This is my dad, Eddie. His nickname was ‘hot stuff Eddie’ – you’ll see why below.
My dad…He’s quite the colourful character. By colourful, I mean totally unorthodox in many ways, especially where his career was concerned.
My story about him starts on an interesting note.
When I was in nursery school, at around 5 years old, my mother got a call from the principal asking her & my dad to come in for a meeting. When they arrived, she got straight to the point, “I think your daughter has a problem with lying. She keeps telling the other kids these fantastical stories about how her father runs through fire & jumps off buildings.” My mother looked at her, smiled and said: “But that’s all true. Her dad is a stuntman and that’s exactly what he does.”According to my mother, the principal was lost for words and profusely apologetic. She also couldn’t take her eyes off my dad…
When my dad proposed to my mom back in 1973, he blocked off a section of Commissioner Street in Johannesburg on a Saturday morning to perform a stunt he would dedicate to her. Before jumping off a 5-story building (he’d fall onto a whole lot of cardboard boxes), he asked her if she would marry him. My mom said she was in such a state, she couldn’t say no!
My dad is also a 5th Dan karate instructor. As a party trick, he’d stack about 20 roof tiles on top of each other, ask everyone for silence, and then gently tap the tiles with his forehead. He’d always break all 20 and be left with just a tiny red mark on his forehead.
My dear dad still holds a record in the Guinness Book of Records for riding a motorbike through a tunnel of fire. This stunt was so dangerous that its subsequently been banned. He rode through the tunnel (steel framed structure, packed with hay, doused with petrol & set alight) dressed in a silver fireproof suit for protection. Obviously there’s no oxygen in the tunnel, so he’d have to hold his breath. He had less than a minute to do this. He accomplished his goal, but half way through the tunnel he fell off the motorbike (loosing precious seconds) and fire crept under his suit. He was burnt on his arms (see pic) but otherwise emerged unscathed.
Emerging from the tunnel of fire – It’s ‘hot stuff Eddie’
Check the burn marks on his arm
So, you’re probably wondering what the whole point of this story is. I was asked last week what the best gift was that my father had ever given me. While he’s given me some lovely material gifts, I think the best gift he’s given me is the knowledge and self-assurance that I CAN do anything I put my mind to. He always told me I should be fearless in my life and not be scared of anything. The way he’s lived his life has been a somewhat strange but great example of this. His chosen career has taken him around the world. ‘Fortune favours the brave’ is a saying we both live by.
Competition
Tell me what the best gift was that your father gave you – material or non material and you could win one of the fabulous L’Occitane Fathers Day Gift sets pictured below. Leave your comment below this post and be sure to include your email address so I can contact you, should you be the winner. I’ll announce the winner on Friday morning.
These are two of my favourite set’s, but there will be other to choose from. The winner will go into a L’Occitane store closest to her and select a set which she thinks will be suitable for her dad.
