BIOSCOPE (CINEMA)

Bertie Horak · October 15, 2008, 03:44:12 AM

Still have my potato gun and cap gun. Saw the other day that you still get the caps! Looks different now, but it still works the same. But with violence nowadays, toy guns not so popular. We used to connect play guns with "cowboys and crooks", but now if you ask the kids who they copy in their role-playing, it's gangsters, murderers, etc. Once again, we had imagination, today's kids have TV and movies.

Carl Wrbka · October 15, 2008, 06:00:26 AM

Some good memories. Who of you built those matchbox bombs? The ones where u fold the flints from the sides into a box, fill up with match heads and sellotape shut. Wait for unsuspecting victim and let rip. Eventually though, ol Zandy banned them from school after some kid got burnt.

Michael Alexander · October 15, 2008, 06:23:58 AM

Me! Me! Me! well Clint Ebstein Showed me how to do this.... on the cement outside the shopping centre...

Carl Wrbka · October 15, 2008, 06:39:38 AM

I remember Clint as being quite a pyromaniac during my time in OM. Before Sunday school on Sundays we would first carry out some minor demolitions in his garden. His mother's rose bushes were the unfortunate victims in most cases.

Paula Gottsch (Willson) · October 15, 2008, 12:29:32 PM

We did the matchbox thing and we also did the one where you take Harpic and put it into a glass bottle add some water put the lid on, then shake it up and run like hell.

Mike, don't try this at home!!!!!

Sheena · October 15, 2008, 01:18:39 PM

Paula, we also tried to smoke bokdrolle and banana skins......

Paula Gottsch (Willson) · October 15, 2008, 01:33:46 PM

in newspaper!

(was bladdy awful!)

Johanvz · October 16, 2008, 09:16:13 PM

I remember the potato guns. I did not have one myself but a friend had one. It might have been better that way. Carrying around a potato for ammo was pretty safe for me but the potato could quickly turn into a hand grenade and ended up "splat" against someone's living room wall.

My gut reaction and imagination was hard to explain after the fact but it was usually pretty funny. Often there was an unpleasant reward for my quick thinking. Enough about potatoes.

When we left OM in 72 I used to think that the way of living/playing for kids would have changed a lot but it seems it did not. Reading this forum reveals that kids still kept on digging those tunnels and boys and girls played together with the same toys. We dug our tunnels at the old "Sand gat". We were warned that the tunnels could collapse on us but somehow we still kept on digging them.

I just remembered something we did. At one stage we started making small parasuites and we would throw these into the air and watch them float down.

Well someone got the great idea to scale the parasuite up so that one of the kids could jump off the "Pondok" . My younger brother "Nico" (still with De beers) was selected as the test pilot since he was the lightest. We built this big parasuite and decided to first do a test drop with a rock. I know this must be hard to believe but we actually found a huge "bigger than a soccer ball" size rock. It took a lot of effort to roll this thing to our house and into the back yard. Don't ask me how but we actually got his rock on to the "Pondok dak". I still remember rolling this rock on my dad's "pondok dak" to the other side of the roof and the rock leaving a telltale path (dents) in the corrugated sheet. (More trouble to explain later) We got the rock to the edge of the roof. We realized that the parasuite would not open in time (Short drop) so we decided to hold the parasuite in the open position at the 4 corners and push the rock over the edge. (The parasuite was square with hanging 4 ropes.) Come to think of it, our buddy Uwe was part of this conspiracy.

We pushed the rock over the edge of the roof with a lot of anticipation and all we heard was DOEF as the rock smashed into the ground. It was a good thing that we did a test drop with the rock because Nico would most definitely broken some bones in his would be capacity as test pilot. The parasuite ended up where it belonged, in the trash can.

Bertie Horak · October 16, 2008, 09:32:36 PM

Great memories Johan! Me and my friends also had a similar experience/experiment from the garage roof!
Toy parachutes seemed to be a favorite pastime, I remember making our own on more than one occasion and using toy soldiers tied to plastic parachutes. Always had a problem with corners tearing out, or ropes getting tangled.

Yes, it seems like we all had the same kinds of games, building dens, re-enacting movies, climbing trees, playing toktokkie, etc. Boy we were lucky growing up in Oranjemund!
Compare that to the city - poor kids.

Johanvz · October 16, 2008, 10:53:48 PM

You are right Bertie. We were very fortunate to have lived there.
Strange, we had the same problem with corners tearing out. We solved this by making a tiny knot in each of the four plastic sheet corners. We then tied the rope on the inside of the plastic knot. This prevented tear out and also prevented the rope from slipping off the corner.
I think that our little guardian angels that protected us when we were kids must have been totally exhausted by the time we went to bed.
One of my other favorite pastimes was to play in the two Sherman Tanks that they had over at the Moth Club.

Bertie Horak · October 17, 2008, 03:51:37 AM

My solution (not always successful) was to put cellotape on the corners to strengthen them. Boy, you're going to make me go and play in the street with these memories!

Michael Alexander · October 17, 2008, 04:59:22 AM

Great tale Johan, In the tree's between the Moths and the hockey Field (then soccer field),there was a mud pond from a leaking pype that kept those tree's watered...anyhow, this was the the one site in Omund back in the 70's where you could get tadpoles and frogs...anyone else remember this mud hole?

Bertie Horak · October 17, 2008, 05:41:14 AM

Hey, I missed out - didn't know about that mud hole!

We got our tadpoles and mosquito larvae in the park between 12th-13th, close to the abattoir. Also a leaking pipe for years, always a puddle there. Mom wasn't impressed, I always brought some organisms home. Even built an "aquarium" for pet garden snails. I released the baby snails into the garden when they hatched to go forth and multiply - not in Mom's good books for that one!

Michael Alexander · October 17, 2008, 10:08:08 AM

Our Tonnarokka tyre in the garden was filled with water ... that was our mossie Aquarium!

Johanvz · October 18, 2008, 11:48:32 PM

Hi Michael/Bertie
I did not know about the mud hole at the Moth Club. My best guess is that the pipe must still have been intact in my child hood days so I guess we missed out on some fun there...

Same thing for the one at the "parkie" between 12th and 13th. No mud hole in my day.

We often played there. I remember it had a slide and a mechanical horse ride with about 5-6 seats. Is it still there? It was a lot of effort to make that thing go high. Most kids would keep it up for about 40 seconds before giving up the effort. Also had a "rondomtalie" I think it was called. Didn't like those back then and still don't like them today. Made me seasick on dry land.

We used to have bicycle races around the "Flat/parkie" block. Sometimes took shortcut in the ally between the parkie and flats. It did not have much benefit because the sand was so loose in the ally that you had to get off your bicycle and run to the other end pushing your bike. By the time you got there the others have already covered the distance around the parkie. The Start/Finish line of our bike race was the stop sign at the ablution block that the Migrant workers used.

It is interesting that you mention the Tonnarokka tire. I was wondering where that name originated from. Everybody referred to those machines as Tonnarokka's. I am not exactly sure about the correct spelling. I think the industry refers to it as a bucket scraper or belly scraper. Maybe someone knows.