Confessions of a Sack-Race Specialist

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It wasn't meant to be like this.

Really.  I had plans, BIG plans.

You see I wasn't ever meant to be a somewhat podgy, forty something, slightly (very slightly) balding, small-village resident, collapsed in an armchair on a Saturday afternoon suffering cramp-induced agony that has found its way to all far corners of my body (did you know you could get cramp in your toenails?). 

No really.  I wasn't.  I was going to be a famous sporting personality.  Exceptionally famous.  People were going to talk about me  IN A NICE WAY, not in that nasty “Do you see who fell asleep on the tavern floor again on Monday?” sort of fashion, but NICELY.

Oh the plans, the plans.  Have they come to nought?

My mother, Mrs Ed  Senior, had no problem recognizing my potential.  Right from an early age she had me pegged as something special.  I mean that literally.  Being the youngest of four, she found that suspending me from the washline was the perfect way to keep me out of mischief whilst she fed and cleaned up after the rest of them. 

But it seemed even then she knew I was destined for greatness.  I still have vivid memories of the first time she threw me into the public swimming pool.  Knowing full well that I had the makings of an Olympic swimmer, she told her friends “Watch 'im go, 'e's like a fish I tell ya!”

Perhaps she meant a 'bottom feeder'… or a crab or a lobster… or anything else that crawls around in a mad panic on the ocean floor with a rapidly blue-ing complexion.  In my defense we were living in England at the time, so it probably would have been more impressive if she had waited until Summer, at least I would have turned four by then.
 
But Mrs Ed (Senior) didn't give up.  Oh no. If I remember correctly she was always looking for ways to test my abilities, to discover my 'thing' - that which would make me famous!

I think I was barely five when she started dropping me off at distant points in the village without bus fare.  One minute we'd be walking around some market or shop, and the next she'd be gone, and I knew I'd have to start running. Such was her conviction that I would one day be a long distance runner. 

But alas, it seems she was alone in her faith in my sporting potential.  Going to school in Zambia then later Zimbabwe, it was quite remarkable how all my teachers failed to notice any early signs of my athletic prowess. 

Do they not look for such things?  Are they not trained to watch closely for any future Olympians attending the school? 
 
You would think that after achieving an exceptionally good 'third' in the sack race on 5 July 1972 (I still have the certificate framed above the mantelpiece) they would have had some idea, especially when I would have come second if I hadn’t had to make a slight detour to avoid a collision with Mickey 'The Bogey' Bigwither.

In fact if I think carefully of how often I was 'overlooked' in the school sporting arena, I would surely be forgiven for suspecting skullduggery of sorts.  Perhaps a father of some slightly less talented sports' protégé orchestrating my failure so that his child could shine? 

Why else would I always be the one picked last when rounders teams were chosen at break time?  Why else was I the only boy chosen to run in the house girls 'c' relay team to make up numbers?  Or the only one who, after the first swimming session, got a doctor's note to excuse me from all future water sports… forged by the PE teacher himself?

Looking back it seems the school staff were going out of their way to ensure my full sporting potential was never brought to the fore. 

Admittedly, there was a flurry of excitement in my early teens when I proudly reported to my parents that I had been made captain of the Under 13c Boys  rugby team. 
“Are you sure?” enthused my father in a most congratulatory way.
 
I'm proud to say that we never lost a match… but that was probably because we never played one.  Our coach, in one of his rare sober moments, said he would organise a game just as soon as we had a full team, but as there were only four of us regulars (including 'The Bogey', and he was more of a secret weapon than a player) this was not an easy task.
 
There was a suggestion that we recruit the members of the girls Under 13c hockey team (who were apparently suffering the same numbers problem) but this was met with a resounding “No!”
“We refuse to share the field with a bunch of screaming, giggling, unco-ordinated sissies!” the girls said.

It was the same throughout high school. Apparently I wasn't tall enough for the basketball team (though how the coach could see that through those floods of laughter-induced tears I certainly do not know), too 'big boned' for water-polo and too tortoise-like for the 400m. I could not even be considered for long jump until I at least managed to leap over the gap between the board and the sand pit, I was too dangerous for javelin (and that was just carrying the stupid spear from the equipment room to the field! I never got to throw the thing), too ungainly for gymnastics (the pommel horse surely had some sort of structural weakness BEFORE I got on it) and too cack-handed for cricket (which I was actually ok with.  Any sport that penalizes you for knocking over three bits of wood  with a backward swing when they are so foolishly planted in the ground just behind you is no game I want to play!)  It seemed EVERYONE was involved in the conspiracy.

But why is this coming to the fore now?  Why am I lamenting over my sports-victimisation all these years on?  Well, if the truth be known I am STILL determined to discover my 'Sports Thing' - to find the sport that I am good, nay, excellent at.
 
Some time ago, upon remembering my mother's efforts in dropping me off in distant places to make my own way home, I selected road-running as the most likely choice.  And this weekend, after at least half an hour of careful training and preparation, I decided to show-them-how-it's-done by running the Meiringspoort half marathon. “It's an easy race,” I thought, “All downhill, nice gentle winding roads,” .........

And now, the day after the big event, here I sit....  If the foetal position on an armchair can be considered sitting.  I can just about type six words at a time before my one good arm cramps up, but I can't really see the screen because of my cricked neck.  My back is in spasm, my thighs have had (it seems) 16 red-hot pokers driven into them, my toes have been squished by what must have been Geisha running shoes and my calves have been injected with molten tar.
So I have decided that perhaps road running is not my 'thing', and furthermore, I will take up my alternative choice just as soon as I find the Sporting Authority responsible for training the Olympic Sack Race team….

Our son got a girlfriend!

So what's she like?”
I shuddered so violently the car swerved and I almost spilled my coffee, dropped my meat pie, and misdialed on my cell phone.  I tightened my grip on the steering wheel…. with both knees.

It was Mrs Ed who was asking the question, and our 19 year old son “The REE” (Resident Expert on Everything) who was carefully circumnavigating a truthful answer.  I mentally harrumphed, knowing this conversation could have devastating results.

The REE had arrived for a two week 'vac' from college the day before, and up until then we had been playing 'happy families' quite effectively.  Until then.

He had, of course, slipped up and mentioned, in passing that he had acquired himself a girlfriend in Cape Town…

This was a bad thing.  A VERY bad thing. Bad like botulism on holiday..  You see his mother had always been convinced that other than his few (previously well-vetted and all from good stock) schoolfriends from Sedgefield who had also moved to the Mother City to study, her son would mix with absolutely no-one at all during his time there.  Indeed especially not Uitlanders* (*those living outside Sedgefield, Knysna, Wilderness and some sections of George) who would undoubtedly influence him negatively and turn him into a drug-smoking, car-stealing, pill popping delinquent overnight.

No.  Not her son. She was quite sure that as soon as he finished college he would return home,  move back into his bedroom, and remain under her wing until say, 2042 when she would allow him to marry a local girl and maybe, just maybe, move out (probably next door).

But now this had been sprung on her. A girlfriend from outside her comfort zone.
  “From Cape Town?” She gasped “Who is she?  What's she like? What does she do there? What is her family like?  Does she have a job?  What about her parents?  Does she live at home?  Where is her home?  Is she homeless? OH MY GOODNESS OUR SON'S GOING TO MARRY A STREET-CHILD PROSTITUTE!” she lathered (I had to wipe the froth from the inside of the windscreen), and I sensed a battle a-brewing.  Somehow I also sensed that it would be my fault  what ever fault it turned out to be.

That happens.

But I have to hand it to the lad, he has always been able to switch-talk his mom from peace to panic and back to peace again with such ease I would have taken lessons if they had been offered. This time was no different.
“Calm down mom, it's all ok,” he soothed .
(See what I mean?  Have you ever told YOUR wife to calm down?)  “She's a nice girl, er…. Quite normal….  Er… clever…. And yeah… she's just, urm …. Nice.” he added. Such elegant eloquence, such poetic passion - he was obviously already practicing his wedding vows. 
 
Hi mother's face receded from purple to a reasonable red, and I thought that all might blow over.  Until he added, in an almost under-the-breath whisper...
“She's in my class at college.” I immediately pulled the car over onto the hard shoulder and adopted the crash position…..

  But nothing happened.  Had Mrs Ed missed it?  I wondered how.  Her famous selective memory, perhaps?  Or maybe he had hypnotised her with his calming, charming tones….

Let me explain. On his previous visit home our son had regaled with great gusto stories of how fabulously freaky all his college classmates were, without exception.  Indeed the extended family had laughed until our sides ached and eyes crossed at his vivid descriptions of each and every character:- There was Radical Ron, whose tattoos engulfed his entire body, except for the inside bits of his nostrils,   Pierce-Me-Patty, who walked with a stoop due to metal fatigue,  Weedy Will who was not nicknamed for his physique but rather for his pipe content, Pharmacy Phil (self explanatory) and Schitzo Suzi/Sherry/Bob.  
“I'm the only normal one!” he had guffawed.  It stood to reason -  one doesn't do a course in the creative industry without being surrounded by a goodly supply of nutters.

But now one was his girlfriend.  Eish!  Which one?  Could it be Klepto Clara? Or Unsure Andrea? (I hoped not  I remembered The REE saying she had only just stopped being Andre!) Whilst wondering which category this new girlfriend fell into (or escaped out of?) I said a silent prayer that Mrs Ed would not remember the conversation of his last 'vac' and put two and three together…. And she didn't. 
  
It seems she was too worried about the girl's pedigree.  I think perhaps she was hanging on her lifetime hope that SOMEONE in our family might marry into money.
“And have you met her parents?  Are they decent people?  What's their house like? Is it big?  Is it… is it …..in Constantia” she beamed with a wistful twinkle in her good eye.

The REE was certainly happy to steer the conversation in that direction.  He would much rather talk about strange OLD people than be cornered into an indepth description of his girlfriend.

“Well actually they are quite well off, but she says they are really eccentric, in a very embarrassing way.  That's why she hasn't introduced me to them yet.  She says maybe in about six months, because she really doesn't want me to get scared off.  Something about building a SOLID relationship before subjecting it to anything that might be a threat. I must say, the way she talks about them they sound like REAL nut jobs.….”

But Mrs Ed had stopped listening at the 'quite well off' bit. 
“Oh it will be so nice to be connected with a good, Cape Town family.  So refreshing,” she mused. “Can you imagine the wedding?  A society wedding!  Perhaps we should invite their family up for a weekend….?  Or at least drive down and meet this lovely young lady of yours….? As soon as possible I would say!”

Now it was time (I noticed) for The REE  to look somewhat stressed.  In fact I think I detected a tremor of hysteria in his voice. He looked at me with that 'Help me here Father' panic that I hadn't seen in his eyes since the Zipper Accident of 2001,
“No really mom, there's er … no  hurry, We will organize something… at some stage… but uhm… probably not this year, ey, it's kind of hectic at college and I really don't think you need to rush anything…. we thought maybe, March .. if that's ok? Or April?  Maybe for Easter? Or the July Holidays?  How about then?  Why don't we leave it until next year July?”