Cryptic Tales From the Vault -Part 3

Ditty of Contradictions

I’ll start with a piece of nonsense verse. This is a ditty I had learnt as a child and still love very much.

One fine day in the middle of the night.
      Two dead men got up to fight.
      Back to back, they faced each other.
      Drew their swords and shot each other.

Clapping Your Way to Heaven

The other day in church, I couldn’t help notice a man sitting towards the front vigorously clapping his hands and shouting “Amen” every time the pastor made a point in his sermon. At the end of the sermon, the collection plate was coming around, and the same gentleman’s hands were stuck together from all the clapping, and he was unable to put anything in the collection plate. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was clapping his way to heaven.

Falling in Love

Did anyone ever trip and fall in love? I know everyone says that they fell in love, but did anyone practically trip and fall in love?

We hear about love at first sight. Foolish question, I know, but what about blind people who fell in love the first time they met?

Wine (Whine) and Song

Looking back, as a young man who often frequented clubs, it was “too much wine and too much song.” I wondered how I got along. Now, as a married man and a lot older, it’s “too much whine and too much wrong.” I wonder how I get along?

To Man, the Truth Comes in Many Forms

Mankind holds to a plethora of truths dependent on their religious affiliation or any other number of factors that they consider central to their persona. What is truth one day becomes false the next day. The concept of truth is viewed as correct for the acceptable behaviour of people in one’s own circle of “friends,” yet seen as a contradictory one for others due to their nationality, skin colour, or some disliked feature or factor, such as political standing and economic social status.

Tough Love and the Silver Spoon

Children who have not been brought up with tough love often end up as failures in life. To survive in this world, sometimes referred to as “a Cruel World,” they need to develop through childhood and teen years to manhood with hard knocks, hardships, and hard times to be toughened up so that the problems they face—and they will face problems—can be worked through without caving in, giving up, or, worst-case scenario, trying to commit suicide.

Tough love gives one the necessary tools (physical, emotional, and mental) to make it through whatever life throws at you. It has a mix of street savvy, wisdom (and knowledge), and a fair amount of intuition to help with sifting out the truth from that which parades as truth.

Children Born with a Silver Spoon in their Mouths—these are the children born into well-to-do homes with rich parents. Being raised in this “lap of luxury” is no guarantee for a long, successful life. In fact, these spoiled brats treat others (both young and old) with disregard and disrespect and with an attitude of entitlement that all are there to serve them.

Their whole outlook is one where all others, not belonging to their peer group’s rich status, are their servants. They are the ones most likely to succumb to suicide, as they are unable to cope with life’s problem situations or challenges on the one hand, and their lack of responsibility, commitment, and direction leaves an empty hole in their soul.

Planning and Divine Will

Life, a Time to Plan and a Time to Refrain from Planning. As the saying goes, if you do not plan, you plan to fail. Thus, it would seem imperative that one has to plan to succeed. I have also seen and experienced times when all one’s planning amounts to zero, as life seems to have its own plans mapped out for you.

These plans, directed by divine intervention, not only boggle the mind with their character and content—their unravelling of a seemingly unconnected set of steps—but also their finish to successful completion and accomplishment. Humanly speaking, one then refrains from planning to allow these wonderful plans to “run their course.” Thus the saying, “The best laid plans of men and mice oft go awry.” Similarly, “Man proposes and God disposes.” Oftentimes, our dreams are only realized in God’s Plans for us.

The Mother and Father of Invention

They say, “Necessity is the mother of Invention.” Can we then make the statement “Laziness is the Father” based on the assumption that more items have been invented due to man’s desire to do things easier (with the least amount of effort to gain maximum output)? The Father of Inventions could also be man’s desire to “create” what his imagination has explored.

Repacked Nursery Rhymes

Some of the things I fondly remember about school days were the nursery rhymes we learnt. These are some of my favourites that I repacked.

Hickory dickory doc, 
two mice ran up the clock. 
The clock struck one, 
the other fell down, 
hickory dickory doc.

“Twinkle, twinkle little star, 
how I wonder what you are, 
up above the sky so high, 
like a diamond in the sky.”

Scintillate, scintillate, global Vervivic, 
Fein do I wonder thy nature specific. 
Loftily poised in the heavens pernicious, 
strongly resembling a gem carbonaceous.

It just sounded cooler and classier!

Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

Back in the day, a circuit court judge system was implemented to address the limitations of judges. A single judge was appointed to travel a set itinerary between three or more towns, stopping at each to adjudicate cases brought before him.

Court sessions were held in the town saloon, requiring the establishment to close its normal business for a few hours while the judge presided.

In one such case, a horse thief, a great crime of the time, was brought before the circuit judge and charged. The courtroom/bar was filled, standing room only available; in addition, the weather was one for staying indoors. It was a thunderstorm: thunder rolling, rain coming down in torrents, and brilliant flashes of lightning lighting up the skies. The court was in session when a sudden flash of lightning blazed through the ‘courtroom’. The accused was struck by a bolt of lightning, killing him instantly. Awestruck by this development and in the proceeding silence, the judge remarked, “It would seem this case has been judged by a higher court, and the accused has been found guilty and executed immediately. Case closed.”

A Westerner Out Hunting

Out hunting for deer, Jim Callow found himself face-to-face with a massive grizzly bear. He didn’t have time to shoulder his rifle and take aim, but decided to flee as the better form of valour. Things didn’t look good. He had wandered into an open field, with no place for safety. Flight and fright combined to give him impetus to run for his life towards a clump of tall trees to his right.

As he got near, a couple of things registered in his brain. Firstly, he could feel the hot breath of the bear on the nape of his neck; secondly, there was no time to climb up one of the trees. His only avenue of escape was to jump up and catch a branch to escape the bear. The problem immediately registered was that the lowest branch was twenty-five feet up in the air.

“It’s now or never,” so he jumped, missing the branch. He had jumped too high, but as he started his descent, he made sure to catch the branch on his way down. He barely escaped.

Second World War Naval Story

My great-grand-uncle, Johnny Reed, was a seaman, and because South Africa had a fledgling naval service, he enlisted in the American Navy. He was seconded to a naval frigate that would be part of a fleet escorting ships carrying troops to Britain to join in the fight against Germany.

On his first day aboard the frigate, he noticed many 44-gallon drums containing green paint placed on the frigate’s deck. This seemed unusual and out of place. Curiosity got the better of him, and he enquired about this phenomenon.

The Captain informed him that as a frigate, they had guns on board to use against enemy ships and aircraft, but no weapons for use against the enemy U-boats (submarines), which had now become common in the Atlantic battlefield.

When they were under attack and their sonar system detected the presence of enemy submarines ready to launch an attack, they opened some of the paint drums and threw them overboard. The green paint would cover the ocean’s surface. As the submarine captain raised his periscope to see the vessels to engage in his attack, the green paint would cover the periscope sight glass.

This would give the submarine captain the impression that they were still deep underwater, and he would continue to provide instructions for the submarine to rise. “We would wait and as soon as the submarine(s) had risen thirty feet above the water level, we could shoot them down with our anti-aircraft guns.”