Tag: New Year

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New Year’s Eve – Guest Writer

Written by the Site Editor 

It is always bizarre to be a teenager and celebrate New Year’s with family. There is the sense that some massive party is being missed – when usually, my friends and I were far too disorganised to organise anything. So I created a system; one year with family, one year with friends. My family have never celebrated New Year’s to much extravagance in my memory – although apparently there was a good ‘end-of-the-world’ party at the turn of the century. One year, we were skiing in Austria and my parents, my sister and I were far too tired to make it to midnight, and decided to celebrate ‘Ugandan New Year’s Eve’, as it was several hours ahead and allowed for a 10pm bedtime.

For the winter of 2015, this was not the case. The plan was to celebrate up in Gruyeres, the small medieval town in Switzerland that bizarrely hosts a horror art museum attributed to the designer of Alien, H. R. Giger. We even invited some friends we had known in Uganda to join us.

We expected there to be some fanfare. But at 8 o’clock when we had gone to dinner, nothing had yet been made evident. It turned out that one of our friends, the father of the family we had invited along with us, is not an evening person. As we tried to coax him into playing games, he grew evermore disinterested. To the extent that winning and losing were met with the same ‘Oh, that’s interesting’ comment. We were far too amused by his reluctant attempt to stay up until midnight to realise that nothing had happened in the village. My sister was head down on the table feeling ill with a condition that we later diagnosed as chickenpox at the age of 14 (I contracted it 2 weeks later at 17). Perhaps it was epitomising Swiss-ness, and a rowdy party was not an option for such a sleepy, usually tourist-filled village.

However, at 11.50pm, something happened. A group of about 10 or 15 people bundled into the central square with a massive speaker. They started pouring drinks, chatting and laughing. The speaker blared out ABBA, Queen and various classic songs that everyone can sing to, be they English, French or German speaking. And for 15 minutes, we laughed and drank together to welcome the new year.

By 00.10, they had cleared out. Obviously, it would not do to have a rowdy event in the town square endure for too long and upset the neighbours. They cleared themselves away, took the speaker and all the plastic cups from their champagne, and bid us good night. We were stunned, as they erased any sign of having been there at all. We walked up to the top of the village to spot fireworks being set off in far away villages and mountain chalet towns. We welcomed 2016 in the tranquillity of a Swiss village – the year that followed was anything but tranquil.

We wish you all the best for the New Year’s, and thank you as ever for your support. Please forward Words for the Weary to anyone who you feel needs a story every week! 

 

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Fishing in Florida – 08/01/2017

[Welcome back and Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a good break. This holiday story is a wee bit longer than most, but I believe it’s worth it. And it’s all true.]

A few Christmases ago my brother-in- law and I rose in the early dawn light and piled into the car with our respective sons, sandwiches, a change of clothes, and high expectations. The previous night we had received a text from one “Captain Biff”, confirming that our deep sea fishing trip in the Gulf was on. His text also included an apology that his primary boat was in for repair so we would be using his backup
craft. No matter.

Not knowing where to park, we drove towards a man standing by the pier to ask for directions. He was a strapping fellow with short, ginger hair. He looked like a retired Rowdy Roddy Piper. He was wearing a filthy pea-green shirt covered with fish-ick and ripped camouflage shorts which offered a full view of his black boxers underneath. as we rolled up, the man leaned into the open driver’s window and said in a voice bristling with enthusiasm, “Y’all looking for Cap’n Biff?!” We nodded. “Co-ink-ee-dink! You found him!” He pointed us towards the parking lot and told us to meet him at the boat. The thrum of marine engines filled the air and added to our anticipation.

We gathered our things from the car and made for the pier. There sat Cap’n Biff’s backup boat, a little putt-putt party-barge pontoon with a 50hp Evinrude outboard. It looked like a floating David surrounded by marine Goliaths. As we stepped aboard, The Cap’n apologized that this was a lesser boat than his normal one, and noted we wouldn’t be hitting any deep water today but would instead fish in the shoals near shore. My brother-in- law slumped. The Cap’n cranked up some Bob Marley as we made for open water, while the Evinrude whined like a swarm of angry bees.

Despite the early hour, and I suspect in part to compensate for his crappy boat, Cap’n Biff proved to be quite the chatterbox. As we headed towards the shoals he told us about his time in the service, the ins and outs of charter fishing, and prattled on about the local gossip. My brother-in- law finally engaged. “Captain Biff”, he said, “I can’t help but notice a sort of musty smell here on the boat.…”

For the first time the Captain looked sheepish. “Yup”, he said. “When I pulled her out of storage this morning the seats were covered in a ton of dust and I didn’t have time to give her a full wipe down. So I covered the seats with these old hunting blankets here from my truck. I forgot that some of them blankets is scented with male buck urine, you know, to attract the horny female deer? So I expect that may be what we’re all smelling”. The air filled with Bob Marley as my brother-in- law and I sat tried to process the moment. …Buffalo soljaaahhh, dreadlocked Rasta…

Finally the Captain eased off the Evinrude as we drifted up to the shoals. Here he proved himself to be a veteran fisherman and a master at working with us novices. He taught us how to bait hooks, avoiding the spiky parts of the bait shrimp. He prepared the rods and lines, and taught our boys about the reels. Each time as we brought our arms back to cast, Captain Biff would yell “FLANG THAT DAWG!” with genuine enthusiasm.

As we kept casting, I noticed the Captain looking to the back of the boat with growing alarm. “Uh, fellas”, said Captain Biff with genuine worry in his voice. “I’m afraid we’ve got to cut this one a little short. It appears one of them pontoons is taking on water and we may be sinking”. Only then did I realize that my brother-in- law was indeed sitting a few inches lower than the rest of us at the back of the boat, and that we were listing noticeably to one side. Quickly Captain Biff flew into action, stowing the gear and firing up the Evinrude. He turned back for the pier as the rest of us huddled precariously on the front corner of the boat to counterbalance the growing weight in the rear waterlogged pontoon. The putt-putt Evinrude screamed for all it was worth as we inched across the open water.

Finally the pier came into sight. Captain Biff headed straight for the ramp, ignoring the stares of the other Captains who looked on wide-eyed at our semi-submerged party barge with its smoking outboard. Captain Biff threw a line on to the pier and ran up to get his truck and trailer, fearing that the boat might actually sink before he could skid it up out of the water. We remained on the front corner of the boat as counterbalance to keep it from going down. Meanwhile, the harbor master, an elderly man standing on the pier with glasses on the end his nose, began scribbling on his clipboard.

Captain Biff backed the trailer down into the water. Lashing the bow of the boat directly to the trailer he dispensed with the winch, knowing that he could not haul up the tons of water now filling the leaky pontoon. He motioned for us to step off the boat at the same moment as he dropped his truck into low-gear 4 X 4 and gunned it. The entire dripping mess lurched up the ramp. Tires smoked and the weight of the waterlogged pontoon almost crushed Captain Biff’s trailer. The prop, still spinning, flung water and weeds into the air. The harbor master’s writing became a blur while. Above the chaos …I shot the sherriiiifff…. could be heard coming from the boat’s sound system.

Then, right there at the top of the ramp, in the midst of the stares from onlookers, the judgement of his peers, and pending fines from the harbormaster, Captain Biff proved what kind of man he really was. He stepped from his truck up on to his boat, now spurting water from its leaky pontoon like a dozen little boys peeing, and crowed like a rooster on a dung heap “YEEAAAHHH! FLANG THAT DAWWWGGGG!!!” And while others waited in disbelief to get their boats down the ramp, Biff took the opportunity to fillet our caught fish. And he took his sweet time doing it, too. Then he added as a masterstroke while handing us the bag of fresh fillets, “I think I’m gonna offer you boys a discount”! Pure. Divine. Poetry.

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier. Happy New Year!]

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The Christmas Concert – 18/12/2017

It officially became the best Christmas concert of all time when they broke out the bongo drums and booze.

My daughter’s school choir sang this morning in an ancient stone church in the next village. As I walked there I greeted some French-Swiss construction workers who, true to form, were leaning on their shovels and smoking. The German-Swiss street crews work. The French-Swiss crews smoke.

The concert was hosted by the local International Women’s Guild.  The only thing international about the Guild is the use of the word “International” in the title. These women are all English. Like Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey. Like the Queen mum and her Corgies. The aging flower of Britannia.

The audience sang along with Silent Night, While Shepherds Watched their Flocks, What Child is This, and other old-fashioned-hey-nonny-nonny English Christmas classics. The songs were interspersed with readings by proper British authors like Rudyard Kipling and Charles Dickens. There was even an inexplicable Beatrix Potter poem about an Ostrich pulling the Christmas sleigh. How did these people once hold dominion over a quarter of the world?

Then things got “International”.

First, the choir made the mistake of projecting the words to a French carol. The Guild ladies sang along, but only out of duty and with nowhere near the gusto of the other carols. There were sideways glances and knowing nods exchanged, lest anyone be perceived by their Guild-sisters as being unpatriotic or worse, a Francophile.

Then came the Hanukkah song. This was received by the stunned assembly like the sting of a boxer’s jab. It was followed by the bruising right hook of the Kwanza song. The choir director had to explain to the baffled crowd what Kwanza was. One of the boys in the choir produced a bongo drum.

Then all hell broke loose. The bongos wailed, the choir sang, and the director, with her ample backside to the crowd, began to shake her caboose in time with the music in a most un-British manner. The Guild matrons swooned.

Decorum was restored by the taking up of a collection for some suitably obscure British charity involving animals. Then the crowd filed into the back of the church for biscuits and mulled wine. Even the kids were given mulled wine. It was 10:30 in the morning.

As I walked back to the car I passed the construction workers once more, their cigarette butts piled high from a long, unproductive morning. Each of them was by now also holding a steaming cup of mulled wine, a gift given by the passing Guild ladies returning to their cars.

I love Christmas. God bless us everyone, no exceptions.

 

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier. Note there will be no posts for the next two weeks on account of the holidays. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year to everyone! More to follow in January, 2018.]