We all know that dogs are traumatized by fireworks and
thunder, and even though the
noise only lasts a short while the
dogs stay traumatized for hours.
This takes me back twelve years when I was living in a railway cottage in a small town in another remote area, in the Orange Free State, and the kind of noise that I had to endure went on and on for hours and every day, for more than a week.
It started off one afternoon with what sounded like a giant cracker exploding. My next door neighbour was visiting me that afternoon and both of us were startled by the sound. It was really loud.
The worst part however was the effect it had on my Maltese poodle - she was absolutely frantic with fear to the extent that she tried to get inside the bottom of my trouser leg in order to escape the sound.
However, the sound did not end there, it went on and on and on. My friend and I consoled ourselves that it would end as soon as the culprit ran out of crackers, but it didn't. We couldn't understand how, whoever it was could afford to buy so many firecrackers, as it wasn't an affluent area. But it continued non-stop all afternoon.
On investigation we discovered that the culprit was a thirteen year old boy who had recently moved into the neighbourhood with his parents a few doors away from us. Apparently he was practicing some stunt with a huge whip. Every crack of that whip was an assault on my ears and my dog was a shivering, shaking wreck, and it was happening every afternoon now and also on the week-end when he wasn't at school.
As I was suffering from a bad bout of flu and didn't want to leave the house, I made notes of the times he used the whip, when it would start and when it would end.
As soon as I was feeling better I made inquiries at the local police station and was told that if I lodged a complaint, his parents would be issued with a warning for "disturbing the peace" should they ignore the warning they would receive a fine of R200 and failure to pay the fine would result in going to court.
All I wanted was for that child to stop using that whip, so I lodged a complaint. I thought a warning would suffice, but I was wrong.
A few days after they received the warning, I was working in my garden when the teenager approached and called me to the fence, where he proceeded to verbally lambast me for reporting him. He left mumbling some vague threat. I was amazed at his audacity, to treat an old person in such a manner.
"Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it."
Proverbs 22:6
A few weeks later I received a subpoena to appear in court. I wasn't happy about the turn of events, because as I said, I just wanted the noise to stop.
The court day arrived and I nervously approached the office to find out where to go and was told to sit on a bench in front of the Magistrate's Court and wait to be called. While sitting there the child and his parents arrived with their lawyer. I was very surprised that they had hired a lawyer.
Soon after this I was ushered into the D.A.'s office (she was the one who told me they had a lawyer).
She then proceeded to tell me that they would be moving to a plot far out of town within the next two weeks and in order to prevent the case from going before the magistrate she requested that I allow the child to continue with his whipping practice for the next two weeks.
I was adamant that I had had enough and wasn't about to let this happen. She then went out and spoke to the group. What was said I will never know, but it was decided that the child would do his practice on the open fields far out of town.
She did tell me however, that the child was very angry about this decision and had insisted that he wanted the judge to decide."
It was just as well I dug in my heels because they only moved to their plot four months later. In any event there was no way I could put up with that noise any longer. My dog and I had had enough.
This story didn't have a happy ending.
About six months later, while visiting my daughter in Johannesburg I received a phone call from a friend to tell me that the boy's father was still doing renovations to their plot when he had a heart attack and died.
I often still wonder what kind of person that boy has become. He must be over nineteen years old now. All I can do is pray for him. It may be God has already worked a miracle and the boy has changed his ways.
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