Two
of my best childhood memories (and there were but few) should have remained in
a recessed state, asleep in my history only to be revived with moderate pining
or intense yearning. One thing I have learned as an adult, is to let places you
loved slip into the deep of your reminiscence and to not go and seek them out
again, because things change. And when they change, they become other things
entirely and they shun you for being naïve enough to think that you were as special
to them as they had been to you. But we forge that, to places, we are but
insignificant phantoms, fleeting shadows in their eternal steadfastness and
they move on or they wither, selfish in their way, to become nightmares,
spoiled leftovers of a once magnificent feast and leave you nauseated in their
decay.
Some
places should not be sought out in an attempt to relive fond encounters. They
tarnish pristine memories…but sometimes it is not their fault, but the error of
their keepers.
One
such place is President Park in Vereeniging, South Africa.
Since
my first memories it had been part of my life. My grandfather, Oupa Ronnie, was
the caretaker/ superintendent of this compound in the center of the large town
and since my parents could not afford daycare for me, I was dropped off at my
grandparents’ place every morning at 6.30am and all I, quite literally, did all
day…was swim.
Now
let me explain the structure of this wondrous, kingdom of my Grandfather and
the Municipality he used to tend it for.
In
the center of it all was a double story house, so old that its balustrades were
laid in stone and cement and my grandfather being a perfectionist as a
landscaper and handyman in general, he painted all the walls white and the
roof, gutters and window panes black.
The house always reminded me of a chess
board, either you’re one or the other. As one entered the front door of the
enormous house – and it is in fact a cozy 3-bedroom, but I was six years old! –
one would be in direct line with the double glass doors that led out of the
house on the other side…my Shangri La lay beyond those doors.
Stretched
majestically on the perfectly groomed rolling lawns, was the “Olympic Pool”,
light blue with black stripes marking ten lanes for gala’s and provincial
competition. This was also where Oupa Ronnie trained life guards for
certification and I recall them being a ludus of delectable muscular gladiators
in their late teens, sporting Speedo’s the way Speedo’s were intended to fit
and their playful majesty as my grandfather’s henchmen.
Next
to the pool was a compact pavilion and behind this, where the lawn mounded,
were the built-in trampolines, to the south. To the west was the house towering
as nerve center and to the east was the “public entrance”, comprising of two
heavy wooden doors reminiscent of those used by castle citadels in the times of
medieval siege. The entire compound was walled and fenced in. Between the
Olympic pool and the entrance, stood a beautiful light blue cement fountain,
spewing crystal water endlessly.
To the
north, past its heaving lawn, was a division wall with locked gates to the two
football fields on the other side! On the other side of the house, by the front
door’s side, was a rugby field with a massive constructed pavilion which played
host to the Rugby Club Hall which used to be a perfect venue for wedding
receptions and piss-ups of a corporate nature.
But back to
the trampolines…past them was another division wall like the football fields’
and if you walked through the narrow gate between the pump house and the wall,
you would enter the magical play park where I spent all my time when I was not
allowed in the big pool.
And it was
magical.
It had four
cement pools of varying depth and from one ran a canal (all built and laid in
blue painted cement) just big enough for a child to fit in and I used to swim
along the winding man-made rivulet, moving myself along on my hands and gliding
all the way to a splash pool which ended in a seven foot rock face with a
waterfall that worked as diligently as the fountain at the entrance.
The entire
park was lawn and trees amongst the light blue ponds and canal. On the other
side of the park, hidden in a stunning overgrowth of ivy and creepers, lay
Aunty Hopkins’ domain. A small office with an FM/AM radio playing British news
casts and 70’s music all day is where she poured her tea in the most peculiar
apricot glass tea set. She oversaw the park and the children who played there.
Just outside her office were more change rooms and a combined slash stone
stoep, completely possessed by potted plants and Delicious Monsters so big that
they dwarfed my mother when she stood there.
From Aunty
Hopkins’ vigil one could see the other extreme of the fence that bordered the
aforementioned rugby field. There was a petting zoo and a park with see-saws
and roundabouts and a slide that would scare the life out of me. If you peeked
through the wrought iron fence you could see the rugby field and the far reach
of the club house.
This was
the magnitude of my childhood home during the day. It was my place. I was the
princess of King Ronnie’s Realm. He allowed me to assist him at 7am when he
taught kids to swim and after that, the Olympic pool and its surrounding
pleasures were mine to have. This is where I cultivated my underwater Dolphin
speech (don’t ask) and challenged myself each day to try and touch the bottom
of the deep end, where my ears would sting and the black stripes would vanish
in the murky blue depths, rendering me a coward.
On
Christmas and New Years we’d be closed to the public and my father’s seven
siblings, their wives, husbands and children would all congregate.
At night my
braggart grandfather would pack out amplifiers and the whole family would sit
outside on the lawn with electric guitars and play Boeremusiek (traditional
Afrikaner music) for all the surrounding buildings and houses to hear. People
in the 20-floor building across the street would come out and lean on the
balconies and at the end of each song we could hear them clap and cheer.
Sometimes they’d call out requests, and, being an entire family of musicians,
we’d usually be able to oblige with some Pussycat, CCR, Johnny Cash, etc.
Everybody
knew “Baas Ronnie”, as the Blacks called him. They adored him, because he spoke
fluent Sotho and although he was as powerful, loud, stern and robust as his
voice, he was loved by everyone. He was the big old soldier who took nobody’s
shit, an old bar fighting, tattooed, dark tanned, super-fit fifty-something
tyrant who ruled his large family with a boisterous voice (which, in song,
could rival Pavarotti himself) and a regal fairness. I remember always watching
him storm at the Black workers and say something ferocious in their language,
waiting for trouble, when suddenly they’d scream with laughter with him. He
loved telling them dirty jokes and playing with them.
A heart
attack silenced him in 1995, and since then it seems his absent spirit had left
President Park in peril.
In the hands
of the new ANC government everything has fallen to corruption and the
municipality and whomever was entrusted to the care of this majestic and magical playpen for social gathering and
fitness had failed miserably….if they even tried. This is what I found on
satellite pictures and, not normally being a nostalgic martyr, found it hard
not to cry.
The
fountain, the splash pools had gone dry and bleached to white in the sun. The
iconic gala pool is now a glorified scum pond. The sports fields are overgrown
with weeds, and dehydrated, found themselves at the mercy of the blistering sun
and heat – burnt to crisp. No more animals in the petting zoo, because all this
ridiculous maintenance costs money, funds from taxes that could be put to
better use for bigger cars and houses for officials.
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| The street view of the once well kept grounds behind the pavilion and rugby hall. |
Of course children don’t
need parks. They don’t need to learn to swim. And teenagers don’t need a place
to hang out in summer, they have clubs and drug alleys. Mrs Hopkins is long
gone, her potted plants smashed and withered and the town does not have a
swimming league anymore. What for? Who needs any other sport than soccer,
right?
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| This used to be a perfectly groomed sidewalk which led into the rugby hall. |
The
laughing and teasing with the workers had gone quiet, some of whom taught me some
solid insults in good cheer so I can swear at my cousins. The chickens and
pigeons my grandpa kept no longer roam amongst the sunbathers, because there
are none. The place is closed. And the house is painted and ugly blue to
discern it from the disrepair of the fences and the creeping assault of an
unkempt garden and weeds.
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| Where the blue posts are, is where the massive castle doors are hidden. |
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| The uncut grass of the rugby field, overgrown with weeds, where it used to look like a golf course! |
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| The house is now a horrid BLUE (???!!!) and the rugby field in disuse. |
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| Aerial view of the whole place. Look at the decay and abuse of what was once a paradise for all the locals. |
