Issue #18

An Apology and a Eulogy
27 Oct 2012

 I must apologize to my devoted readers. I do not know what possessed me not to write since April.

Today I went on-line to search for an old friend only to discover that he died eight years ago. I am aghast. So I have returned to tell you about this special man. His name was Gernot Lachner but to all who loved him he was Geri. I met him when I was a bartender in Botswana and he was a guide who frequented my bar at the Okavango River Lodge.

In the early days of my acquaintance with Geri, he offered me a tip. Tipping is not common in Botswana, and I don't know if it is in South Africa. He pulled from his pockets all of his loose change. Among the coins were a couple of washers, those metal rings that are used as part of a bolt. I told him I wanted them so that I could make them into earrings which I did.

Another time, after returning from guiding a group of tourists into the Delta, he brought me back a bracelet braided from the tail hairs of a water buffalo. I looked forward to his visits to the lodge because I had come to think of him as a good friend. When he went to Johannesburg, where his family lived, he called me and asked what I wanted him to bring back for me. He knew as well as anyone who lived in Maun that there were things that were difficult to obtain. I asked for music.

When I returned to Canada, with a broken heart, he would call me when he was drunk. It was the autumn of 1989 and the internet was not available to everyone but Geri had started to communicate with the world via bulletin boards and chat rooms . He would catstigate me for not being more technologically up-to-date. He would also offer to marry me.

My friend Rob got me 'on-line' by setting up an email account for me and he communicated with Geri but somehow we lost track of him. I have thought about him often but never managed to reconnect. I miss him.  http://www.jenniferjo.com/gernot_lachner.htm