OK ? so this is the storytelling thread and here is another that I would not choose to distribute liberally but I thought it might make you all smile:
My fear of water
For some reason, some of the most disturbing things that have happened to me occurred when I was deeply immersed in water. It started at an early age. My sister Laurie was a child born with sweetness and light as her natural state. Blonde , curly hair and the face of an angel.
As her elder brother, I took it upon myself to make her face life?s realities through a continuing series of minor tortures that older brothers are so often driven to engage in.
But her angelic qualities saw her adopting the role, not only of my tormentee but also of my greatest protector. It was always she, who would climb the fence of our next door neighbour?s yard, to brave the insane dog they refused to recognise was a menace to humanity, to get me home to dinner on time. It was always she who would come to the rescue when dinner conversations became tense, the tip of my father?s nose would turn increasingly white with pent up frustration, and it seemed like he would come precariously close to pushing back his livid chair.
It was always she who would find a way to deflect the looming conflagration; to introduce a touch of humour that would make all present breathe a little deeper.
Perhaps it was the accumulation of all of this responsibility which drove her to it, but one night, my sister, Laurie snapped. It is unclear to all whether she had been specifically provoked or not. But as I lay languorously in my hot bath she burst in to the bathroom, my baseball bat in hand, and proceeded to deliver a crashing blow to the head.
The truth is that there was more ignominy than pain in the resounding blow from a five year old waif. But it was the beginning of a series of bath-time misadventures.
The next of these occasions involved the two sweet-faced daughters of our neighbours. I have no recollection as to how it might have come about but they ritually gathered round my bath in the early evening. I might have been aged 6 at the time and I had the wonderous capacity of all 6 year old to emit a spout of fluid that could be directed to bounce off nearby walls in a shower that would cause great amusement. I do recall that I had some sense that the spout was not dissimilar to that of Moby Dick.
It was inevitable that these two fresh-faced young Anglicans would be surprised by the nude, unsheathed nature of my penis. It was a matter of great interest for them enhanced multiply by the fact that I had explained to them the process by which the sheath had been lost in traditional circumcision.
It was natural for them to want to see how this might have occurred and even though the original instrument of torture may not have been a nail scissors they were quite prepared to see what damage might be wrought. Perhaps I should have seen it coming ? after all their family name was Triplehorn and it suggests that they might have had a direct link to some Satanic power.
The wails that emerged from the bathroom that day were memorable. Another notch had been made in my pride and penis alike.
But the final ignominy that confirmed for all time that I should be deeply suspicious of immersing myself in water, and perhaps the reason why I remain a confirmed user of the shower with a constant readiness for escape occurred in December of 1978.
I was to be married.
It was the second time this joyous process was to be my pleasure. The first had occurred under the supervision of the Beth Din of Tel Aviv, with an array of paid witnesses who had testified to my religious scruples and standing.
This time around things were not so clear cut.
We had been through a rather tortuous process made even more so by my good self. I was asked to convert to Judaism. It made no difference to the bureaucrats that I had grown up Jewish, that I spoke fluent Hebrew. I needed to submit myself to a conversion which entailed regular attendance at the local synagogue on Saturdays and the payment of R100. I refused on both counts.
Like a drunk caught speeding by the local constabulary I proceeded to argue about the virtues of state and society. About the role of the synagogue in a poisoned political state and my view that Judaism was conspicuous by its absence in a formal sense in its rejection of apartheid.
Along the way this was excerbated by an Israel Rabbi who had advised me simply to say that I would comply and then proceed at will. I forever haunted him through our regular meetings with this act of treachery.
My poor wife to be should have known better than to allow this impasse to become intractable. It was mighty battle of wills. I refused shul attendance on the grounds that my work as a teacher to the poor was clearly a more religious act than I would achieve in a synagogue filled with smoky old shibboleths.
Eventually sanity prevailed, a Rabbi was wiser than I and it was agreed that I would undergo ritual conversion.
On an anointed day I presented myself at the Beth Din of Johannesburg. At that time I worked in Springs for Gillette, the company that invented the safety razor.
A group of black-coated men gather around me with the carrion interest of crows and their leader proceeded to remove from its protective wax paper a blade, made by the company for whom I worked. It was a moment of true ignominy and shame for my penis which had experienced maltreatment at the hands of a nail scissors and angelic neighbours once before responded instantly to the memory of that occasion and inverted upon itself.
But another notch was made and blood was drawn.
Now to heap scorn and embarrassment on my already depleted pride I was taken to a room for a ritual bath. With the last remaining morsel of dignity left to me I refused to enter. The poor Rabbi (Rabbi Isaacs of Cyrildene, a pale man with the soul of Uriah Heap and the body of a gnome), had been unable to confirm that the bath was indeed 14 cubits deep and did in fact contain only rainwater.
But I succumbed eventually and was asked to dip my head in under the water. Then I was told to don a yarmulka and was asked whether I now believed that Moses was given the Torah on Mt Sinai.
?I am standing here in a lukewarm bath, with no clothes on, a Yarmulka on my head and you choose now to get involved in religious debate. I think the argument might be stacked in your favour? I replied.
I never did pay the R100.
Since that time I have shown a prediliction to avoid immersion in a bath or a synagogue for that matter.