Volume 03
January. photo joneberlinfoto
Fathers.
I really miss him. For some reason, always in January, I think of him most. New years, new chapters, old chapters closing.
Clarence Arthur Berlin was born in Benoni, then Transvaal, South Africa, the son of Edward Berlin, a cabinet maker who worked for the South African Railways, and Joyce Berlin, his mother, on the second last day of the swinging twenties. Born into the darkness and turmoil of the thirties in South Africa and the Second Great War.
Joyce was an Afrikaner, and Edward was English-speaking.
Dad never spoke of his father, there was history there. History, he did not want to share. Joyce was intimidating, hard, reserved, a true Afrikaner if there ever was one. She scared the shit out of me.
Dad graduated from high school at 16, Cum Laude, sharp as a tack. He wanted to be a pilot. There were many returning from the war. Gifted at cricket and football (soccer). He was picked for South Africa to play football on a tour of England that included playing against Wolverhampton Wanderers. He declined, too busy completing his accounting articles. His best friend, John White, was selected as a whip-fast left winger. John left an impression on those who saw him play, fancy feet, light, like a dancer, and whip-quick. He was the kindest man I ever met. I was 7 when he had an epileptic fit after dinner. He suffered from epilepsy throughout his life and succumbed when I was ten. It was the first time I saw Dad cry.
I, of course, had to give Dad heart palpitations as my favoured position was goalkeeper. Makes sense all these years on. Keepers are eccentric, loners by nature, beating to their own drum. Not overly concerned about what others think. I still see him. Pacing the touch line, shouting encouragement. I didn't need it, I was obsessed! Focused solely on keeping that ball out of my net, whatever it took, I would do it. Whatever it took.
From him, I inherited the stick-and-ball gene. Cricket came naturally. A fast bowler who also opened the batting. Playing in a hyper-talented team with players who went on to represent South Africa, I became disillusioned quickly. Did not have the staying power, walked away when I was 14.
Back then, in the height of Apartheid, when you turned thirteen, football gave way to rugby. Government decree.
Football was the “black” sport. Even though I was offered a contract to play for a pro club‘s youth team, my school wouldn't allow it. Dad, softly, kindly, pressed the point home. Education is everything.
The remaining four years of high school, I took my frustration out on the rugby field. Dad paced the sidelines.
Five days a week, after an hour of class, we, four hundred boys, would gather in church for an hour. One sermon, two prayers, two hymns. Surrounded by stained glass and stone, wooden pews, four hundred boys singing will stir your soul. Deeply. Five days a week.
Ethics and spirit. Five days a week will leave an impression.
Then, one day, we were visited by a corporal from the army.
Apartheid South Africa. National service.
You could defer national service by attending university. At that point in life, it sounded better than more education! The South African Navy awaited. Dad was nervous. Hoping I would not annoy too many people in a position of power. Sorry, can't promise that, Dad.
Before the corporal showed up at our church service, I was a Junior, it was rugby season on the highveld, some five thousand and seventy odd feet above sea level. The middle of winter, bone dry, fields harder than concrete, dead brown, bone cold. Dry and cold. Rain comes in summer, usually with hailstones the size of golf balls.
A thousand spectators! Chanting school war cries (Google it).
We were playing Jeppe High School at home. Dad grew up a stone's throw from Jeppe, but Jeppe was private, Dad went to Benoni High, public. We somehow beat them, harder than nails. It was brutal. Full on bingo, no quarter given. Four concussions, a broken collar bone, and a scrum half I tackled who felt the full force of my football wilderness isolation. He didn't get up, stretched off. 16 and 17-year-old boys!
In the stands after, spent, hollow, questioning so much about this place I called home. Guilty about flattening the scrum half.
I saw her.
First stand row, with three friends. Meghan, Fiona, and Kit. Her blond bob touched her left shoulder as she smirked in my direction, laughing. Bright, fully present, emanating light.
Drop me dead! Gorgeous!
Catherine, Kitty, Kit. Absolutely, forever stole my heart. She stole Dad’s as well. He loved her like a daughter. Those two, thick as thieves. He would make her squeal with delight, and she would make him cackle with so much affection. All was right in my small corner of Africa. I loved them both, hard. She was, is, an artist. Her large oil paintings filled our various homes. A converted chicken coop outside Grahamstown on a 300-acre farm. In the Bo Kaap, slave quarters in Cape Town. The restored cottage in Franschehoek. The water tower in Kommetjie.
Them two. photo joneberlinfoto.com
She and I would roam the Southern African coastline searching for waves. Good, lined up crisp, breathed on, offshore swell. Deriving deep out of the Southern Atlantic Ocean. Barometric charts were the guide in the local paper (newspaper, a daily publication where independent news would be reported on). Deep lows off the Sandwich Islands, east of Patagonia, and north of the Antarctic, gave us clues to follow. Southerly gales turning southwest, deep horizon clouds turning blue-black. These swells would rear large, extra-large off Cape Point, and a decision would have to be made. Chase the lined-up swell off the eastern cape coast. Mossel Bay, Victoria Bay, Cape St Francis, Jeffreys Bay, and the points north in the Transkei and the southern Kwa Zulu/Natal coast. Mostly rights, one thousand miles of mostly empty, very sharky, clean, lined-up point break walls.
Or, the heaving A-frame cold water peaks of the west coast. Breaking on mussel-covered reef, in dark kelp beds. Colder than cold. Full 5 mil neoprene, sleeping in sleeping bags, in board bags, in the back of our small, red, Ford mini truck. So grateful for Makeba, our German Shepherd, who was our portable heating blanket sandwiched on top of us. Always in the middle. The slightest huff followed by a puff. That dog!!!!
When the swells were large and unruly, I had them mostly to myself, long open ocean paddles. Steep drops, heart in mouth, wide open walls, and deep, dark barrels. When things went according to plan. When they did not, long, lung-sucking hold downs awaited. Broken boards, leashes, and very long, lonely swims to the beach. Thinking about the Men in the Grey Suits.
When the energy dissipated and moved north or east, Kit would wax up.
She rode a deep V, John Whitmore single, 8’10”, that somehow she had taken ownership of even though it was mine. Shaped in ‘68. She would wax up from the V-shaped tail all the way to the nose and always paddle out with dry hair. Somehow she found the only O’Neill wettie in South Africa (O’Neill boycotted Apartheid South Africa). All black with yellow accents at the neck and shoulders.
Three arm paddles and straight down the line, Speed multiplied. Creeping up to the nose, her languid left leg would point stretched out to the nose, her right knee would drop low, with both arms pointing forward, willing speed. Her hip would snake and twist, dancing. Full, boogie jazz. Holding a high line, slotted in the curl.
Full on, dancing hand jive, karate chop, soulful rhythm and blues, body speak. The nose, kicking off wild spray into her blond locks. A full, deep smile, she would hold trim and race the curl. Always cackling and whooping.
Glorious…..
My favorite surfers have always been women.
A strong life lesson.
Dad was the first introduction to the wine world. Visiting the grand old estates of the Cape when we were young, while holidaying in the Cape. Klein and Groot Constantia, Fairview, Buitenverwhacting and Vergelegen. Kit attended the University in Stellenbosch and continued my wine education when I had days off in the navy.
Dad passed away in the early morning of July 26th, 2004. Kit and I were living in the pool house. Me, trying to kickstart a surfboard shaping career, and Kit, painting large, beautiful canvases.
Mom called out at 2:20 am. We weren't asleep, awake, waiting, somehow knowing this would be the end. I picked his lifeless body up.
So heavy. Heavy. All the breath gone. I still sit with it.
I miss you, Dad.
And, thank you.
