The Passing of a Great Man

Here's a letter I sent to The Namibian this week after hearing of the death of one of the architects of that country's constitution.

Editor:

Reports of the death of Niko Bessinger brought back vivid memories of a night I spent with this great man in 2001. I was a visiting journalist in Namibia and a mutual colleague brought us together in her garden.

It was early in the meeting that I became aware I was sitting with giants. Mr. Bessinger was not well that evening. We sat in the warm night air and he was wrapped in a thick coat, along with a long woolen scarf. He complained about the flu which he fought off with extensive shots of brandy.

We both drank far too much that night but I revelled in our discussions about his helping in the writing of Namibia's constitution.

I was aware I sat and argued with a man who was Namibia's equivalent of Thomas Jefferson. He touched me with his towering intelligence and his ribald sense of humor.

Namibia is fortunate to have been touched by this architect of your society. I was fortunate to have sat in his shadow that night.

Robert S. Mellis
Palmetto, Florida, USA

On Display

We both have been invited to display six pieces of our art works at the Manatee Art Center shop. And, we hope, they will be sold while we are on our journey north. You can visit some of Jo's fabulous silk painting and a handful of my Raku pottery plaques and boxes and trivets at the my Photo Album link below this post.

Pictures and other stuff

New pictures are at:
http://robertjo.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php

http://mellis.shutterfly.com?a=1
This contains earlier pictures of Namibia and sailing the East Coast and The Bahamas

For a website devoted to our sailboat, Quiet Passage, visit:
http://robertsmellis.tripod.com/index.html

Cutting the Carcinoma

It's never nice to hear the word cancer. But that was the word of the day this week when Dr. Lipscomb cut into my back and excised a basal cell carcinoma from the skin covering my spine.
He'd been keeping an eye on the little blue spot with the three white flecks in it for a couple of months. He didn't like the look of it and so he decided to carve it out and send it off from analysis.
I'd tried to tell him it was actually an implant from an alien. I made this judgement because the spot was so perfectly positioned in the center of my back. I said it was a GPS transmitter so they could keep track of me. He was slightly amused.
The surgery took place in his operating room. The shots for the anaesthetic were more painful than the actual cutting.
He placed six platinum staples on my back to hold the cut together.
Maybe we can sell the platinum for scrap metal when this is all done!

There's Gold Out There

With gold (the pure stuff) now more than $1,000 an ounce, it seemed a propitious time to unload the family jewels that have become broken, twisted or gnarly. We found one piece that fit the description - a necklace I bought for Jo about 10 years back that had a kink it which made it impossible to wear without catching on clothing.
The ads have sprung up in the local rag, encouraging us to unload old gold. So we stopped by the local greasy pawn shop with the sign inviting us in. While Jo stood in line with people who were trying to sell their DVDs or tools, I wandered the shelves and found garbage electronics that were priced just below what you could buy them for at Wal-Mart.
She got to the head of the line and the guy with the magnifying glass weighed the necklace and told it it was worth $75. We thanked him and left.
We then drove to the upscale city of Sarasota to the south. There, a chap named Abraham from New York had set up his salon in a hotel room. He ate a kosher pickle and a sandwich as he weighed and negotiated with the old folks.
All types were lined up with us: dowagers, a little down at heel, but still keeping up appearances; an old man with a cap that announced he was an "Old Fart"; his wife who wore a St. Patrick's Day T-shirt that announced "I got lucky on St. Paddy's Day 1994". There was a young woman sitting next to me. The line moved slowly and eventually we were in the hotel room.
Abraham eyed the necklace, looked at it through his loupe and announced "14 carat" before dropping it on the scale. It weighed a quarter of an ounce, though he described the weight in pennyweights. He calculated and announced the best he could do would be $132. Better than $75 from the greaseballs.
I asked why he couldn't so better since gold was $1,000 an ounce. He checked with the sheriff's deputy who stood guard. The deputy dialed his phone to check the up-to-the-minute price of 24 carat gold: $1,009.50, he announced.
Abraham started to wheedle about how the weight of the spring in the clasp was included in his weight even though it was not gold. We decided to take the offer.
We made our way to Wal-Mart and did our week's grocery shopping. The bill: $135. So we got a week's groceries for "free".