PegLegs and Me

Picture designed by the magazine When my son was about thirteen years old, he subscribed to a popular magazine. They often had competitions and one of the competitions was to write a story about a funny mechanical incident. I told the following story to him and he won a very expensive brande d wrist watch, which he later sold. Oom (uncle) Gert was my father’s workshop foreman and my senior by twenty years. He and I were fine tuning an old 1970 VW Beetle’s carburetor. As most would know, these Beetles did not come out with an alternator but a six-volt generator. The generator belt pulley was a real nuisance, and always in the way. It was winter and his wife had hand knitted a bright blue jersey which he was wearing at the time. The sleeves were exceptionally baggy and not suitable for this kind of occupation. Gert was busy at the back (where the engine on a Beetle is located, for those who don’t know), and I was sitting in the driver seat keeping the accelerator steady as requested. I...

  Living with regrets. A movie which I highly recommend, but which is also quite disturbing, is Winchester starring Helen Mirren. The Winchester House is an architectural wonder and historic landmark in San Jose, CA that was once the personal residence of Sarah Lockwood Pardee Winchester, the widow of William Wirt Winchester and heiress to a large portion of the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune. Tragedy befell Sarah – her infant daughter died of a childhood illness and a few years later her husband was taken from her by tuberculosis. Shortly after her husband’s death, Sarah left their home in New Haven, CT and moved out west to San Jose, CA. There, she bought an eight-room farmhouse and began what could only be described as the world’s longest home renovation, stopping only when Sarah passed on September 5, 1922. Haunted with regrets about the lives taken by the weapon her husband had made, she began construction to “house” the spirits of these deceased people. From 1886 t...

  The life I have been living, since leaving religion, is a life of freedom and possibilities. With this in mind I decided (quite some time ago) to take some (believe it or not) biblical advice directly from St Paul - try everything, keep the good. Well, having been a saint (or as close to one as one can get) for such a long time, my life had been one of devotion and obedience, and having been such a religious fanatic, I missed out on a lot of living. Now if you look at the bible and especially the apostles, like Paul and John the Revelator, you will notice that they literally tried everything, and some of the bad habits seem to have stuck. There is evidence that I will share with you further on. When I stepped out of the box, I really did try almost everything at least once and since I know what it feels like to be drunk, for example, it won’t happen again. There’s a thing called moderation and that is what I stick to now. But I did want to know what it feels like to be high ...

  Belief: an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. Late one night in a small Alabama cemetery, Vance Vanders had a run-in with the local witch doctor, who wafted a bottle of unpleasant-smelling liquid in front of his face, and told him he was about to die and that no one could save him. Back home, Vanders took to his bed and began to deteriorate. Some weeks later, emaciated and near death, he was admitted to the local hospital, where doctors were unable to find a cause for his symptoms or slow his decline. Only then did his wife tell one of the doctors, Drayton Doherty, of the hex. Doherty thought long and hard. The next morning, he called Vanders’s family to his bedside. He told them that the previous night he had lured the witch doctor back to the cemetery, where he had choked him against a tree until he explained how the curse worked. The medicine man had, he said, rubbed lizard eggs into Vanders’s stomach, which had hatched inside his body...

  Now here is something you very rarely experience, especially in humans and religion. The meaning of unconditional love is, simply put, a love with no strings attached. It is a love that is freely offered and not based on what the other party will give in return. You simply love them and want nothing more than their happiness. This love is called unconditional or Agapé love (a godly kind of love). The one place where I have seen this kind of love is in dogs. They love you no matter what. You can be angry or irritated, they will always return. Other than dogs, this love is almost nowhere to be seen. The gods of religion, who are supposed to have this exceptional quality, always seems to have strings attached – love me or else. Or else what? Punishment, hell, scolding, penance, torture or money? It is evident in all of the written manuals. There are a lot of churches that proclaim to practice this love, until someone has a different opinion, or understanding or interpretation ...

  There’s nothing like that ‘WOW’ response to a great magic trick, befuddling our minds and leaving us wondering how the hell it was possible.  We love watching good magicians practice their illusions on people, like Darren Brown or Dynamo (he’s our favorite). We had the opportunity to see one of his live shows at Grand West Casino near Cape Town a few years ago. It was amazing! We had great seats even though we weren’t close to the stage. The wild thing is that the cameras scanned over the audience a few times during the show and three of those times right over us, throwing our faces onto the big stage screen. I wish there was a live recording to keep as a trophy. All the illusions and tricks, the sleight of hand, and especially the levitation, were super cool. But there was one particular act that stood out above all the others – the disappearing act. Dynamo was on stage and the tension was mounting as he prepared this final trick. It was like, POOF, and he was gone, disap...

Danie was the oddball in the family. Different from the other children, a younger brother and an older sister. The middle child, often the one less noticed, but not in Danie’s case. He was a plump, temperamental, stubborn little boy. His grandfather always commented that if ever Danie were to drown, they would find him upstream . As mentioned in a previous post To Drink or Not to Drink , he was very sensitive to certain happenings as a small child – he had premonitions and could sense when someone’s end was near, crying hysterically in their presence. This peculiarity was frowned upon by the church and he was anointed by the clergy to remove the ‘evil spirit’ within him. This act only made him fearful of his “gift” and he distanced himself from it. He was very shy as a boy, but in his early teenage years, a sudden awakening occurred which changed his personality considerably. Living on a small farm was great fun for the two brothers. Their father, Roy, bought both boys pellet guns an...