Photo: Graeme Williams MediaClubSouthAfrica.com
http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=670&Itemid=75
He worked during his holiday and spent most of his evenings 'out', as young men frequently do. Unsurprisingly, we had little in common.
He had left home for boarding school when I was three and we came to SA when I was nine. We were virtual strangers, but somehow later found an affinity in occasional letters and even rarer meetings over the years.
During one of his irregular holidays here, he commented that it was a pity that our father had not managed to develop his potential as a youthful wartime hero to continue to perform as brilliantly for the rest of his life.
Sometimes, my most seemingly flippant replies actually carry more weight than I realise.
I don't remember aiming to be astute on that occasion; I could have been a little stung by his unintended criticism. After all, in his mid-40s, he had not particularly distinguished himself, I thought.
I said that perhaps our dad was just lucky there had been a war that gave him a chance to shine...
...and received a rather perplexed look in return.
I had watched both my parents bow beneath their own struggles. My mother had Multiple Sclerosis for all of my life and the latter half of hers. She remained incorrectly diagnosed for years.
I understood far better than my brother could, how completely her personal struggle had influenced everything from my father's career choices to his ability to design a comfortable old age for them both. There were times when he came home from work in the evening to do all the housework and cook their meal before helping my mother to bed.
I believe very firmly that the devotion it takes to grit our teeth and see through the family responsibilities that intrude after our frenzied youth is what most merits medals.
Women are more often acknowledged for doing it, but men have also been known to knuckle down to the inevitable. Kudos to those men!
My brother flew out to SA to say 'Goodbye' to us for our final meeting six years ago, by which time our parents had long been dead. He had been diagnosed with terminal cancer after a recurring struggle with the disease. I, my sister and our children knew that we would not see him again. It was an intensely poignant weekend.
I knew it was his sense of family responsibility that made him fly out for a final, personal farewell before dying. He had been a wonderful father to his two daughters and an excellent husband...the sort who does the cooking pretty often.
In all, my brother did substantially more for us than we ever did for him and easily earned my version of his war medal.
So I hope you will excuse the fact that I am somewhat impatient of young South Africans who seem to be on an eternal pilgrimage to identify a struggle worthy of their support.
Any young South African who needs to ponder a cause worthy of his or her effort lacks imagination! There is need and suffering all around us. South Africa's fight should be over but its real struggle has barely begun.
I sigh with despair at the numbers who congregated yesterday to show their support for Julius Malema & Crew. His behaviour is incorrigible! His choice of struggle is a different matter; we disagree only on how young people can attain (and keep) their rightful places in the workplace and economy, not their right to aim for it.
No leader should behave as arrogantly and brazenly as Malema has!
Young people all over the world and in every generation are mainly self-absorbed, selfish and self-important.
Trust me to know this; I've been one.
But it's somewhat sad that so few young South Africans have recognised the worthiness of the struggle to abstain, be faithful and use condoms as they indulge; that they still fall pregnant before appreciating the responsibilities that parenthood brings, or understand the pressures their parents are under.
Our gardener has seven children. Yeah! Don't say it! I still shake my head in disbelief.
There are two sets of twins, which is meant to make the high number more palatable, but probably only emphasises the urgent need for people with certain genes to learn to multiply by two, more quickly than others.
Nelson is determined that all his children will pass Matric. His own greatest struggle presently revolves around the fact that his eldest: twin daughters, have both already had babies and since matriculated, but caused futile arguments about marriage and lobola.
One left home to live with her boyfriend and his mother. She retreated to her childhood home at intervals between beatings. Each time, after a pleasant sojourn, she insisted on returning to the boyfriend. She now has two young children and all three are HIV.
Last time around, he finally told her: if you go back there, don't return here again.
Her twin sister is now boarding away from home while doing a computer course... which means Nelson's paying for her baby's day-care over the period, as well as for both the course and the boarding. When she phones him he says it's only to ask for airtime.
Luckily, his wife now bakes for hospital patients and visitors. Nelson says she's up half the night cooking and goes off at four every day to sell her wares. He's worried she'll burn out, although that's a phrase he wouldn't know.
Change is particularly dynamic in South Africa at the moment, although not particularly fast.
The vote has been translated into 'freedom' and many assumed this would allow all their fondest dreams to be easily realised without personal effort.
Had I one word of advice for today's youth it would be: your parents are dealing with your freedom; they have not yet attained their own, because in this and other recent generations the struggle is as much between their tradition and your new opportunities.
Children rightly want to take advantage of education, but often leave working parents to deal with their babies. The first generation that quits paying lobola is giving its parents less ability to provide for their other children or to plan for retirement. Those parents assume a responsibility they didn't sign up for.
Nelson is extremely proud of his oldest son, who he says is very clever and doing well in Grade 7. I asked to be reminded of his age: 18.
So there is no doubt in my mind that Nelson, who works fulltime during the week and gardens for various people three weekends every month, has already earned one medal and will doubtless deserve many more that he will never be awarded, before he's through.
I guess there's still time for five of his children to direct their struggle intelligently.
I am reminded of what I used to say to my son: you get one chance in this household...fail and the opportunity is lost!
That may seem harsh, but we both knew he could do it if he really tried.
Parents are living in an unusually strained era. The struggle between the old and the new, the recession and high unemployment have produced the reaction we see in ongoing strikes. I don't agree with the right to strike when an individual or his union has already previously agreed terms.
I perfectly understand the feeling of disquiet that results from an inability to make ends meet and the temptation to find the means any which way possible.
But I certainly don't agree with the behaviour displayed by the strikers. And when students 'strike' or an ANCYL following turns violent, I despair.
Studio M bottom line: Vast online retail company, Amazon.com, has proudly opened its new customer service HQ in Cape Town, to support mainly its North American, German and UK markets. The choice mainly depended on our glorious weather during the bleak northern hemisphere winters. At the opening, Engineering News reported, Amazon praised the provincial government support it received and the ease with which it found German speakers here in SA, but had also noted that the 'service orientation, warmth and customer centricity' of SA's people had much to do with the original decision. South Africans...what are we missing when we look at our own workers?
Mo 
