I got a talking-to from the lovely suffering wife… Yes, I know… It happens often…
Who said parenting was easy? My wife will respond by rolling her eyes and say, “A parent? You’re a bloody buddy to play with not a parent!” I’ll just be nodding my head with my eyes staring at the floor and my tail between my legs. And peeping to see where the girls are to get them to pull my finger once my “discipline session” is over.
Anyway…
I got the talking-to because the teacher had issues with my poetry teachings…
Apparently, not everyone at school appreciates good poetry. The missus got called in by my youngest daughter’s teacher for “potty talk”. Bah! It’s not potty talk! It’s poetry! Don’t they know anything cultural around here?
Let’s go back to my “poetry teaching” sessions with my 5-year old daughter…
As you might know by now, I bath my youngest daughter at night and put her to bed. Well, that is a pretty boring job if you stick to the “get-it-over-and-done” style of parenting. And I take my job as a parent very seriously. Very seriously… So up the stairs we go every night and in the bath she gets. Actually we do our “pictures” in the mirror first where we pull different faces – happy (Liverpool won!), sad (got to clean the cat litter) , mad (thinking Bush…), crazy (still thinking Bush…), handsome (my normal facial expression…), pretty (my Angelina look) and any other combination of faces. Only once we’ve done our acting classes in the mirror do I allow her to move into the bath. And Grand Master Teacher Angry (or Guru African to some) comes out to play… hum… I mean… teach…
I have the curriculum well planned and sorted. We will eventually move on to Shakespeare, but for now I want us to concentrate on getting the basics right. Poetry 101… Nice easy rhymes…
So we did a few of the usual rhymes. You know…
“I’ve got a cat in my hat” and “I’ve got a yummy in my tummy” and “I’ve got a bear in my hair”. Just the usual rhymes. And then we moved on to more difficult pieces of poetry. Of course they also had to show me they take their lessons seriously and come up with their own poetry…
I really can’t help that my daughters are geniuses! It’s not my fault that they take innocent little rhymes and create their own unique take on poetry. Should I not be applauded for teaching my child the finer things in life? Should I not be rewarded for bringing the gift of literacy to my youngest daughter? Should I not be celebrated as a teacher and guru of poetry? Should I not be held up as the parent of all parents? Should I not…
And so on and so on. It ends with me claiming the Nobel Peace Prize for teaching my kids silly rhymes that ultimately and directly resulted in world peace and the end of world hunger and poverty. Oh yes, it also ended the current economic downturn worldwide. Hey, you’ve got to start somewhere. Now, where was I? Oh yes, the lack of appreciation…
So my youngest daughter decided to share her new found poetry gift with the rest of the class. I was so proud. My little girl sharing her passion for literature and fine arts with others. And, of course, for them to stand in awe and admire her poetic abilities. Bow down and sit at the master’s feet please. There’s a good class. Now sit still and listen. And then she let rip with some of her most creative pieces. Her own poetry in her own words…
“I have a drum in my bum.”
…and the clincher…
“I have art in my fart.”
The simple beauty of it. She makes me so proud. “Sniff.”
But noooooo… Apparently that isn’t good enough for Ms Snotty Nose teacher. Not appropriate language for a little girl. WTF? Does she not appreciate the beauty of poetry? Does she not recognize the modern version of a young Shakespeare? Damn teachers…
The curse of a genius…
Anyway, I couldn’t believe that the teacher didn’t give her a special prize for that one. Or at least push her one class ahead. Advance learning or something. Heck, I say let her teach the class literature! My little genius.
But maybe the teacher just didn’t understand her true ability. Because one of her pieces of genius poetry was in two languages… You hear me? Two languages! Bilingual baby!
“I’ve got a football in my poepol.”
Genius! Genius, I tell you!
I didn’t teach her any of this. Nada. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. She did it all on her own. Like I said, she makes me so proud. Damn teacher…
Oh, the meaning of poepol?
Hum… well… I… it’s a… the meaning is… but… No, I mean “butt”. Backside, arse, behind… You get my drift…
She mixed her languages all on her own and created this piece of beautiful poetry just for her dad. Like I said, she makes me real proud - ”sniff.”
But ooooh nooooo, the teacher doesn’t recognize this piece of genius. Everyone is a critic. But maybe it was just a big misunderstanding. Because I also tell my girls to never lie. Not even in poetry.
If only the teacher asked her if she really had a drum in her bum…
My little girl would have kept a beat that will make her dad proud and her mother cry.
And maybe then the teacher would have realized that my little girl really told the truth when she said, “I have art in my fart”…
You know about my father and me. We didn’t get along. We didn’t talk much. We didn’t do much together. None of that “dad and son” stuff. We might not even have liked each other much. There was bad blood. Lots of it. And still I learned so much from the man. Even when he didn’t mean it and I did…
We had many arguments. Many, many arguments. Almost always about politics. He was on the side of Apartheid and I was on the other side fighting what and who he stood for. He was a bigot and I was always happy to point it out to him. And I was just as stubborn as him. I refused to budge. I refused to try and understand. I refused to give him one single little bit of ground. I refused to give him or what he stood for the benefit of doubt for even a split second. He was wrong and so was everything he stood for. No movement on bigotry. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. I was right about Apartheid being wrong. Why should I move even an inch for any form of bigotry? I still won’t. I refuse to compromise just because it might make people feel better. Or because it would be the nice thing to do. I won’t. Not with bigots.
And I do expect people to point out my own bigotry. Trust me, I have a thick skin and I am a big boy – I can handle it. It’s the only way I can ever answer The Question…
Anyway, back to me and my father…
Back when we still spoke we had almost daily fights about Apartheid and the fight against Apartheid. He called those who fought the Apartheid government terrorists – Nelson Mandela to Breyten Breytenbach and everyone from the ANC to COSATU. Yes, we fought like hell. It eventually tore us apart completely. There was a moment when I just gave up. And there was a time that I realized he just taught me the biggest lesson of all. He didn’t know it but it has driven me since…
It was just one of those days again. We were arguing like hell. I can’t even remember what triggered this one. The ANC was already unbanned. It could have been him calling Nelson Mandela racist names again. Or him bitching about anyone who was black and who didn’t agree with his warped view of the world. Actually, you didn’t have to be black to be hated by him. Even Reverand Beyers Naudé was a terrorist in his eyes. But we were off on our usual little boat ride down the rough river of arguing.
My poor mother was just sitting there half in shock as always. Every now and again trying to calm us down. But she knew it was a losing battle. I was never going to keep quiet. Not anymore. And it gave me a chance to fight him on every issues that I ever thought he was wrong about – from Apartheid to my mother. So once I started I would never let go. And he egged me on by pushing one button after the other. We were predictable…
He was on about the Apartheid National Party giving him a job and me an education. He was shouting at me that the ANC and Nelson Mandela will always be terrorists. I was throwing it back in his face that he must live with the fact that we have won. That it is over. You lost your right to bigotry and murder. No more. We won, you lost. And, to rub it in, that if Nelson Mandela is a terrorist then so is his own son.
It shut him for a little bit. He stared at me for a moment. I could see he was ready to explode. He was about to say something. And then it came. The question. I popped the question without even thinking…
“Tell me dad, what did you do?” (“Sê my pa, what het jy gedoen?”)
It shut him up. He had a puzzled look in his face. Not sure what I meant. That’s when I hit him with the meaning of my question…
“What have you ever done to make this country a better place? Where were you when they were murdering people? Where were you when all the killings were taking place? What did you do to stop all the madness? What did you do to end all the hate and bigotry dad? Where is the love and the peace and the freedom dad? Tell me dad, what have you ever done to make this world a better place? For me. For my sisters and mother. And for the kids we will one day have? Tell me dad, what did you do with your life?”
I only stopped when I saw his face change. I can’t even describe to you what he looked like. That expressions…
It was as if the life was sucked out of him. Like an animal in complete fear of his life and knowing that this is the end. That he has no more to offer. That everything is empty. That all that was left was this shell of a man standing in front of me. The look of a man knowing that everything he has ever done is meaningless and worthless in the eyes of his son. The look in his eyes was of a man knowing his life and what he stood for meant nothing to his son. Nothing. Like him. His life. Meaningless. All in a single expression.
it is difficult… I can’t really describe to you what he looked like…
But I will never forget it. That look in his eyes. It was something that made me shut up. I knew there was nothing more to say. I knew he was not my father anymore. He was… He was… Nothing…
Because his expression also told me something else. It betrayed him. It told me the answer…
Nothing…
I looked at him for a little while and said it one more time softly – almost a whisper, “Tell me dad, what have you ever done?”
His expression also betrayed something else…
It wasn’t just the question that cut him up. It wasn’t just his lack of answers that drained is soul. No. It was also my expression that sucked the life out of him. The expression of someone that felt nothing anymore. The look of someone who knew his father no more. The face of someone who knew a common love no more. The questions from someone who believed in his own blood no more. The end of the blood running through our veins. He knew that my own questions and eyes told him that we were no more…
That was what he saw… And what he heard…
And then I turned around and walked away. Leaving him there to… I don’t know… I just left him there without thinking about what I wanted from him. I didn’t want anything anymore. I didn’t need anything anymore. I got what I wanted…
…
I will never forget his face. I still see that expression. Daily. It drives me. That single question and that single expression drives me daily. Each and every single day. Because I never want to be asked that question. Never.
Maybe I am over sensitive to what is going on around me. Maybe I love my wife and kids a little more than what I would have if I didn’t know about that question. Maybe I get angry about bigotry and injustice and inequality more than I would have if I didn’t know about that expression. And maybe I see the beauty around me a bit clearer thanks to the face I saw that day. I don’t know. But I know this…
I never want any of my kids to ever ask me that question…
And I never want them to look at me the way I looked at my dad that day…
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Note: I should have added that I did make peace with my dad shortly before he died. I do understand where he came from even though I never agreed with his politics or the way he treated some people. But we did make some form of peace. Do I wish our relationship was different? I am not sure because I would not be who I am without him being who he was. I am at peace with how it all turned out – it could have been better but it could have been worse. I focus on the here and now. The question I asked him doesn’t drive me a in conscious way where I think of them daily. It is only when I think and reflect on what I do that I recognise some of the events that played a key role – and this was one of those key events.
This will be a long post but I want to and have to tell you about my second most important passion in life. You know about me and my girls – my wife and two daughters. But there is something else that runs a close second. I haven’t really spoken about them much on these pages. But they are in my blood. They affect my mood. And they are my boys.
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“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that…”
You know who said that? The greatest football (soccer) manager to ever walk this earth – Bill Shankly. I can tell you so many stories about Bill Shankly… But I won’t. Just believe me when I say that he was the best manager to walk this earth in each and every way. And he managed the greatest team to ever walk this earth – Liverpool.
I won’t say that I have an obsession with Liverpool. It goes much deeper than that. Like Mr Shankly said… My blood runs Red. The Mighty Reds. And it all started in 1980-something…
I was never that into sports when I was little. I watched it but I wasn’t obsessed with it. I know, I wasn’t normal. At least not in South Africa. And then I saw my first Liverpool game. Man, I can’t even remember who they played. But I remember watching and seeing these guys play like a dream. The smooth passing of the ball. The confidence. The masters of the beautiful game. And the crowd…
Oh that crowd. The 12th man on the field as we call it. The Scousers on The Kop. They sit on the cheap seats. And they never ever give up. Never. They back their team to the end no matter what happens. And when we score – that is the first place you run to. Those Scousers…
(The Kop has a South African link. It’s named after Spion Kop in South Africa where the Brits got their backsides kicked during the Anglo Boer War. And the regiment stationed there had many Liverpudlians who died on the battlefield at the Battle for Spion Kop. It actually means Spy Hill – Spioenkop.)
I wasn’t a nice Liverpool supporter. I used to teach Political Science back in South Africa when I was younger and my students knew about the “Liverpool Rules”.
Rule 1: Never ever wear a shirt of any other football team in my classroom. You will get kicked out. Some people used to think I was joking with them when they came to class the first time and I asked them to leave. They’ll ask why and I’ll tell them that no non-Liverpool shirts are allowed in my classroom. They’ll laugh and then slowly realize I wasn’t joking when I didn’t even blink – just stared at them. They will quickly leave the class. And they will never wear that crap in my class again!
Rule 2: Expect a test on Monday if Liverpool loses over the weekend. They slowly picked up on that one. A spot-test on Monday if Liverpool lost over the weekend. Thankfully Liverpool never lost often but they did learn to study and come to class when Liverpool lose. And not to give me any opportunity to take out my frustrations on them.
My mood when Liverpool lost was never a pretty sight. Like I said – I have Red blood running through my veins. I have calmed down since I got my girls but I got them “My dad supports Liverpool and so do I” t-shirts!
Liverpool is drenched in history. From when we started off because we didn’t like the religious fanatics of Everton. To come from nowhere to be a dominant force across the world. Always a team for the workers. Never flashy. Always sticking to the basics and sticking together. Never glory boys – always together. Always one. Always knowing the history and the people who bleed Red.
And with the greatest players ever to have played the beautiful game. Legends. Reds… Dalglish, Keegan. Rush. Grobbelaar. Hansen. Barnes. Beardsley. Souness. And all the other Red Legends. You name them and we had them. They died for the team on the field. They were The Mighty Reds.
My first hero? The Fat-Man-In-The-Middle. Jan Molby…
Man… He was fat for a football player. But he controlled the middle. He determined the pace and flow of the game. He could pass a ball across the park with pinpoint accuracy. He was the man. He hardly moved. He controlled a little circle in the middle of the park – maybe a 20 feet radius. But he was the man. And I just loved watching him sweat Red. And drive other teams crazy. This blob of a man with the gift from God.
He wasn’t born in Liverpool. Nope. He was from Denmark. But no one would ever have guessed that. He had this heavy Scouser accent. No one understood what he said but that didn’t matter – he was a Red and he was our main man in the middle. Once a Red always a Red. That’s what he showed us. And we believed.
My next big hero was a man called “god”. Robbie Fowler…
He was simply the best striker to ever put that Red shirt on. And he was born in Liverpool. He scored on his debut and two weeks later scored all 5 goals when they thrashed Fulham. Man… He was The Man. The leading goalscorer ever to put that Red shirt on. He was as lazy as hell but knew how to score. Always at the right place at the right time. He couldn’t miss even if he tried. And we called him “god”. And boy, did we love him.
He was also the reason why I had a bad patch with Liverpool…
Liverpool always had a Liverpool guy in charge. Someone with deep-rooted Red blood running through their veins. People who came up through the ranks to take charge as manager was called up from “the boot room”. (They started cleaning boots at first.) The Liverpool boss always came from a Liverpool background. Always. But we went through a bad patch in the 90′s. We hardly won anything. An FA Cup here and a League Cup there. But never our bread-and-butter – the League. So we went where others went and employed our first ever guy as manager from outside of the boot room – Gérard Houllier. He was a good guy but he wasn’t a born Red. We gave him his chance. But it started going downhill when he sold “god”. I almost turned my back on Liverpool…
Those were dark days.
You have to understand that Liverpool is not just a soccer team. It is Liverpool. From the working class side of the docks. And the most successful club in the history of English football. We have won more League titles than anyone else. We have won the European Championship title more than anyone else. We are Liverpool. We do not lose. We win. Always. Because we are the Mighty Reds.
So the 90′s was bad for us. We hardly won anything after dominating the 70′s and 80′s. Eventually Gérard Houllier had to go. Winning three trophies in one year wasn’t even good enough if it didn’t include either the League or the EUFA Champions League title. And in came Rafa…
Oh Rafael Benítez…
He wasn’t from the boot room either. And he was Spanish! WTF? But we knew that he was the man. From day one. All he could talk about was Liverpool. He was offered way more money to go to the glory clubs – Real, Barcelona, Inter Milan, AC Milan… But he came to Liverpool. He was ready to bleed Red.
And we had a new hero or two emerging from the player side as well…
Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher. Both born and bred in Liverpool. Big Scousers. Red blood. And so different from each other.
Stevie G was and is simply the best midfielder in the world. He makes us who we are. He is the guy who will score the winning goal with seconds to spare. He is the guy you want to pass the ball to when you need a moment of brilliance to turn the game. He is Mr Liverpool. Down-to-earth but sublime. He has been offered so much money to go play elsewhere but always turn it down. Like he said, “What would I do when I am old one day and think about the time I left Liverpool? I was born a Red and will die a Red.” He is our man. He is our captain.
Jamie… He doesn’t have a tenth of the skills or talent that Stevie G (or anyone else for that matter) has got. But he is the wall you will not get through at the back. I have seen this guy cramp up and still lunge at attackers. You have to break his legs to make him even think of slowing down. He is everything that Liverpool stands for – not flashy but willing to die for the Scousers of Liverpool. He is the guy you want in the trenches with you when you are in a war. Because he will die for the cause. Die for the Mighty Reds.
Our Stevie G and Jamie – the heart of Liverpool today. Our big man. Our captain. Two Scousers and two Mighty Reds.
Now let me tell you about the greatest game of football ever played. The greatest game ever. Without a doubt. Up there with Ali and Foreman…
It is the major club football trophy each year. We have won it 4 times – more than all the other English teams put together. But that was way back then when we still dominated. This time we were struggling in the Premier League in England and just scrapped through to the finals of the EUFA Champions League. We should really not have been there. We won games we should have lost. A few results went our way and somehow we made it to the finals. And this was Rafa’s first season in charge!
Everyone wrote us off before the game. How we should just celebrate the fact that we made it to the finals. That should be enough for us. As if Liverpool can settle for just that…
I was watching the game at home. Alone… I can’t handle watching Liverpool play. It drives me crazy and I go into a depressed state of mind when they lose. It’s best for me and everyone around to not let me watch them in public. So there I was…
And before I could open my first beer AC Milan scored their first goal…
They were all over us. They were the best team in Europe by a long shot. Everyone wrote us off before the match and here they scored in the first minute! And it got worse. Very quickly…
They scored again…
And again…
By half-time we were 3-0 down. And we were completely outplayed. We were like kids and they were the masters teaching us a lesson. They were having fun playing with us. It was a massacre. The gap in class showed. And it was painful to watch. Each goal was like and arrow to my heart. All the faint hope and belief I had before the game just disappeared. Our heads hung low. And our boys went off to gather their thoughts in the locker room somewhere at halftime…
Everyone wrote us off at halftime. Milan was a super team. The best defenders in the business. No way can any team come back from 3-0 down at halftime. Especially not a Liverpool team that wasn’t even close to being great. The commentators all spoke about how Liverpool must just try to not lose too badly. Keep the score down to a respectable level. No chance back. They actually felt sorry for us. Talking about how the mighty have fallen. How this was a shadow of the Liverpool of old. How we came here with nothing but empty promises. How we already lost this game. They all knew that and believed it…
And then the Scousers started singing…
“You’ll Never Walk Alone“…
That is our song. A song that sounds like Sinatra should be singing it. Not a song for sport – any sport. But that is our song. Because our boys must know that You’ll Never Walk Alone. We all go down together and we all suffer together. No matter how bad things get – we stand by our team. We bleed with our boys. The boys in Red…
Just listen to this… Remember this game was played in Turkey but you can hear the Scousers sing and sing… Recorded from the stands…
Man, I still get goosebumps from that.
And the boys heard them sing from inside the locker room. And Rafa said, “Go out and make the fans proud. We can lose but we can never give up. We lose together but make the fans proud of who you represent and what you stand for in their eyes.” Or something like that anyway. No one is willing to say what he said but we know he said something about them having to go out and make the fans proud and that they must remember that they are Liverpool players – and that means something. And the boys went out to play…
And that man Stevie scored a beautiful goal. Just one from the captain. And he started waving his arms to the crowd and the rest of the team. Yelling at them to “come on!” Getting the boys up from the floor. Reminding them who they are and reminding them about that shirt they are wearing. And somehow the team woke up and realized what it meant to have that Red shirt on. The remembered that they will never walk alone. They are the Reds. The Mighty Reds…
We came back from the dead. We scored again. First Smicer who couldn’t score all season and who was already on his way out to join another team. And then again. Alonso taking a penalty and it being saved. But he followed it up and scored! Everything Liverpool stood for came through on that day. It was as if Shankly was playing with the boys. Smiling from above. Playing like only Liverpool knew how to play. Never give up and never give in. Because you are the Mighty Reds. You’ll Never Walk Alone.
It was 3-3. But our boys were out on their feet. Jamie was cramping up badly but refused to leave the field. He made one tackle after the other. Each time staying down because of his cramping legs.
Injury time… And we have run out of substitutes.
Milan was hammering at our goalkeeper. Jerzy Dudek made one unbelievable save after another. They kept on missing and Jerzy kept on making unbelievable saves. Right at the death of injury time the greatest player of the year, Shevchenko had to score for Milan – a clear run at goal and only a few yards out. And somehow Jerzy got a hand to it – but just enough to push it back to Shevchenko. Shevchenko just had to tap it in…
But Jerzy was there again. He had no clue what he did but he saved it. Again!
That’s when I knew. I knew this was going to be our day… Just maybe we are back where we belong…
And the whistle blew and extra time was over.
Penalties!
Jerzy wasn’t the greatest keeper in the world but Jamie ran up to him and shouted something only a true Scouser will remember to use, “Remember Grobbelaar in 84!”
Liverpool played in the 1984 European Cup Final and Bruce Grobbelaar was the keeper. It also came down to penalties and Bruce did his “spaghetti legs” impression. Moving his legs as if it was spaghetti to distract the penalty taker. And it worked. Liverpool won in 1984. And now Jerzy was going to do the same?
Pirlo was up to take the penalty for Milan. And Jerzy did the “spaghetti legs”…
And he saved it!
It went one way and another for the next few penalties. We missed one and they missed another one. It all came down to Shevchenko to keep Milan in the game. There was no way the greatest player in the world would miss a penalty.
Or was there?
Jerzy did the “spaghetti legs” one last time… Shevchenko ran up not looking at Jerzy. Staying cool. Jerzy dived to his right…
Shevchenko hit it straight down the middle…
And Jerzy saved it with his legs!
We won! We won! God dammit, we won!
I was jumping up and down screaming and shouting like a madman. I went crazy. This was the greatest day in the world! We are back! We are back! And only in the way Liverpool could do it! By playing the greatest game of football ever!
Everyone thought I was crazy. Our little one didn’t know any better but still shouted along with her dad, “Come on you Reds! Come on you Reds!”
We won the penalty shootout 3-2…
We were champions again! And I was crying like a little baby…
Look at this video. It is the highlights of that game. The greatest game of football ever to have been played. That’s my team. That’s the Mighty Reds. Liverpool Football Club. (Hey, even the music is cool to listen to!)
The greatest game ever…
Another shorter version. The one that makes me cry whenever I watch this short reminder of that day – which is often! The greatest day of 2005. Music – In My Life… You HAVE to watch this one…
That’s the story of my second biggest passion in life. Liverpool…
We are top of the league right now. Still a long way to go. Who knows whether we will win the league this year. Who knows. But you know…
You’ll Never Walk Alone…
(The original version with stills from that game in 2005.)
I’m a Red. I bleed Red. I am Liverpool.
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A few more quick stories about Liverpool. Two about me and one about why I bleed Red. And that one gets to the heart and soul of Liverpool…
1. I actually missed all 3 those goals Liverpool scored in the second half in 2005! I was so down after we went behind 3-0 that I decided to walk over to the Co-op to buy a few more beers. I thought I needed a few more to drown my sorrows! I went at half-time… I was walking back with my head hanging low when I heard cheers and shouting coming from the houses down our road. Yes, everyone was watching. I though to myself that at least Liverpool scored a goal. I got home and put the beers down and opened a cold one – ready catch the rest of the game. And missed the second goal! I looked at the telly and decided to quickly go for a… hum… toilet break. And missed the bloody third goal! Liverpool scored all three their goals in the space of 12 minutes. And I missed them all… Needless to say, but I didn’t move again for the rest of the game! The girls had to hand me fresh cold beers…
2. The other story happened when me and my lovely suffering wife went over to the UK for the first time – back in 1994. She had to go back to South Africa for her brother’s wedding and I stayed behind. With all our money. So one day I was just walking around in London and happened to walk into the shop that had all these Liverpool goodies. I had to really look hard to “just walk into the shop”… Anyway, so I walked in and blew all out money on Liverpool stuff. Scarves and caps and shirts and wallets and loads of other stuff. The one cap is a red tartan one with woolly ear covers with the Liverpool logo on the front. My wife still refuses to let me wear it in public. And I still have no clue why I needed 3 of exactly the same wallets… I was like a kid in a candy store. I just couldn’t stop buying and buying Liverpool crap… I mean goodies. For some reason my wife was less than pleased with my purchasing habits.
3. Liverpool has many football enemies. Two stand out – Manchester United and Everton. Man U because they are the other “big” team in England. Of course we have won more trophies than them and they are a bunch of glory boys hunting the limelight… Anyway, Everton is the other BIG enemy because they are also from Liverpool. Actually, we share the same park. Anfield, our grounds, are on the one side of Stanley Park and Everton’s piece of mud and grass on the other side. We wear Red and they wear blue. There is NOTHING like the local derby. Nothing. We can not lose against them. They are the enemy. We were actually all just Everton back before Liverpool was created but we couldn’t stand their uppity ways and religious fanatics. So we started our own club. And so Liverpool FC was born. And they have hated us since then – because we are bigger than them and have won more trophies than them and are more loved in Liverpool than them. We kicked our older brother’s backside. The hate runs deep…
But sometimes we remember what this world is all about. A moment I will NEVER forget…
A little boy of 12 called Rhys Jones from Liverpool was brutally murdered on 22 August 2007. Shot in the back. It sent shock waves through Liverpool and the whole of the UK. He was just a kid. A good kid. And little Rhys was a huge Everton fan. He even had a season ticket to their games. Now you have to understand that Liverpool and Everton are mortal football enemies. They make the Red Sox and Yankees look like a Sunday school class. Nothing good ever happens between these two clubs. And little Rhys was an Everton fan. He wore blue… His favorite song was called Johnny Todd - the Z-cars theme tune and the Everton version of You’ll Never Walk Alone. It would never be played at Anfield. Never. But it was played at Anfield. Just once…
The Liverpool fans asked the club to do something that has never been done before. To show that the city is united as one even when the city is divided between the Reds and the blues. The family of little Rhys was asked to join Liverpool before a major game on the field – with the Everton manager there as well. And the played Z-Cars… While the Jones family stood on the field in their blue outfit. Johnny Todd playing to salute Rhys. To wrap the Liverpool arms around his family. To make his one dream come true. For Z-Cars to be played at Anfield. And everyone at Anfield sang along. We were all Evertonians for a day. And of course we won that game for Rhys.
There wasn’t a dry eye to be seen. I cried my heart out when I saw it. But that is my team. Because even an Everton fan like Rhys Jones must know that You’ll Never Walk Alone…
Yes… That’s my team. Those are my boys. And my blood runs Red. Because I know…
I have been blessed with a loving sister. She cared for me and always treated me as “the special one”. I had special names for her and she had a special name for me. The two of us. Bliss. She used to play with me and make me my favorite food. Pour me a little drinkie when I needed it and dressed me in my best clothes for Sunday school. She taught me about love and caring. She loved me and looked after me. My sister… She was my angel. My special one.
And then I have this other sister. Man… You think Freddie Krueger was bad? He wakes up screaming from the bad nightmares she gave him. She used to ride the “mares” until they pass out at night. If she didn’t pass out from the alcohol consumption first. She was the kid you warn your kids about. And that you pray to God you never get. She was the kid that the bogeyman told his kids about to scare them. She was the kid that people refer to when they say “I heard this story about a kid…”. She was the reason why cats stayed indoors. She made grown men cry. She was the reason why social services was created… for parents. The Chucky movies was based her favorite toy. When people spoke about “those Fockers living down the road” they weren’t referring to a family by that name… She was the Nightmare on Our Street.
You might have seen a few comments from her over here. Just go check out anything by a certain person called Marlize in a few earlier stories. The last one – Fat Kids and Stupid Parents for instance. She made a few comments about the lovely food she used to lovingly make me. Yeah right… More like force feeding. She has the cooking skills that is equivalent to my dancing and singing skills. And you know how awesome that is. Actually, she does bake extremely excellent tarts. But then, she knows a lot about being a tart. Baking tarts is not that huge of a jump for her.
But let me tell you a few stories of my sister from hell. The kid the devil rejected as “just too much to handle”. And what I am about to write is 100% true. I kid you not.
Yes, she did make my food almost every day when I grew up. My mother and father worked so it was up to her to feed me. Feed me and food might be a bit of a stretch, but there isn’t words to say what she did and “cooked”. But let me rather say that she “made” my food and not made my food. I need the “made” to qualify her “cooking”. But wait, let me first tell you the story of me chasing her down the road with a fork…
She commented in the previous story that I chased her down the road because she made me fish fingers with syrup and cheese on it. That is a complete lie. I did not chase her down the road because she made me fish fingers with a syrup and cheese topping. Never did that. Complete bullshit.
I chased her down the road because she made me a Big Jack pie and stuck the bloody fork in it. And that was just the start of something bigger…
I had a choice of three dishes. Actually, it wasn’t a choice. She decided which of the three I would get. And these were my “choices” for most of my life until I managed to escape her claws. I could have a Big Jack pie with some All Gold tomato sauce (ketchup), fish-in-sauce or fish fingers with syrup and cheese on top.
Now Big Jack was (and I hope was and not is) a soggy and doughy pie from a box in the fridge that tasted like cardboard and never had anything inside no matter what the box said. I think the box might have tasted better if we only tried it once but my sister was too lazy to give me that. And the box most likely had a higher nutritional value as well. It was crap and my sister had a special way of making it taste even crappier. (Note to sister – Next time just follow the instructions on the box please.) I don’t think that the instructions said that is should be burnt on the outside and frozen in the middle…
Fish-in-sauce was even worse. It was a piece of “fish” (or fish by-products most likely) in a bag of sauce. Three flavors – green crap, yellow crap and brown crap. I liked the yellow crap the best. If you want to call it “like”. I have blocked most of the details from my memory and sitting here and just typing about it makes me break out in a cold sweat and the shivers. Let’s just leave it at the fact that it was pulled off the market and declared a WMD by Saddam himself. And yes, I do have a certain “glow” at night like one of those light sticks. You never recover completely from it and I still get my tetanus shots daily thanks to my one-time consumption of fish-in-sauce when I was a little boy.
And then there was the fish fingers. Another fish-like by-product. If you take an old fish head off the rubbish dump and cook it for a few hours and then leave it for a week to cool down in the African heat outside in the middle of summer… The stuff you can scrape off the top is what fish fingers are made of… Including the flies and other “additives”. My sister tried to hide the impact of the smell and taste by smothering it with Golden Syrup and grated nameless yellow cheese. The taste of that will stay with you forever… For-effing-ever I tell you. I can taste it now. Hali-bloody-tosis! (Gotta go brush my teeth quickly…)
So those were my choices…
And then we had the fork-down-the-road scene. My sister-from-hell made me a burnt-on-the-outside-frozen-inside Big Jack. Again. For the fourth day in a row. It might have been a chicken one. Or steak and kidney. I can’t remember. And you couldn’t taste the difference either. You only knew what you ate if you opened it up. Chicken was a gooey yellow with chunky dog meat inside and steak and kidney was a gooey brown ball of crap. It all tasted the same. And on this day she emptied the full bottle of tomato sauce on the pie-like lunch. And I just had it with crap food.
(The kids at school was laughing behind my back and pointing fingers at me because I always had to go to the bathroom and smelled a bit even though I bathed every time I brushed my teeth. About six times a day. You can never get that crap out of your system..)
So I said, “No more”. Actually, it could have been in Afrikaans and something like, “Jou moer“. Translated roughly into “F-you” or “your mother”. But the message was clear. I wasn’t going to eat it. And she said, “Yes you will”. And I said, “No I won’t”. And she said, “Yes, you will”. And I said, blah… blah… blah. This went on for about 60 or so exchanges. But I think the language might have been more colourful the longer we went on with this “argument”.
Then she stuck the fork in it. In my pie! Or whatever you called that thing on my plate.
And that was it!
I said, “Now I won’t eat this effing pie!” And she said, “Yes. You. Will!” And blah… blah… blah… I think we stopped when I got up and tried to escape… I mean run away. And she started chasing me around the kitchen table.
Picture the scene…
We had this big kitchen with this big table in the middle that could fit about eight people. Nice 70′s style yellowish top table. Formica or something. And matching chairs. And cupboards everywhere. On the open half-wall was a Japanese picture my mother liked. One of those that could roll up and had the doves on the lake scene. A narrow wooden-stripped roll-up painting. Hand painted. Remember that. Now back to the “chase scene”…
So I am running around this table trying to stay away from her slapping me on my head or something and she is chasing me all the way. But I was small and nimble. No way she was going to catch me because I could take the corners quicker. She can beat me in a straight run – being older – but no way could she catch me when there were turns and twists involved.
We did about twenty or thirty laps when she started to get tired. And thank God I noticed. I realized she was slowing down and turned to look at her on the other side… and ducked just in time. The pie was about an inch away from my face when instinct kicked in and I hit the floor. I looked at the pie going past me in Matrix style slow-motion and watched as it hit the Japanese painting. Right where the two doves where flying. They were fried. KFC thank you.
The pie just stayed there for a few second but it felt like minutes. And then it slowly started to slide down the painting and eventually hit the floor. Right next to me.
I stood up slowly and kept on staring at the picture with the pie marks. And then I heard a “whoosh” sound and felt a stinging pain in my left buttock. I turned around and saw the fork stuck in my backside! She threw the fork so hard it got stuck in my arse! WTF?
I was pissed.
I pulled out the fork and shouted, “Now you are going to get it. I’m going to effing &%^@# you to pieces!”… And I charged at her. Like the Light Brigade. No, I was a Zulu impi and I had my spear. I’m gonna get me some revenge on this colonialist tyrant. Charge! For country! For freedom! For liberty! Viva La France!
(Juluka playing in the background.)
She looked at me and realized she was in deep shit. Little baby brother is about to kick some ass. She turned and ran. Out the front door.
And I was right behind her screaming and shouting.
Down the road we went. She just laying it down flat as if she was running the 100 meters sprint like Flo-Jo in the ’88 Olympics. And I’m the mad man with the fork trying to get her. Eyes blazing, screaming that I was going to take her out this time. Man, we were crazy.
We must have run about 400 meters down the road when both of started realizing how stupid this was. What must the neighbors think? I am sure I saw a few people peeping through the curtains and calling their kids and dogs inside. Again. But we just kept on running. And then we started laughing.
It was stupid. But it was fun. We stopped and just laughed and laughed. Me and my stupid weird and crazy sister. Lying in the middle of the road and laughing our asses off.
That’s the story of the fork-in-the-road incident.
But let me just give you a few other stories of my sister from hell so you can get a clearer picture of her.
She is older than me by three years so she was already well known in high school when I entered the same high school. There I sat in my first class on my first day. I had no clue that she had a “bit of a reputation” at school. The teacher introduced himself and started asking each kid to give their name where they came from. No problem. I can do that. The teacher smiled and pointed to me when it was my turn. I was chuffed to stand up and announce my name with a big smile. The teacher’s face just dropped. He kept quite for a little while and then asked, “Say that again? Are you the brother of Marlize?” “Of course!” I said with an even bigger smile. They know my sister! Great! Right…
“Come with me young man”, said the teacher and turned around to go into his little backroom. I followed. A little puzzled, but maybe he was going to ask me to help him carry some pencils or books or something. I followed him into his little backroom and saw him standing there with a cane in his hand. He looked at me and said, “Bend down”. I lifted up my school blazer and did as he said. He caned me six shots on the arse.
Why? Let me quote you using his own words – translated. “Because your sister is Marlize and just in case you turn out to be anything like her. And for what you might get up to later today”.
WTF?
Yep, that’s what happened. I was a nerd in secondary school but got my first taste of corporal punishment on my first day in high school all thanks to nothing more than being the younger brother of Marlize. Thank you sis…
I quickly learned that she was a “special needs” kid at school. Every single class had a table and chair right next to the teacher’s table. Facing away from the other kids. That was her special table and chair. In every single class. So that she couldn’t disrupt the class too much. As if that helped. Just because she couldn’t face the other kids didn’t mean she couldn’t do anything. Those ink pots had a special meaning for her…
That’s how my time in high school went. I got canned often just because of my lovely sister. She was also the only girl I know of that got canned the way boys got canned at school. On the backside. And boy did she deserve it.
But she did teach me a thing or two. Like how to hang out the windows of the top floor to shout and wave at her when she was down in the courtyard doing PE. Or rather, skipping PE and having a skelm smoke instead. My teachers had a few heart attacks with that one but I trusted in the builders having done their job. And it was cool to hang out the window on a hot summer day and feel the wind blow through your hair. Three stories up…
She also taught me that throwing a handful of certain chemicals in the big fish tank outside the headmaster’s office will allow just enough time for you to go in, get your daily caning and “the speech”, walk out and then run when you hit the corner – just before the fish tank explodes. I bet that was what they used to make those fish fingers…
Oh, and because of the mess they never gave you a hiding for the fish tank on the same day. That had to wait until tomorrow…
She was horrid. My sister. No idea how she passed any of her exams. To say she scrapped through would be an overstatement. A string of DNA could not fit in between her scrapping through school year after year. I know the UN has been investigating just how the hell she managed to pass since 1982 and are no closer to getting an answer. It’s also what Stephen Hawking has been studying since he wrote A Brief History of Time. I think he based his black hole theories on some of her exam results.
And she could drink… At school. She used to skip classes and go to the bar down the road and ask for a shot of everything. No, I don’t mean a shot of brandy and a shot of whiskey and a shot of tequila. I mean a shot of every brand in the bar!
And she stole my dad’s cars a few times… To go for a spin. And a few drinks. He never noticed the dents and marks left on the car. She added them slowly. One at a time. Little by little. Until it looked like those old stock cars from 1980. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
And oh, my parents once decided to send her to boarding school. Yeah, like that worked out pretty well…
She got kicked out after 2 weeks. And she was home for the weekend that fell in between those 2 weeks! I still have no idea why she got kicked out so quickly. And I don’t think I will hear the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from her either. Ha! My parents were so stupid that they gave her her yearly allowance for hostel as she started her first day there. She came back with… Nothing! She blew it! In two bloody weeks? I wonder if her getting kicked out and blowing her allowance had anything to do with each other? Mmm… Was there a bar close by?
Man…My sister. Here is another one.
You know the sign on the back window of the bus that says “Push out in case of emergency?” Guess what…
My dad got a call one day from the bus service complaining about my sister. Again. Why? Because she kicked out the back window. My dad just shook his head and asked in a faint little voice, “Why?” Her answer? “Because it was hot and for me that is an emergency.” She eventually wasn’t allowed on the bus either and my dad had to drive her to school each day. A 30 kilometre drive each and every day. Here is the clincher. My dad was the boss of the bus service in his role as head of the prison service where we lived. Yeah! She managed to get kicked out of something my dad was in charge of!
Or how about the time she kicked a hole in my room door because I didn’t want to let her in to beat me up?
Think of the worst thing you can think of for any kid to do just short of getting caught and going to jail. In her infinite wisdom my sister has done that and upped the ante to a level where you need bottled oxygen and a space suite just to breathe and survive the pressure. She lived in a rare space. A planet just for her. Population? One…
She made me take my first ever cigarette. I was six and she was nine. She was already a full time smoker. (Yes, you read right – 9!) And I caught her smoking with her friends in the park. What did I say? “I’m so gonna tell mom and dad!” Guess what she did?
She forced me to take one puff of a cigarette. One small little puff that made me puke my lungs out. I was still busy being sick all over the park and all I could hear was her laughing and shouting, “You can’t do anything now because I’ll tell mom and dad that you smoked as well!” Dammit. I was so stupid.
She used to rip me off as well. Trading my silver money for a gold money. She just polished her pieces of copper and “traded” it for my money that was “so worth so much less”. I could have been a millionaire by now if I didn’t trade my 50c for a 1c. Dammit. Again.
And she used to play “horsey” with me. Let me explain. She’ll come in and say, “Let’s play horsey. You are the horse and I am the cowboy. And then we’ll swap.” Guess what. We never swapped. I was always the horse and then she always had an excuse for why she could not be the horse. She fell off the horse and hurt her back. She had homework to do. Yeah right! I never got the chance to be the cowboy.
Or when we were on long trips and stuck in the back of the car. She used to tease me endlessly. She always told me that I was adopted and that my real name was Sareltjie Visser. Just a stupid common name in South Africa. And she would not stop until I cried and my parent threatened her with death.
My sister. Hell on two legs. There are so many stories I can tell you about her but some might still land her in jail. I know no one else who can touch what she has done and still remain more or less sane and stay out of jail. No one. Tell me your best story and I promise you I can tell you an even better one about my sister.
I promise you each and every single story is true. Not a single little detail is exaggerated. She was the worse of the worse. And she taught me everything I needed to know.
She taught me to always try things at least once. And never do it or taste it again if you don’t like it. I don’t like Brussels sprouts.
And she taught me the most important principle of them all…
Never back down. Never ever fucking back down. That’s what she taught me. To never back down when you know you are right. And to never back down when you see something is wrong.
Maybe that is why I am the Angry African. Still pissed after all these years.
I like my sister. She might have been a nightmare and the naughtiest kid to have walked this earth, but she is my sister. My effing crazy, mad, weird, delinquent and “special needs” sister called Marlize.
I love her very much. And I miss her very much.
She is special. She is crazy. She is full of shit. And she makes me laugh and love. She is my sister. And I couldn’t be happier.
Thanks sis. You have given me memories I will never forget. Even if I still wake up screaming at night. It was worth it. I love you.
Your proud brother who managed to survive your best shots.
Sareltjie Visser
(Note: Sis, can you send a few tarts and some biltong this way? Oh, I mean the tarts you bake and not your friends…)
Those REALLY regular and early readers might recall that I wrote a bit about the fat kids once – Let the fat kids play. I can hear the voices already…
“Oh come on! You can’t call the kids that! They are only kids. Shame, poor them.”
Tough. Fat became a swear word because of the pictures we see in the magazines telling us all that we would be so much better if we all look like Brad or Angelina. Or any of those thin chicks selling us the latest perfume or underwear. Okay, I don’t personally wear the underwear but… Anyway…
So tough. These kids are fat. Toughen up or shed some weight. Or just be happy with how you look. It could be worse. You could be too thin. Oh sorry, that doesn’t exist – according to the magazines that cover our delicate consciousness. But being fat is a problem.
Now we call it a “disease”. The obesity “disease”. Crap people. It isn’t a disease. HIV/Aids is a disease. Eating too much crap isn’t a disease. It’s just eating too much crap.
I know, I know. There are a few people that gain weight because of a hormone imbalance or some serious medical issue. But really… Most cases of “big boned” people are due to an imbalance between the ears. Don’t try to pull that crap on me. I am not thin. Maybe “slightly” over my ideal Barack Obama weight. But I’m still closer to Obama than Rush Limbaugh. In so many ways. I don’t eat too much crap and I don’t talk too much crap. (Stop laughing.) I know my excuse – I’m not fat, I’m just lazy. What’s your excuse?
Crap stays crap. Just don’t believe your own lies or that doctor that feeds you crap stories. Your own crappola of excuses. “Obesity is a disease.” Puh-leeze…
Who told you to stuff your face with that Big Mac or KFC Extra Crispy or donut from Dunkin’s? You ate it. Now live with it. Stop bitching. Stop telling me to not make it sound so awful. It is awful – live with it or stop it. Sorry, you won’t find any sympathy here.
You want to take McDonald’s to court? Sue Burger King for their jewels? Did they force it down your throat? Oh… They didn’t warn you about how bad it is… WTF? Are you stupid?
Stuffing your face with too much food is bad. Stuffing your face with too much crap food is even worse. It is NOT rocket science…
I know, it isn’t really the kids fault. But it sure as hell isn’t the fault of the crap-making fast food joints. Ronald doesn’t sit next to you and force the last morsel of a Big Mac down you throat. And neither did the government. So who should be “blamed”?
Hellooooo… Parents!
Or maybe I shouldn’t call you that. You aren’t parents. You are household engineers. Parenting isn’t good enough anymore. Actually, you are right. You can’t be called parents – because you are not parents. And you haven’t been parents since you had that kid in the first place.
Parenting means you have a kid (or kids) and that you are responsible for them and for how they grow up. Not someone else. Not your mom. Or uncle George the President. Or Ms Burns at the school. It’s YOU.
How can you feed your kids crap and call yourself parents? Here is a hot dog for dinner darling. And a nice oily pizza tomorrow night. How about a nice Mac ‘n Cheese from the box on Saturday? Sunday is so special when we all go to T.G.I Friday’s and eat a plate of more crap. Just after we’ve been to The Cheesecake Factory for breakfast. Don’t forget to go all “healthy” when you gulp down the Diet Pepsi to go with you thick slice of cheesecake – extra cream please. Crap parents feed kids crap food 24/7.
Crap, crap, crap.
That’s what we feed our kids and how we act as parents.
Let me brag for a minute…
Many moons ago we took our youngest daughter to Wendy’s. We were driving up in New Hampshire and decided to stop for a quick bite on our way back. It was going to be our first time at Wendy’s. The youngest one was so excited. Wendy’s! Yeah! She loved the ad with the guy and the weird hair. It must be good! She ordered her burger and fries. Big eyes and all excited – jumping up and down. “I’m gonna have a Wendy’s!” And then the food came…
“Where’s my broccolili?” What she calls broccoli. That was her first question. She didn’t touch the burger because she thought it was crap. Hum… Not her exact words but you get my drift. We haven’t been back since. She doesn’t like crap. And she doesn’t take crap. She’s an African all right.
Six days a week she gets a proper meal at dinner that includes at least two vegetables. And she LOVES broccoli. And peas. And carrots. And she eats a good breakfast. And most of the time she gets food made and packed by my lovely wife for her school lunch and snack. Yes. Home made stuff. I know… It is way out there in crunchy-hippie world for most people…
Once a week we eat crap. A pizza on a Saturday or some burgers. Guess what? Most of the time we make those hamburgers or pizzas ourselves. Hand-made patties and dough. And they help me make the food when I cook crap. It’s part of the fun. And it tastes better than the crap from the joint down the road. Oh, did I mention we spend time together doing this?
Sometimes we order out or we eat out. It is seen as a “treat” when things are crazy otherwise. Maybe Olive Garden or Uno’s where the girls can still make their own pizza. Whatever. It’s a break and not the norm.
And our kids eat what we eat.
We cook dinner for all of us and eat together – all of us. It is the highlight of my day. I get home and we sit together as a family and talk crap instead of eat crap, drive my lovely suffering wife crazy and eat our food. Together. A family. You give our kids the option of eating in front of the telly or at the table together and they choose…. The table! Even when we parents want to sit back and veg in front of the idiot-box and eat our food from a tray… They don’t want that. They insist we sit together as a family around the table. Ha! I am more popular than Spongebob Squarepants! And they are only 5 and 11… Teaching us about parenting.
And we all eat the same food.
How can parents make different food for the kids? You should eat a proper meal if you are old enough to talk. Not some crappy hot dog or a mac ‘n cheese. You are feeding them crap and then you wonder why they get fat or get sick easily. Or do you eat crap to start off with? Why all this crap?
Because it is crap! The food and you!
I am no model parent but this I know. My kids eat healthy food and enjoy eating healthy food because that is what we all eat together as a family. They make a link between broccolili and dad and mom sitting with them around the table and eating – and having fun as a family together. They see good food and think of good times. They compliment their mother (and sometimes me) on the food they have every night without anyone asking. Why? Because they actually like the food!
We already joke when the little one asks, “What are we having for dinner mom?” And you can say anything – chicken with carrots and honey, tomato bredie (stew), goggas (spaghetti bolognese) or whatever. She’ll always have the same reply… “I looove tomato bredie” Or whatever we are having.
They eat crap as well. They are kids. But we know what they need daily to keep them healthy and keep us being healthy parents.
Feed your kids crap and be surprised that they get called “fatty” at school? Who is the stupid one now?
Don’t even get me started on education. Everyone wants education to improve. A better school. A better chance for their kids. “Just get my kid a good school and education. You know a chance to make it in this world.”
Okay, but how about parenting. How about you starting to become a parent? Too many parents see the school taking over the role of the parents. Your responsibility towards your kids does not stop when the kid goes off to school. Being a parent isn’t something you hand over. You take responsibility of that. Sort your parenting out before you start bitching about education. Guess what… Education today is better than what it was 100 years ago – Parenting not.
Do you read to your kid at night? Do you help with the homework instead of ignoring them or (even worse) doing their homework with them? Do you take time to be interested in showing them the wonders of snow? Or point at the stars and the full moon? Maybe hunt for treasure in the forest or park? Turn over stones to see what is hiding? Or ask them what they’ve done at school? Or little things like coloring in with them? Or do you spend your time with them creating more crap?
Crap food. Crap education. It starts where? You guessed it…
All this crap starts with… Parenting.
Parents eat crap. Parents watch crap. Parents learn nothing. Parents do nothing. And the kids follow them down to the gallows.
Fat kids and stupid parents. They go hand in hand.
