Herman Thorbecke (word count: 825 – June 2024}

Yesterday I called a couple of old friends. I do that now and then to prevent myself from losing  all recollection of my origins. I do it although it usually presents me with a mixed bag of depressing and uplifting memories. The depressing ones are mostly in the majority.   .

I first called Charlie, an old mate from South Africa, who now lives in Oregon. 

He used to farm, growing oranges and avocados in the North Eastern Lowveld, near Tzaneen, where I spent the last five years of my sojourn in that unfortunate country. Unfortunate, as it was plagued by colonizers from Holland and England, followed by years of fascism and apartheid and since then from extreme mal-governance and corruption.

      Charlie and I both left South Africa when we realized that the future there was bleak. I, during the late sixties and Charlie some years later, He sold his farm, consisting of some 500 acres for a small fortune and moved to California, where he enrolled at a University to study Mathematics and computer science. He worked until retirement in Industry and must have been good at what he was doing as he ended up a multi-millionaire. He told me once that his annual bonuses often exceeded six figures. In fact he told me more than once as he likes to brag a little about his success in life. 

      Apart from that Charlie is, or rather was, very clever. Nowadays he comes across as a somewhat doddering old man, and as he is closing in on his nineties birthday, what else can you expect. I include myself in that same category of decaying humanity. Charlie told me about his recent knee surgery that had cost him 30 thousand smackers and his wife’s new implants that had set him back 60,000. We all know that Medicare does not pay for implants, but why did he have to pay for his knee surgery? I asked him.

       “Oh, I don’t bother with Medicare. I prefer to get private care. That way I know the doctors are doing the best they can to keep me alive. They did a fabulous job on my knee.”

       “Can you walk on it yet?” I asked.

       “Not for a while, perhaps never again, but it does not hurt much anymore. Keep in mind I’m a little overweight.” When It comes to his extreme obesity, he likes to understate matters a tad. He then told me he was planning to spend two months in the South of France, where he rented a villa with eight bedrooms. “Plenty of room. You and Lea should come spend some time while we are there.” I told him we would think about it. Might be fun racing our wheelchairs through the halls of his rented villa, and for the sake of fairness, I might even give him a handicap. 

      The next one I called was Kees, who I first met when we studied at the same college in Holland, during the early fifties. After we graduated, both of us ended up in South Africa. He worked as the manager of a grocery store and I was employed in the chemical industry. We saw quite a bit of each other there although we lived about 600 miles apart, Kees in Johannesburg and I in Tzaneen. Our families would get together during vacations, mainly at my home and also visiting the nearby Kruger National Game Reserve, where we would roam around its 7500 square miles of wilderness, watching and photographing the abundance of wildlife. 

       They were good times. Kees was and still is a jolly sort of a fellow, full of stories and fond of beer and good food. We had some good times together. He moved back to Europe during the eighties, after his wife died on the operating table from a botched surgery in Johannesburg. Later he was fortunate to meet and fall in love with an Hungarian girl, twenty years his junior. Very fortunate as now he is as blind as a bat. Macular degeneration did him in and she takes good care of him. He likes to talk about the good old days in South Africa and has kept in touch with many of the people we both knew and partied with. Everytime I call him he tells me about another one that bit the dust. He himself is ninety and sits mostly at home listening to audiobooks. His young wife likes to travel and drives him around Europe. He told me yesterday they had just come back from a week in Spain. “Beautiful country, and the food is delicious.” according to Kees. 

      I wonder how he knows it is beautiful. Perhaps he is not only as blind as a bat, but also has its sensitivity to feel/see the environment.

      Talking to both those old geysers did enough to depress me. In fact, I was just thinking I should make some funeral arrangements for myself.         

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