Allies taking a pass and experiencing schadenfreude

Oh Mozart, I’m so sorry to hear of your loss.

You’ve clearly been through a lot over the past few years.

Thanks so much M, DA, Becs…so I’ll tell the story of how we got married. I had just finished undergraduate at UCT and arranged a job in the States, with the plan of moving on to a US MBA. In other words I was leaving permanently.

Then 3 weeks before I was due to leave I met my wife. We instantly connected in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I was in love for the first time in my life….corny, but true.

Still I was an overly serious young bloke and felt I had a commitment so I got on the ship which was a cargo ship carrying just a few passengers. Immediately we sailed out of Table Bay I asked myself what I was doing. Chances are we wouldn’t meet again.

After a short time at sea I decided this was a mistake. So without any sense of what the end game was, I got off the ship at Walvis Bay and caught a train to Windhoek.

So there I was in the heart of Africa, on a train traveling through the Namib desert, with no real plan, just a sense of something that needed to be finished. The countryside looked like a scene out of Lawrence of Arabia. I eventually caught a plane at Windhoek and arrived back at CT late in the afternoon.

My wife was an actress with a leading part in a play that was running at the time. So I wandered over to the theatre and got a seat in the audience. Those days I was pretty much an every day surfer, so my mop of hair was bleached white.

One of my wife’s friends said to her…..’Moz’ is in the audience….she apparently said ‘you’re silly he’s on a boat to America’. But of course we met after the play and just spent time together for a few days. After a while, two days, we decided it was serious. And we should give it a go and if it didn’t work out, at least we would have no regrets.

Two weeks later we were married and three weeks after that we sailed on the mail ship to England. On our wedding night my wife was still in the play, so I went off with some friends and had a few beers. There was no time to order a wedding dress and the costume staff at the play created her an outrageous wedding ensemble.

To my parents credit they smiled in the wedding photographs and my wife’s mother did say to her ‘you hardly know the man’, but she was a good sport as well.

On the ship over to Southampton a few things became clearer, I discovered my wife was an excellent poker player ….

Nice story Moz. You've never struck me as an impulsive person but it sounds like your impulse to get off the ship was a good one.

Wow, Mozart….you clearly knew she was the one.

What a lovely story.

Brilliant story Moz..... super cool dude

Great story, Moz.

Agree with Rooi in that I've never imagined you to be impulsive. Certainly, tuning back once you had already set sail took massive balls. Good job!!!

I don't pay much attention to this section anymore as the politics shit grinds my nuts, but I'm glad I opened this on a whim. Great to hear some behind the scenes life stuff from you guys. First Rooi, now Moz.

Guess we're all waiting on a heartwarmer from Trad now.

Best decision I ever made but it was such a spur of the moment thing. When I look at my granddaughter and her pals with me at the moment, so certain that this is the ordained reality. Just one of many possible realities.

The Brontë sisters, Boris Pasternak who wrote Dr Zhivago, the director of Waterloo Bridge, Robbie Burns, Shelley, all the other Romantics and even the Beatles have allowed us to indulge our emotional selves. There are ‘thoughts that often lie too deep for tears’….it’s probably healthy to express that sometimes.

Moz my friend I’m so sorry to hear of your loss. I know it was a few years back but there is no true healing from losing ones soul mate and your story tells me she was just that

It reduced me to tears as I’m sure you recounting that story to us did to you

Im currently watching The Madison which resonates with your journey

It had me thinking about the unbearable pain of losing the most important person in your life

Becs told me your news and I just had to reach out bud

Nice of becs, who is such a quality person and very nice of you Dave. And you’re right about it never being quite the same. I hope your reunion was good fun and it brought back some great memories.

Oh bless you, Mozart. That is such a nice thing to say.

Your strength in all of this is incredible.

Bravo Moz, imo. you've made some kak political choices but you're a class act. Take a bow.

Thanks Blob I appreciate that given we occasionally cross swords, but in a civilized way.

One last story about my wife. When I finished my studies in the US I was recruited by a management consulting firm. Before my joining date they had a corporate retreat at a resort, time to play some sport and look over the new crop and the spouses.

We had a choice of tennis and golf. I played both, but my golf was stronger so I went off to do that, keen to make a good first impression. My wife was an excellent tennis player who later won the Chicago over 40 doubles one year….she joined the tennis group.

After activities were over one chap ran up to me and said ‘did you hear your wife put down Tom’. Tom was a newly elected junior partner and a bit of a blow hard, but somebody I didn’t want to antagonize before starting.

I knew it couldn’t be good, so I asked her what happened. ‘’Well” she said “we were partnered and warming up….then he said ‘I’ll serve’ and I said ‘no, I have seen your serve, I’ll serve’ and she stepped up to the line. Apparently that spread like wildfire in the tennis group and ‘ I’ll serve’ became a saying in the office.

But the evening was young. At dinner being new we were put at the senior partner’s table, one of the most respected men in the firm. All was going nicely and then Bill, the partner asked the people around the table how many children they had.

This led to a series of nice but tedious family stories. I could tell my wife was getting bored. Eventually she said ‘and how many children do you have Bill’ …..‘six’ was the response. There was a moment of respectful silence and then my better half shot back ‘yes, and how many by your wife’.

The stunned silence lasted for fully ten seconds in which I could see my career passing before my eyes.Then Bill broke out in a huge burst of laughter and everybody else joined in relief.

That happened 50 years ago, but Bill and I are still friends and play golf occasionally. And he still refers to the dinner from time to time,

Moz your wife had spunk - my kind of girl

She would have kicked my arse on here - something you have never managed to do :)

Well Dave you are rather delicate, so I pull my punches

Sounds like you landed the job but she helped you keep it, Moz.

People with real natural wit are so bloody rare. But she sounds like she had enough or both of you. Says a lot about you, it takes a strong character to value and keep a strong character as a spouse.

Yes I was overly serious as a young chap.

"Yes I was overly serious as a young chap."

A serious surfer...

Us Vaalies have problems putting those two things together.

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