make the connection,
work = freebees,
These are just some examples, I'm sure you can add to this, but my point is they learn all their bevahiour from us, the parents!

This brings me to my promise.
When my eldest daughter was born, I made a promise to her and myself, that she will never see me in a state where I was not in control or could not handle a situation.
Now that had a bigger influence on my life than I thought at the time! So for the past 13 years I don't have more than 3 drinks, I work hard to provide for the family, I am involved in the school activities and sport, and try to be a good husband (but sometimes the TV just makes it so damb difficult) and I try to listen.

In our house we don't tell our children the story of Icarus, we believe they must try to reach the sun, we try to guide and influence through being examples instead of telling them what to do.
When a problem arises we ask them how they think they should deal with it, and then "edit" the response.
Its hard work because we see the flaws in our personalities in the way our kids behave, and that is a shocking reality!
So next time your kids does something that shocks you, try not to blame the school, friends or society, first do some introspection you'll be amazed at what you will find!


Well till next time.