GLENCOE BAOBAB TREE

 

Can you see the matchbox on the trunk?

We went in search of this tree: we made our own long weekend of it. I did a bit of reading about champion trees of cities and countries. A fascinating subject. Glencoe — not Glencoe in Natal; this is the Glencoe tree near Hoedspruit.

At one stage it was the champion tree of our country, South Africa, and then the old fellow fell over — and someone wrote that it was all over and that it was no longer worth visiting. It is indeed worth the effort to find and see the tree. But in our modern internet world, it is no longer much of a search — you sit in the comfort of your own home, contact the owners, and they send you the so-called “pin”, and there you are, jumping into your car and driving there at a respectable speed.

Do go without a tour guide, because there are tour guides who do not know where the tree is, even though they are standing only a few paces away — and then they see another baobab. Look at it. Sigh and click their tongues. Look. Take a bunch of selfies, jump back into their tour vehicles and move on to the next item on their journey through the TO-DO list for the day.

You know the TO-DO list, don’t you? Every morning you get up and look for your TO-DO list and start working at it like a madman because you are chasing “experiences” — that is what this mad rush is called: experiences for you and your little children. The more, the better. The more superficial, the more important, because then you can tick it off on your TO-DO list; also lovingly referred to as MY BUCKETLIST. Your list does not get any shorter because your other friends keep urging you to chase after even more things. Life is all too short and the BUCKET LIST is growing.

I have a simple concept in my head about this merry-go-round and this mad chase after the winds of change. People shout: “You are surely inseparably part of this rat race. Aren’t you?” You know, I have not been part of this silly game for so many years now that I no longer feel bad about it. Why not? As I said, I am not part of any rat race. The reason is very simple: I AM NOT A RAT. I was created in the image of Almighty God and not in the image of a rat — rats get rat poison.

I am not a rat.

It is abundantly clear that my wife and I are not rats

So, my wife and I quietly drove at a maximum of 100 kilometres per hour north from our home in Rivonia to Hoedspruit to go and look at the tree.

We spent the night in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, and chatted with family. One of my nieces asked where we were going, and her sister answered: “He is going to look at a tree.” Indeed. That is the purpose: to go and look at a tree.

[This reminds me of the time I went to Britain in 1975 to look at specific pieces of furniture and to look at a rare book: the first-day edition of William Shakespeare’s work; it was not available; I found a first-day publication of THE CANTERBURY TALES, written by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400.]

That afternoon I went for a walk around the guesthouse and looked at a crumpled-looking tree. Behind the generic concrete fence, a woman with curlers in her hair stood shouting at me: “Sir, do you have a problem?”

I thought to myself that, even if I did have a problem, I was not going to discuss it with her.

So, I answered her: “Madam, I am looking at the tree on the pavement.”

Then I simply walked off.

Early the next morning, just after breakfast, we set off on our way to the Tree.

We slept in the tented camp. Needless to say, it is not the standard of our home, but that was not what we had gone there for either.

The owner received us as though we had known one another for years — and pointed us in the general direction of their pride: that way.

 

The seedpod

And she gave me a seed pod, with compliments from her husband.

For the next five days I probably walked around four or five times every day to go and greet this old giant. My cell phone camera worked overtime.

I had the idea of using a matchbox to provide a sense of scale — the moment I put it against the trunk, at that very moment I felt downright silly. Surely this was the most grotesque piece of visual imagery I could possibly have thought of.

As I took the photographs, a thought seemed to hit me over the head: get something else for scale, get something else for scale.

No! This is not right.

Yet I left it, and carried on taking photographs. These are the most bizarre photographs yet — and I discovered that bizarre imagery tells a story far better than I can do with words.

The age of the tree was analysed using carbon dating, and the scientific finding is that it is between 1,850 and 2,000 years old — the article was published in 2012. Here is the link to the article: Scientific article on the Glencoe baobab https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168583X1200273X

The old tree broke in 2009.

Wilma Stockenström wrote DIE KREMETARTEKSPEDISIE, and J. M. Coetzee translated it as THE BAOBAB EXPEDITION. This book was the first item I packed for our expedition. And I introduced this Old Giant to Wilma’s book.

That Old Giant messes with one’s head — now I am very proud of my photographs because I have captured the true image of this enormous old beast.

Do have a look at my gallery of photographs.

Please write me your story and send it to neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za

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BRING AND TELL AT GENEALOGY some lessons my late dad taught me

 

My yellow-wood plate I turned many years ago.

Bring and tell us about your past.

The things you make.

The things you look at.

The things you have acquired, no matter from whom or when.

If you cannot remember from whom, that does not matter either.

Perhaps you made some of these things yourself. Bring them and tell us about them, because they are part of who you are and where you are going.

My interaction with tools comes a long way of many years. My late father was right-handed. I left-handed. And that in itself caused stresses between us. He couldn’t teach me. And me was an unwanted observer – so it seemed to me. Later years, he apologised to me about it; my reaction was immediate and truthful: the best lesson I learned from being in your presence was to observe: tools are made for a purpose: USE IT. And so I did.

Bring it.

Tell the story.

That was at our June 2026 gathering.

One person spoke about the medals and awards he received during his army days. He brought his own medals, as well as those of his late father, and we looked at them. Everything was beautifully framed and exceptionally well cared for.

Another chap displayed a few very old Bibles and, with nostalgia in his voice, told us about them. One Bible had, in those days, been sent to South Africa from the North, where WWII was raging; its two outer covers were made of olive wood. Once again, these items had been exceptionally well preserved.

Another brought along his mother's opera glasses. I was amazed at the way he took them out of their case — gently, almost as if his mother were watching him.

One of my friends has an old, dusty lathe that has been well used and that he still uses regularly. It had previously belonged to someone else; he bought it somewhere for fairly little money. An old, well-used lathe in new, eager hands can work wonders. To him, it is a beloved working tool.

For one of his granddaughters' weddings, he turned a whole lot of candleholders from offcuts of pine. It was a special request that Grandpa should make them for her. There was even one specifically earmarked for the main table: Grandpa's handiwork.

What did I bring?

I brought some of my tools.

Today I have very few tools because I sold most of them when I moved from Morningside to Rivonia.

Geelhout houtskyf 13 December 1998

Before I tell you about the little bit of tooling I still have, I want to tell you about my Knysna yellowwood platter.

I completed it on 13 December 1998. Since then, it has stood in a place of honour in our home, on our sideboard.

The years have been kind to this platter.

The patina has developed into such a deep yellow — the outstanding characteristic of yellowwood. When it first came off the lathe all those years ago, it was very light and looked more white than yellow. Oxidation from exposure to the air, together with all the hands that have dusted it over the years, has turned it a deep yellow.

My kitchen knife with the shortened blade

A knife — a kitchen knife: the kind you use every day in the kitchen, the kind you use at the table when you sit down for dinner. That old-fashioned knife with a handle made of that light yellow-white-beige sort of material.

You find them at flea markets and in other shops that sell off old odds and ends.

But this knife is a kitchen knife with a difference.

Somewhere along its life's journey in a kitchen, the original knife suffered a blow: the blade cracked. And so it migrated to my garage.

I needed something like an all-purpose utility item in the garage, and this old fellow looked like a very suitable candidate. You know the utility-kind of philosophy: that everything, should be usable.

Then the tip broke off. I filed it roughly round with my electric grinder.

It is the most versatile piece of equipment in my garage: scraping dirt from under fingernails, tightening little screws, scraping clean empty plastic yoghurt containers, scraping dried paint off screwdrivers — man, think of something and you can probably use this tool for it.

My contraption from my friend

When I displayed it at our genealogists' Bring and Tell gathering, the men's tongues really got going, and there was quite a buzz around it.

Why did he give it to me? I don't know exactly why he gave it to me.

I had given him a gift: a plaster cast of the front end of a pair of pliers. He gave me a contraption.

Here another story is beginning to emerge.

When we moved house about four or five years ago, I saw these pliers lying around. And I wondered where they had come from. The more I looked at the thing, the less I liked it.

Until one day I picked it up and examined it properly.

Now there is a competition between these pliers and that knife: which of the two is the most versatile and useful?

My wood chisel

This wood chisel, too, developed a life of its own in my hands.

Somewhere — I think I remember buying it in a second-hand pawn shop — I came across it. The handle was missing.

Well, that was not a problem.

The handle was gone, and it didn't matter.

At home I took a piece of scrap oak and turned a handle.

The oak, in turn, came from a scrap piece that had come out of a factory making oak furniture.

I also fitted two bronze metal ferrules over the ends for protection.

Almost as versatile as that knife and my pliers.

Next, I will write something about the pieces of equipment I cast in plaster.

What do you have?

Somewhere, there is something in your house or in your garage that has a story.

Write that story for me and send it to me at neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za.

Send some photographs along as well.

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