MATING CALL OF THE VOLKSWAGEN JOHANNESBURG 1988

Our arrival in South Africa was not uneventful. Even a laid back group such as us could find plenty of opportunities for things to go sideways, to laugh at, to learn from or to remember for all time. It was fall 1988 when we packed up and left for South Africa. This time we travelled together.

We went SAN Fransisco to New York to London and then onto Johannesburg in South Africa. It took us a couple of days. The girls were young and full of fun. There was never a dull moment. Deysi, as always, packed about 8 large suitcases full of necessities and kind of herded us along. As cosmopolitan as I thought I was, basically I was still about 80% hillbilly and 20% clumsy. She definitely ran the show. I had learned to keep my big mouth shut and do what I was told. This, as the best way to get along and stay largely out of trouble. Anyway we arrived and the fun started. 

At the outset of our stay in Johannesburg, we lived in a hotel with adjoining bedrooms for us and the girls. It was close to the office and not far from the mall in the Sandton Sun Building. We were given a car so Deysi was not completely stranded while we got settled in and looked for a house.

One of the first things you become aware of is that, in the Johannesburg area of South Africa, there are some major lightning  and thunderstorms each and every day, that happen in the afternoon or evening. They are spectacular! It was said that at the time, and because of international sanctions. The TV options were so bad that many of the locals used to drive to the outskirts of the city to watch the thunderstorms roll thru. I’m just saying, could be. I didn’t do it but it might be true so don’t poopoo it. 

Anyway the point is that the storms were all around you. They were loud, brilliant and something like being in a war zone, I imagine. Now at this time and again because of sanctions, technology that was taking hold elsewhere in the world was sorely behind in SA. A case in point being the emerging technology that had every car now come with an alarm system. Well outside, in our hotel room parking lot, when the lightning started crashing down around us, the car alarms were somehow triggered and then joined in and one by one, added to the cacophony. It sounded like a pack of dogs looking for some lovin’. You could then hear doors opening and closing in the hotel as people went out to put their car to sleep. You might also be able to discern the occasional curse word or two. 

Funny thing about car alarms was that each make, model, and year of car had a different sounding alarm. Soon, you came to know what your car sounded like. And were able to ignore the trauma if your’s didn’t happen to go off that evening. If it did start howling, you dared not ignore it because you never knew whether or not you were having a false alarm or if there was someone truly breaking into your car. Both were likely scenarios at this time in Africa. This occurrence of alarms being triggered during storms lessened when we moved into our house and away from other vehicles. I still don’t know what the correlation was between proximity to other vehicles and the “mating call of the Volkswagen’s”.