I ask myself why there weren't any horses in Krugersdorp. I'm sure many people will refute this idea, meaning that in their experience, there were horses. The only horse I can remember is the one that pulled Mr Zuk around town on his bottle-collecting rounds.
I liked seeing the old man with his Andy Capp hat drawn over his eyes, bent forward on his wagon seat.
I loved him, and I loved the wagon, and the memory stays fixed in my mind, but I ask myself why I didn't think about the horse that pulled the wagon. Why didn't I develop any affection for the horse? He or she deserved sympathy, at least for the burden of drawing a wagon behind him all his life.
Mr. Zuk changed his hat for a square-shaped head covering, a Moroccan style Cufic fez, in black. It looked like a bishop's mitre.
He became a sort of Jewish Bishop standing on the high bima. the spacious raised podium in the center of the synagogue, where the Torah was read from and where only people due for special honours stood.
Here was a man who was collecting bottles one day. The next day, he was the Bishop of the Jewish congregation. Religion didn't make him important, and being a bottle collector didn't make him unimportant.
But to get back to the horse. I loved the horse, but showing affection for horses wasn't acceptable in the family where I grew up. Somehow it was drummed into my mind that a horse was a utilitarian object whose purpose was to pull things and serve man. It wasn't a creature to be loved.
I vaguely remember seeing a black horse in a stable next to the kitchen of the house where we lived. It can't be called a house because I never saw the outside of it; at least, I don't have any memory of seeing such a thing. I remember only the kitchen table and a door leading out of the kitchen to the stable.
Could it be, I ask myself, that we lived in a stable? Didn't the horse stink us out? I didn't see the cow either, but I knew we had a cow. My mother would bring the milk in a cream-coloured enamel jar and make butter. My most clear memory was of churning the butter. I remember the big round silver-coloured bowl where the milk churned around, forming butter.
I loved seeing the butter form, my chest swelling with pride to be the person chosen to turn the handle and make the separator bowl spin round and round.
By the time I grew up, I was scared of horses. I was always afraid a horse would kick me. I felt that horses didn't particularly like me.
As a young man. I visited my friend Maxie Klass, and together, we visited Hilliard Cumin on the farm in Cyferbult, where we rode around on a horse. He gave me the most docile horse to ride on. It was a lovely experience. I want to go back and renew my friendship with horses.
The picture of my friend Shelby riding her horse, bandit in show jumping is very beautiful, and I realize I love horses.
I possessed a rocking horse, which like most of my toys I shared with my older brother, Raymond, when I was about 4. There was some argument about whose turn it was to ride the rocking horse.
I'm pretty sure I lost the argument just as I lost most arguments with my brother, mostly because my mother would intercede and grant him the thing I wanted.
That rocking horse was definitely a bone of contention.
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