Taking Class

Tate was my sister’s first long running boyfriend. He was a knob. Saying that I was 16 or so at the time so pretty much any guy that dated my big sister was a knob from the word go.

We are a family of basic values but that’s not to say we don’t know how to bat with the big league. My Pops has taken me all over the world and introduced me to the wealthiest of the wealthy.  This interaction has taught me two things. One: You get two kinds of wealthy. Those who were served a silver platter of delicate ignorance and an adapted fundamental humor loss that comes with being born into a wealthy family. They gladly frolic in the paddocks with their horses and are quite content believing that all Africans look like that poor little bugger with the vulture waiting in the back ground. Then you get the mad hatters. Guys who worked for their money. Born into a family just like mine or yours. Over time they grew rich and the money clouded their youth. More time passed by as they went from rich to wealthy and they lost sight of the place they were from and the people they used to know. Please don’t get me wrong, this is entirely natural. In order for them to survive in among the wealthy they have had to adapt. They have to devise a cloak to keep their old selves from damaging their new pretty little imagines.

Two: My Dad destroys that cloak. I come across these well to do for captains of the industry and after one night out on the piss with my Dad they will be shouting from windows and setting fire to their recently shredded shirts. He has that ability to bring out the chaos in a man.

Tate’s father was born into a normal family and he worked so hard at his career that got to a time and place where he didn't have to count his money anymore. He sported a top of the line Jaguar in the tile-floored garage which lead to his massive Camps Bay residence. Huge open plan balcony overlooking the beach and South Africa’s most expensive real estate. We had been invited for a lunch and a bit of glamour social.

We sat down around the table and began to enjoy a High Tea style lunch. Up first was a bowl of soup. With squiggles on it. After forcefully swallowing my second spoonful in I asked my Mom if their microwave was broken. Turns out cold soup is larney. Right. Just like those guys that convinced us that grinding our own salt is larney. No… no its not. The cavemen ground their own salt for years and years and then, after the industrial revolution and through the wonders of flowing agents, we decided that machines could do that for us instead. How have we gone backwards? Anyways, cold soup and burnt little bits of toast. Terrible. Getting back to my point. Mr Herron was sipping away at his delightfully crisp and light hearted rose’ when my Dad starts his motor. “Are you going to be drinking that fairy drink all night or are you going to show me what whisky have you got?”

12 hours later we all got kicked out. Kelly was upset, my Mom was in tears, Mrs Herron was in shock and my Dad had got what he came for. He took Mr Herron back to his roots. The old guy started singing and performing, his false eye went lop sided, Bach got dropped for Lover Boy, the whisky bottles lay strewn across the dinner table and every pretense of class had been stripped away. 

From that mad night onward he and my father always got along…and were always kept at separate ends of the dinner table.