Letters from Lonehill
By James Forson
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About this ebook
In this entertaining collection of short stories, James Forson light-heartedly explores some of his memories of the Western Cape Province in South Africa and confronts some of the challenges and ironies of the world of business. Sometimes humorous, sometimes pithy, the stories strike a responsive chord with our own life experiences. A pleasant read to while away the weekend.
James Forson
For the past 20 odd years James Forson has worked as an independent management consultant in Johannesburg. His interest in writing was piqued when he wrote his father’s biography for a family history. He finds writing short stories and fiction much more fun than writing reports for his clients. James grew up in Worcester, Western Cape, South Africa. His early work experience was in Southern Africa in the mining, steel, pharmaceutical and banking industries. He is slowly adjusting to a life of penury as a writer.
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Letters from Lonehill - James Forson
1
Stock Cars at Kleinplasie
I thought I would go a little earlier. Get there before the crowds. Find convenient parking.
Well, I was wrong. It’s twenty to six and the parking area is crowded. Cars everywhere. Bakkies. Four by fours. SUVs. Groups of people hurrying to the arena. Some lugging heavy cooler boxes betraying the odd clink of glass bottles. The smell of boerewors is everywhere. This is a big event! The number plates on the vehicles proclaim visitors from far and wide.
In spite of myself I feel a surge of excitement. I am bombarded with sensory inputs.
The smell of the fast-food stands near the entrance to the grand stand.
The noise of the public address system. Loud, incomprehensible announcements.
And then I turn the corner at the bottom of the grand stand. To my left is the arena, with at least 60 dirt track racing vehicles of every description; their engines coincidentally rev at my arrival with an earth-shaking, mind-numbing roar. The bright lights and the discordant, angry mechanical sounds disorient me.
I make my way along the front of the stand, my eyes scanning for an open space to sit.
I see an open stretch of seats halfway up the grandstand. Thankfully, I scramble up and sidle onto the hard wooden bench. This could be a long night – hard on the bottom.
As I get comfortable, the announcer thanks the drivers of the vehicles for their opening lap. I have arrived just in time to see them leave the arena on the right hand side, one by one. What a let-down. I can feel the bottled-up adrenaline froth in my veins.
But now I have a chance to take stock of my surroundings.
In front of me is a large oval dirt track.
All along the far side, double-cab bakkies have been pulled up against the perimeter fence, their gaping tailgates wide open. All manner of braai skottels, folding chairs and cooler boxes are to be seen. Groups of people mill around the bakkie doors, drinks in hand. Children run around.
The centre of the dirt track is relatively empty. Two ambulances stand quietly off centre – a sombre reminder that this is serious stuff. In the walkway at the fringe of my grandstand, people are walking to and fro. Some are walking to their seats. Some are laden with pizzas. Others with wrappings of slap chips. Family men in jeans and thick fleece tops. Plump mothers clutching bags. Teenage boys in garish t-shirts with martial arts symbols. In spite of the chilly evening air, young girls flutter by in shorts and tiny tops. This is obviously much more than an opportunity to watch powerful cars drive much too fast around a tiny track.
Down from me and a little to my right is a man whose face makes me long for a camera with a telephoto lens. A faded green rugby springbok windcheater. A blaze of red hair spiking out of the top of his head. A portcullis moustache. Arms tightly folded across his boep. Crevasse lines ploughed across his face. Large unfocused hawk-like eyes stare across the arena. What sort of life must one have lived to have a face like that? Hardship? Hard work?
To my left, in the same row, is a plump young man in a tracksuit that was clearly bought with future expansion in mind. The half-eaten sandwich in his right hand with the flapping sleeve serves to point out important features of the track. Crumbs fly from the sandwich and his mouth. His equally plump wife or girlfriend dutifully makes appropriate affirming noises. Is she here because she wants to be here, or because Tracksuit Man wants to go to this event? Or is there some bigger significance at work? On the other side of the wife and or girlfriend of Tracksuit Man is the mother of one of them. And beyond her are what seem to be further family attachments.
A row of young men, early twenties, are seated to my right. They all have droopy moustaches, some more successful than others. They all are wearing black t-shirts with the required martial arts insignia. Jeans and black boots complete their look. They come fitted with brown bottles in their right hands. They are the true believers. They are here not to have an evening out or to pick up the young girls with the shorts and the flimsy tops. They are believers in the motor car; the stock car. Their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations centre on the oval before them. Perhaps they are motor mechanics, who dream of someday having their names emblazoned on their own racing cars; of escaping from the grind of dirty work and poor pay to the harsh lights and roaring sounds of the oval dirt track.
All this while two commentators have been conversing on a podium in the centre of the grand stand. Their voices are carried far and wide by the public address system. They mention the great names of the dirt track, names unknown to me; they prime the audience about the events to come, and they hark back to racing battles, won and lost. These are the motorsport muezzins calling the faithful to the tabernacle of the track. Here, the cares and naggings of daily life are forgotten. The engine block of the internal combustion engine is the welcoming altar for human comfort and succour.
The track is groomed and watered. It is raked and made ready. The homage to horsepower is about to begin. A man holding a starting flag gets down onto the track. This must be the Starter Man.
And then a row of large power cars enter the oval. Eavesdropping on the conversations around me I discover these monsters are V8 Flexis. Shouts of glee and recognition go up from the crowd. The revving of engines provides a discordant clarion to the opening.
The vehicles line up in a pre-arranged order. Starter Man with his flag ducks his head in turn into the two vehicles in the front row. A final instruction? A confirmation? A naughty joke?
Standing between the two rows of vehicles, he holds the flag before him like a poster. With a slight look of boredom, Starter Man walks backwards to the two front cars.
A slight delay – we know he’s messing with us.
And then he waves the flag like a rhythmic gymnast.
The engines roar to life. The sound is deafening. The women shriek. And the cars are off. At first it is terrifying; several tons of automotive hardware are screaming down to the bend in the oval track at a speed way beyond what should be reasonably allowed in such a confined space.
Miraculously, there are no collisions. The vehicles barrel round the bend into the straight on the far side; the initial pecking order resolved,