Sefrican Redneck Story

For my American Blogger Friends [tongue in cheek but with a smile].

 

Courtesy of my email friend.  Contents verbatim, no editing.  Names of towns and cities are as in real life in the Northern Territories near Sodom and Gomorra in South Africa.

 

Subject: Vasectomy – A Different Type (JA) [that JA means Yeah in American English, pronounced more or less the same in Sefrican, which means South African, but you will be able to work the rest of the pronunciation out, I HOPE].

After having their 11th child, a Brakpan couple decided it was enough. So the husband went to his doctor and told him that he and his wife didn’t want to have any more children…

The doctor told him that there was a procedure called a vasectomy but that it was expensive. (For people staying in Brakpan, paying more than R50 for anything other than booze, car accessories or a sound system, is expensive).

A less costly alternative, said the doctor, was to go home, get a cherry bomb (fireworks are legal in Brakpan), light it, put it in a beer can, then hold the can up to your ear and count to 10!
 
The man said : ” Aag, yinne, I maait not be de cleverest oke in the wurld, but I dussin see how putting a cherrie bom in a beer can, next to my ear, are going to help me ”

“Trust me!”said the doctor…

So the man went home, lit a cherry bomb, and put it in a beer can. He held the can up to his ear and began to count: ” Wun, too, free, for, faaife, ” at which point he paused, placed the beer can between his legs, and resumed counting on his other hand……..

By the way, this procedure also works in: Witbank, Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark , Springs, Primrose, Kempton, Benoni and Boksburg

Life is a Journey

Yes, it is a journey and not to be confused with a trip from, say, London to Perth.

Trips are cluttered with suitcases, the inevitable cameras and more than twice the clothes you need that you have to schlep through customs and “baggage collect” at airports. When I still traveled a lot my daughter always wanted to come and help me packing “so that Daddy would not forget the toothbrush.” Now I have finished with trips in this Blog though I may occasionally refer to them to illustrate the mind of the Journey.

You don’t take any baggage on Life’s Journey because you don’t need any. You buy a toothbrush at the first stop on the journey.

The Journey does have a beginning and an end but does not have a clear given destination when you start out. There will be weather changes on the way and that means a change in plans. So it’s best to avoid rigid planning of the routes ahead. A traveler will encounter many a moment of choice when he comes to a crossing on the Roads of Life. Each one will present an easy route or a more difficult one. There will be side roads into the highest mountains leading you to lush and fertile valleys on the other side, or you may take the wrong turn and end up in an avalanche. There will be pleasant drives near riverbanks but you will have to cross some dry desert lands too.

There will be changes in seasons and the wise traveler will find joy in all of them. Spring cannot last forever and you need autumn to witness the spectacle of the Red Oak in Arkansas and how they change daily through autumn, or the fall as Americans call it. An eternal spring will rob you of the Red Oak extravaganzas on Life’s Journey. You will have cool evenings with balmy nights and hot days when you can hardly breath; icy cold ones will make you wish you were in the tropics, but then you also miss the red oak. You will only know the full ecstasy of joy on the high mountains if you know about the depths of despair and the pain in the darker lonely valleys along the way. Love and pain are not mutually exclusive on the Journey of Life; they are in fact intertwined and each one part of the other.

Why is this so?

It is because Life’s Journey is in the mind. It all happens up there, if one assumes that the mind is in the head, which I don’t necessarily think is the place because the mind is so much bigger than the brain. The mind is the greatest gift to mankind. That is where Life’s Journey takes place, where you collect the gifts to “take home” if you were on a tourist trip, or with you on the roads ahead as I prefer to call it.

There will be more if you like it. I find myself at a crossing of the roads right now and I have pulled off onto the roadside to rest a while and ponder which way to take at the crossing. But I will take your comments and listen to your advice while I sit here. That much I have learned on my journey through life; to watch, see and listen to the sounds of the mind while you ponder the three ways out of the crossing. I am saying three because you cannot turn back on Life’s Journey. It is an old cliché on life, but irrevocably true in Life’s Journey that each day comes but once, never to be repeated; at the end of this day it is gone forever like all the others before. You can never walk back to repeat the journey behind you.

Two tongue in cheek Questions

Two Blogs recently attracted attention in the UK Telegraph.  One covers America versus China in World Trade and the other one examines the pros and cons, and the chaos, emanating from the EEC.

EU facade could crumble on back of crisis

http://my.telegraph.co.uk/lockey/blog/2009/09/14/eu_facade_could_crumble_on_back_of_crisis

Opening Shots

http://my.telegraph.co.uk/quincunx/blog/2009/09/14/opening_shots

Do read both the Blogs and the Comments.

Regional Trade Agreements are not new phenomena; America has its NAFTA with Canada and Japan enjoyed “preferential trade status” with America for years; Gadaffi gets beaten down regularly on his African Dream of an AEC to beat the dollar.

The EU of recent times however, has a lot in common with the old USSR system where political ties and “Central Governments” became subject to the political will of the predominant country.  This is not the case with NAFTA.

Two Questions:

Name the country that virtually controls the price structure and supply of steel in the World.  We are talking about the finished end product, not the raw ore.

Name the two countries that are about [signing is expected any day now] that will merge interests to establish the third-largest telecommunications conglomerate in the World.

Well, let’s throw a third question in while we are at it:

What was the primary catalyst for the American Independence War?  You have an easy multiple-choice answer; name the correct one from:

Trade Control, Freedom and/or Liberty, Human Rights, Democracy, or was it Capitalism versus Socialism?  Name only one.

Go for it!

It’s 8 years ago today

Will the World remember?