SOL: 29.3.12

Traditions:

• Hubby traditionally cooks a roast dinner every  Sunday
• Traditionally I write scriptures for each of my family members who attend Christmas dinner at our house
• We traditionally forget our wedding anniversary every year
• Traditionally every Christmas I make trifle and eat 75% of it (that’s a lot of trifle)
• I traditionally get mixed up with my mum and brother’s birthday
• Traditionally each year I attend our cultural festival
• Traditionally hubby cooks dinner Monday-Thursday (I give him Friday off and we may have takeaways)
• I traditionally buy and wrap all the birthday and Christmas gifts
• I traditionally cook and prepare Christmas dinner
• I traditionally do all the Christmas dishes
• Traditionally I spend too much money at Christmas time and never tell him how much I spend and traditionally he never asks
• Traditionally I buy hubby a new t-shirt and a pair of shorts for Christmas
• Every April hubby traditionally takes a week to go hunting - it’s the roar
• It is my tradition to take a handful of tissues to bed with me every night
• At end of the school year I traditionally travel out of town to attend my two niece’s birthday
• Each year I post my school reports in the last 2 days of school
• It is my tradition that I wait until I have 1 day worth of seretide left before I go to the doctors for a new prescription
• Traditionally I go to bed late and find it difficult to get up in the morning (dah)
• Traditionally hubby and I attended our son’s basketball tournaments each year
• Traditionally we eat fish on Friday nights

While writing this list I remembered a tradition that I learnt from my dad.  Whenever we travelled with him when we were kids my father always picked up hitch-hikers.  I don't know why...he just did.  I suppose looking back I never felt afraid and they would have been silly to try and take on my dad.  The faces of the hitchers have disappeared from my memory and I hadn't really thought about them until now, faceless hitch-hikers.  Traditions are handed down and I without thinking I picked up hitch-hikers when II travelled.

Whenever I am driving I tended to pick up female hitch-hikers.  Twice I've stopped and the hitch-hikers had long hair and I thought that they were female.  But it wasn't until I pulled up beside them that I realised that they were actually males.  I still gave them a ride.
  

Late last year I was travelling to see my two children who live 2 hours away from us.  Halfway through the trip I noticed a young boy of about 15 years old sitting on the side of the rode.  He was clutching his stomach.  To be honest I really didn't want to stop but as I slowly drove past him he looked utterly dejected.  Hesitantly, pulling to the side of the rode and backing back towards him.  It was a bitterly cold day and he had a thin t-shirt on, blue jeans and black boots.  I opened the passenger side of the door and asked him if he needed a ride.  Stupid question I know but...it's what you do when picking up hitch-hikers.

He got into my car and started to tell me how his father had beat him that morning and he had had enough.  He decided to run away from home and was heading to see his mother.  He told me his father beat him most days.  At this stage I was still quite wary of him but he showed me his stomach where his father had whacked him.  The funniest thing about this story is that the boy was a student at the school which I taught at.  But I had never seen him.  Our school is divided into three areas and he was a senior and I taught juniors.    But like I said I had never laid eyes on him until that moment. 

I took him to my children's home and feed him.  My son gave him a pair of shoes because the ones he was wearing were too small.  We bought him a bus ticket and sent him on his way.  I even told him about Jesus.

The sadness part of this boy's life was that he came back to our hometown and committed the most heinous crime.  I won't go into the details but my whole country of 4 million hate this boy.  My daughter rang me and told me what this boy had done I was shocked and appalled.  My heart was breaking for the family affected by the hitch-hikers actions (action is not a strong enough word for what he did).  But the long and short of this is that a tradition which I learnt from my father put me off ever picking up another hitch-hiker.  This hitch-hikers faced is embedded in my mind.