LEO KRUGER; MENTOR NUMBER TWO

Leonardus Kruger, our neighbors way back in the railway settlement of Noordhoek in Bloemfontein next to the railway lines to Johannesburg, studied law on a part time basis at the University of the Orange Free Sate. He always encouraged us also to take up part time lectures while working on a full time basis. His encouragement and evidence of his law qualifications inspired me to follow suit. Subsequently his interest in my studies in Political Science and International relations inspired me to complete my doctoral studies as well. Due to Leo's leadership in our railway neighborhood where nobody had any tertiary qualifications except the pastor and the pharmacist, he played a pivotal role to develop our self image. However, Leo was also a very lively person who liked pranks and many other mischievous ideas such as loading the smaller kids into the boot of his car to the drive in theater. It worded like this: " Kids come and wash my car and I will take you to the drive inn. After that, you ask your mother for spending money". Part of our spending money was for his entrance fee. Once inside, we all crawled out of the boot on the dark side of the theater and shared our hot dogs and potato chips while watching the movie for free! We did the same when we traveled with him to Maselspoort, a holiday resort nearby Bloemfontein. Maselspoort is situated next to the well known Boyden Observatory which we sometimes inspected at random. For all of us it was only a secret and eerie place which did not make much sense to us at that stage.(See my Blog elsewhere on the South African Large Telescope for my later interest in Astronomy). Also in his later life, he organized overseas trips for the local farmers of Koffiefontein where Leo practiced as a lawyer. After wards he hired the hotel dining room, projected photographs of the Grecian isles,threw a real Greek party where they smashed the plates and danced on this foreign music in this little Free State town until very late at night... After they calmed down the hotel manager, they promised to settle the Bill for the broken plates the next morning. The famous South African author, Ettiéne Le Roux, who lived nearby on his farm "JA-NEE" (read YES-NO) complimented Leo on his idea of a real Greek party and assured him that it was the best he had ever experienced so near to his farm. (Koffiefontein is very renowned for its diamonds and readers can view some photo's elsewhere on my Blog of where the Diamond Trial for tourists start via Fauresmith and Jagersfontein to Kimberley.)