On a baking hot day in Richmond, NC, I sat in shade of the hotel stoep, gazing at the copper-barked eucalyptus trees bordering the town square. I was fair and square in middle age. In time I was joined by a senior, about my age now: eighty years old.

“Daie rooi bome”

he said, pointing. We went on to explain that such red barked gum trees were unique in this location, that no identical trees grew anywhere else on the planet. I doubted that: a hint of blood temperature Karoo breeze wafted the smell of hops from his breath. But who knows? The trees are all but gone now. The town garden’s roses with them, a mournful prospect, reminding of a Collett story: an old Karoo Collett in Cradock, watching a worker crew moving boulders in a street. In Collett-speak he monotoned, ruefully:

“Fifty. Years. Ago. They. Moved. Those. Boulders. From. The. Bottom. Of. This. Street.”

He paused. Collett pauses can take a while.

“Now. They. Are. Moving. Them. All. Back. Again.”

Now, if that isn’t the finest critique of public works, i don’t know. On the subject of the red gumtrees, today we would whip out our phones, check on theh senior’s “unique gum” story, and depending on how melanin rich we are, re-educate him, or leave the malume in ignorant peace.

I have just whipped out my phone now. Ma Google tells me:

“No, the red-coloured gum trees in the Richmond town square are not biologically unique to Richmond or South Africa” … “What you observed are almost certainly Red Flowering Gums (scientifically known as Corymbia ficifolia or Eucalyptus ficifolia) … These trees are native to a very small, restricted area in the south-west of Western Australia. They are an exotic species brought to South Africa as ornamental trees rather than commercial timber.”.

So there you go. There was some smoke to the senior’s “rarity” fire. We all have our stories! “But” I hear you asking “why head this as ‘Demo Critters’?”. Good question. I was thinking about the word democracy, derived from ‘demos’ (people) and ‘kratos’ (power). Why the gum trees? Another train of thought quirk. I thought about a popular online marketplace. Then I thought about dorps, then information, and that led me to ’town clerk’ a job description discarded by the Municipal Structures Act on February 1, 1999.

What If

My thought TGV then moved onto ‘Town Coder’. Sorry, not sorry, this is how my kinolibater rolls. Today, we have Municipal Managers. I will not darken your cerebral door with what I think about managers. Let me just say that, geek as I am, I would have replaced the Town Clery with … tarantaraaah … drum roll … The Town Coder. If you want to know what democracy has to do with a town coder, You Read It in our Town Coder page.