Rob in the ‘Hood: Summer of ’42 and Winter of 2020
It took eight weeks for me to be re-united with my crush from younger days, Jennifer O'Neill, and the Summer of '42.
Greetings one and all.
The local communities between Shelly Beach and Uvongo must be scratching their heads in pleasant bewilderment: the woody woodcutters are out in force.
No tree is safe along Marine Drive and the grasscutters are not being left out of this horticultural carnival, either.
ALSO READ : Rob in the ‘Hood: Beware of Geeks bearing gifts
Certainly Uvongo is resembling a pretty sight once more after too-long-a-wait: the grass verges have been given a ‘short back and sides’ and you can even see the names on the street where you live.
Time-honoured customs like fairly lengthy breakfasts on the side of the road continue, as if nothing had ever happened; but what the heck: if the end product is trimmed grass verges, what’s a little breakfast between friends. Thanks, really, it is appreciated.
One would like to extend accolades to our late, lamented postal services, but trying to post mail is still one of life’s challenges.
Long gone are the days of the friendly postman delivering mail to your letter-box.
Long gone, too, is actually receiving letters, even a bill or two, in the post box at your not-so-friendly post office.
We gave up on the SA Postal Service ages ago.
Of course, modern social media, including e-mail, WhatsApp, and all the other buzzwords, have killed off the postal service.
The days when ‘Sanders of the River’ mail-ordered a bride, along with a roll of linoleum, plus three-months back editions of the Times of London, finally delivered to the last outpost, have been lost in the mists of time.
Even in the not-too-distant past it was the norm for an air-mail letter to arrive from ‘The Old Country’ or Europe within five days.
The mail order bride, took a little longer: say, three weeks via the old Union Castle mailships between Southampton and Durban, for onward transportation to the interior.
A case in point: eight weeks back, I intended to post a collectors’ item autograph book, and three home-made CDs to a collector friend in Sydney.
With the parlous state of the SA postal services, I was advised to send the package by courier.
“It will cost R1100 to send the small package to Sydney, Australia,” I was told, matter-of-factly.
Add to that, but the recipient would have to drive half way to Melbourne (well not quite) to personally collect the package.
A thousand bucks was out of the question.
I was advised that ‘you can post it, special delivery, for only R350, but it will definitely get there. It’ll take about six to eight weeks’.
Is that a fact? The mind boggles!
My Aussie friend in Sydney, on the premise of ‘fair dinkum – one good turn deserves another’, had located a quite rare collector’s item DVD of one of those golden oldies movies I had been searching for decades.
Advising my Wizard of Oz mate not to post directly to SA, he couriered his package to my sister in England.
Within eight days the package had arrived at her home in sleepy Bedfordshire. Now this is where the story takes a funny turn.
The courier service duly delivered the package to ‘somewhere in Johannesburg’.
The SA Customs and Excise Service then decided to play a little game. More paperwork needed completing.
Then even more paperwork again, this time from the UK.
The little matter of customs duty (on a R75 value DVD) had to be paid.
Six weeks after lying around ‘somewhere in Johannesburg’, the package was finally delivered to friends in Durban for my collecting; but only after the CEO of the courier service personally took up the issue with ‘someone high up in Sars at the airport in Johannesburg.
So, eight weeks after this exercise began, I will at last be re-united with my crush from younger days, Jennifer O’Neill, and the Summer of ’42.
I just hope the movie is still as good as when I first saw it some 40 years ago. Who says the age of romanticism is dead?
Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you’re young at heart.
By the way, my package to Oz has still not arrived in sunny Sydney.
See you, Rob.
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