MY DEAR WIFE, THE BLONDE!

My dear wife of 30 years, Sonja, is an intelligent, loveable and fun person. You are very hard to please if you don’t take to this super lady the moment you meet her, as she’s charming and welcoming to all and sundry. She is however BLONDE, occasionally with the attributes that are jokingly attributed to these ladies. This should not be construed to mean that she is an airhead – quite the contrary but she is capable of hilarious behavior in moments when her concentration is elsewhere or when she encounters something unfamiliar. Here are some examples which caused much mirth at the time.

Sonja had an unfortunate tendency to break crockery, in the days before we acquired a dishwasher. We decided that fragile crockery was not for us and set about trying to find something a little more robust such as stoneware. This proved a lot more difficult than we anticipated because wherever we went there was no stoneware in stock. Around about this time, we were installing a pool and paving the pool surrounds and other areas with a product called “smartstone” – concrete slabs fashioned and coloured to look like sandstone. Sonja resorted to phoning various places to ask for stoneware, eventually approaching the swish Sheridans crockery and glassware store in Greenacres, Port Elizabeth. Try and picture the probably snooty person at the other end of the phone when Sonja said, “Do you perhaps stock dinner and side plates in SMARTSTONE?” “No madam”, came the icy reply “and we don’t stock STONEWARE either”.

Being the good sport she is, Sonja told me the story and of course, I pounced on the gaffe with glee. I had a ball trying to picture a Greek wedding at which the plates which were to be smashed were made of smartstone. Apart from causing and unholy mess. It would probably demolish the whole blooming house, once those frisky Greeks really got into the ouzo. Smartstone crockery would probably have done for the dishwasher as well, had we had one back then.

Next on my list has to be Sonja’s first meeting with one of those finned oil heaters which one often sees in appliance stores these days. She was in GAME and browsing around a bit when she noticed one of these heaters for the first time. The sign indicated that it was an oil heater and she was quite taken with the concept, after mulling it over for a while. A couple of things bothered her though: Where was the filler cap into which one would decant the oil and was the oil freely available in suitable drums? Yes indeed folks, my dear lady thought the heater actually BURNED OIL! The display model had no electric cable attached to it so her assumption wasn’t unreasonable. Luckily, she could not find a shop assistant in order to resolve her questions and left the shop a little mystified. When she joined me in the car, she proclaimed her approval for this electricity saving device but wondered where the store kept the drums of oil. At first I stared uncomprehendingly at her and then the penny dropped and my guffaws commenced. I had a mental picture of us sitting in our lounge with a heater which REALLY burned oil and created billowing clouds of black smoke, just like the Kuwait oilfields after Saddam had set them alight. Our walls and ceilings would be black with soot and our windows quite opaque from the soot deposit. Even our snowy white dogs would turn black as the ace of spades. We’d be coughing like consumptives but we would console ourselves with the thought that despite the slight inconveniences, we were saving money on electricity.

Sonja didn’t really stay abreast of the latest pop music trends. I asked her to tell daughter Deb that I had the latest album by LLOYD COLE & THE COMMOTIONS. Debbie was told the band was called LLOYD COIL & THE COMMODES. Kind of makes one think of a band of geriatrics doesn’t it? She could also coin her own names for things. For instance, the long, flowing robes worn by Arabic males she named YANGADANGS. I have no idea where this word came from but our family so liked it that it has become an integral part of our family lexicon. I don’t think any of us know what those robes are really called but so what – Sonja’s word works for us.

I have always enjoyed crosswords and I would sometimes bounce clues off Sonja because she would occasionally have a flash of insight and help me past a mental block. I needed the name of a fruit from the anagram “SHCILTI”. Quick as a flash, Sonja popped up with CHILITS! Oh I know chilits might well grow somewhere but LITCHIS is what I wanted. At about the same time, my Mom was also doing crosswords and I idly picked up one which she was busy doing and I found the word POITLE which she had penciled in. With a rueful smile she admitted, although it seemed to fit, she had just taken a chance and hoped the word existed. For Christmas that year, Pat my sister gave us a well-wrapped, strange little basket of random food items labeled. “A POITLE OF CHILITS”. More words for the family lexicon.

When we were newly married, my mother moved down into the flat next to ours in Balmain in Port Elizabeth, the better for us to keep an eye on her. She could just barely walk by then so we got a wheelchair and Sonja would occasionally take her out onto the Donkin Reserve in the chair, for a bit of fresh air. On one of these occasions they ran into Mrs GLOVER, an elderly resident of the block, at the front door. Sonja realized the two old ladies did not know each other so she introduced them thus : “Mrs GOWER, I’d like you to meet John’s mom”. At that stage, Mrs Glover knew me only as Mr Lyle, so she would have been mystified by Sonja’s reference to John. Sonja also failed to say Mrs Lyle so dear old Ma Glover was further confused, especially also, by the reference to Mrs GOWER. Looking quite startled, Mrs Glover asked, “Am I Mrs GOWER?” to which Sonja replied, “Yes you are!” Mom just sat there looking puzzled – who the hell WAS this woman anyway ?? Introductions complete, Sonja took mom off on her walk but neither of those two old ladies had the faintest idea who they had been introduced to.

I have for years mentally played that scene over in my mind and it never fails to crack me up. I usually embroider it a bit too by adding to “Yes you are” by saying “and don’t you dare try and be anyone else now.” It just seems to me to be the next logical step in that hilarious scene.

Sonja could not seem to recognize my car when parked in a line with other white cars. On one occasion outside a café in Port Elizabeth, my lady walked up to another white car parked two cars away from mine, opened the door and got in. It took some seconds for her to realize that the bemused fellow behind the wheel was not me! Strangely, he never said a word but she alighted from that car with alacrity and a very red face. It came close to happening again on at least two further occasions but luckily she became aware in time.

Losing the car in supermarket parking lots was another of her silly habits. The first time it happened was at the Greenacres shopping centre. I had parked in front of the centre but after her shopping trip, she somehow exited on the other side of the complex and looked for my car there. More than an hour went by as I sat champing at the bit, while she walked hopelessly in and out of and around the (wrong) parking lot, fully believing I had driven off and left her. I eventually went looking for her and spotted her way in the distance walking as if the devil was behind her, crying her eyes out. She was hugely relieved to see me but also mad as snakes that I could play such a dastardly trick on her. Car guards got to know her and on a number occasions, they would redirect her to my car because she was haring off in another direction. Luckily, now that we’re wonky pensioners, the problem no longer exists as I always park in a disabled bay now and that she finds quite easily.

When Sonja first moved down to Port Elizabeth, she found work as a Building Society agency teller, working in Summerstrand. Getting to work for her meant a walk down steep Whites Road in order to catch a bus out to Summerstrand, at the bus station. During the winter months she would walk down in the dark. Those were the times after the ANC had been unbanned and they were pretty active, campaigning in the city. On one morning she was well down the hill, when she suddenly caught sight of a crowd of black men, spread over Whites Road and she went cold with fear. What to do? She just could not retreat up that steep hill and decided to brazen it out instead. As she got abreast of the silent line of men who were watching her, she called out cheerfully, “Good morning. Lovely day isn’t it. What are you fellows doing out here so early?” One of them walked over and informed her that they were handing out pamphlets on behalf of the ANC and would she mind taking some to distribute at work. “Oh sure“, she exclaimed, “Give me more as these aren’t nearly enough”. I think she was very brave to put on such friendly front that day, don’t you?

Most of the time, she would be the only white person on the buses going out to Summerstrand but she never felt threatened. On one occasion, she sat down on an aisle seat next to a young man and when the bus went round a bend at speed, she slipped off the seat and landed on the floor. Immediately another man wanted to thump the fellow next to her because he had pushed Sonja off. It was quite a job for her to pour oil on troubled waters by assuring her “Knight in Armour” that she had simply slipped off and that the other chap was quite innocent. Often freedom songs were sung on the bus and one morning a fierce looking sangoma lady got on and stood up in front of the bus and commanded them all to sing. She particularly fixed Sonja with her gimlet stare so Sonja la-la’ed and sang along with the rest of them, though she had no idea of the words or even the tune. On another occasion, while they were queuing to get on the bus, a young man pushed in front of her. A big fellow behind her grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hustled him off to the back of the queue.

On yet another occasion when the bus was crowded and people were standing in the aisles, Sonja, who was sitting down, looked down and among the legs of the standing people was the tiniest, cutest little boy, beautifully dressed in a smart suit. His eyes were like saucers and he was in real danger of being trampled. Sonja was concerned for his safety and asked his mother if she could take him onto her lap. He didn’t make a fuss and just stared at Sonja with those big eyes. After a while he stared wonderingly at her arm. He rubbed his own arm and then hers to test the permanence of her colour – she might well have been the very first white the little chap had ever seen.

I’m sure there was great respect for her among her fellow passengers. She used to wear a shawl around her shoulders which she was told would enhance her status with the fellow lady passengers. We don’t know whether that was true or not but she was always treated with respect and consideration, just like any other “gogo” on the bus. It’s so sad to think that pre-1994, despite Apartheid and all that entailed, Sonja was safe and quite at home on a multiracial bus, while today she would not dream of getting on that same bus. Damn politicians have a lot to answer for ……….