I have been thinking, leaving me open to a sarcastic suggestion that it might be painful for me to do, and sometimes it is hard for me to think things out, when a subject just does not want to come into focus, which happens, while at other times thoughts just take over and lead me. Often my thoughts bounce off of something, a reaction to something else, and when I read the eulogy of my cousin Frank Smid of Winnipeg for instance, I think what would my eulogy read. Would it say something about having been lovingly remembered by some?

Once in that certain mood it might linger on for a long time.

Frank was special to me, making me think back to when I met him when we landed as immigrants in 1953, but before that I had met him while he lived in Limburg, and I worked there. It was in that beautiful part of the Netherlands where I was so fortunate to grow up.

I do my thinking often in bed, where I receive my best inspiration.

I easily solve things in bed, having the time and all the room in my queen-sized bed where I am not distracted by anyone.

Solving problems gives me satisfaction, even joy, to have solutions worked out makes my heart overflow with gratitude - only to forget the whole effort with equal intensity in the morning.

There are things that need nothing else but to think about.

Thinking about my grandchildren always brings a smile.

Thinking about a certain person far away, whose name I have mishandled by omitting an important letter of her queenly name and despite my neglect by spelling her biblical name properly, again, never fails to bring a smile onto my face.

My father misspelled the name of my mother who was not named after a queen but after an individual who in spite of being a crafty person, still became quite important in bible history – Jacob, the last of the trio of patriarchs.

This bouncing off of something has taken me via the nice woman with the royal name to the bible, and via my bed, to my parents, which is how it often goes in the end after all that thought jumping I forget to write what I was going to share.

I still want you to know what the original thought was, if you are still with me.

My father, after many years being married to my mother, still managed to spell her name Jakopje instead of Jacobje, the last one being her name. But just like my name was shortened from Fertile to Lex, so her name was Japke, or Jap, which she hated, but she lived long enough to see her grand child named Jackie or Jacqueline, which I managed to misspell to Jaqueline. She had however a grandchild named after her by the name of Cobie.

Is my thinking boring you?

I could tell you something about one of my my uncles making you wonder from which gene pool some of you originated and laugh about this - he was lend out by his father, against his will, to sleep with the young wife of his neighbor for four weeks, but afterwards bragged about it. I think about the most good-looking grandfather of one of my granddaughters-in-law, who survived the last world war as a member of the British air-force, of him I think with awe and jealousy. No, he is not my brother Durk.

I am still thinking.

It storms.

The storm sweep-ed all the needles from my veranda which my house keeper Margaret, trying hard to restore order in my dwelling, furiously sweeps away every week. She can not see dirt and disorder, while I specifically hired her to talk to me and – like needles on the deck around my still flowering artificially flowers attracting fluttering unfilled butterflies.

I miss Anne badly.

The lot of a widower is that having female company, specially married women, in my place is rare so I made it a point asking Margaret to fill that need by providing female conversation as I prefer that over male bragging.

Old people, even old men. have little to brag about even though they have the time for it.

I still miss Anne.

There are needs that can only properly be satisfied by a woman, o, what the heck, I am referring to sex, there, I said it. It was not a difficult decision for me to decide not to search for another wife. Anne filled my desires, and her abilities and characteristics far exceeded my expectations. I was proud to have Anne to be my wife. And my friend.

I was not old at 76 when she departed from me, and and still very satisfied with our love-life.

Maybe I was too satisfied with her to want another wife. I was cautious not to go into any kind of relationship with another woman for fear of neglecting my daughters, whom I love as much as much as did my wife and to whom I wanted to leave whatever earthly worth I possessed, (a very limited amount) and had seen several times how easy a bank account falls into the beautiful hands of a woman out to bamboozle an old man.

Enough of my thinking, at the end of the week I will share some things that no one remembers anymore – the secret and not so secret lives of the old who once were young in the solemn and not so solemn days of the 1930's and '40's.

Until the end of the week than.

Now, after all this thinking, something nearing a catastrophe happened. This chapter should have been published before the Frisian village life during the 1930's. It failed to do so because of a fight between me and the computer, which I (again) lost.

If this has caused any confusion on your part, I apologize.