In the past, we used to ‘Dop & Dial’. In a civilized tongue, that would mean that after a certain amount of liquid substance abuse, we were inclined to start phoning friends. Actually, to be honest, it was mostly me who did this. Many years ago, before cell phones, there was an old fashioned phone booth in my little coastal village of Natures Valley. Once, by accident, I discovered that for a one Rand coin, one could phone the whole world. Besides being an occasional substance abuser I am also a pyromaniac and a thief. I used to pilfer the neighbourhood for firewood for the occasional party. Eating, drinking and then staring into a huge blazing fire separated body from mind. One night , after the fire-Zen, I packed a picnic with more booze, a blanket and pillow and then spent my time, till the sun rose the next morning, phoning the world with a one Rand coin.
This venture into blog writing, recently pushed on me by my publisher’s assistant, Brit van Tom, is doomed. As a person with absolutely no character and hardly a sprinkle of personality, I am afraid that this failure might lead to a situation of ‘Grog & Blog’. (‘Grog’ = ‘dop’ = ‘booze’ = ‘drink’ ) This silly blogging is grovelling up the past.
After my last blog, ‘Champagne for Schultz’, I was contacted by various aliens. A dude phones me out of the blue yonder and says he’s Captain Denzel Schultz and that he was the chopper pilot when I shot up all those sheep. He said that it was a sin against ani-manity. This is what I hate. One sickly sheep now becomes a flock of sheep. He also maintained that I was sent to army detention for doing this terrible deed. The truth is that I was sent to detention for imitating an ultra distance runner and not blowing a sheep out of the sky. I used to run out of the Air Force Gymnasium Camp at Voortrekkerhoogte with a bottle of water and as soon I was out of sight of the military guards, I hid the bottle behind a ‘Bossie’. For the last time — a ‘bossie’ is a little bush. This was after I had carefully checked that there were no communist terrorists hiding behind it, as the government propaganda said there would be. I would then jog to my girlfriend’s house in a faraway Pretoria suburb. After a few (or more) hours, I would return to the ‘Bossie’, splash water over myself and then run into camp as the exhausted long distance runner.
From now on, to avoid any other alien aircraft popping up on my tail wing, I want to thank all the pilots, with tears of sincerity, for what they have done for me. To Peter Schultz, for getting us totally lost on our 1000 kilometre flight from Grahamstown to Lüderitz in Namibia. I clearly remember him saying, as we neared Springbok. “ You are a shit navigator. We are running out of fuel, so if you don’t find the Springbok airstrip — NOW —!!!!, I am going to have to put this plane down on the road”. Later, when we finally lined up our approach to the desert strip outside Lüderitz, a small bi-plane popped up next to us, transmitting, “Welcome to Lüderitz!”. He was upside down! This was the local desert pilot and stuntman, Gino Schultz. This stunt caused such bewilderment in our cockpit that we nearly missed the strip on landing.
Thanks to Jerry Schultz for the aerial adventures over the Swartberg Mountains and maintaining his cool in those dangerous up-draughts. Thanks to Marcel Schultz for the visual circles he flew me over Zululand. A special thanks to Danny Schultz who flew me over Crooks Corner in the far end of South Africa and in so doing illegally overflew Zimbabwean and Mozambiquen airspace. A special thanks to Gavin Schultz of Birds Eye Micro-lights in Exmouth, Australia, for flying me over the Ningaloo Reef with such vigour and enthusiasm. “ You might be an Aussie, but you are a damn fine pilot, mate”, I said to him on departure. Then a great thanks to Captain Fred Schultz who secured me to the outside of his chopper and gave me the flight of my life over the Bazaruto Archipelago off the coast of Mozambique. He had the guts to land me on one of the smallest islands in the Indian Ocean. I ran around the island in 25 seconds and would guess that still stands as some kind of record for island circum-navigation. All that Fred did was shake his head and laugh. We named it Schultz Island in memory of Herman Potgieter and all those people who are so taken by the thrill of flying. Come again, you aliens and abduct me into the big blue yonder.
