Solitude, Dagga &
Daffodils
Green Room Gossip
By (Sir) C.E.S.S. Poole
Your honorary knighted Thespian.
On my varied travels I have often found myself in need of that very un-social
human condition - solitude. I attribute this uncharacteristic trait of mine to
study, - in my youth, - of Francis Bacon's writing. He penned these words,
"Whoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a God."
in his essay entitled "Of Friendship". I quickly assessed that at
that particular time in my life I was not the wild beast of my latter years and
I was forced by my over-inflated ego to presume, I must be a God.
This was a major decision in my life possibly taken after I had observed my
mother's Kama-sutra performance with Reverend Groper
O' Casey over the font at my belated christening. The hypocrisy of the clergy
on both sides of the great religious divide, I'm referring here to the division
in the ranks of Catholics and Protestants, has always astonished me. I had not
yet dabbled in the Middle-Eastern and Far-Eastern religions of Islam and
Buddhism. That's another story. So the hypocrisy of the guardians of
Christianity never passed me by unobserved. Therefore I hope you'll
understand that for me to take this mighty leap of faith and assume the mantle
of a God was not too far-fetched.
I was at this time heavily involved in the mini film boom of the mid-eighties
in
It was great fun to watch the Yankie-lads, David and
Michael, rehearsing their fight routines. I had discovered a small hill-top sun
trap and equipped myself, with a camping chair, a pair of binoculars, a full
"Toddie, my cross-word book, my Francis Bacon
book and a condensed volume of William Wordsworth's finest poems. I was, as I
explained earlier, "Hurrying up and Waiting" and seeing as I hadn't
been allotted a caravan I decided to set up my own base-camp and was issued
with a walkie-talkie should the 2nd assistant director want me on the set. My
view was magnificent. I could see all the comings and goings from the set and
the fight rehearsal area and was surrounded by some of the most breath taking
scenery that
It was the end of my third day of "Hurrying up and Waiting" that I
was informed that the character I was playing would now not be required for
another week. The producers of the epic, two members of the Israeli Mafia -
affectionately known as Globus & Gobshite informed me that, I could be either, housed at the
five star hotel in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. Or I could be flown back to
Acquiring the services of a production driver I had myself dropped at the top
of the "God-Help-Me" pass about seventy kilometres outside
I can highly recommend the trip. Balanced securely on the sturdy pony I traveled along metre-wide ledges. Looking down one thousand
metre cliff faces, bathed under crystal clear waterfalls and meandered through
verdant valley floors. It was on these winding river basins that I began to
understand the minds of my pony, aptly named Sure-foot., and all the
inhabitants of this magnificently beautiful country.
The locals had an excellent understanding of the economics of subsistence
farming. The crops were grown in long well-tilled furrows and I soon grasped
why Sure-foot and my guide constantly changed lanes - so to speak. We
would amble along, mealie-corn on one-side and garden peas on the other. After
ten or so minutes Johann, the guide would lead us through the peas so we now
had "dagga" - marijuana on one side and peas on the other. Ten
minutes later we would slip through the marijuana and end up with mealie-corn
on our left and the dagga on our right. At each crossover both the ponies, the mule and Johann would pause and help
themselves to produce from the Garden of Eden. This gave me a new appreciation
of the Afrikaner expression, "Pad-kos" -
"On the road food".
On my third night, reclining on the front seat of a 1964 Mercedes Benz in the
Chief Markoba's hut the intricacies of the farming
system were explained to me. While we partook of boiled fresh mealies, cooked
in sawn-off beer cans, I introduced the chief to Polish
vodka from my "Toddie".
"E-mealies is for the energy," he said.
"E- peas, she is for the roughage, the making of
the wind."
"And the dagga?" I asked.
"She is for the making of the money, so we is
then can buy e-everything else."
Chief Markoba was the perfect host and he suggested
that the following day we should pay a call on his sister who only lived
thirty-five k's away. He told me that the sister's
daughter was a schoolteacher and had the "Good-English" and was in
charge of the factory.
"It beautiful trek. Johann she know it. Up
e-valley over e-hill." he said as we saddled up in the four-am dawn light.
The hill at which he was pointing had a resemblance, to my untrained eye, of
the North Slope of Mount Everest. The climb was easy. Sure-foot did his duty.
The descent however into the sister's valley was slightly more hair raising. It
reminded me of my childhood excursions to the
On arriving at the sister's kraal my first need was a cold compress for my
bruised privates that had been hammered against the pommel of my cowboy style
saddle. After a short lie in the fading afternoon sun I was given a guided tour
of the factory that Cheif Markoba
had told me about. The factory was a small rondavel
attached to the
I was expecting to be shown the inside of a storeroom where they would keep
their text-books and other commodities associated with the art of learning. As
Maria, the daughter opened the door I caught the soft entrancing smell of
drying herbs. The interior of the rondavel was full
of brilliantly constructed hessian shelves laden with
drying dagga.
During the course of our evening meal of peas, mealies and canned corned beef I
enquired of Maria as to where she stored her text-books.
"No text-books", she said, "till we is
being selling the dagga."
As we enjoyed a communal pipe in the quietness of the evening, I concluded that
these gentle-folk were already Gods in their own right. So I decided instead of
baffling them with the philosophical writings of Mr. Bacon I would read them a
short extract from my "Works of Wordsworth", who I consider to be
another environmentally friendly teacher and poet.
"For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye,
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils."
Till we meet again, don't know where, don't know when...........
(Sir) Cecil Edward Steven Simon Poole signing off till next
month.
Ron Smerczak
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|
Name |
Comment |
Date |
|
Louis Harris |
For oft when on my couch i lie and laugh till my tunny
hurts is a rare thing. Ron, your writing is as I have said before, on a
par with Wodehouse and many others. Your
characters are so believable in their humour and i
look forward always to reading about Sir Cess Poole and his myriad adventures
in the heart of Points 4 - Pretty close to perfect. I was captivated |
2007-12-15 |
|
Kekeletso Molebatsi |
I think your story was almost
perfect, but the unconvincing part of it is the characters’ names. Usually
Sotho people have a high regard for traditional names instead of olden
Afrikaans names farmers used to give to their workers to ignore their names.
I’m also wondering if people of such a low English calibre would they get the
gist of Wordsworth poetry, but apart from that: hats off to you. Great
piece Points 4 - Pretty close to perfect. I was captivated |
2007-12-24 |
|
James Tobias |
Humour is a very difficult genre
which is capable of offending one and delighting another. Points 3 - Very promising piece of writing |
2007-12-30 |