It is my second guest blogger over all.
Enjoy.
It happens, that time does tricks to me ... it just disappears.
This happened to me, among other times, last October (12th to be
exact) when I put your blog aside to read "later". As with most of
your blogs, you told your readers of your great sporting prowess in
many different fields. You also told us of how you succumbed to
drugs and alcohol. Then there were those magnificent pics ... many
of the changing of colours as autumn was beginning to set in.
Almost unbelievable. How fortunate you were to have landed in that
beautiful part of The States ... not that there aren't many
beautiful parts as you would be the first (or second) to know.
No, no correcting of mistakes here ... just want to tell you a
story of mine which your 'drug' story caused me to recall.
It was 13 years ago and the place was Cape Town. I had just
returned from a 6 or 7 week trip to Israel where my daughter,
Liora, had got married. At the time I was living in this house
(called a bungalow) next to the sea in Clifton together with my
son, Ilan. When I left for Israel, it was a joyous occasion for
him. At last he'd got rid of his mother (he was 23) and so it was
party time.
Ilan also came to the wedding and went to Turkey but returned to
Cape Town after I did. We'd been having some troubles at that time
in connection with our property (much too long a story to go into
now) and I came home to a broken gate or two, a dirty kitchen (Ilan
had left a friend staying there when he departed), piles of papers
to attend to, some of which were rather unpleasant and then the
final straw was a very distasteful phone call. Clifton is a seaside
resort ... no shops to quickly pop out and buy something. I'd
brought back with me a container of humous and a cucumber, tomato,
pepper etc so I was set up for lunch. But it felt as if the world
was sitting on my head and crushing me so I went in search of
something more delectable to eat. I found a tin, inside of which
was about a third of a thin non-iced chocolate cake. (OK, you've
guessed the rest ... but I'll write it anyway.) Now, I never eat
chocolate cake. I never eat flour. I never eat sugar and I never
eat chocolate. OK, these days I cheat here and there but in those
days NEVER!
But I was desperate so I took my 'find' to the kitchen, removed the
mould (!), and ate the rest.
Then followed various phone calls and I was finding myself unable
to remember what I'd said half a sentence before. That got me so
worried that I was planning to go to a doctor the next morning. I
definitely had a brain tumour! Next morning came and I was fine so
cancelled that thought and nearly forgot about the whole thing.
In those days, Ilan and I shared a computer ... didn't have the
security measures then to lock anything. By mere chance and totally
by mistake, I clicked on a letter that Ilan had written. Was about
to move off, when my eyes fell on a sentence that went something
like this: "I baked a chocolate cake and put some dagga in it ...
[for the party]." OK, then the whole thing fell into place.
I wrote to my children in Israel, telling them of my return and my
eating the cake. But not telling them that I'd read Ilan's letter
and so knew the reason for that behaviour of mine the previous day.
The letters I received back were those of total amazement and
shock. "You ate chocolate cake!" sort of thing. I received the same
sort of letters from my nephews and niece in London. I received the
same comments from his friends as they came off the beach, "I heard
you ate chocolate cake!" And lots of mirth surrounding this of course.
We'd moved from Clifton, to a flat in another part of the city.
Ilan went overseas for three years and Liora and Ilan (her husband)
came to visit. During the visit, I told Liora that I knew that
there'd been dagga in the cake. Well, that set her off ...
"What ... you knew?" etc. I told her that I'd guessed ... had never
ever told them that I'd read Ilan's e-mail (you know 'trust' etc).
Ilan (son) reckoned that through all of his travels, of anyone he'd
ever known or met, there were only two who'd not touched drugs ...
and I wasn't one of them!
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