In the Great Karoo, sometime in the early 1950s
For my grandson Joseph Lin Dreyer, born November 11, 2023
Working the shop, at twelve, I sold
Sunrise Location's young scions
toffees (Velvets, Wilson's), giving
the boys a farthing's change per head.
"Dankie, Kleinbaas,”* the kids all said
—not feeling, I suppose, that bold.
Wilson's two a penny, Velvet
four, then desiderated sweets
at Dreyer's Handy Market store,
alas, our grocery no more:
it's a Pick n Pay Hyper outlet
now, selling what you have to get.
Libra, solidus, denarius,
"£.s.d."** to me; I didn't fuss
over farthings in a tickey
but wait a bit: Wag net ’n bietjie!***
twenty bob, and you'd got a quid.
No big deal if you did like us!
Had I still but got a farthing
of that lost pretty penny sum,
I’d bequeath it to my grandson,
revealing to him at leisure
the return for toffee treasure
in "Then"—my sometime thing.
So, my grandson lives in Shanghai;
I riff on 1952—
just distantly remembered, true,
though I was then as good as new;
good people asked a heartfelt "Why?"
—and had not so succumbed to sigh.
Wouldn't trade for what's on now.
It tots stuff up all wrong. Nohow!
*“Dankie, Kleinbaas” = “Thanks, Little Master."
**£.s.d. = "pounds, shillings, and pence." Pronounced “el-es-dee." The £ symbol is an L for libra, pound—colloquially, a "quid." The "tickey" was a thrupenny bit; the shilling was called a "bob."
***"Wag net ’n bietjie!" = "Just wait a little bit!"
Christmas 2023
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