The Heritage Society.

The local rag called The Tygerburger advertised a meeting in this church hall - flip that hall was enormous, it's like agoraphobia when you walk in.

I never realized church-halls were so enormous these days.

I was trying to be an unnoticed mushroom, but as I walked in, spritz and temperature taken, ooh we got a youngster here today!

(They got a shovel with your name on it.)

Quick, speak to the pastor - he's going to the men's camp, but we can watch an 18-minute clip on his work.

Yeah spread out with your masks
And then some lady called Denise, who used to be in Parliament.

But before that: they got a table with stuff they found on farms in the area.
Porcelain shards, flasks and tons of pipes.

Do we know what went into those pipes, I ask?
Strangely, I'm told, the Khoisan used cannabis, but at that point they preferred the "stronger" Western tobacco.
"It's a lot more addictive", I add.
They all mingle away.

So, looking at the table, next thing this dude and I are chatting.
I had diarrhea a few months back so I had it (Covid).
I think I've had it too.
Next thing ten dudes behind us.
Hey fellas, anything to get away from our nutjob wives for a moment.

Then we mention the old jail and quarry.
"Oh yeah, I recall the explosions", says somebody.

"Remember, the entire shore-line of the Cape was once different - you needed a barge to get from The Castle to Durbanville".
"Woodstock once had a beach", says I.
Some contemplation.

Hoping to keep the chat going I say: "Didn't they find a ship somewhere, and they have no idea how it got there"?

Wow, this dude takes control, and bends his sausage fingers twice: "They found a ship here, and a mast sticking out of the ground here! Which one do you mean"?

Flip, saved by the presentation.

Woodstock Beach (Cape Town):

Willowbridge and Tygervalley: It used to be a big stone quarry with prison labor.

en.wikipedia.org...

Do you think it's haunted?
Well the one time I was in a supermarket they built there, and I saw a pack of wood in a bag fly off the shelf, and the lady behind the till said: "Dis die duiwel!" (Afrikaans for "it's the devil".)

I was reading about World war I.

After ten days in the trenches this man wanted to blow his brains out.

But he bungled it badly and thus accused (suicide was illegal), with his eye dandling out, he tried to throw himself out of the ambulance many times without success.

Heal that man, so we can shoot him!

(Sebastian Faulks with Hope Wolf: A Broken World: Letters, Diaries and Memories of the Great War. Hutchinson: 2014.)

But there's mom: everything smells like pot and b.o.

Let's spray some vanilla.

Oh crap my eyes, and my throat.

Allergy hell.

a reply to: halfoldman

I don't fully follow this whole thread, but I'm enjoying it.

I read The Power of One a couple decades ago and it got me interested in the history of South Africa.

I also feel like there's some mystery to the prose, which correctly or not reminds me of Bob Dylan's poetry. Just a bit out of reach, but somehow I can relate to it. Tiny glimpses inside a life I haven't lived.