Tom Rosslee Has A Cold

And Every Little Thing

Tom Rosslee, holding a stick of droëwors in one hand, and a green sippy cup in the other, sat in a Scandinavian high chair between his two aunts who were waiting for him to flash a smile. But he did nothing. He had been oddly quiet throughout the evening, except now, at his dining room table with the kameeldoring wood cackling in the fireplace to his right, he seemed even more distant. The ladies flanking him ought to have known that it was a bad idea to try force smiles out of Young Tom while he was in this mood. It was a mood that his parents had picked up on for the first time earlier that week, and quite uncommon for him at all, let alone in this month of June, just a few months before his first birthday.

Rosslee had been teething on and off for the past couple of months, which he couldn’t wait to end, and was tired of all the lotions and potions his parents intermittently spread across his gums. They didn’t help. He was, however, coming into his stride with an iconic sense of humour that often made an appearance around the dinner table — “he’s running more inside jokes than the Rondebosch Boys’ Boarding House”, his uncle speculated  — but just the night before, his laugh around the dinner table was weak and uncertain. Young Tom Rosslee was the victim of an ailment so common that most people would consider it trivial. But when it gets to Rosslee, much like his old man, it can plunge him into a mood. Tom Rosslee had a cold.

Rosslee with a cold is decaffeinated coffee, a braai without boerewors. The common cold robs him of that glint in his eye, that smile, and a laugh that his dad describes as “the sweetest music”. And it affects not only him, but also his family around him who adore him, and who have grown accustomed to drinking in his mood. But now, sitting in his high chair, Rosslee had a cold, and he continued to chew quietly on his droëwors and seemed miles away in his private world, not even reacting when suddenly the JBL speaker switched to Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Three Little Birds.

The sweet little ditty, recorded by The Wailers in 1977, has inspired many with its uplifting and optimistic lyrics. In fact, Rosslee’s grandmother had gifted him a children’s picture book authored by Cedella Marley, Bob’s oldest child. The book, Every Little Thing, has adapted the lyrics from Three Little Birds, into a story about a young boy who shows love for those around him with the simple lyrics of the chorus repeated: “Singin', don't worry, about a thing / 'Cause every little thing, gonna be all right”. Undoubtedly the words from this song — a classic tune with a timeless message — had jolted millions before him into a lighter mood of pensive reflection. His aunts had of course seen him at his best, and if you supplement what they knew with what they’d seen on video calls, and in WhatsApp groups, they knew that dinner time oftentimes resulted in a positive riot. Nevertheless, here was Tom Rosslee unmoved by both their presence and Bob Marley's. After all, he had a cold.

In Rosslee’s frequent walks through Keurboom Park or Newlands Forest, his parents proudly paraded him in a bearsuit of sorts, or a “onesie” in the modern vernacular, and looks as cute as all hell. A recent charade of his is to respond to his mother’s sweet request to “clap (his) handies” to which he puts his chicken-thigh-sized hands together. His parents listen silently, all eyes on their little prince, and when there is an almost audible “clap” from Young Tom’s paws pressing together, there is an even greater applause. His father smiles at his mother, and says, shaking his head with a knowing smile, “This child is special.”

After his relatives had all gone, Rosslee left the table and retreated to the warmth of his nursery. He was going to do some drinking of the warm white liquid he had grown ever more accustomed to over recent months. His father, cradling the bottle ran a temperature test and the malty flavour was somewhat reminiscent of the mug of Horlicks he too used to enjoy, in those good old days before calorie counting. He sang his son some Springsteen and young Tom Rosslee gripped the bottle firmly and imbibed.

After his mother entered the room and draped a knitted blanket over the sleep sack which he’d been zipped up in, he slept peacefully. Indeed, the blanket was crocheted for him by his great-grandmother whom he never had the privilege of meeting. In her twilight years, Nanna, as she was known, started a project where she knitted each of her five grandchildren, two blankets for each of their spawns. We don’t think she fussed too long over the arithmetic or permutations of it all. She loved her music, and while Bob Marley & The Wailers were hardly her soundtrack of choice, she too subscribed to the philosophies of Every Little Thing. 

This is a parody of an award-winning piece of journalism by Gay Talese from April 1966: Frank Sinatra Has A Cold. The essay is a response to a writing prompt from the Write of Passage writing course: Imitate, Then Innovate.