PegLegs and Me

  In all of our Blog posts we share a little piece of our journey. I’d like to continue sharing some of the experiences we had during our religious days and especially when we had our own ministry. People are very quick to judge us and criticize the methods we used to “save souls”. If we didn’t believe with all sincerity that what we were doing was the right thing TO do, we wouldn’t have done it. There are so many wounded individuals strewn over life’s battlefield and so few hands reaching out to them, not to mention funds with which to do something. The bible says in James 2 vs 14 – 26 that faith without works is dead. For us, doing the right thing was not just words, it meant putting our words into action. As mentioned before, we were not bench warmers. We lived what we preached. It was during the prison ministry days that I realized that most of the convicts with which I worked, were addicts. We knew nothing about treating addicts and if we were going to help these guys, we ...

I think it’s time that the English language updated or removed a few old, outdated clichés and metaphors. Curiosity killed the cat is definitely a good example of one. We live in an enlightened age with information and ideas changing on a daily basis. It is exactly that, curiosity, which has propelled us into such an amazing time in human history. If scientists and discoverers weren’t so curious, we would still be in the dark ages (well it sort of still applies in South Africa with loadshedding and all). Where would we be if Marie Curie or Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla weren’t curious in their fields? Where would we be if a curious amputee didn’t decide to design some legs for himself and then go one step further (pardon the pun) and adapt them for climbing a mountain or arms for playing a piano? Where would we be if some curious people didn’t wonder what’s going on outside our earth bubble? Unfortunately, not all people share this curious attribute and this limits their perception ...

  Always drink upstream from the herd. It’s easy to see why. The herd urinates and defecates in the stream and then that waste just goes with the flow. How will you know how contaminated your stream is if it’s all you’ve had from birth and never bothered to check if things are okay upstream? So often we have been told not to question, or rock the boat, or make waves, but all that this means is that we could be chin deep in sewage, genealogical sewage. Every person born on this planet has parents who guide them and raise them according to their interpretation of what’s right and wrong, what to believe and who to believe in. Strange how geographical location also has a lot to do with these interpretations. Why are certain things so easy to follow and yet, so hard to question? We believe everything we were taught as children and very seldom deviate from this. That is how certain movements or organizations or religions keep their memberships up. It’s more a generational movement th...

  I love my wife, I adore her, respect her, trust in her and envy her. Here’s my reason why: If I try to describe the job that my wife does twice a week, you will say I’m lying or exaggerating. Fact is, I’m not doing either. For those of you who do not know what fat traps are, I will enlighten you, but not necessarily brighten your day. According to municipal laws, restaurants may no longer wash solid waste and fats into municipal waste pipes.   Therefore, restaurants have fat traps or fat separators which capture this waste. Now, this nasty waste must be cleaned out so that the normal flow of water is not inhibited. Thereafter the waste is taken away for safe disposal at a recycling or incinerating plant. Fat trap waste When Tanja realized that the burden of our existence was hers to bear, she sent away more than twenty-five job applications. Even though she has years of experience in the field for which she was applying she has no formal qualification. For most of these ap...

  I’m not a person who often feels depressed. On the contrary, I’m a pretty well-balanced person, even if I must say so myself. I was always the one in our family who kept the equilibrium and tried to make sure everyone was happy(ish). Yes, it was exhausting at times (especially when it came to Danie), but someone had to do it. Pick me, pick me!! If you want to see me depressed, however, watch me coming out of the shop. When did everything become so expensive? I mean, just the basics, nothing fancy. Have I been living under a rock? Onions, tomatoes, potatoes and even bananas (Danie’s favorite fruit) have become so overpriced. It’s ridiculous! With Danie having Celiac Disease (yes, it’s real), everything must be Gluten-free. No bread, no pasta, no pizza (which he hates anyway) and just about every other processed food on the shelf. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be and I find myself squinting and adjusting the distance of items so that I can check the labels. But not only the...

All is fair in love and war, they say. I think NOT!! When it comes to fairness, nothing seems fair about it. In her previous blog ( The Law of Holes ), Tanja wrote about depression, which got me thinking about my shortcomings, again. One thing’s for sure, she knows me better than I know myself. I know life for her is not always easy and while I am writing this piece my thoughts are racing about what our life would have been like if life was fair. Life is hardly ever fair and I’m sure many of you can identify with this. Here is my version of fair. According to the Oxford dictionary the word fair means the following: Impartial and just, without favoritism or discrimination. Now that I’ve read this definition, life is almost NEVER fair. If you were to ask people if life is fair, then it will most likely be the healthy and wealthy that will say it is. It would not be the fifty-year-old man who got retrenched, or the capable sixty-five-year-old being replaced by a younger, inexperien...

  Living with someone who suffers with chronic depression can be overwhelming. As long as I have known Danie, he has suffered with serious depression. Add to that all his other disabilities and diabetes, and you have a recipe for disaster. We used to walk through the mall on weekends before Danie lost his legs. Now, he doesn’t want to walk amongst the millions of stares, which I can understand. He often says he feels like the court jester 😊 Well, a man with two iron legs is not something you see every day. One time, when we still had the bar, Danie made the huge mistake of showing two little black children that he could “magically” remove his legs. Oh my word!! What a fiasco! Those children took off like a rocket, in between the musicians who were doing live music for us, tripping over the drum set, screaming at the top of their voices, causing a disastrous upheaval. Obviously, Ironman’s legs are not detachable. A client from our previous mechanical workshop once said to Dani...

  Midway through the Plandemic we found ourselves bankrupt. We had nothing left, except each other. Tanja has always been my best friend, and despite losing everything, we clung to each other. I have no secrets, nothing, zip, zero, nada. I'm even bad at keeping a secret, so please don't tell me yours, unless you need a platform to share it on. I do, however, share everything with Tanja, but at the same time I realize that she carries a lot more responsibilities than I do.  From the time we decided to spend our lives together, I gave all our financial concerns to her making her our minister of finance.  I, like most people, wanted the best for my family. I worked extremely hard for the ones I held most precious in my life. I grew up with the notion, which I inherited from my father, that a man is the provider for all his family's needs. We were never rich, but we also didn't lack anything. It was all about hard work, giving it your all. Day in, day out. Making ends meet....

We all have dreams for ourselves. Dreams of reaching a goal; dreams of fulfilling a need; dreams for a wonderful future; dreams that fill us with hope. I had an amazing dream too. Not an unrealistic dream. It was a dream of creating something to fulfill another dream. Crazy? Not at all. Some dreams need to be reached in steps. Planning and designing are required, then action and execution, not just daydreaming. In 2019, shortly after Danie had his quadruple bypass surgery and then his first leg amputation, I suggested that we sell our mechanical workshop which was based in Somerset West, South Africa. We had built this business up from the ground and it was very successful considering we were only five people. I was the administrator and customer liaison, Danie was the team leader and head mechanic, Pieter was our workshop foreman, and Obey and Fanwell our other two mechanics. We operated as a well-oiled machine. Work in. Work out. Proud of our good name and quality workmanship. ...

  There are two types of believers in any religion: The fiercely religious (Zealots) The casually religious (Better safe than sorry) My wife and I grew up in extremely religious (generational) Christian families. For as long as our memories allow, we were taught to expect the second coming of Jesus and the end of the world as we know it. It was imprinted in our minds through the fear and reward methodology used in most religions. We were sinners in desperate need of salvation. Evil is everywhere and Satan is a formidable foe, but you are “safe” as long as you are obedient to the rules and regulations set out by the institution. Our only hope in this dark, unforgiving world, was Jesus and his soon return. The zealots fight for their beliefs, make sacrifices whether it’s required or not, give up their comforts to comfort others (or blow them up), give no thought to the future, because the clock is ticking for humanity and things need to get done. The world must be warned, the...