Unnecessary accident

Our tractor driver, who happened to be a very good driver when sober, was anything but when drunk.  One Sunday afternoon, he took the tractor out for a spin in one of his drunken states, much to his detriment.

All the farm workers brewed their own sorghum beer, which was pretty potent stuff.  Sometimes my father would pop over to one of the huts and exchange a few stories over a ball jar full of beer.  I tried it a couple of times, but never acquired a taste for it.  Anyway, the tractor driver apparently staggered onto the tractor, slightly worse for wear, and singing and shouting in this inebriated state, drove helter skelter down the hill and straight into a donga, where the tractor overturned, crushing him underneath it.

The news came to my father that fateful afternoon, and I know he spent a lot of time away from home organising for the overturned tractor to be pulled off the body of the driver.  Fortunately, he had died almost immediately, but it was a terrible shock for his wife and children, who now had to contemplate life in an uncertain world without husband and father.  As for my father and the other farm workers, it was a shocking experience they could have well done without.