Mr Wolf taught me Latin, taught me Life

 I recall as a fresh primary school leaver visiting King David High School on a Sunday, Mr Wolf got up to the lectern and began speaking glowingly of Latin.  He told us that should we choose Latin we would be considered elite. What he didn’t tell us was the abuse we’d be subjected to, the ridicule and the insults.
I chose art.
But soon enough yearning to be like my brother I chucked the charcoal, punched a hole in the palette and joined the Latin class. Being elite trumped abuse.
There in that class, I made sure I sat front centre, conjugating, doing declensions and sipping the suds of Mr Wolf's far-from lugubrious Latin lessons. I didn’t care much for any other subject but for this most archaic of languages. I went on to do Latin for matric and I got a ‘B’ for Blah!

But more than letter’s, Mr Wolf, through his passion as a teacher, through his caring demeanor and love for the language of Latin he helped to open my eyes to a new, different type of world beyond the walls of suburbia. His teachings exposed me to architecture through learning about the Coliseum, Roman baths and ova’s; personalities, through his translations of Caesar; poetry through Homer’s Iliad; endurance, stamina and hard work, through Hannibal’s marches; and political structure through the senate, and the people of Rome.

I managed to pass school after Mr Wolf bludgeoned me with fierce words, jolting me into ‘picking up my socks’. Since then, I hadn’t seen Mr Wolf.

Until some twenty years later…Scouring through the dairy section of the local Pick n Pay, trying to find myself the densest thickest fullest creamiest cream I could find, suffering chilblains from everything I touched and seeing my extremities turn blue from the icy coolness of the refrigeration, my attention now diverted, I caught glimpse of ay Mr Wolf. With a bright luminescent light reflecting off the linoleum, skewing my vision, I couldn’t make out whether it was Jeffrey or Elliot. But I didn’t care, cos I ‘knew’ it was my Mr Wolf. Like two gunslingers, he, at the bottom of the aisle in the yoghurt section, and me, at the top end in the cream section, we stood stuck.

Gaining composure, my excitement grew like a fat boy’s seeing a sticky sausage. Dragging my tongue across the store, racing towards him, I caught the Wolf’s attention. ‘Mr Wolf, Mr Wolf’, I yoddled.  Stopping me dead like a harpooned whale, he responded, “It’s Jeffrey’, you’re looking for Elliot’.

I needn’t have seen my Mr Wolf in the 20 odd years I’ve left school, but his impact on me and the memories I harbor are branded onto my cerebellum, never to be erased.  I recall him as though it was just yesterday that I sat in that science lab conjugating verbs.

His lankiness and his length, he towered physically, he towered emotionally. What a giant of a man.

My Theatre Story

Way back when, when my long grey socks touched my knees and my stiff grey shorts had a seam down the front, my straight-jacket like black Bata shoes were tougher than the skin on Willie Nelson's neck never softening to allow my feet to bend, and I bawled my eyes out every time my dad dropped me at the creaking gates of school, i was chosen, albeit as part of a desk top study, to be in the foreground of the primary school play.

During this period of my life my hobbies included gardening, alone; playing mechano, alone; baking crumpets, alone, and gaming 'single player' tv games, ofcourse, alone.

With a gaping hole where my 2 front teeth used to park, and long helmet-like shaggy-rug hair akin to David Bowie in Starman, I was no 'looker', and to add injury to insult, I had the confidence of a deflated whoopee cushion, but for some strange reason, there i was row 1 column A on the teacher's Excel spreadsheet. 

Rehearsal took place in the school hall, on stage, beneath a giant spot light. 

We were geared in blue jeans and red tee's, and our hair was greased up in hair gel stiffening it like a debutant rodeo rider. 

I was part of the scene where about eight of us did a dance to Bananarama's, 'I'm your Venus'.  In this scene, we'd have a comb in our sock and we'd brush our hair like Elvis. We'd be the glistening stars of the show. But for the life of me I couldn't co-ordinate the actions with the lyrics.

Seeing as i was co-ordinated as Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot, i was gently slowly replaced moved towards the blurry edges of the background into deep dark deserted theatre anonymity. My star receded, dissolving like a dunked disprin, eventually becoming an inanimate extra in a scene from an Italian restaurant, never to step foot on a stage ever, ever again, ever. 

206 and Dave Matthews 28.06.2021

 The first time i ever saw a credit card being used for an alternative purpose other than paying for Woollies veggies was one late Tuesday eve while sucking hard on a Black Label brown-bottled beer. I was settled in the more relaxed room where sat a pool table and billows of smoke bubbled around bobbing heads. The background beats being spun by the disc jockey were sweet, slow and seamless. I scoured the room to find a seat, pulled the stool, sat down and let the bar lean on me. With my hands clutching the ale, I watched all that played out before me. There, sat a bit away, was a long-haired kid. With his chequered Vans, ripped Diesel jeans and parachute material track top, he fit right in like cream stains at a strip joint. As a mad scientist, he meticulously, cut up a heavy heap of powdery blow into short sharp lines readying it to be sniffed deep into his cerebellum.

206 was a bar club perched on the snaking Louis Botha avenue in Johannesburg in the mid to late 90’s. Louis Botha was no desirous place to hang out yet it harboured this contrarian locale far away from the polished hoods of BMW’s, ice cold Absolute and 3 tiered collars.

206 spawned a counter culture giving air and space to alternative sounds, hipster attire and a left-of-centre crowd seeking paths, thoughts and substances less beaten. 

Garth, his handle bar ‘stouche bent just right for ding dong donuts on a two stroke, his plaid shirts fitted right for lumber jacking in south Dakota and his gravelly voice suited to scaring the bejesus out of under-age drinkers, sat bouncer, opened the front door to usher me in. I waded through the densely packed bar clustered in tables and chairs set haphazard like lily pads in Paris. A band plays, and her howling sends me scuttling through the rabbits warren of rooms and themes eventually spitting me out into the open air courtyard where a sweet scent lingered like a zeppelin in the air as the corduroy-clad crew puffed the magic dragon. Set in the corner, a haphazard hole in the wall, sat the bar. And there at the bar sat Dave Matthews.

In ‘95 or so, my older brother introduced me to music. From that year, I’d spend hours listening to cd’s he’d suggested, hours working tables in an Italian restaurant to buy cd’s he’d suggested, and hours scouring CD Warehouse for new cd’s he would suggest and then one fine day he came to my room spinning a cd on his index finger like Michael Jordan would a leathery basket ball. Leaning on the door post, he said, ‘Listen to this, boet.’ It was his copy of the Dave Matthews Band’s debut album, ‘Under the Table and Dreaming’.

I went over to the pc, double clicked on Solitaire, de-pressed the eject button, dropped the disc on the opened tray, pushed gently to close the tray like a tech beast would, and then hit play on Microsoft’s media player. As I flipped the first card, a 3 of spades, popped the black ear buds into my ear, I became inebriated.

The following Tuesday, I threw on my newly acquired surplus army pants and a general’s jacket, grooved my hair to the side, grabbed the well worn Under the Table and Dreaming album, a fat koki pen and revved that Mazda hard till I arrived at 206. This, all in the hope that i’d bump Dave.

Greeting Garth, he rubber stamped me and I bee-lined it for the outside courtyard. 

Ploughing through the dense sticky smoke like Indiana, slashing my hands, pushing aside the detritus, there was a clearing, and there in the clearing sat Dave. I stood still.

Naive as Tusser’s cheese, I approached him, I greeted him. 

Bumbling, he was liquidated but I didn’t care. ‘Please, Dave, sign my album’.

Clutching at my cd cover, he grabbed hold of the fat tip and scrawled, ‘Dan’. Then he drew a peace symbol, and continued with ‘Dave Matthews’.

As a fat kid licking an ice cream sundae with a dipped flake I reclaimed the album, tucked it deep into my jacket pocket and haven’t let it out of my sight since. 

Big City Dreamin'-28.08.2019

It’s August and the city sweats, poring from the street’s manholes. The sun’s rays cut swathes down the deep corridors of Manhatten. The trees burst with green foliage. Shorts are tight and skirts are high. The soft hand-cropped grass tickles the feet of picnickers and Frisbee tossers on the rolling greens of Central Park.  The ice cubes of an iced coffee clang against the plastic cup, rustling, jingling our thoughts to dipping our toes in the city’s lakes. The cooling clouds swirled above, bashing into one another like go carts releasing rapid relieving rains.

Dry cover comes from the tropical Trader Joe’s, a supermarket brimful with busty buxom oranges beaming sunshine and happiness, tomatoes red ripe and chocolate bars stacked like Lego. The staff adorned in the colours of Hawaii operate like sunflowers tracking the sun as patrons paddle their hands. The background music the mix tape of my life turns our lips to beam apple wedges. With a packed paper bag, we rise up the escalator to be cast back onto Amsterdam Avenue.

Flicking lights, and bleating cabs, they stop and start, collect and deliver. A card swipe and a hailed uber. The driver pulls in, and pulls out shuttling cardboard cutouts. 

The cyclists and their leather shoulder bags slung tightly across chests. They’re coming and going, they’re zipping by, cutting swathes through parks, peddling single speeds flicking the ringer as a walker steps the curb.  

As the time struck 1900. We descend the stairs, the rushing sound of a tinny train heaves bellows of heated air gushing past us, sending skirts to bellow and hair to flail. We swipe our metro card, flik past the turnstiles and await our time on the platform, toes curled over the edge, anticipating. 

Airpods in and the Rolling Stones roll, soft cover novels thumbed and bent, ready for the metro ride back here and back there. It’s a game of pong. The underground snakes and shuttles, burrowing its way beneath the earth. Activity happens above and activity happens below. This night, above ground and many storeys up, it was at Madison Square Gardens. We got out. 

Out of the top pocket of my plaid shirt sat two tickets. Rising storeys high at the mercurial MSG, we sat in the nose bleeds for a desirous date with the effervescent Billy Joel. He and his ebony and his Ivory. From the records sitting on the platter in Johannesburg, to the live sounds in Manhatten. What a journey. 

The neon lights glow, beating the dark away. The wet sidewalk casts a glare of what’s going on anyway. The side walk cafe sees emptied pints and limp fags. The pool of vomit is a story of a debauched night past. The reflection in the rear view mirror flips past like an ipod shuffle. Memories. 

Dropping the dented coin into the slot, the lights bleat activity.

Pulling back on the spring loaded handle, the weighted metallic goon rolls back passively waiting to be propelled lifewards. 

Creak creak. The spring is squeezed. The spring is coiled.The hand is released. 

The spring unfurls, rapidly flinging the mirrored sphere into the playing field. Game on New York City.

3 Peaks Challenge-Johannesburg-26.07.2020

Me and Sherman run cos we were born to run.

Post lockdown regs, having maintained strength doing leg presses under the weight of the leadwood table, and chopping trees, we were chiselled like Michaelangelo’s David and ready for the At-Altitude-3-Peaks Challenge. 

Sherman had this idea to run the 3 highest peaks in Johannesburg. We hadn’t surveyed the peaks, but having trained hill repeats up Linksfield Ridge, the hard-o-meter determined it high, and having run the Easter 48, determined Northcliff Ridge as blood curdling high and having trudged the stairs with a backpack full of tuna cans, our glutes determined Westcliff, preparing-for-life high.

We ran them in no order of height, but in sequence of completion. 

We launched our journey from the ‘centre’ of the northern suburbs heading west rising up to Oxford road, before plummeting towards the base of the Northcliff Ridge. From there we scaled the ridge. 

At the pinnacle seeing the Sherman as the polkadot-jersey wearer we headed towards Westcliff Ridge but in the while we would integrate the Melville Koppies for some urban trail, great views and a shared Gu.

Making our way back to the ‘centre’, we then made an assault up the Westcliff Ridge as it was wrapped in skeletal jacaranda’s and careening seed pods. Here we took another opportunity to document our feat by asking a passerby for a photo. Click.click.Clickety click.

Once we’d regained our steel, like tumble weeds, bounced and bobbed through Forest Town, Saxonwold, Killarney and ofcourse doffed our hats, said ‘good morning and asked for ‘centre’ please sir’, as we rose up the back side of Munroe Drive past KES and St Johns. Racing to the bottom of Munroe, the sheltered tree-lined streets were grand relief from the heat of the mid morning winter sun.

No doubt tired, but amped to fulfil the dream, we beat our spurs to get us going, running eastwards towards the mighty and steep Alp ‘d huez of Jo’burg, Linksfield Ridge. I can’t give you a percentage for this climb since I wasn’t great at trig, but this ridge slow punctured me. 

We hadn’t calculated route nor distance, we simply threw on our treads and blazed a trail, and with it, establishing an FKT for an At-Altitude-3-Peaks assault...we think 

45km. 4hours 34 minutes. What an adventure, and what a way to say 'cheers' to a great mate.