Stupid people

I have mentioned this in a previous post. A major problem in our world is that many stupid people get to make decisions. Here are a few that I have encountered. Some have now, thankfully, been rectified.

As a young child, I absolutely loved reading books. These days, children are encouraged to read from a young age, but in my days that was not the case.  As I have mentioned in a previous post, I got chastised by my teacher when I dared to read more pages than I was meant to. My parents suggested I join the town library where I could satisfy my desire to read. I rmember going to the front desk to apply for membership. The stern librarian asked me what my age was. When I told her I was eight, she said that only people over ten could join. I was speechless. There was no amount of persuasion that would cause her to relent. I was old enough to catch a bus into town on my own, but not old enough read books. I left in tears. Stupid stupid stupid.

When I was about ten years old, I had my appendix removed. This necessitated a seven day stay in hospital, where I was looked after by reasonably kind student nurses and an absolute battleaxe of a ward sister. The night after my operation I tossed and turned. I must have flung my arms out because I sent a caraffe of water crashing to the floor. I remember crying almost hysterically. I really wanted my mother, but she was not allowed to be there. The ward sister really blasted me for breaking the caraffe. These days, the parents are encouraged to stay with their children when they are in hospital. At that time, parents were only allowed to visit their children between 3.00pm and 3.30pm – half an hour a day. I spent the whole day in my hospital bed looking forward to the thirty minutes that my mother would be with me. I did not see my father, because he was at work, and parents were not allowed to visit in the evenings. Down the passage there was a large ward with younger children. I remember so clearly, when the bell went at 3.30pm to indicate the end of visiting hours, and the parents shuffled out, the huge wail that went up from these kids. They sobbed and screamed hysterically for at least half an hour. The already hard pressed nurses had to try and calm them down. Who made these stupid laws? Surely it would not take more than a few brain cells to realise that giving parents reasonably unrestricted access made the nurses’  jobs easier, and probably made the children recover quicker. Thankfully, things have changed.  A few years ago, Muppet, our daughter, broke her arm rather badly. We were told to go to the recovery room to make sure that when she came around from the anaesthetic, she would see familiar faces.

I could go on. When Spiderman and Muti Man were born, I was allowed to look at them and then I was told to go home. When Muppet was born some years later, I was actually asked to hold her and cuddle her while Mother Superior recovered. I then brought her to Mother Superior, and was allowed to stay as long as I liked. It was a very special moment, and I am still angry that I was denied it with Spiderman and Muti Man.

When Spiderman was three, he became very ill, and had to have a kidney removed. The hospital ward was run by an absolute bitch named sister Brown. She obviously disliked children and parents, but some knucklehead had decided to put her in charge of a children’s surgical ward. Sister Brown decreed that vistors were only allowed beween 9.00am and 6.00pm, never mind that she was dealing with traumatised young children. The night before the big operation, we asked if we could stay with Spiderman. She flatly refused. We got there early the next morning, only to find that he had already been taken to theatre. The thought of this young child being woken up and taken by strangers to his operation still haunts me today. We waited sadly at his bed for him to return, and stayed with him the rest of the day. At 6.00pm, the bitch ushered us out, while he lay in his cot and screamed for us to come back. It was very hard.  The next day, while we waited to be allowed into the ward at 9.00am, we could hear Spiderman crying inside. Mother Superior almost went frantic with worry. The bitch informed us that Spderman was very badly behaved, and we should do something about it. This was a three year old who was recovering from major surgery the day before, and was denied the loving care of his mother. All I can hope is that the bitch is no longer running a children’s ward. The surgeon, who was a renowned professor, and obviously a very intelligent man, saw what was happening, and discharged Spiderman early to be cared for by his family.

As I have already said, fortunately, sanity has prevaled, and parents are encouraged, if not requested, to take an active role in caring for their children while in hospital. Fathers also participate in their children’s birth, and can now enjoy that unique time with their new family.

On the buses

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I used to catch bus to and from school when I went to primary school at the Springs Convent. Here are some of my memories.

I was about five years old at the time.

In those days we used bus tickets that normally came in books of ten. Each ticket had a small section that the driver would tear off and, for good measure, would punch a hole in the ticket itself.

My mother wisely decided not to let me have the whole book of tickets. Instead, she would give two tickets to me each day. As a safety precaution, Sister Manus, our saintly bus monitor, had her own book of tickets, in case I lost mine for the return journey home.

I was a nervous child, and I sometimes chewed objects unconsciously. I remember getting on the bus one afternoon realising, to my horror, that I had folded my ticket into a tight pipe and had proceeded to ’smoke’ it like a cigarette. I handed the driver a soggy bundle. Unbelievably, he unrwapped it slowly and managed to tear off his bit. When he tried to punch a hole in my portion, it was too soggy. That upset him, and he started to yell at me. I was, and still am, quite sensitive to criticism, so I began to cry. The next minute, I was surrounded by a habit and veil as Sister Manus stepped into the bus to resolve the situation.

I normally travelled in the bus with Sangoma, my older brother. One afternoon, I was on my own on the bus, and I rang the bell to get off. I was only after alighting that I realised that I was at the wrong stop. I tried to get back onto the bus, but the door had already closed, and it pulled off without me. I panicked and screamed at the top of my voice and ran after the bus.  My dear mother was waiting for me at the correct stop, which was not that far away. When I did not get off, she looked down the road and saw this hysterical kid in the distance. She had my sister, Mona Lisa, in a pram, and I think she was also expecting Dalia Lama at the time. That didn’t stop her. It was such a relief for me to see my mother and the pram hurtling towards me at full speed. When we met, she picked me up in her arms while I just sobbed with relief.

The bus we took home from the convent also stopped at the Springs West state school to pick up kids. Instead of the gentle Sister Manus, they had this huge Amazon woman as their bus monitor. She used to get on the bus and yell at their kids. “Move along the bus” she would yell, “Any nonsense and you are off the bus”. I could see that the Springs West kids were terrified of her. I thought I was immune because I was from the convent. One day, I was sitting on the back seat with a group of other convent kids, and my urge to be a showman came to the fore. At the Springs West bus stop, bull woman got on as usual. “Move to the back of the bus” she bellowed, and I imitated her, much to the delight of my travelling companions. “No nonsense from anyone”, and I yelled the same. The Springs West kids looked at me in shock, while the convent kids shrieked with laughter. I was in my element. I had an appreciative audience, and I was not about to stop. I put on the best gravelly voice that I could and began to yell out my own commands. All of a sudden I noticed that the convent kids were not laughing. The bus had fallen silent, and bull woman was heading straight for me. The next minute I was dragged down the aisle and out of the bus. She threw me roughly onto the ground, and my globite school case burst open, strewing the contents onto the grass. I gathered my things together and climbed back onto the bus, utterly humiliated. The funny thing was, even at that young age, I felt that I had got what was coming to me, and deserved it. I was quite surprised when my parents did not have the same understanding. The next day, my dad took off work early, and they came and fetched me from school and, to me horror, drove me to Springs West school. We walked through the kids playing in the playground, and they stopped and stared. I did not enjoy that attention at all. We sat in the principal’s office, and he called bull woman in. She told what had happened, including how cheeky I had been. They asked me if she was telling the truth, and I said yes. My parents then apologised to the principal and bull woman, and she shook my hand and ruffled my hair.

That incident taught me a valuable lesson – to respect all those in authority, even if they do not have jurisdiction over me.

The new bus

As a primary school pupil at the convent , I had to use the bus to get to and from school. Here is reminiscence of those days. There will be more posts on this topic.

Sangoma, my elder brother used to travel with me. One evening he told me that the bus the next day would be one of the new ones. I was greatly excited because I had seen the sleek new buses driving around and really wanted to experience them.

I went to bed that night looking forward to the next morning, and could hardly sleep with the excitement of knowing that I would be travelling in a new bus the next day. In the morning, I got dressed, had breakfast and urged Sangoma to hurry up and walk with me to the bus stop.

We got to the bus stop early, but I didn’t mind the wait. I was going to travel on a new bus. Finally, the moment arrived and our bus appeared over the hill.

It was the normal old bus.

I went into denial, and reasoned that it was not our bus – even though it had all our fellow school children on it. I refused to get onto it. Sangoma was furious, and tried to drag me on, but I stood my ground. Our bus was to be a new one, so this could not be it. The bus left without us. Poor Sangoma had to stay behind as well because he did not want to leave me on my own.

I was sure that our new bus would eventually come, so we stood at the bus stop and waited – and waited. After a long time, I realised that it was not going to happen. I was devastated. We trudged home.

Our mother was understandably upset when we arrived home. She did not drive, so it did create a problem. Fortunately she managed to find someone to give us a ride to school.

It was a sad day for me, but I think it taught Sangoma a lesson not to promise things that he could not deliver.

The dreaded brush

Sister Natalie was my teacher in grade one at the Springs convent. Sister Loosina taught grade two next door. Each of these nuns had a  trade-mark punishment. As I have mentioned before, sister Loosina’s was to lock the child in a dark store-room for period. Sister Natalie had the dreaded brush, which was a large wooden clothes brush. She would whack the bottom of the hapless victim with the handle of this brush. This was a terrible punishment, only meted out to those who really misbehaved. Apart from being a bit of a smart-arse, I was a reasonably well behaved child, so I thought I was unlikely to get the brush at any time. How wrong I was…

This sad story began when I learned to read. Our first book was called Janet and John, the first page of which had a picture of a boy, a girl and a dog. On it was written, “Look John look. I see a dog”. The second page read “Look Janet look I see a dog”. As you can see, it was not exactly riveting stuff, which centred around a boy, a girl and a dog looking at each other. Naturally, I was keen to get onto the next book, which I hoped would have a better story-line and a more well-developed plot.

Anyway, I digress. For our first night’s homework, sister Natalie told us to read the first page. Now, Sangoma, my brother, who was in grade 2, had shown me his reading books, so I had an idea of how to read. I went home and read the first page to my mother. I then broke a cardinal rule – I turned the page, hoping that the story would get more interesting. I continued until a reached the last page. My mother was very impressed (as most mothers are), and told me I was a clever little chap.

I went to school the next day in very high spirits. When sister Natalie called me up to show how my reading went, I proudly told her that I had read the whole book, and would like to go onto the next one. Instead of getting the praise and accolades, which I thought I deserved, I was subjected to a nun’s fury. Sister Natalie was livid. She told me that I had no right to go past the first page, and I ought to be severely punished for it. I was absolutely stunned. I thought the world had come to an end. Shamefully, I made my way back to my desk. I could feel the warm. salty tears running down my cheeks.

At the end of the lesson, sister Natalie called me to her desk. I went over somewhat apprehensively. She opened a drawer and took out a pencil, which she gave to me. She told that, while I was still naughty for disobeying her instructions, she realised that I meant well, so the pencil was a reward. I think it must have come from some reject stock, because she told me it was for home use only, and I was not to bring it back to school. I was so overjoyed to get this recognition, that I did not heed that warning – with serious consequences.

I returned to school the next day with my new pencil – all nicely sharpened. Sister Natalie gave us a writing exercise to do, which I tackled enthusiastically. I got as far as the first line, when the pencil point snapped. It had a very soft lead. Undeterred, I soldiered in with the exercise. All of a sudden a large nun-shaped shadow appeared over my desk. “Are you using that pencil I gave you yesterday?” yelled this truly frightening voice. “Didn’t I tell you not to?”.  I was dumbstruck. I could only look at this veiled monster that was screaming at me. This angry red face literally bulged out of the wimple. Then it attacked. I was dragged, with the exercise book, out of the classroom. I was paralysed with fear. To my horror, I realised that I was being taken to sister Loosina’s classroom. Did this mean the dark room? I don’t know how I avoided wetting myself.  Sister Natalie flung open the door and dragged me in. I desperately grabbed at anything I could. I remember pulling the holy water font off the wall and being doused with the contents. I was dragged through this classroom of grade 2 children, including my brother, Sangoma, until i stood before sister Loosina who was glowering at me from her desk. For the moment, I had an irreverent thought. I felt I was Jesus being dragged in front of Pontius Pilate. The nuns’ desks were on a raised platform, so she looked down at me menacingly.

Sister Loosina inspected my exercise book and listened to evidence from sister Natalie. She looked at me and, then my blood turned to ice when she pronounced the sentence. “He deserves the brush” she said. She could not have sentenced me to a worse fate. The brush was reserved for only the worst offenders, and I was going to get it.

By this stage, I was deeply in shock, and unable to walk, so both nuns picked me up and carried me from the classroom to the place of execution – a bedroom in the boarding house. They then told me to lie face down on the bed, which I refused to do. A major struggle ensued, but I was no match for those strong nuns. In a brief moment of lucidness, I realised that I was not going to win, so I tried negotiating. I told them I would lie still if they were only to give me one smack. They both agreed, and I rolled over to receive my fate. Whack, whack , whack, whack went the brush on my bottom. It really hurt a lot.

I sat up and looked at them in shock. They had lied to me. They had hit me more than once and had breached the contract. I totally lost it. My fear changed to anger, and I screamed every obscenity I knew at them. Sister Loosina beat a hasty retreat, leaving poor sister Natalie trying to control this totally feral enraged human being. I screamed at the top of my voice. I questioned sister Natalie’s parents’ marital status, and her general performance as a human being. I condemned all nuns to the fires of hell.

All of a sudden, sister Natalie grabbed me and carried me into the laundry. She unbuttoned my shirt and started to fan me with a towl, but that made me scream even louder. She then filled a bucket with water and dumped it over my head. That shut me up. We both looked at each other. She was as shocked as I was. I could see her pulse pounding in her neck. Then, she gently patted me dry with a towl. I began to sob. She carefully picked me up and carried me to a bed, where I went to sleep.

All I remember of the rest of that day was sitting at the bus stop waiting for my bus home. Sister Manus, the bus monitor, was holding my hand and making soothing noises.

Many years later, after I had finished school, I asked sister Natalie if she remembered the incident. She said there was no way she could forget it because it was the most frightening time of her teaching carreer. She threw the water over me in desperation, because she had no idea what else to do. It was a traumatic experience for both of us.

Thankfully, that was the only time I got the brush during my time at the convent.

My accident at school

I have always been a “home dumper”. I will only consider taking a dump away from my home toilet if I am travelling long distance or an emergency arises. I am amazed at how some people can quite regularly dump at work, and then brazenly leave the stink to some other poor staff member.

My sad tale occurred when I was in grade 1. Sister Natalie was my teacher, and sister Loosina was in  the classroom next door.

I could feel that a “steamer” was brewing but I decided to ride it out until I got home from school. Sister Natalie noticed that I was getting somewhat agitated and asked what  the problem was. Not wanting to reveal the awful truth, I told her my knee, which  conveniently had a boil on it, was hurting. She suggested that I sit with my knee sticking out. This, of course, only made things worse – so I got really agitated. This annoyed Sister Natalie, so she told me to sit outside, because I was disturbing the class.

I sat on the bench outside the classroom for a while until I realised ‘it was going to blow’. I made a dash accross the gravelled quadrangle to the toilet block. Stupidly, I still did not want to dump there, so I thought that having a wee might ease the pressure. I stepped up to the urinal and started to unbutton my fly. Unfortunately, the concentration of doing this caused me to relax elswhere, and disaster hit. I felt the back of my trousers filling up with a warm mixture, and I just could not stop it. Then it started to run down my legs. The stink was indescribable.

Throwing caution to the wind, I dashed into a toilet stall – leaving a trail of shit behind me. I pulled my trousers off to reveal an absolutely ghastly sight. With a plop, the remaining contents in my underpants fell onto the floor.

I decided that the best course of action was to clean myself up and return to the classroom. To save money, the school did not have toilet paper, but had squares of newspaper in a box. I grabbed these and furiously tried to clean up the mess. There was shit everywhere! I used up all the pieces of newspaper to no avail. The toilet was completely blocked and I was still a stinking mess. I then did what every child my age would do. I sat on the floor amongst all the shit, and I cried.

As the horror of my situation began to sink in, I started to howl. This attracted Sister Natalie, who came running in to see what was causing the noise. I can only imagine what she must have felt when met with this shit covered snotty little boy sitting on the floor. Her first reaction was  anger when she saw that I had blocked the toilet with newspaper. However, she did soften, and ran to Sister Loosina to get some help. Sister Loosina was not impressed, and started yelling at me that they would have to get a plumber to unblock the toilet. I really cannot blame her for this, because it must have been a dreadful thing to confront.

The two nuns got a bucket of water and stripped me completely to clean me. They wrapped me in a large sheet of newspaper and carried me into the boarding house. Unfortunately, they could not put my sodden clothes back on and they did not have any replacement clothes. Not wanting to leave me naked, they had to find something else for me to wear. This was a girls boarding school, so they found pair of panties and a dress that would fit me, and there I sat in a convent girls uniform. This was the ultimate humiliation.

The nuns then phoned my long-suffering mother and told her that I had had an accident. I imagine the shock would have aged her appreciably.

 I can’t recall how I got home that day, because my mother did not drive. All I know was that, thankfully, she brought some clothes for me, so I did not have to go home in a dress.

Sisters Loosina and Natalie, I salute you!

The convent

I was brought up in Springs, a town just east of Johannesburg in South Africa. It was a really nice place in those days, with its own shopping centre, theatres and restaurants. It also had a Dominican convent, complete with a Mother Superior and a squad of nuns. We got to know and respect these nuns because  I and my five siblings all went to school there.

The Mother Superior was a wonderful woman. She was kind and gentle, with a strong character. She reminded us all of our beloved Pope John 23, both in looks and temperament, and she is very much the reason why I refer to my darling wife as the Mother Superior.

A true story about the real Mother Superior is that she was once travelling in a car with a group of nuns and a black woman. They decided to stop at a road house to have some coffee. This was during the Apartheid era, so the coffee was brought in china cups for the nuns and a single cardboard carton for the black lady, as was the iniquitous practice those days.  Without hesitation, the Mother Superior grabbed the cardboard carton for herself, much to the dismay of the waiter.

The convent was essentially a girls school that also had boarding facilities. All three of my sisters went there from pre-primary right through high school, and they all did reasonably well there. My two brothers and I did our early primary years there before moving onto the sadistic clutches of the so-called Christian Brothers. At one stage my parents had all six children at Catholic schools, and I understand that the nuns were very generous with school fee concessions.

My father was an accountant by profession and, for as long as I can remember, he was the treasurer of the Convant School PTA. We always did things as a family, so I remember being involved in all sorts of school functions, like fetes and sport carnivals.

As a pupil at the convent, I was absolutely terrified of the nuns – and who wouldn’t be?  Nuns were scary creatures in those days – with their habits, wimples and long black veils, they reminded me a bit of ET! All you could see of them was their faces that appeared to bulge out of their wimples. They also had an uncanny knack of seeing what was going on behind them, in spite of their heavy clothing and veils. And then there were those enormous rosary beads that they wore with their habits- you could hear them rattling from metres away. They must have really suffered on hot days. 

After my  time there as a pupil and, as I grew older, I got to know these nuns for the wonderful women they were. They had given up ther lives for the service of mankind, and ended up teaching brats like me. Some of them, particularly those of Irish descent, had a wicked sense of humour. I also witnessed some of them get a little tipsy on wine at the annual Passover meal. I didn’t always agree with their teaching methods, but I still have a healthy respect for them.

As I have already mentioned, some of these lovely nuns were unfortunate enough to be my teachers. Three that spring to mind are Sister Manus, Sister Natalie and Sister Loosina.  Sister Manus was my pre-primary teacher, and Sisters Natalie and Loosina taught me in grade one an two respectively. Sister Natalie also prepared me for First Communinon and Confirmation, and was very special to me. Sister Loosina was a short fiery woman whose favourite form of punishment was to lock a child up in a dark room with no windows.

Interestingly, Sister Natalie is still very active. I discovered a web page with her picture at http://www.knf.co.za/Site/About%20Us.html. When she taught me, I thought she must be about 100 years old, but I see now that she had only been teaching for a few years when she had to experience me in her class. Now wonder that she often appeared uncertain as to how to handle me.

It was rather odd being a boy at a girl’s school. One of the things I had difficulty with was having to sing the School Anthem, “Oh convent girls are we”. When we tried to sing “O convent boys are we”, we were told to sing the song properly. I also thought that the girls in my class were gross, particularly when they wore their gym outfits comprising white tee shirts with black panties. My, how things change as you get older. I still knew some of those girls as a teenager, and they were really hot!!! They certainly were not looking at me in the same way!

 My future blogs will tell of my experiences as a convent pupil, and will include the time when sisters Natalie and Loosina had to clean me up after I shat in my pants.