From Elsa Winckler
I met him at the end of my grade eleven year. I was visiting a friend in Cape Town during the December holidays. The son of friends had just returned from his compulsory army year and was given the task to take us around town. We went to the movies, the beach, drove around the Peninsula and it was while we were playing in the waves that he said to me, “You’re like a bottle of coke I’ve just opened.”
I was hooked.
On my last day, I found a poem he wrote for me, called Holiday romance! I liked him but the whole of my matric year was lying ahead. We did discover though, that we’d be attending the same teachers’ training college. He was on his way, I would only follow in a year’s time.
On my first day of college, all the first years had to stand in a line with their names around their necks while the seniors were looking on (those were very different times!) and I heard a voice said, “Winckler, here she is.”
So we started dating. I liked this guy. I lot. But it was only when I received my birthday card from him, that I knew he was a keeper.
On the outside of the card a little Hot Stuff devil, sword in hand, was standing in a pit of flames. And inside the card were the words that convinced me I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him: “Let’s raise hell tonight!”
I was warned that he was your typical bad guy, but I trusted my instincts (and probably hormones) and married him.
The bad boy turned out to be a really good guy – he is a loving husband, a terrific hands-on dad, and an enthusiastic lover. Life hasn’t always been easy but it has always been interesting and never, ever dull.
Next year we’ll celebrate our thirty ninth anniversary. We’ve been blessed with three wonderfully interesting kids and we can now also boast with our two adorable grandsons and we have just heard that number three is on the way!
