Beppe Aukje's Letter

Several years ago my brother Frank showed me some handwritten letters of beppe (grandmother) Aukje Smid he had received from my uncle Daniel, who apparently found them at the old homestead of my pake Fokke and beppe Aukje in the heather fields of Donkerbroek. (After uncle Bertus build their present farm) One of her last letters written came from Ens, where Beppe spend her life with my parents family until she passed away in 1954.

This is one of the earlier letters and written to her son Daniel or Daan, as beppe calls him in the letter, In 1938 her three youngest sons Bertus, Daniel and Roelof, were still single while Bernardus was just married or was about to, with Elske Prakken. Beppe mentions some money business in her letter which may have been money that my parents loaned from Bernardus and later asked for as he needed it when he bought a farm. Meanwhile my parents went broke in the middle of the hungry 30's, and were not able to pay a penny back. Bernardus eventually got the amount of money lend to my father from uncle Daniel. Bernardus at least paid eight guilders interest on it.

The reason of retaining this remarkable letter in my blog is so at least one of her letters will be saved, I copied her letter as she wrote it in several paragraphs, followed by an English version paragraph.

It is an interesting letter of a woman who could do what her husband was unable to, read and write.

Remarkably, beppe Aukje, born in 1873, concluded her letter by signing it with her maiden name Aukje Slofstra instead of Smid, was she our family's first women's liberation-ist?

---

Lutterade, de 22 July 1938

Zeer geliefde Daan

Door dezen neem ik de pen ter hand om je het een en ander mee te delen, vooreerst will ik jou

felieciteren met je vermeerdering van jaren en ik hoop dat je die dag nog meenig jaar in gezonthijd

moogt ontvangen en beleven : En dat je alzoo bewaart moogt blijfen voor ons allen die u lief en dierbaar zijn voor ons allen die u lief en dierbaar zijn : en dat de Heere je hulp in alles mag zijn is mijn wens en bede : want daar moetten wij tog allen van hebben he : Nu vedder ben ik hier op het heden in het zoelle zuiden van Limburg.

Most dear Daan

By this I take the pen to hand to tell you one thing and another (but) first I want to congratulate you with with your increase in years and I hope that you may this day many times in health receive and experience : And that you also be kept safe for all of us who are beloved and dear to you is my wish and prayer: and that the Lord your help may be in everything is my wish and prayer : because from there (Him) we have to get it all. Now further am I here in the balmy south of Limburg.

Ik ben hier dinsdag aangekomen en Roelof zijn mijsje ook want die ws nog wat langer bij ons gebleven en ook nog een paar dagen op de Gorredijk : Roel moest om zijn zaken al eerder weg. En zodoende zijn wijdan maar samen gerijst.

En nu zou ik jou al eerder hebben geschrefen maa Roel schreef ons ik hep Daan ook geschreeven dat die tuis komt. En zoo doende dagt ik dan komt hij tog tuis, en toen dat niet gebeurde dagt ik dan moet ik dan maar wagten tot je verjaardag.

Now, I came here Teusday and Roelof's girlfriend as well, because she was a little longer with us and also a few days in Gorredijk : Roel had to leave earlier for his business and therefore we traveled together.

And now I was going to write you earlier but Roel wrote to us that he had written Daan as well that he (Roel) was coming home (at Beppe's) and therefore I thought – then he comes home anyways, but when that didn't happen I thought – then I better wait until your birthday.

Nu met de zaak van de gelt omstandigheden is al voor elkaar gekomen, wij hebben het maar van ons gelt betaalt, want als dat kon dan vonden wij dat wat beter en wij konden het toen nog schikken : en Bernardus heeft ons u rente gestuurd 8 gulden.

Dat zoo doende weet je hoe de zaak nu zit, hoe is het met je wanneer kom je eens weer tuis? en wanneer krijg jij jou verkansje? En waar zal je dan naar toe ook naar Limburg? Nu ik blijf hier denk ik wel een week of nog wat langer.

Now, with the money business, it is all taken care of, we have paid it from our own money, because when that was possible we found it better as we were at that time able to do it.

And Bernardus has sent us your interest – 8 guilders.

That you know now how that business is. How is it when are you coming home ? And when is your holiday? And where are you going then also to Limburg?

Now I will stay here yet another week or even a bit longer.

Het was anders het doel niet maar ons Anne zou dan mee terug was het doel : Maar die is op het heden in het ziekenhuis te Sittart, het is nu nietin een erge maat maar het hat in een poosje al niet met hem gedeugt en toen hat dokter het beste maar gedagt om naar ziekenhuis op onder zoek hij is er nu al een dag of 10 geweest maar zij weten hier nog niet hoe lang het duren moet : hij hat het veel met het hooft te doen : en is duislig in het hooft : Nu hebben ze hem bloet afgenomenen op onderzoek weg gestuurt, en hij mag er ook wel een paar uur uit. Ik ben gister ook bij hem geweest, maar wij moetyen nu eerst afwagten en hoe het vedder komt weten wij nog niet. Dat als het met hem niet gou wat opknapt, dan zal hij wel niet mee kunnen naar Donkerbroek. Maar dan is het doel dat Roel mij een ent op stap brengt want die moet tog naar Niijmegennaar een meeting dat dan zal mijn tuiskomst vast een dag of 4 langer duren.

The intent was not to stay that long but our Anne was going to come with me back home : But now is he in the hospital in Sittard, it is not in a bad measure but it was not good with him for a while already and then the doctor thought it better to have him in the hospital for a check-up, he has been there now about 10 days, but they know not how long it will take : it had to do with his head, dizzy in his head : now they have taken blood out of him and send away for tests. He may a few hours out of bed. I was yesterday with him, but we have to wait and see now how it goes further and how it goes we don't know yet. If it does not quick betters then he will probably not come with me to Donkerbroek. But then is the plan that Roes brings me partway because he has to go to a meeting in Nijmegen and in that case my home-coming is going to be some 4 days later.

Dat is dan 2 Augustusdat ik dan weer tuis kom. Nu dan zullen zij tuis ook wel weer uit zien denk ik, en dan zullen ze ook wel noodig in de rogge moetendenk,maar het was nu nog op een leedigsten op het velt, nu ze moeten hun nu maar zo lang zien te redden.

Nu ik geloof dat Geertje jou ook nog schrijfen wil, nu mijn brief is nu ook al weer vol, en wil je my hier nog eens schrijfen dat vint ik ook wel eens mooi.

Nu zijt nu vriendelijk van mij gegroet u lief hebbende moeder A Slofstra

mijn adres is nu

bij Anne Smid

That is than the 2nd of August that I will be home. Well than shall the family at home also look forward I think, and then they will quickly have to tend to the rye but it is now the emptiest in the field, but they must so long (I am not home) help themselves. I think Geertje wants to write you something as well. Well my paper is full, and will you write me here once, that I would like very much. Now, be friendly greeted from your love having mother

A Slofstra

my adress is here

at Anne Smid

---

Contented Hearths

by Sharon Simpson in Light Magazine, October 2018

Recently, I went with an elderly senior from our campus of care to speak with a group of 20-somethings who are studying for their Masters in Counseling Psychology. For the past five years we have partnered with this program to bring young counselors into real experience with the dynamics, issues and family systems that are related to aging and the elderly.

I chose to bring this gentleman because of the transparent conversations I've enjoyed with him over the years. He is in his late 80's and has lived through many dangers, toils, snare, joys and wonders.

An immigrant from a Nazi-occupied country my friend has seen and known things I can barely imagine.

He's lost a son, a wife, and many siblings and in-laws. He has wonderfully engaged children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. He proudly tells of his great grand-daughter who is the first in his lineage to attend university.

For over an hour this gentleman shared the story of his life with the young students. He shared the challenges of caring for his wife as she suffered, declined and passed away from Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS). He shared how he now needs help with his own daily activities like bathing and dressing. He shared the hard times he's had with the church's rules, the demands of his career, his beautiful custom-built home that is now in disrepair with a negligent owner.

He has been rich, he has been poor. He has known much, he has known little. He has been an officiant at his grandson's weddings, blessing them in God's covenant of marriage. He has struggled with the church, with legalism and with hypocrisy.

He told of the humility it takes to have a strange woman come to bathe him and dress him. For all of his life, only two women had seen him naked – his mother and his wife. And now there are women sent from Home Health to bathe him and dress him. He finds it difficult but has made his way through it. He needs their help. One of the women shared how they are trained to be professional and he find that they are. He's getting used to it.

Throughout his whole life, he whistles or hums or sings. He finds that it fills his mind and does not allow him to think anxious thoughts. And so he sings in the shower as he receives his morning bath. Soon, the care aide is singing along. Together they sing a song he learned many years ago, “God is so good... God is so good... God is so good... He's so good to me.”

He tells the students that the singing together feels like worship. It feels more like church than church used to feel to him. He has been hurt through church. I don't know that story but I can feel the hurt as he contrast it to his new feeling of “church” in the shower.

He shares his reluctance to have women from other cultures take care of him. he does not know their culture. He is curious but awkward. He asks about their faith, their customs. Soon, he says, we become friends! He shares how every person is deeply loved by God, is a child of God, is special to God. He is careful to learn their names and pronounce them correctly. He smiles broadly as he tells of his new friendships. He knows that the prejudices he was raised with are rapidly fading and this makes him very happy.

“I don't pray,” he says. He has heard many prayers in a formal church environment. He didn't learn well enough back then, so he doesn't think he can learn now. He has no confidence in praying or that his prayers are good enough. He tells the class that all he does now is thank God for His great kindness and the beauty of creation. He tells of a flower he found in a crack in the sidewalk. He had not seen this type of flower before. Each day he examined it and thanked God for the little flower. He noticed that it opened wide in the morning and closed tight in the evening. He loved watching the flower and found his heart overflowing with gratitude that God created that flower and that it was growing in the sidewalk near his apartment.

I smile as I hear him share his very personal relationship with God – the God who meets him in the shower with a worship song in his heart. He says he is going to try and get prayer lessons from the chaplain, not realizing that he is teaching us all about true prayer and communion with God.

At one point we talked about few elderly seniors had the opportunity to receive professional counseling. It wasn't available for them in their younger years and it's not normal for this age group to seek out this help now. My friend smiled and said “I've had counseling.” He went on to tell us that his wife gave him an ultimatum at one point in their marriage. Go to a counselor or get out. He went to counseling and God honored his humility and courage. His marriage had its challenges, but God gave them joy together – even in the years of living with ALS.

He tells of how his wife's last words were “I love you.” She was more a woman of action and he had rarely heard her say these words in their lives together. He cherished these words, and holding her as she passed away in his arms.

There were tears in the classroom that day – and laughter. He is an excellent storyteller, and the punchlines were perfect. The tears were honest and came from the deepest places – empathy for sure but also fear. Each of these young counselors will enter wholly into the lives of those that seek their help and there will be times when the stories strike a chord of their own vulnerability and fear. What if I have to care for a spouse with ALS? How will I do? What will life be like for me when I have someone undress me, bathe me and dress me each day? How will I be when these are parts of my own life?

The hour we spent together with the students were was sacred space. Everyone in the room felt. God was sharing through this man's heart.

Sharon Simpson is the director of Communication and Stakeholder Engagement at Menno Home in Abbotsford, BC.

Only when spoken or written words are received as the provider intended, is the goal of what is said or written achieved, one cannot expect any more. This is more than a mouthful, and I am not such an provider, but when one's master get to the nitty-gritty of what is said and understands the intention, one certainly has obtained the goal, Sharon is such a master.

Sharon grossly overdid the praise she heaped upon me, and I only forgive her for that, because she is not only very able but has a heart of gold and is very humorous - lex.

A Decade Later

Long before our circle of friends 'garage-shopped' my wife did, and came home with the most everyday things. She liked shopping in the US where she went at least once a week to buy scarfs in the beginning of the week, showed them to me, (sometimes) and returned them the end of the week, she seldom kept what she had purchased.

Anne shopped at garage sales as well where she was unable to return her purchases but was very choosy to buy only inexpensive things such as used postcards, which could be picked up at five for a quarter. I liked as much as she did, to read addresses and especially messages on them which were often written in different languages and came from all over, leaving us guess and fabricat all kinds of stories from the messages they carried.

Anne purchased also single teacups, she carefully chose nicely decorated ones with flower designs in dazzling colors, for pennies, and those she kept. One of her treasures was a unique thin porcelain cup which was was decorated on the inside of the cup instead of on the outside, like her other treasures. “That is the only cup which doesn't show off,” she said. She handed me the cup with a message to give to the bride for a present just before my grandson's wedding. “You have no card to go with it,” I said. “Just explain it in your sermon,” she laughed.

Ah yes – the sermon. I saved a copy of the sermon for a decade but am unable to find it, which is perhaps a blessing, but I will share some of the parts I still remember. I felt sorry for the wedding party who would have to stand throughout my ‘preaching’ and tried to think of ways to shorten it, which proved not a wise idea as I almost lost the thread of my speech.

It made me think about a dream I had about me preaching when I was a young man. the theme of my sermon was about Gods love, which is a beautiful theme, and a lot can be said about it, but an inspirational message was not forthcoming. All I was able to think of, was “God is love,” and again “God is love.” I remember my father watching me in the audience, and saying something like 'You better come down from your high horse.’ Thinking about that confused me but I kept my composure, hoping that no one noticed.

I started by saying that the first recorded wedding was some six-thousand years ago between Adam and Eve, and paraphrased a few text out of genesis about the tasks, the privileges and responsibilities of both bride and groom. I reminded both of the great privilege to have not only their parents but also their four grandparents witnessing their wedding, and that both bride and groom from now on belonged and should respect the families of their partner as their own.

I turned to the young women and young men of the wedding telling them that they were not there only to make beautiful pictures, but as they were of the same generation and being friends with the bride and groom they should would likely be the first to observe that something was going awry in the marriage they were witnessing. That it would be their task to watch and support them, be a loving wall around them protecting them, and be the first ones to help them if any marital difficulty would occur.

When the sermon was finished but before the ceremony of the vows I carefully took Anne's presents from under the lecture, undid it from the wrapping and held it up for everyone to see, and after an encouraging nod from Anne explained the significance of, yes, her prized teacup.

“This cup is a present from my wife Anne to the bride. The beauty of the cup is not the markings on the outside of it, which as you can see are rather plain, but its beauty is the flowers that adorn the inside, with the wish that you, the bride, who are beautiful in your resplendence may be just as beautiful from the inside.”

Anne had asked me to get a Tim Horton coffee-cup to give to the groom. I got hold of the smallest size one and presented it to the groom, ‘so he would not feel left out’.

In order to prevent envy in the new family I have also a cup for the groom.”

That cup , the smallest in size, belonged to Tim Hortons originally but had somehow found its way in my pocket.

I was helped by the bride insisting on using as part of her vow 'and remember that I chose you over all others,' which impressed me greatly.

The sermon was well received seeing the compliments about it, so much that Anne said

“Don't let it get to your head now.”

The bride strode onto the stage after the picture taking with a rifle pretending a shotgun* wedding.

*A shotgun wedding is a wedding that is hastily arranged to avoid embarrassment due to premarital sex. Wikipedia.

During the reception I was shocked that the mother of the bride held emotional speech after she presented a similar present to the bride with an unmistakably message to the groom – do not ever hurt my daughter in any way for I will take her back again. The present? Another cup.

That wedding was more than a decade ago, long enough to find out if it really was a shotgun wedding. It was not. Did they receive any children? They planned for three and got four. They are a loving family and the bride's mother has seen so far no need to take her daughter back, but then she didn't know that my grandchildren are original thinkers, not wife-beaters. What is more, their women wont let them.

September 28th

At my age 'Life goes on,' is not merely a statement but a desire or hope.

A young woman who should know better wrote an article for a magazine – about me. I got as far as to write a story about the event we both participated in and to do one thing proper I showed a photo of her which made the effort so much more attractive because she is attractive.

My wife and I attended the wedding of one of our grandsons, of whom we are extremely proud, ten years or more ago, my wife in a wheelchair as she had to struggle still seven more months to live, stricken as she was with ALS, and I as the one who married him, in the Church. Most everybody asks a question at this time – 'do you have a license to do that?' No, I don't. But let me start at the beginning.

All of my six grandsons are original thinkers, to give you an example, one of them had his birthday today and his original approach to this joyful news on face-book was – 'yesterday was the end of my 36 times traveling around the sun, plans are to double that and then some.'

He like his five brothers/cousins partly inherited the originality from my wife, I think, and another part from their paternal grandfather. I asked him once (actually more than once) how he was progressing with his search for a suitable girlfriend, and because these young bucks usually are not vastly forthcoming with information about that to a grandfather, was pleasantly surprised to hear that he had found a pair of likely candidates at a ski resort, but had not come to a decision about which one yet.

It reminded me that we find our beloveds sometimes at the strangest places, one of my brothers found his in a church in Winnipeg. He pointed at a girl a few benches ahead of us and said “That girl is going to be my wife.”

“Does she know about it?” I asked, while inspecting the young woman with beautiful dark, wavy, hair. “Not yet,” he said, but a year later they were married.Fearfully beautiful young maidens show up like pearls of great value at the oddest locations, flooring even king Solomon, who reportedly had a thousand wives.

Some time later my grandson said that his decision was made and sure enough one night, when the Canucks had an important game, the happy pair came over visiting us, and when they left and the Canucks had lost, my wife asked me with a concerned face if I knew what I had promised them. Undoubtedly they must've asked whatever they asked during a score either fore or against my favorite team because I had not heard anyone beside the screams of fans.

“All you did was promise to marry them,” Anne sighed, “in church, and a promise is a promise.”

When I was young I wanted to become a man of the cloth, and the desire never really left me, even after I grew up. Anne saw her chance to rub it in, 'this is your chance to show if you're capable.'

I set myself behind the computer to type up a sermon, which was harder than I thought, but worse was to come. When I read the finished product before Anne – she laughed.

“You sound like a dutch dominee,” she said, “the bride will fall asleep and keel over.”

Back to the the drawing-board, but now I was not so sure of myself anymore, the feeling of failure took hold of me and would not loosen its grip.

The reason the young couple asked me to officiate was that their pastor and her husband had planned a holiday, and no other pastor was available to replace her, however she was able to marry them for the law at her office, she told the unhappy couple, and after that the legality was out of the way, she went on to say, the bride and groom in waiting could get married when they wanted and by whoever they wanted, and that was how I got the nod, but plans have a way of making their own story.

The holiday of the pastor and her husband for one reason or another did not go through, so she was able to perform the wedding after all, which made me happy, because my sermon was not a winner.

I had totally forgotten about the rehearsal, which made my self-esteem shrink even further, and during the rehearsal my grandson and his choice for wife got legally married by their pastor, but she refused to do it twice, and therefore I was still on the hook. I asked her after the rehearsal what this meant for the couple and she understood the question which she answered no with a no nonsense sweep of her hand - “No sex. Yet.”

As far as the groom's boasting of him choosing the bride, and only her, she had something to say about that at the real church ceremony the following day, when she said as part of her vow to him - 'Do not forget ever that I chose you out of all the others,' or words to that effect, perhaps even more explicit. Hers was a wise choice though and proved to be satisfactory for both.

The following day day when the big day, for me as well, arrived and I by myself walked around the church building to find a rear entrance to the consistory room, I met a young man I thought was the church custodian and asked him where the consistory-room was, which he showed me and there I found a few young man who obviously had something to do with the official event. The grooms-party including the brothers of the groom were dressed like gangsters, looking two feet taller than me, especially as they were wearing Al Capone gangster hats on, but I almost died when they formed a line, pushed me in the lead to the church, onto the church stage, with their gangster hats still on.

Still shaking about the disrespectful attitude of the groomsmen I placed myself behind the speakers rostrum which luckily featured a shelf under its desk on which I carefully put a bag with Anne's gift for the bride. I looked for Anne who sat visibly relaxed in a bench halfway down the isle with her wheelchair parked next to her, a composed smile on her face. I sank into a daze and only slightly was aware of the bridesmaids promenading down the main isle and taken place on my left on the stairs of the podium.

The piano shocked me back out of the fog with a different piece of music, and with a now or never last bit of courage put the sermon on the desk. And there they came, a pleasing slim figure in a white clinging dress at the arm of a young man - the man I had just met and held for the custodian. They kept on coming, and coming, solemnly and resolved, while the guest stood. Except Anne.

I looked at the beginning notes, typed in bold letters and said “Who gives this woman to this man,” and the young man on the bride's arm said “I do.”

My grandson with only eyes for his beloved choice met the father and daughter part ways, the father kissed his daughter - 'fare well my dear child', and returned to his seat. I motioned the congregation to sit down, and winked at Anne, and from then was (somewhat) in control.

Next time more – what was Anne's present, how are they doing as parents, did they get children, are they still together, is there a picture of the family, what did her dress look like. I could not nearly fit that all in one story, besides, I lost the sermon and have no picture of the very unusual and beautiful dress. The bride at one point carried a gun, but not during the service, luckily. Lex.

New Year 1953

I badly wanted to leave the flat polder land of Holland and immigrate to South Africa, New Guinea, or Australia, but was accepted by Canada, and my departure date was set for August 1953. Hurrah, hurrah, but this was still in 1952, Christmas had passed, but New Year was at hand.

I lived with my parents in one of the new houses that were built in the polder, right across from the first church in the village under construction, my brother and I had worked as carpenters on the steep roof. A tower-like structure was far enough advanced that a church bell was installed inside of it, but not in a working condition yet.

My hands itched to ring that bell and what a better time than to do just that at New year's eve at midnight, to ring in the new year of 1953, which would be the last new year we would be in the old country, especially since the only excitement that would happen that evening was a sermon at a nearby barn where a church service was held.

New years eve arrived, boring, boring.

After the Church service I asked my brother if he wanted to have some fun after dark and told him of my plan to shake up the town a bit by tolling the church bell. He was game.

We waited till half past eleven, sneaked into church and walked the ladder to the platform after we were at the platform we pulled up the ladder onto the platform from where shoved it through an opening of the second platform in the tower and climbed into it.

There was very little room on that platform and no railing around it and it was also dark, but we were where we wanted to be, and not a bit too soon because two other men arrived having the same idea, I think, but since they found no ladder they took off again.

We waited till midnight then swung the bell-clapper against the church-bell, but were not prepared for the loud noise it made, the sound droned into our ears and was much louder than we had expected but we had started and there was no going back, so we counted out twelve loud bangs to number the last seconds of the old year. Here and there the first house lights were turned on.

Then the real fun began, we now pushed the bell, making it swing back and forth and really got the clang-banging going. The noise was overwhelming but now the bell had found her rhythm and swung almost by itself. We ignored the noise and enjoying the burst-the-ear farewell to the old, saluting a welcome to the new.

More and more homes switched on the lights now, we saw people come outside to hear for the first time the church-bells they would hear for years to come, from a bell which had been resurrected from the church of the small island which had almost been swallowed by the sea but with the creation of the new polder had become part of it and proudly had reappeared only a few km's from where the bell tolled now.

The villagers, most just out of bed, hearing the the joyful church-bell tolling again wished each other a happy new year, and wished themselves lucky to hear the old bell happily pealing again for the first time after more than two-hundred years laying idle in a museum. Now it was happily sounding far and wide over fertile fields all around the place where once the island was surrounded by a hungry sea, wanting to destroy.

And then we saw our boss, the church builder, walking slowly toward the church, steadying a tobacco pipe in his mouth with his right hand, the elbow straight up, a sure sign that he was angry, more than angry, he was mad as a dog.

We heard him stumbling around in the church, knowing that we were up there but could not reach us without the long ladder. We quit tolling, the villagers went to bed again and our boss, after he lighted a fresh pipe of tobacco went home as well.

We did as the Jews used to do, wishing each other - ‘next year in Jerusalem,’ except we wished each other to be in Canada.

the church-bell still is calling the village people to church, every Sunday, as it has done from the time we left Ens and our homeland, sixty-five years ago, but it hangs in another church, also in Ens, as the above church is now a residence and is currently for sale

The new polder named is the North-Eastern polder, the first polder in the province of Flevoland, the little island is called Schokland and is an United Nation's Heritage site the church was build in Ens, right across from our parent's house. It had a blind backwall which Durk and Anne, our younger brothers used to kick a soccer ball against - every free minute of the day, it is where our parents are buried and where I found my wife Anne, just before we left for our new country.

The Pot of Gold

When we were children and asked for something special we were often told by our parents

“Whenever the ship with money comes in.” Of course it was even ridiculous to think that a ship loaded with money would steam into town, but strange things do happen sometimes.
”Well, at the end of WWII the German SS robbed the bank of the Netherlands in Utrecht and loaded the hoard in a large ship that under cover of darkness sailed from place to place until it reached the harbor of the Lemmer in Fryslân, were some workers robbed the Germans for a change and gave hands full of coins away. I came in possession of a few unstamped coins, which shows that that things we hold for impossible do happen. Sometimes.

The last time we camped together with George and is wife at Lake Cahuilla he had taken a kite along.

“I ever flew this damn thing before, but between the two of us I think we can manage to get it in the air, especially with a flying Dutch man like you as co-pilot,” he grinned. The kite had belonged to his son and he remembered the great times they had 'when Greg was only yea-high.'

George had either forgotten Anne's annoyance with his coarse vocabulary, or was it was the memory of his dead son that made him use even more profanities than he normally mixed in with his stories.

Because I didn't want any unnecessary hassle with Anne I carefully reminded him of Anne's dislike, but when he started calling me then my good friend, on a tone I did not recognize I knew I had stirred into something I'd better had left alone, but was surprised that he had really considered Anne's annoyance.

“I have consulted Google about the manner, my good friend” he baritoned, “and found more swear words in your damn language than in mine. With your permission, attend your lovely wife to the fact that half of the dutch cities have a damn as an appendage and there isn't nearly a dutch ocean liner without a damn dam attached to it's name.”

He went on for a while and I hoped with all my heart that I was not going to loose a friend over this thing and my futile rebuttal that the dutch dam has an entire different meaning than his damn, he challenged me to show him the difference by uttering both damn words and pointing out the difference to him if I was able to.

“Alright, you damn dutchy, let's hear your dam first,” he said. He was dead serious, I saw.

“Dam,” I said, “but I...” “Sssst, my dear misguided friend, now say my damn.” “Damn” “Now say the two dams one after the other, in whatever order you choose, and then tell me which one your Anne objects to, and which one is a so-called well mannered, civilized Dutch word.”

On our first galleon hunt George showed me a dark horizontal line at several places about a dozen to twenty feet high on the mountains around our campground which we assumed was the waterline of the ocean some hundreds of years ago. It had to be, how else had the Spanish galleon we were hunting ever getting to this place right in the middle of the desert. That line was the main ground for our galleon theory.

After we had left for beautiful BC the year before our last holiday in lake Cahuilla, our vacated camping spot had been taken by a motor-home with New York license plates, George told me, which was not unusual but what was unique, the couple owning the rig were both archaeology professors specializing in Native antiquity, who had come all that way to study ancient Indian fish traps that were supposed to be located in the Cahuilla area.

When George shared with them our Spanish galleon hunt they had some startling news for him.

The news he received from the professors ('and by the way Lex you would have approved of the cute she-professor') destroyed our fun of galleon hunting in one broad sweep as they told him that the black line on the mountain was what once had been a waterline alright but was from about 10,000 years ago, when Spain did not yet exist. That sure took the steam out of our engine.

“We might as well do something else,” said George, and when I didn't come up with a sensational idea, he did. “You know what? We are going to fly the kite.” I didn't think it was such a fantastic idea but what else were we going to do. I had a feeling that something else was going to spoil our fun, and it was, when it was my turn to hold the kite line I, by accident made the kite sway from side to side and when I sharply pulled the line trying to control it, it made a sickening arch toward mother earth and crashed onto the top of a tree, slackening the line.

George took over from me yanking the line but did not better my efforts, our source of entertainment ended before it began. We were both too heavy and weak to climb the tree, so instead of dreaming about treasure ships we started figuring about ways to get the stuck kite down out of the tree. We came up with several ideas, the closest doable being a long stick to lift the kite free from the tree and then pull it down.

Our problem was to find a stick long enough to reach the top of the tree. We scrounged the entire campground for a it and came up with one eight-foot 1x3 and a three foot sable-like palm branch, were we needed at least four to splice them together, or even more.

Gloomy we sat together on a pick-nick table bemoaning our bad luck and to top it of I felt bad for George loosing the kite that reminded him of his dead son. Through my fault no less, it made me feel very awkward. but help sometimes comes from strange places. One of the neighbors came with a partway solution.

“If I park my pick-up under the tree we com at least a few feet closer” he said, “and if I stood on top of the cab we are closer yet.

The friendly camper standing on the cab of his truck, armed with an improvised spear of the eight-foot 1x3 and a five foot long Salton cedar branch that someone had broken off a tree, spliced together with the saber like palm-branch, yelled

“I'm still five feet short,” but then who stepped daintily to the fore out of the best home a married couple can have, a two-person pup tent, but my wife Anne with two brooms tied tightly together forming the missing part of the combo spear, and the friendly camper after attaching Anne's gift of two brooms to the rest had no trouble lifting the kite free from the tree and safely to the ground.

That was the end of our kite flying as well and it was also the end of our camping in the pup tent because Anne could not get up anymore. We still went camping for one year in a van and after that lost track of George and Carole, two very enjoyable friends.

O, in what manner did we hunt for the Spanish galleon? Uniquely, in George's way, who told me once “You know how most adventurers find their pot with gold? By not looking for it. That's the damned truth, some are searching their whole xxx life looking, climbing and digging – finding not a xxx thing. And then one day when they are not looking for it, and when they're old like us – there they stumble on the xxx!!! pot of gold. So my theory is – take the shortcut – just don't look for it and then one day... one day...”

Years later I found, (when I wasn't looking for it) by way of Google that a Spanish galleon was thought to be buried in the middle of the Salton sea less than a mile to the east of our campground, reportedly filled with black pearls...!

Prairie Babies

The town of Transcona, which is part of Winnipeg now, did help immigrants considerably by paying the delivery cost of a baby, amounting to $110.00, to the hospital, with the understanding that the parents of the baby would pay the town $95.00 back within a year. Most immigrant family made use of this generous gesture, and usually waited to the very last date to pay the loan back. Sometimes the end-date was forgotten or for one or another reason the necessary funds were just not there, and the word would go around that those dutch immigrants were having a second baby already while the first one wasn't even paid for.

Janice was paid for at birth, but Anne insisted that we should get a health insurance which included the fees of a baby’s delivery as well but this was delayed until after I had been two months up north. So, then for once we were covered and were not going to be caught short. It meant another monthly payment as I had already two insurances on my death, one of $5,000, because I thought if I would die Anne would have sufficient funds to go back to Holland. When Janice was born I took another life insurance of $6,000, in case she would want to stay in Canada.

Anne and I still went for walks but not so much into the prairie as we had baby carriage now which I, being a gentleman would usually push. We must have made a nice picture but I pushed the baby wagon with my rear-end sticking out backwards more than needed, when Anne's doctor Grace, who had been following us in his car, slowed down beside us and said a few words about my posture, which made Anne giggle and embarrass me.

The doctor probably did not have an high opinion of me and had a reason for that. After Janice was not too long home from the hospital, she did what she did seldom, cry pitifully and could not be stopped.

“Perhaps she does not get enough milk from me, maybe she need some formula.” But we had no formula, so Anne, who never liked the telephone too much asked (ordered) me to call the doctor for the milk formula, but it was in the middle of night, and if he was like me, did not want to be disturbed at that time. I did call and was surprised that the doctor readily gave me the recipe, which I wrote down on the wall next to telephone.

When he was finished he asked me to read it back to him, but made a scream when I read the amount of either sugar or salt out to him.

“Would you really have given that to your baby,” he asked

“You are the doctor,” I said. The amount I read off to him was tenfold of what he said he instructed me.

“You would have killed the baby,” he said. My reputation as father got a severe setback and my self esteem in fatherhood equally a black eye. One of the reasons that our baby was so healthy I think was that Janice was at least a few hours outside in the fresh prairie air outside, where it was sometimes bitter cold, and because she was such a cute blond little toddler she grew up to be the darling of the neighborhood.

She might have some recollection when we traveled from Transcona to Vancouver as she was then about one and a half and I clearly remember her dapper walking on the sidewalk toward the town, and when we arrived in Kamloops, on our way to BC, and were standing at the desk of the post office to send some mail to friends and family, she waked with the same determination right under the desk into the clerk zone.

When we finally arrived into Vancouver and roomed with my brother John, and Sarina, we noticed the absence of a fence around their house and because Janice was used to fresh air but had also discovered that the world beyond was much larger than closeness of home, liked to explore and was not afraid to walk away from home, therefore Anne put her on a the end of a line which was attached to a cloths line, which was not an uncommon practice where we were born with ditches and canals all around.

The builder of a new house next door watched Anne's effort, and gave her a severe tongue lashing

“That kid is not a dog you know,” he said, which bewildered Anne, who quickly undid what grave error she had committed in the neighbor's eye, and kept her inside.

The problem was soon resolved when a fence was erected around the backyard. We thought...

But now Janice had a partner in Linda, the little daughter of my brother John and his wife Sarina, and together they squeezed under the fence to crawl to freedom, which was the back lane. Behind the back lane stood a church where frequently weddings were held and often nice organ music was played which we clearly heard and enjoyed. The little partners were not interested in music and started an adventure trip to downtown Vancouver. They made it to the nearest bus stop and were about to step in the bus when they were caught and returned.

Shortly after we arrived in Vancouver I was informed by Anne that a fourth person had traveled with us as a stow-away, which we did not know at the time we were traveling, Anne was pregnant. This proved one thing, that the young Ukrainian neighbor lady had been right – we were able to have more babies. We found out that Vancouver was not as generous as Transcona by advancing the cost of delivering to the hospital which did not hurt us since we had a life insurance that included a delivery fee.

This time we were ahead of the game, if only we could find the policy of that insurance, and we did, everything was in order. There was only one stipulation, the baby had to be born no more than nine months after the signing of the documents, which was of course reasonable. Just to be sure we started counting, actually we counted twice, just to be sure. We counted together for the third time.

We came up with the same result – our insurance was one day short of nine months, meaning that we had to pay the hospital ourselves.

Deborah Grace's second name was after doctor Grace of Transcona, who would never know, and not after Grace hospital where she was born. So, that is finally straightened out then, and that I paid double for Deb was not a joke even though Deb was born April the first, but she was definitely worth it.

The Unwitting Speaker

Last week a staff member of Menno Place asked (her request is a command to me) to accompany her to where she did not say, but I presume it had something to do with Menno Place – Home – or Society, and therefore entrusted the director who also happens to be a minister's wife, to direct me at the right path and not to lead me astray, and therefore let her lead me, like a willing sheep, to where she wanted me to go.

I was allowed to sit into a comfortable chair next to the chauffeur since that chair was made vacant by another staff member who likely was to occupy that seat, but suddenly, by one reason or another was unable to attend whatever we were to attend. At no time did I feel anxious since she proved to be a solid driver and made me feel as safe as if driven by my daughters or granddaughter.

I enjoyed our drive to through Abbotsford and later over the highway via known and unknown places as I seldom venture out beyond the eleven acres on which I live. I was informed by the woman I only know as a writer, a director, an organizer and a speaker and a few more things at Menno Place and has an infectious smile, at this time that we were going to Trinity Western University, of which I had seen only the red brick building in times gone by when I raced by on the adjacent highway, when I was still in possession of a legal driver's license, and had also in the news read about the trouble they had with accrediting lawyers, well, who has not trouble with lawyers, I wonder?

I walked into into a classroom behind my walker and ahead of my invitor Sharon, who organizes everything at at our campus, is stakeholder and whatever you can think of and has authority to boss people around, which whenever she does and even when she does not, performs with that contagious smile.

When I first met Sharon I was afraid of her, because here was a person who because of her titles and things is a person of high standing as she is director, communication, and stakeholder, engagement, she is a writer, speaker, photographs, and bio-s, I don't have a clue what a bio-er is or does, but she has obviously been a student at a university, and as a result has a BA behind her name which I thought was the name of my gas station in Tsawassen when I lived there.

Now, on the other hand my father was a landarbeider, which means a ground worker, working in the polder-land with a shovel, he called a botch, making summer dikes in the mud outside the sea-dikes during the hungry thirties before the second world war, and digging ditches and canals in the newly created polder, after the war.

Because he was a good Christian man he was chosen an elder in our church, reading a sermon when no preacher was available, but sometimes a student from the nearby seminary would preach and my father would tell us around the the dinner table the young man's name, where he hailed from, and would also inform us of which seminary he was a student.

Father held a student in very high esteem, perhaps because this student, like my father, was not yet ordained and therefore could not give the blessing over the congregation at the end of the service. Father always uttered the word student with reverence. Students were what the disciples were to Jesus, studying to be men of god at least if they were students of the right seminary or University, and once ordained, were qualified to pastor the flock of the chosen ones, the new testament church, and were then given authority to bless the congregation after the worship service.

After a journey through a dizzying maze of corridors of the University led by Sharon, who tried several doors before she found the right room, I was finally able to relax on a nice chair, comfortably leaning on my walker in front of me, waiting for things beyond my control and ability to happen.

And so I, from a humble come-off, now sat next to a learned and established Sharon on my right, and would you believe it a Professor (!) on my left, in front of two dozen STUDENTS waiting for things to happen from either the prof or of Sharon, while I, calmly enjoying my lowly stage in life, knowing that I was unable to play a roll in what was ordained to unfold, when Sharon with a wide smile shocked me out of my socks when she bend over my way, looked right into my unsuspecting eyes, and with her customary wide smile whispered

“OK Lex, start talking.”

Here we are, it's eight PM, twenty-plus bored and tired students after a busy day studying are herded together to hear a probably long speech about 'the olden days' by an old man past his bedtime, and for that privilege had to wait half an hour because the old man couldn't find their place of learning.

Did you ever experienced over fifty weary eyes hitting yours, shooting into pairs for double effect, to accusingly scold you for wasting their time?

I want to appease them and start with introducing myself as one of the seven-hundred residents of Menno Place in Abbotsford and more than likely babble a little about the good times we have there, and from thereon talk about most everything under the sun, too much for an old person to remember.

I had heard that most students were trained to be counselors and nurses and were hesitant to visit an old age facility like ours so I talked about how scared I was when I registered for a full semester at Kwantlen collage when I was 56 years old, and I heard the real students ask each other how many courses they were able to get, and how nice the students were to me, who age-wise I could've been their grandfather.

As I progressed I found it easy to talk to the mainly female audience as I seemed to have their attention. I told them how the fear of a person person in an unfamiliar place can change suddenly into confidence, as happened to me at Kwantlen collage, now a University. One of the five profs I had in English, creative writing, political science, philosophy, and college-skills, had got involved with a young student from my hometown. The entanglement was so hard on him he saw no way out and came to me for help. (!) He loved his wife sooo much but loved the other woman aaalmost as much. What was he to do?

He originated from Saskatchewan. It was about the end of the semester and my advise which was given in all earnest, was for him to walk from Ladner to Saskatchewan and back, by this time his mind should be cleared, and he would back in time for the fall semester. A year later I ran into him during a teacher strike, when I spotted him on the picket line. He called me over for a coffee in the school cafeteria, where he confessed that he had not followed my advice to walk, that he was still with his wife, that the other woman had left him, he thanked me for my counseling, walked back to the picket line, and left me to pay for his coffee.

To really drive the point home not to be scared, I added how embarrassed I was to undress in front of a healthcare worker, who I knew as a friend, to help me getting a shower when up to that time my mother and my wife were the only females who had seen me naked and how my embarrassment was unnecessary, when the young lady, being a professional healthcare worker, put me at ease by saying 'This is what we do,' and we stayed friends.

The longer I talked to the lovely students the more smiles I saw and even some laughter. I was happy to be of help to these young women and at the end I got several nice hugs, even of the two male students who were present. To talk I think one should keep eye contact with the audience during the entire episode, which was not hard to do in my case since my audience consisted of beautiful people who I hope to meet again next month, when they are scheduled to visit us at Menno place as part of their training to get familiar with old people like me, whom they will be serving in the near future.

I thought about my father whose dream was, like mine, to become a preacher and never realized his dream. He might have been proud had he seen me speak for an hour, as I was told, at a University for goodness sake. Best of all I am grateful I was able to do something positive for Menno Place.

This is what Sharon Simpson BA said about our adventure:

Lex joined me in the CPSY 616 Family Systems: Marriage and Family Counseling course (Master program) at Trinity Western University. Menno Place has partnered in this course for five years to enhance understanding and empathy for elderly seniors and their families.

The students are partnered with a senior for two visits.

Lex came to speak about his experiences and to help the students in their understanding of issues that relate specifically to seniors. He was absolutely incredible! - I wish I had videotaped him. His storytelling was amazing and comedic timing impeccable. He endeared the students to himself and others his age with transparent, authentic and thoughtful stories that told of caring for Anne, receiving care, finding God in creation, loving his home and the people he encounters, loss of son, challenges in marriage, pride in his family, and so much more. Brave,bold, genuine and appropriately hilarious. It was a sacred evening. Thanks, Lex.

Can't get a better test result, I'll take it. Thanks Sharon. Whoops, here's another.

Thank -you Sharon for the wonderful rendition of my dad's greatest attributes....his zest for talking to people through humor even though the topic may not be. I have always admired his talents of writing stories, but his ability to touch people through his spoken words was even greater. Love you so very much Dad, Jacki Smid Nielsen.

That is my dearest daughter. Thank you so much, Jacki.

I am a rich man.

The Prairie Chick

Most Dutch immigrants landed in Ontario, but my brother and I steamed in a coal-fed train all the way to the middle of prairies, in Manitoba. The name was vaguely familiar as it reminded me of the books I read when I was vacationing at my grandparent's in Gaasterland, and was sent to bed when it was still light outside, probably around eight o'clock, which was no punishment for me at all because I had found a treasure of uncle Johannes' books on top of his closet with the most fantastic stories.

I got totally lost in the old tales about Indians and adventurers and German and English archaeologist, who were finding dinosaurs and things right were we were living. Stories about old Shatterhand and Winnitou, sounding so close to Winnipeg were our train had stopped, and Manitou, and was the province were we landed as immigrants in the middle of Canada, not called Manitoba?

However romantic the place was to us we did not immigrate to read books in Manitoba. A fieldman whose job it was was to herd new Calvinistic dutch immigrants together into a group large enough to start a church, and helped finding a job, found us a job in a precast concrete factory. We were now a part of a new business that just had started in the French speaking city of St Boniface across the Red river from the English speaking Winnipeg. I found it exciting to grow with this young company and felt myself a small part of the young Canada growing into maturity. Canadians were so innovating and adapting and like most immigrants never let on that a job was too complicated or above their ability. I worked there for five years.

One Sunday my brother John during a church service in Winnipeg pointed out a girl with dark wavy hair to me, “Do you see that girl overt here?” “She is going to be my wife.” “Does she know about it?” “Not yet.” About a year later John came over from BC, where he had found work, to Winnipeg to marry the beautiful young woman Sarina van Heyst.

When our daughter Janice was about seven months old I had to leave my young family to work in what is now the city Thompson, to assemble a concrete pre-stressed bridge, we had build in our plant in St Boniface. Today the city of Thompson Manitoba has today a population of seventy-five thousand, but sixty years ago the population was zero as Thompson did not exist yet. I worked there for two months, which was a continuation of what I felt for Canada then – joyful to witness our young country grow in many ways not only to an independent country but to a country to be reckoned with in the world. I am still proud to have been one of that team.

The first years in Canada were romantic in several ways but my stint in Thompson stood apart, and our little family stood out front and center. We did as we wanted because we felt free, free to live as a family doing sometimes things we were not allowed to do in the old country as teenagers – we went together to the movies. That was so cool. Less than a mile out of town was a drive-in theater showing films on a huge screen, outside in the prairie. At night of course.

I remembered that one time I was going to sneak out with a friend to the movies in an other town, because our village didn’t have a picture show facility and my father suspecting our intentions, as we might have looked guilty, stopped us and said -

“So, were the gentlemen going to the show?” I was then twenty and my friend a few years older, and the son of the richest farmer (with the a family of fourteen children, by two wives) of our village. He was chairman of many things and always was chosen an elder in our church. We were not afraid of my father but it was so drilled into us that watching a show ranked in sin equally high as the seventh commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” that we really took his words at heart especially when he added - “There is of course One that keeps an eye on you.”

We did not go. Not that time.

On what not to do was given so much more weight then than what to do and our generation, however messed up by the hungry thirties and a terrible war directly following it, was still teachable but not for long, after we lost the fright of the oppression of the church and the mores when we escaped by emigrating.

A drive-in the 1950

Drive-ins have most all disappeared, but they were a unique way of watching even blockbuster movies such as East of Eden and the Twelve Commandments could be viewed in the privacy of one's car. Each car spot had a sound box fastened on a pole which was to be clipped onto the inside window frame of the car providing the sound of the film. It was also romantic.

Very romantic.

Halfway the show was an intermission, when everyone got out of the car to stretch the legs, and talk with friends, but the main reason was a walk to the snack-bar for a coffee and doughnut, a wiener or hamburger to eat in the car.

We did not have a car but owned a truck where was enough room for the baby who was indeed named Janice Ida and was too young to warn us of our sinful life.

The reason that our baby grew up so healthy was that my wife every day put her in a sunny place outside, cold but out of the wind. Janice was never sick and the whole neighborhood took a liken to kid with the blond hair and red cheeks, so much so that a young Ukrainian couple who lived upstairs next doors had more than an eye on her. A few times when Anne had the baby outside the couple came over and took her out of the baby carriage to bring her upstairs in their place.

They made Anne an offer to buy her, which of course was never going to happen, but they were very persuasive, and our baby would not at all have been out of place as a little Ukrainian girl, and after they had her again upstairs for a while the woman approached Anne again saying “You can make another baby, please let us have this one.” She was right that we could have more children but we did not want to part with our firstborn, especial since Anne had such a painful time to deliver her, but it was Janice herself helped making the couple change their mind, certainly the mind of the man, because when he carried her down from the upstairs visit, she peed all over him.

Young Blood in the Prairie

It was a sunny day when we walked hand in hand where possibly no human had tread before as we explored the vast wilds of the prairies of friendly Manitoba, which at that time were only a few steps away from our backdoor.

The blue sky covered the prairie as the lid over grandma's potato-pot, creating a giant round where sky and land unite into the horizon. We stood at the center of the world from where the distance to the skyline was just as far to the east as it was to to west, and equally as far from the north and the south. We not only stood in the center of the earth, we were the center. We were just married.

The year was 1955, the town called Transcona, inhabited by former Ukrainian and Italian immigrants who were still speaking broken English but were considered old-timers, as they had landed there a few generation before we did.

Ten years after the end of world war two, Anne and I, together with a handful young immigrant couples from Holland joined a sprinkling of dutch new Canadians who had arrived a few years before us again, including two of my father's brothers, my uncles Roelof and Daniel Smid and their families.

My Anne was seventeen and I was twenty-one when we arrived in Transcona.

We were so young and so happy.

We walked hand in hand over the endless prairie, on that very sunny day, there was no end in sight. We kept on walking and walking over the endless plane, until... until we found that flower.

Forgotten was the prairie panorama as we bend down to have a better look of the lone tiger-lily, so beautiful a flower as we had not seen before.

We regarded that flower from then on as our favorite and did not change our mind until years later Anne and I discovered a real sunflower like the one she used to draw when she was a student of the elementary school. We found a field filled with the tall flowers, with heads as large as diner plates, all with their faces turned to the sun, after we had moved to beautiful BC. Then the tiger-lilies were forgotten but not the prairies, and certainly not the prairie's friendly people.

There stood a little house in the prairie, it had a living dining-room, a narrow kitchen, a master bedroom, a second bedroom and a tiny baby bedroom. The man of the house had built a crib for a baby to lay in and the woman had made blankets to cover the baby with. She had tasteful decorated the room with on one wall a large applique on jute, showing a scene of an ice-cream vendor selling his ware to a score of children with pets hungrily looking on. It was a work of art.

There was no baby as yet.

But the day arrived that Anne said, “I think it is time now.”

“How about if I take you to Winnipeg hospital on the way to my work in St. Boniface, and check with you at noon,” I said, “how is it going.” “We have to go.” “Now.”

Anne - ”Did you see the baby?”

“She is pretty blue.”

Anne - “It was a hard delivery. They put me out at the last moment, I think. O, and it's a girl. There goes your soccer team, sorreee.” I had seen the pink card on the cradle which said 'baby girl Smid.'

Once I had told Anne in jest that I expected a boy, in fact that I wanted eleven boys – a soccer team. Nonsense of course but Anne had not forgotten.

“Anne - “Do you still want the rest of the team? You might as well forget it because this baby-girl is a keeper, and I don't mean a person standing between goal-posts.”

Anne - “Maybe our baby-daughter is going to be a professional soccer player yet. Who knows, but what are we going to name her?”

“You name her, you name the girls and I name the boys. Anne, if I see how you had to suffer I'd rather adopt.”

Anne - “Its only the first one, the next one is easier. I was thinking to name her after my mother, Jantine. We could call her Tina or Jane, or I found this nice English name in the baby-book, Janice.”

“OK with me.”

Anne - “And I thought Ida for a second name, after my sister. Janice Ida sounds nice in English. I once wanted a second name.”

“What second name did you want for yourself?”

Anne - “If they had named me Ida, I would have wanted Anje for second for sure, because I loved opoe Anje, but did not like opoe Ida. I liked her name though, anyways Ida Anje does not sound good and neither does Anje Ida, but Janice Ida sounds strong and flows nice, its the perfect name for our baby.”

“Why didn't you like your opoe Ida.”

Anne - “Every Sunday after church mother and I had to visit her and when we came through the door, there she sat, with the radio on, listening to a church service. And we had to get in on tippy toes because opoe Ida sat almost on top of the radio listening to that sermon, we had to be dead quiet so as not to bother her. It took always so long before the sermon was over. It was so boring.”

It was past eleven at night when I got up to go home. I opened the door to the outside and - stepped on the roof of the third story. I had forgotten that I was was on the fourth floor and once outside was not prepared for the severe Manitoba cold of February 14 hitting me, I had left my parka in the truck and quickly turned around to get inside again, but now the door was locked. I was fast getting cold and feared to freeze to death on top of the hospital roof, so I pounded on the door but no one appeared.

I went down on my belly and peered over the edge of the roof to check the distance to the snow on the ground and found it much farther down than I had thought. The only way to get down was by holding on to the downspout but doubted that it would support me. I was very scared at this point and at the same time thought how ironic my situation was – while my wife after the ordeal of birthing was high on having a beautiful baby-daughter and was asleep in a warm bed, I was by myself going to freeze if no one would rescue me. I was formulating the headlines in the morning newspaper –

Man Died Near his Wife and Newborn Baby,

Body of Dead Husband and Father Found on Hospital Roof,

Father Found Death on his Baby's Birthday,

Santa Goofed?

I heard a door opening and a woman's voice asking a two word question, “New father?”

I was dumb enough to ask “Why?”

The nurse only smiled.

Leaver Dea

Pake Leffert was a tall man. Eighty years ago only aspirant policeman and postman were measured for length, and since pake was neither none ever bothered but I would think he must've been a few fingers over six feet in length. There is a picture of pake and beppe posing side by side, where to equalize their height-difference they had placed beppe on concrete blocks.

Both were conservative dressed in black, from shoes to their head-covering, including the fancy feather on beppe's hat, but during the summer Pake wore a straw hat which is never colored, and was changed to a s skipper's cap during the rest of the year.

Beppe was a great cook and because they had three adult sons with jobs living at home and paying board and room, beppe was able to buy meat for the warm mid-day meal and her meat 'n gravy was the ultimate in taste, followed by her delicious soup and pudding, but that was only on Sundays.

Pake was considered an upright man and respected as such by people of all three stripes of the area - you had the Calvinists, the not-Calvinist and the Catholics, all living together in harmony as long as you did not crowed them, but in spite of being upright pake had never been in the church board, the reason for that is obscure, and my own father led me on the wrong path with his version of what happened that made pake ineligible for that honorable position involving beppe, showing again that even in the olden days women were singular held guilty, as it has been since the written beginning.

Pake was, however, chairman of a two-classroom christian school, which was the reason that master Klaas, who taught the highest three classes, often came for a cup of tea at my grandparents place in the late afternoon to share some of his wisdom and knowledge. This time he told pake that most of the Netherlands was made up of very small particles of rock that originated from the mountains of Germany and France thousand of years ago and through big rivers like the Rhine was carried toward the sea as a clay-like sludge, silting up into what is now the Netherlands. He even suggested that this was the reason those countries were always occupying our Fatherland, because they wanted their fertile clay back.

Pake's forehead wrinkled, he listened carefully to what master Klaas came up with this time, feeling that he as chairman of the school board had to watch carefully what master Klaas was teaching the children, he had not missed that master Klaas had mentioned thousands of years, and there could only be six of them according to the holy word, whatever happened before that was holy ground since that was the time when god was creating all there was to be created.

“God created the Netherlands though,” pake finally warned master Klaas.

“Of course, chairman,” said master Klaas, who often called pake by his title rather than his family name. “We all know that God created the Netherlands, but before he worked on our country he created the high mountains of Germany and France. Mountain so high we have never seen.” Pake did not liked to be called chairman other than when he was chairing a meeting, which presently he was not, and master Klaas who apparently had lots more to teach went on.

“God created all of Europe all at once but he forgot Gaasterland...” which made pake jump off the chair.

“Master Klaas, do you tell me that we were forgotten, who made Gaasterland then?” he fumed.

Beppe asked if the men wanted some more tea.

“No, we have had enough tea,” said pake. I think he had more than enough of master Klaas as well.

“I like sure like another one,” said master Klaas sweetly.

At this time pake would have rather kicked the teacher outside but it was tough to get another teacher in a small school like theirs and the master was a learned man, accredited from a christian college and hence considered a reliable christian, though not nearly as reliable as a preacher who had studied Greek and Latin, therefore pake made up his mind to see the preacher about this, my goodness, if this was the green wood what must be the dead? However, master Klaas was not finished yet.

“You see, chairman, about ten-thousand years ago when half of the Netherlands was under ice... “ that was definitely enough for pake. His fist hit the table so hard, the teacups danced in the saucers and beppe cried

“You scare me doing that, Leffert, my ears ring. What must master Klaas think of you. O my, I feel...”

When It seemed as if beppe was going to faint, pake jumped up, took his half full cup of cold tea to her lips.

“Here, drink this.” But when master Klaas jumped up as well and said that beppe should be given water instead of tea, pake turned at him looking as if he would kill him.

His voice shook when he waved at the door, thereby spilling the tea, on beppe's skirt, than hollered

“You - out of my house, and never come here again with your words of satan. See what you did to my wife.”

I had never seen pake that angry, and at that point was really scared of him, because I thought that he might strike me as well, even-though I had not said a word and when master Klaas took a hasty retreat, I sneaked passed him and ran to the only safe place I could think of – the outhouse, where I had done my thinking before. I sat there until I head pake who came to relieve himself. He tore the outhouse door open to see me sitting on the outhouse with my pants on, and so discovered my secret hiding place.

Master Klaas was going to be proven right years later in most of his fantastic tales but pake stuck to the bible and its interpretation by the church. Where most of the The Netherlands is clay or peat, Gaasterland is comprised of sand and boulders which is believed were carried in from Scandinavia several thousand years ago during the last ice-time by the glaciers that covered the northern half of what is now the Netherlands and when the ice melted it left masses of sand and gravel and large boulders behind at several areas, including Gaasterland, which consisted of the same material of which the mountains of Scandinavia were created off, and left behind in Gaasterland as one of the areas were this happened.

I hope that you survived this narrative as things have been a little hectic in the story-factory. I intended to write a story about my mother who was born only a few steps away from that monument, in a kind of fairy-tale style but failed utterly. Instead I wound up with a cantankerous old man, which he really was not at all, and a show-off teacher, who actually was.

I also want to pause with the monument a little longer, why were those locals so stubborn as to rather die than serve others, who were those people anyways. Do you know what mooning is and I do not mean cows talking? It has something to do with that monument as well.

Maybe I should give that fairy tale another go. Next week , or maybe sooner I hope to introduce you to a nice woman from Hungary, who teaches us to wash large and small windows with both hands.

Brothers in Arms II

It's been ten years since my son Greg died. One hell of a long time. And it's like yesterday, damn right it is. The last thing he said to me before he spun out of the damn yard – gravel and sand flying all over the place - “dad I Iove you,” then – pzzt he was gone.

I had him cremated and now he was in this little box which was of course in the house. For a month already. It was like, I couldn't stand it anymore. I am not what you'd call the church kind, but I thought a few words needed to be said, and I couldn't say them.

You see, we lived in this little village, four hundred souls all told, and that's a generous estimate, but – the town did have some kind of a preacher. I sought this so called preacher out and asked him, if he'd wanted to, to say a few words, and he said he would.

I gathered my family together under the big trees in our backyard. I invited only one person beside my family, my former boss, the fire chief. He came in full uniform, which I appreciated.

The preacher spoke some very kind words, I guess he did well.

You have to know, my son Greg was a marine. He told me this once - “Dad, I'm not scared to go into action, we're trained well to take care of ourself, but you know dad, what scares me is the friendly fire, that scares me. Our officers are assholes, its them that scare me.”

he was killed by his room mate, now if that's not friendly fire, what is?

So, when the preacher was done, I said now its our time. I put Greg in his rucksack and put him on my back. So he was riding on my shoulders, just like he was little. I took three cans of beer with me and the American flag. And there we went, up onto the mountain. We climbed to the very top. To were the Indians were buried.

I found a good spot with a beautiful view of the valley. And there I put him.I opened the beer, one for my other son, one for me, and one for Greg, we said sköl and gulped it down.

And you know, old Thor must've approved, he grumbled in the far distance, not a thunderclap, just a rumble, as if to say – I'm here and see where you put him. I really liked that and said 'you take care of him now.'

Then I planted the the US flag, after all he was a marine. He's ok up there, with the Navajo braves. I've been there a few times, had a little talk, you understand, but now I can't do it anymore, I am too old and the mountain is too damned steep.

O, I almost forgot. Every evening when the local TV gives the news sports and all that crap, the weather man says – and how was the weather in the valley today, and the camera sweeps over the valley, maybe four or five seconds, and you know, at the end of the valley, as clear as can be, stands this mountain.

So every evening I say something like – how's things. It is a good feeling.                                 Every evening.

George sent us a very nice letter in which he thanked us profusely for given them such a good time when we camped together and wrote that he read Carole the story in the kitchen and that she had replied – You, meaning me, her husband, could have written it if you, Lex, had used a few more damns in the writing.

A tiny note at the very end stated – the big man cried, we both did. C                                              I was unable to locate that letter.                                                                                                           I miss camping.                                                                                                                                      Lex           

Dear George and Carole

It was a nice surprise to receive a letter from you.                                                                               We had reasonable good weather and some of Anne's hardiest flowers still show color. George, I had a flue shot, which was needed on account of my advancing age, according to the doctor. It made me sick already when he evaluated my years on this planet, but the grossly over sized needle scared the h out of me.

I really considered fainting if it weren't for the cute nurse in a too small uniform approaching me with that harpoon, really the emotions an advance aged man has to endure. What got me was after she torpedoed me saying that some patient have ill effects after the procedure. I was sick already before she proceeded, but so far no cold. Anne survived without shot, nice to be healthy, and young.

About the encounter you had with that dutch immigrant in Lauglin, you called Uf or Ef, who claimed to have worked for me, he did indeed work for me several years, however his name is neither Uf nor Ef, but Yp. Yp Feenstra in fact, who the last time I saw him was laying on his knees over an open sewer pipe. He always had a tobacco pipe in his mouth, lighted or not. Well, he was going to say something and forgot to talk through his clammed up teeth, as he usually does. The pipe fell out of his mouth, right into the sewer, and that pipe, which had become part of Yp, was on the way to the Pacific Ocean where most of our sewage winds up.

He stood up, took off his cap, scratched his head and said in a voice I had seldom heard him speak in before, now that he didn’t have to bite on his pipe anymore, “There you, bastard, that’s where you should’ve been twenty years ago.” He has never smoked since.

Any ways, I hope he didn’t give you a too bad account of me, but it shows that a person has to have his back covered all the time. And yes, the world is a small place indeed. Or, and that could be too, we are more famous than we think we are.

I am writing, on a computer, [with one finger which is sorta worn out and shorter that the others] my memoirs.                                                                                                                                          It is hard work and the kids, for whom I do it, are so far not in the slightest impressed. Anne figures that will come when I'm rich and famous which will be some time after I kick the bucket or my literary output has to drastically improve, which on all three counts I doubt.  

Anyways I really hope to see you and Carole soon. It is time to talk with a more normal and alive person, and can hardly wait for the time that we can have a nice uncensored discussion about the world and its inhabitants.

We hope to arrive at Lake Cahuilla at Feb. the 28th or Mar. the 1st, as we will start our journey Tue. Feb. 26, but I don’t know if we do the trip in two or three days. Your letter has given us an even greater sense of urgency to join you in the sunshine.

Love you, Lex and Anne

Brothers in Arms

As soon as we arrived home in the Fraser Valley, we knew it was a mistake to have left sunny California, even though we missed twelve inches of snow and a blizzard wind that made travel impossible for a week, the temperature still here reaches only a high in the low teens C, and at night it hovers just above freezing.

Thus I started a letter to George and Carole, whose last names I forgot, a local couple we met on our holidays in Cahuilla, southern California. I seldom put a date on letters, but there is a mention of May in the letter and it refers to my age being 71, which I was in 2002, so I am reasonably certain to date the letter around May 2002, just after we were home from our winter holiday.

George was one of these men knowing everything about the local history and its citizens, and besides had a beautiful baritone voice to recite these stories that made the dullest tales become super interesting and so alive that making me feel as if I was physically included in the narrative. I must warn you that he liberally spiced his tales with swear words. He told me once the reason he 'dragged the old lady over to this damned campsite for a few weeks' so he could continue his search for the Spanish galleon, that he was sure was hibernating 'right where we're standing.'

I must admit that George did use a lot of words that not only colored the stories, but as Anne, my wife observed ware totally unnecessary. When confronted with Anne's opinion his head bowed down as if to think deeply then came up to say that he had never used foul language such as the damn younger generation so frequently use and in his defense I testify that I never heard any of those young generation words come over his lips on our hourly walk around the only concrete lake I know of. What he did tell me in confidence was, that he had pledged his wife Carol at their wedding never to use such foul language in her hearing distance.

He told me a remarkable story about one of his sons who was killed while in the army but not in action as they call it, by enemy fire, the memory of which him still led to hastily pink away a tear. I developed those moving expressions of his deepest feelings into a story. And into the very same words he uttered it.

Here follows my letter -

Dear George and Carole,

As soon as we arrived home in the Fraser Valley, we knew it was a mistake to have left sunny California, even though we missed twelve inches of snow and he blizzard wind that made travel impossible for a week, the temperature still reaches only a high in the low teens C, and at night it hovers just above the point of freezing.

I’m rudely interrupted by Anne, who wants me to drop my pants so she can wash them, which is totally unnecessary since they’re for the best part clean yet. As I’m in the process of doing so, the doorbell goes wild. Probably Jehovah's witnesses, so I’m holding my jeans up with one hand while opening the door.

It’s the best looking neighbor lady of our street. I recently lost my partial top plate and probably smiled at her because her pretty face shows surprise and mildly disapproval. Not a start of the day to write home about.

Anyways be glad that it is no skin of your nose, that I struggle with the realities of getting older, especially since its such strange territory. It is all new to me and for the most part I don’t like it but am regularly reminded by my offspring that I thru-out my entire life prophesied that I would not get to this state at all.

Anne shuts me up every time I mention yet another sign of aging. It is so far that she shuts me up before I say anything, and when I, after a lot of protest, I finally get a chance to say my say, I’ve forgotten what I wanted to share.

Enough of the chit chat. Janneke, the once fourteen year old, who introduced me to kissing, visited us for a few days from Fryslân. That proved to be very worthwhile, for me anyways. You know of my passion for the Frisian history; well, Janneke made me a gift of several great history books. I couldn’t have dreamed of anything better. Now I know what the recent updated version is and for me it is like finding that Spanish galleon that us alluded, remember?

Janneke herself was not the perky fourteen year old, but had aged like a fine old wine, she still possessed a vitality a woman half her age. “She would’ve killed you in one year,” said Anne, but the two became instant friends, since they have many things in common. One difference is that Anne kills me more slowly.

All in all we had a great time and for me it was not only enjoyable but I was also honored by her visit and grateful to have such a generous friend of old. There it is again, old, well, Anne can’t interfere and there is some validity in all of this, because on April 30 I celebrated with wife, children and friends my 71st birthday.

Some parts of my body get more exercise than others, my typing finger claims about 90%, the rest is in a hibernating state, but shortly I will start another finger or even try to type with two fingers.

We are waiting for warmer weather to go tenting again in beautiful BC. It is already mid May and still too chilly. Time seems to go faster all the time. But I have a theory about that - time goes faster because we forget more. It is a thought that I developed all by myself, hope it will comfort you.

I have your story about Greg finished after many changes. Anne made me take some damns out, which in my opinion wasn’t necessary. We express our feelings in the way we feel them. The loss of a son to a father is raw and unnatural. I was deeply touched by your account of likely the hardest experience both of you went through. It is also our story. Our roots go far back in history and probably have touched each other at some time when men were perhaps not as sophisticated as today, but I believe, just as emotional.

I was honored and comforted with your sharing and hope I have not tarnished the image of your son. What we have in our hearts will ever be, seeing it on paper may in some measure reinforce these beloved images. With that in mind I wrote it and relived our own loss at the same time.

George and Carole, have our very best,

Next time more including the story of George's son – if permitted to live. lex

The Sweet Smell of Spring

Walking out of the front door of the Pavilion I was greeted by oodles of lilacs hanging from the two trees at the entrance, showing a sensational display of purple color while filling the air all around with clouds of exquisite aroma. Further down, three trees of which I don't know the name grow, in spite of being gassed by exhaust fumes of cars entering the under-ground parking, a profusion of white flowers, smelling so good it puts my nose in overdrive. Come a week later and all coloring is erased as yesterdays assignment from a blackboard and replaced by the brightest of green leaves.

I witness the start of an organization at work as several young women haste to their specific places in the administration of the campus where I live, all arriving at this early hour and I wondered how much work they did before they arrived at their work.

Getting out of bed, waking up the husband, shower, dress, getting the children up, making breakfast for the husband, the children, herself? Making lunches, kissing the husband goodbye, shoving the children out of the door, getting into the car to bring all or one of the kids to school or babysitter, trying to find a parking-spot - and than still be able to say good morning including a big smile to an old man, like several did to me on my morning walk.

Are they all wonder-women?

One of these women still able to smile after doing her home-work before going to work drives in to park her car.I am unable to see the driver inside the car and amble on, apparently not fast enough as suddenly she walks beside me - smiling.

We talked, or better, she talked and I smiled, better yet, she talked and did most of the smiling. What we were talking about I don't know anymore, but it did not disturb at all the good feelings experienced the entire morning. At the end of our duo walk I had good feelings about Hungary, and managed to say “See you soon” thinking of meeting her at exercise class where she is instructor.

I have time for a cup of coffee, the cafeteria is open but not serving yet because I am about twenty minutes early, so I seat myself in the corner. The paperboy takes the paper to the table where I usually sit occupy, but is occupied by a lady now, also waiting. The elderly man who sometimes hands me a paper hands it to her and after just noticing me uppes his shoulders like a Frenchman would - sorry.

'Its ok,' I mouth, but now the lady insist for me to have the paper. I lie that I've read the paper already which neither she nor the paper deliverer believes, I think, but she keeps the paper anyways. She orders a coffee for herself and comes back with it together with the coffee I have ordered. “What d'you take in it” she asked. “Nothing, just dark,” I lie again. Why I do that I don't know.

Again she offers me the paper but by this time I tell her that I have to leave since I must meet the instructor of our exercise class and would not want to miss that for anything. I thank the lady for her kindness and notice the amount of rings on her fingers, which I calculate to be worth as much as a mid-size car.

I am early at the exercise room and make myself useful by placing the armchairs in a circle, sit down, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the instructor, who has provided the zenith of my good-feeling this morning by talking, and – even smiling at me.  

Before I tell you more about my instructor, I have to take you along to where I, more than eighty years ago originated, in Fryslân, where after every mealtime my father would read a chapter out of the bible, and to keep us attentive, would ask any one of us children at random at the end of the reading what the last word was that he had read.

Father was great reader making us usually listen well, and a lot of bible stories are quite interesting. This time he read about a young man named Jacob who had traveled to the far country where his family immigrated from to find a wife for himself, but instead of looking around at the local girls he fell head over heels in love with the youngest of two daughters of a relative of his mother, probably his mother's brother, which would make the young Rachel Jacob's niece.

A dutch saying goes like this – neef en nicht vrijt licht, (nephew and niece, smooch easy), but Rachel's father put the brakes on Jacob's romantic dreams by putting a stiff price on Rachel's head.

“Beauty does not come cheap Jacob,” Laban administers the would-be suitor of his daughter “Work seven years for me and my daughter will be yours wife.” Jacob agrees willingly and diligently looks after Laban's flock which increases every year under his care and because his love for Rachel does not diminish, the years fly by.

After seven years Jacob claims Rachel as his bride.

“I have worked hard for you,” he said, “your herd is healthier than it has ever been and has increased every year, I have fulfilled my obligation to you Laban, and as we agreed to seven years ago, I now claim your daughter as my wife.”

“You have indeed done very well Jacob, you tended my animals as if they were your own, my flock is healthy and has increased. I own more goats and sheep now than I ever possessed, therefore I will organize a wedding-feast and you will have my daughter as your wife as we agreed.”

Laban kept his word, calling his extensive family, friends, and the entire neighborhood to the wedding- feast that would last for a week. It was a happy party where all were pampered with plentiful food and indulged in freely flowing wines.

Late on the evening of the last day of feasting Laban took his daughter to an intoxicated Jacob, who slept with her. When Jacob awoke he needed only one look to see that he has been fooled, he had not slept with his true love Rachel, but with her older sister Leah.

He bitterly complains to who is now his father-in-law Laban about being cheated, but Laban counters it by saying that he promised him his daughter and that Jacob got his daughter, wasn't it his daughter Jacob slept with?

And as for his complaint that it was not Leah, but Rachel he was in love with and bargained for, Laban lectured Jacob that the custom of the area was that the oldest daughter was to marry before her younger sisters and Jacob had lived in the country long enough to know their customs, he should have been aware of that. So, Jacob was hooked, whether he liked it or not, but Laban came with a solution – he wanted a promise from Jacob to work another another seven years for him and for that he would get Rachel as his wife as well. Jacob settled for that.

It is very interesting to read the rest of the story which you can find in Genesis 29, (of the bible) and several other stories, all to do with the life of Jacob who married two sisters and about their life in the really olden days. The reason why I wrote this story has to do with my father reading the bible almost eighty years ago.

When it comes to the part where Jacob wakes up and father reads '...and see, it was Leah... my father's face altered as in wonderment, his eyebrows arched up, and after so many years I still wonder what he was thinking about at that very moment but that is not the only reason – after I had set up the chairs in the exercise room and was impatiently awaiting the arrival of the woman responsible for my good-feeling, our instructor Timi, see who waltzes in – Rebecca...

What a relief that I love them both.

A Tribute to my Brother John

I saw my wife pass away, her talk had ceased before she leaned heavy on me, then slumped to one side and did not move back. It felt as if I dreamed, it was a strange sensation - was what I thought I saw really happening? I had never seen anyone die before.

To make sure I felt Anne's pulse and found none, then I knew that my wife had passed away.

Since his body had quit on him it was John's desire to exchange his life on earth for the one in the presence of God, yet it was hard for me to believe that I would not be able to talk with my brother about things that he and I were the only ones familiar with.

After a few days thinking this over I wondered how I myself would wanted to be remembered, even for as little time as it takes for a funeral service to last. I think I would wanted to be remembered by some merits of value, some good or positive things achieved during my life, and then I thought about John's achievements, besides him being a loyal husband, good father and grandfather and great great-grandfather.

John was very active in church life and became a builder of two Lower mainland church- buildings, both through free labor, the Christian Reformed church in Richmond, now owned by the the Tapestry crc, where John up to his death was a member, and the first Christian Reformed church of Ladner, where all four Smid brothers churched together at one time, and where now the funeral service of John was held.

Shortly after finishing the church in Richmond John was chosen an elder, the authoritative arm of the congregation, overlooking and 'keeping watch over the flock,' the congregation.

Though in our private talks about faith and dogmas we often strayed from that old-time Calvinist religion, John seldom had a problem to return to what we had grown up with.

He was a firm believer.

John worked on the Massey tunnel in Delta BC, and after that was the right hand carpenter of the general foreman of a large house building company for several years, where he helped our brother Sidney and myself on a job, Sidney as a painter and myself as his partner.

Those early years when John and I worked together there, were of the happiest working years in my life.

We started our own company, Smid Bros construction Ltd., of which John was the manager, in the early 1960's and build successfully several houses in Vancouver, Richmond, and in Tsawassen. In Ladner we purchased an entire subdivision of twenty lots from brother Sidney and his partner for $4.000 per lot, and build houses for mostly Delta police at a purchase price of around $30.000 per house, when the salaries of police-men at that time were under $10.000 per year, and, because most of them could not qualify, even after we bypassed the real estate, we provided second mortgages to them of from $500 to $2.000.

Working hard our company grew rapidly and our assets went up every year but at times we experienced also hardships, when the housing market was in a slump and one time we were stuck with two houses in Vancouver. We were dangerously low of cash while mortgage and tax payments on these houses loomed like dark clouds over us, putting us in low spirits.

We decided on the spur of the moment to go for a ride and wound up at the north-shore mountains, climbing as far as we could and dejected sat down.

Out of frustration we started throwing down rocks until we couldn't find rocks anymore and sat down again.

“Do you think we are allowed to pray that someone will buy our houses?” I asked. We'd never thought about that before as we were taught to limit our prayers to asking forgiveness for our sins, and for when someone was very ill, but John said

“Why not, farmers pray for a good harvest, they even have a special prayer day for it.”

We did not pray for a sale but had considered it, and low and behold, after we came down from the mountain there was an offer waiting for us on one of the houses, not a very good offer, but an offer none the less.

Then came the time that a dark shadow appeared over our building activities, and worse yet, over our our friendship – we did not see eye to eye anymore, which became so bad that we decided to go each our own way. Our book keeper came up with an idea to split up our company in two parts.

One part was the name of the company and the houses under construction, the other part was 60.000 dollars plus one of the building lots for a sharply reduced price.

John chose the money.

I was the looser because John was a fine finishing carpenter which I was not, and when our main work force started their own company, was Smid Bros successfully gutted.

I missed John much more than he missed me and when my house burned and my son lost his life, and my relationship with Anne suffered, my spirit was broken and made me feel a looser.

For a while things looked up when I went a semester to college, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I did not regain my vitality in bussiness, which never had been my first choice anyways.

My dream of having a company comprising four brothers never came to pass.

I made sure to call John regularly after I heard he was very ill, and those talks were fruitful but John's health declined so much that he called his kin to say that his doctor was not able to help him any more and that he was ready to die.

Durk and myself had recently said goodbye to our dying brother, and Durk who lives more than 550km north from where the funeral was held in Ladner, together with two of his sons were planning to attend John's remembering service.

Durk's wife Brenda, who is severely disabled, was refused a place in the local recovery home of Williams Lake for a day because there was no place available.

A very frustrated Durk had to give up his plans doing the last honor to his brother and family.

By setting up the remembering service for John the family did, probably by oversight, not make John's brothers part of the service, for which I do not fault them, but I was prepared to say a few words, since I as oldest brother remembered John from his birth onward.

Here follows what I had wanted to say -

“It feels good to be in this church where once the brothers, John, Sidney, Durk and I, together with our families used to worship, and where John served several years as an elder.

John and I left a family of 9, father, the first superpake, mother, and seven children in the Netherlands 65 years ago, of whom are now four left – brothers Frank and Anne in the Netherlands and Durk and I in Canada.

Our generation will soon be gone, the next one, our children, wander already toward retirement.

It is exciting for me to see what the generation after them, our grandchildren, are going to do into this world and to witness that I like to live a little longer before I too join John's destiny.

John told me once that father had given him advise, which he never forgot - to meet things head-on after John, then about eight years old, told him that he was often scared in the dark attic of the small house where we slept. We were in the middle of the second world war and it was dark in the attic since our house had no electricity, the only light in our house was a gas-lamp in the living room, and when toward the end of the war the gas was cut off as well, dad's bike was put upside down in the living room, we turned the pedals by hand to run the dynamo that produced a little light from the bike lamp, enough to read a story by.

John literally had to feel his way along the wall to find the steep stairway to the attic which was pitch-dark, and had to feel his way around over the attic floor to find his place to sleep.

My sister and I were allowed to stay up half an hour longer, so John, Frank, and Sidney were by themselves up to the time we crawled into our beds as well, no wonder they were scared of the nightly war noises of airplanes droning over the house and the distant racket of bombing and shooting. The quiet in between was just as frightening for the young brothers as they then were anticipating more scary things to follow.

'If you're scared, dad told John, face it head-on and call it out, just say - Show yourself! and when you hear no answer, there is no danger – then you can safely go to sleep.'

I am sure that by calling all his brothers, saying that the end of his life was at hand and he was ready, that John remembered those words and before he called us, called out –

'fear of death - show yourself!'

Fear of death did not answer because his heavenly Father had already taken his fear away - and now he could safely go to sleep.

Our comfort is that our brother John then without fear or hesitation, accompanied by the singing of his beloved family, committed his life into God's hands."

The Spring of 1940

All of a sudden its there.

It is not because the calendar says it is, for me its a happy sensation coming from inside. Helpless to resist this overwhelmingly cheerful feeling, people put spring in their step, dance and smile, wave, laugh.

Cows fresh from the stall leap up in the air like children let loose from the classroom and just-born lambs jump for joy this way, that, and sideways, to abruptly stop to wonder why. Kids, let loose from school jump like deer, run like hares, yell and scream of pure joy, why?

Because its spring, and its here and now.

Spring makes me think about April the first, long time ago, when we were let loose the last of school before the summer-holiday of three eternities (three weeks) vacation from the elementary school. We ran through the streets, hitting garbage cans, and making great noise, dancing one street in and another out, singing, more like screaming at the top of our lungs -

'It is today the very last day
that I'm here my nose to pick
I say the teacher now goodbye
for his stupid arithmetic.'

My friends and I impatiently waited until the the fifth of April, the end of the legal time to hunt for bird eggs of lapwing, godwit, duck and others. (kieviet, skries)

How wonderful for a ten year old to roam over the meadows of Fryslân with a few friends on a sunny spring day, each a ten foot long jumping-pole over the shoulder with which to jump over ditches they must cross, while hunting for bird eggs. After the fifth of April bird egg hunting was forbidden to afford the birds a chance of brooding their eggs, but that was also the best time to find eggs, and it was extra exiting to know that the police would be on the lookout for illegal egg-hunters like us.

So here we were, Pete, Andy and I in green grass meadows, up to the horizon and - close to the nests of a kieviet, that beautiful bird crying out its name 'kee-wit, kee-wit,' louder and louder as she nose-dived, like a war plane upon its target, to chase us away.

We are able to see for miles but have eyes only for shallow nest with colorful kieviet eggs.

And then we hit upon three beautiful eggs in a shallow nest. We danced around it. The joy of finding a nest with eggs, gave much the same surprise and joy as finding a few colors when panning for gold, which my brother John and I did years later in Canada.

I remember us slowly swirling the angled gold-pan filled with pay-dirt partly under water, with every whirl of the pan part of dirt leaving the pan into the river. Sloshing around brings the lightest matter to the top and is disposed of, while the heavier material stays on the bottom and the heaviest of all material in the pan is? Gold.

After slowly sloshing the pan around and around finally shows only black sand clinging to the pan and if there is any gold in the sand it will appear when the black sand is nearly sloshed off. Excitingly we careful slosh a few time more and then - a bright yellow little speck peaks through the sand and you've struck gold.

It is a sensation like finding a nest of kieviet eggs.

Since we were hunting that beautiful spring day for lap wing eggs, we were ecstatic to find a few nests. We quickly divided the eggs up and hid them under our headgear, the muts or caps, which is the best way to store them, leaving our hands free to carry the pols-sticks.

What a glorious spring day.

Inhaling the country fresh air with deep breaths made us giddy. And careless. We did not watch for the person very able to spoil our fun, the policeman, who calmly peddled his bike over the narrow road between the meadows when he noticed what he expected to see, three boys with pols-sticks cavorting in the meadows. Probably the same boys of last year, from the christian school. He did not rate them very high.

Too far away to see what they were really doing, he stepped off the bike to have a better look.

He stalled the bike against the gate and proceeded on foot toward the law breakers.

Pete is the first one to spot the man of the law.

“Start ditch jumping,” he says in a tone of don't ask any questions, we know the tone and plunge the pols-sticks in the ditch and jump over it. In the meantime Pete informs us of the police being around.

“Don't look, keep on jumping, Leffert you go first.” I stay behind as Andy and Pete keep on jumping forming a cover for me. I quickly drop my eggs on the side of the ditch, kick some rubbish over it and start jumping again, but now between my friends and and the police, who is not changing his stride, and coming closer.

Pete repeats the action, then Andy, hiding the evidence, and non too soon.

Sluiter is not far away. Pretending to see him just now, we wait till he catches up to us.

“So, boys, egg hunting?” Surprised, we look at each other, then at him, and Andy says

“O no, police Sluiter, it is forbidden to hunt for eggs now.”

“Since yesterday already,” I add.

“You are good boys,” Sluiter says, while he hits hard each one of us us on top of the head.

But this time he is fooled, the egg-yolk that he supposed would run from under the caps over our faces does not materialize, since our caps are empty.

As soon as Sluiter is out of sight we roll in the grass, hollering and doing stupid just to let go of the bottled up fun, to have fooled the police.

Our egg-hunting in the off season, never mind how wrong it was, makes me still shake with laughter. When we were young we enjoyed life and found many outlets for laughter. We were happily alive and in that frame of mind we enjoyed what we were doing even though it was not good for wildlife.

It was just as wrong as it was during the hungry thirties to smuggle coffee over the border to Germany. Every Dutchman was (sort of) convinced it was wrong to smuggle, but if smugglers outfoxed the police even the dominee pastor would smile.

Besides, my mother was told by our doctor to eat an egg a day to combat her weakness and dad bought a dozen eggs from a farmer who was a deacon in the church just like my father at the cost of 11ct an egg. I still see mother eating the first one of the dozen dad bought home.

We were five young children then in 1939, I was almost eight and Sidney was not quite two.

We were all looking at mother eating that boiled egg. She cut the top part off the egg, sprinkled a bit of salt on it, and with a tea spoon scooped a tiny bit of the egg-white up and put it in her mouth, while all the kid's eyes followed it all the way down. Mother cried

“I can't do this to the little children,” and to dad,

“Take them back again.”

I felt six foot tall to bring mother two kiewit eggs even though they were only half the size of chicken eggs. Things were different in the hungry thirties, or as we said then, the crisis years.

I think our local police man, Sluiter, knew how things were in our household, a village of four hundred souls has few secrets, after all he was our backyard neighbor.

I doubt if he was really fooled by us that sunny spring day.

What I do know, what I remember, was the exhilaration I felt in that spring of 1940, when I was nine years old. Those feelings one experiences only a few times in life.

What I did not know was that only a month later German soldiers would invaded our country.

That was the start of World War II, and nothing would be the same again.

(The time goes faster than I can type, therefore is this spring story a little late.)

The Future and a Proud Great-grandfather

It had to happen one time – my first great grandchild has been accepted at the Fraser Valley University of Abbotsford. I was informed that her first choice was to study for doctor, but then she realized that animals were her real love, and so, (I have not the slightest doubt about this) we are going to have our own veterinarian in the family. My wish is that I may live long enough to see her succeed.

I have no idea what kind of animals she wants to heal in the future, but doubt if will be Frisian Holstein cows and bulls where the vets of old kept themselves busy with, but one never knows. Those vets of old were men going from farm to farm by horse and buggy or by bike in all kinds of weather by night and by day helping a cow calving, helping the farmer and his household when they were on the end of their wits when a calf was stuck in the mother-cow.

The farmer together with his help had already pulled as hard as the could on the calf's legs but the baby-calf was laying the wrong way and if she was not delivered soon, both mother and calf could die, meaning a financial blow for the farmer, who depended on the mother and child to survive for his income.

A vet cost money, even then, and therefore was the last one to be called for help, often he arrived at an impossible situation and was unable too save either the cow or the calf, in some cases both but still was presenting a bill.

That was the situation in pake Fokke's days and still during my father's generation.

Since his farmer did not own a bull, my father, when he was a young farmhand walked a young cow to the neighbors farm to have her bred. The the young cow, either scared or just wild, ran and jumped and my father slipped and fell, and instead of the cow under the bull, as was the intent, dad landed under the cow, who jumped on his shoulder, separating the arm from my dad's shoulder.

In a way it helped him on a wife, which is another story having nothing to do with a vet.

For what was considered a small accident, as he was only a young farmhand, no doctor was called and two burly farmers, used to pull calves from mother cows, tried to pull dad's arm out far enough to let it fall back into the shoulder again but after trying hard only achieved immense pain on the patient but failed to heal him.

Farmers are known not to give up easy and tried a more compassionate method. They put two kitchen tables together, heaved the poor patient on top of it with the arm hanging in between the tables, in the hope that gravity would do what they were unable to perform.

They failed again and as a last resource took him to the hospital, where over time he got repaired enough to go home. In my father's days farmers played as long as possible the roll of vet and also as in this scenario as doctor.

A young farmer in Ladner who milked about 40 cows and I were timekeeping for a church hockey league with game time in the Aldergrove rink so once a week we drove out there to see teams from the lower mainland and the US play, which was fun but this time he had to tend to a cow about to calve.

Trouble.

The calf did not move at all never mind how hard we pulled. After what seemed hours we gave up, my friend ran to the house to call the vet, leaving me behind to watch the cow in distress.

I do not like large animals, in fact I am scared of them, I am even scared of dogs, but I saw the cow's body quivering once in a while and thought something is going on inside of her.

I patted her on the belly and softly talked to her as I had read somewhere and indeed felt the cow getting calmer and then I noticed what must've been a contraction.

I tried my best to encourage her, then waited for the next spasm which was more intense, and saw some movement of the calf's legs I thought.

I kept on talking and stroking and after a few more contractions – plop – there the baby was.

I cleaned the baby-cow off and laid her where the mother could reach her.

Then I ran to the house to tell my friend about the delivery, but he was on the way back to the barn already.

I told him him that no vet was needed and thought he would be happy. He was not.

He was a bit embarrassed that I had succeeded while he gave up, I think, and asked if I had hurt his cow by really pulling on the calf's legs to get her free.

I had not even touched the calf's legs.

After all he was happy with the newborn baby-cow and named her Anne, after my wife.

So you see, Tauny Cyr, even a novice like me performed some veterinarian work but perhaps you will not be a cow-vet at all but one that looks after pets like cats and dogs or injured small animals.

I think that most money is to be made by fixing pets, nowadays people pay fortunes for dogs and their well-being, really for all kinds of animals, but whatever you will pursue Tauny, I am proud of you by your decision to work and study for something you love.

I made a wish for you at the recent butterfly-release that you will succeed in your endeavor.

Memories of my Youth #7

Memories of my Youth #7
by Hendrik Smid

At the end of the sixth grade I was deemed to have sufficient education. Father said that I had now two or three times the schooling he’d received and besides he couldn’t afford to have me go to school anymore. I dearly had wanted to go to high school, but it was out of the question, father needed me.

He landed a contract of transporting milk from the farmers to the dairy. That was done by boat. He got fl. 8.50 per week during the winter and fl. 10.50 in the summer, when there was more milk. He needed me to help him, which I didn’t mind, except, we had to work on Sundays as well.

I belonged to a bible study club that held that only the most essential work was allowed on the Sabbath, and then came to mind such things as nursing the sick, feeding animals and milking cows. Hauling milk didn’t fit that category at all.

I too felt that way but father had his obligation to honor the contract he had, was any of the church fathers providing him with money to feed a family with now nine children?

I helped make farmland out of the heather fields by removing the heather, pulling it, roots and all, by hand out of the ground. Then turn the bare ground over by shovel. It was dreary and tiresome but also very hard work. We did our own fourteen acres and after that many more for neighbors. This we did mainly in the winter and early spring. If there was frost in the ground we might thresh rye or oats or make fire wood out of tree roots. We worked for for other farmers in the summer as well.

Once a year there was a feast evening. It was organized by the young men’s bible study society combined with the young women’s society, and attended by the entire congregation. It was the most glorious part of our life. Sketches were done, a play was staged, poems were recited, it was an evening were all young people looked forward to with anticipation. The best thing of all, the young men [fifteen and over] were allowed to bring a girl home afterwards.

On my first date I was tongue-tight

But I was young then, fifteen, I think.

The biggest shock I received when I was sixteen, was the news that one of my friends had died. Hendrik Wolter Heida, the one I faithful visited when he had a broken arm. I knew he was very sick and prayed for him. In a dream that night I got a message - Hendrik passed away.

The following morning I heard the church bells of Donkerbroek toll and then I knew. My brother, coming from town, confirmed it. I was depressed and scared. Why was that message given to me? My faith of being indestructible was shaken to the core. I cried and cried and didn’t want to be consoled. I remembered my eighty-year-old grandmother once saying,

“O, if only I would have died instead of him.” I had a similar feeling. My brother Sipke was invited to the funeral because he had worked for the family, I was not.

Much later I visited the cemetery by myself, but could not find his grave. It did not matter then anymore. His last words were, “I’m going to Jesus.” His last words imprinted me deeply. Long after they comforted me. Hendrik was with Jesus and I was going there too. From there of on I knew my life was in God’s Hands.

We lived in the most beautiful place imaginable wherein a lot of small wildlife had their home, rabbits, hares, ducks, geese, the plovers, the grutto’s, and in the evening we often heard the melancholic cry of the cuckoo. Sometimes we spotted a deer.

Roads were nothing but narrow sand paths twisting through the beautiful wilderness of unending heather, seemingly going to nowhere.

My older brothers had walked to Donkerbroek. On the way back they got lost in the dark. It got to be very late and the whole family was worried.

Father lit a lantern and started to search.

Mother went up stairs and started to pray.

God heard.

The brothers got scared when they realized they were lost, and then they saw a light in the distance, they set out for the light and eventual met up with father. Everybody was happy.

It made me think of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son except here were two lost sons.

Our family more or less stayed together until 1921, but the little farm could not sustain all of us and one after the other left, and things were never the same again.

Sipke and Jan were hired out to farmers in Wolvega, Anne wound up in Donkerbroek and I went to a farmer in Bakkeveen, by the name of Herro van der Veen. Their son Albert managed the farm, but after a few years he married a young widow who had been his sweetheart one time. We had a good time together but now I had to move on since he followed the young widow and I was not old enough to manage the farm by myself.

I watched the ads in the paper and found one that came from Tynje. I biked to Tynje and found Sjoerd Mulder, the farmer. I noticed quite quickly that they were stingy. They were not prepared to give what I wanted, so I told them, “then we are not a match,” and went back home. Father, who didn’t want me home, said that he could probably make a deal with them and by himself biked to the Mulders and succeeded.

I said goodbye to my friends in Bakkeveen and Haulerwijk, knowing I would probably never return. I stayed two years there, and with pleasure. I learned how to milk and to cut grass, which helped me a lot later in life. In wintertime the work was slow. Every day I cleaned the cows whit scraper and brush, while the farmer spend most of his time in the house with his young wife.

After two years I left for Boven Knijpe to a family with a lot of children. I made three-hundred and fifteen guldens a year, which was not the greatest, even in those times.

Then I hired myself out to Bate Aukema. His wife’s name was Minke. It was there that I had an accident. I was on my way with a heifer to a steer to have her bred. I slipped and fell. The heifer jumped on my shoulder resulting in an arm - shoulder separation. A few farmers tried to fix it. They did hurt me but didn’t heal me. Finally I was taken to the hospital in Heerenveen.

It took quite a while before I could use my arm again.

Since I still couldn’t do much with the injured arm the good relationship we had soured a little. I left, and as things have a way of going sometimes, a relationship I had with a young woman there deteriorated as well, and we broke up.

In 1928 I left the Aukema’s, who were childless for Wolvega. This farmer had ten children, seven girls and three boys. It was a lively household and I had a great time. We sang a lot around the organ, which I really enjoyed. This farmer was a little too tight though, and after one year I went to his brother in law in Oosterhaule. Here I was chosen secretary of the Bible study club. I felt really at home at last. I taught him the “Mill” game, a board game that seems to have had its origin in Egypt, way back in history.

While I was there I got to know another young woman from Langezwaag. I liked her and sent her a letter asking her permission to have a cup of coffee with her. She accepted as she seemed to like me too. For two years I traveled every second Sunday from Oosterhaule to Langezwaag to spend the evening with her. I had to find a replacement milker every time I visited with my fiancee and that cost me money, 75cts.

But things were going good for me, I was now president of the bible study club and quite proud of it.

In 1929 I took my fiancee to my parents in the heather fields of Waskemeer, where she got instant approval from father, because she wore black stockings and not the worldly, flesh colored, ones.

We also visited her parents in the Maren by Hemelum.

And we were seriously thinking about marriage.

Her name? She was Jacobje Roelevink, daughter of Leffert Roelevink and Dirkje Roelevink Koopman.

Three Days and a Wish

Wednesday...

There I think to live a sedate life rocking a chair in an old folks home and out of the blue stands a tall California-tanned woman beside me hitting me with a wide smile followed by a warm embrace, right in front of a man who was braking up my quiet breakfast of poached eggs on home-made bread and coffee, who now with open mouth follows my unexpected but very welcome warm welcome.

Now, isn't that a glorious way to start a day.

I met the lady who was as she is now, visiting her ill mother a year or more ago in this facility, and from that time on visits her every few months. My visitor excused himself leaving the lady and myself talking about the coming butterfly event of Menno Place and about the wishes going with them on their way to Mexico.

“A wish is not only like a prayer,” she said, “it is a prayer. Do not be wishy washy about it but know what you are wishing for and consider where the wish is addressed to.”

She flashed again that lovely smile.

“OK, if I would release a butterfly in your name with a wish just for you, what would you like that wish to be,” I asked her. She did not wait long with her answer

“I would want that wish to be - that my offspring all would love the Lord,” she said. She colored slightly, so I knew that she meant what she said but had difficulty to say it publicly, which I understood.

Still, I pondered about that one.

How come we feel often uncomfortable talking about our faith more than when we're talking about other personal topics like being overweight for instance. Before I was ready to ask her about that she said

“I'll be around for a couple of days, so we may sea each other again soon.”

However we didn't.

Thursday...

I talked to the young Indo-Canadian woman who supervises my pill intake about wishing

“My wish would be to have a good tan to hide the blue spots on my arms, a tan something like yours,” I said, adding that I was going to hang my arms outside in the sun to obtain that.

“I know better,” she said, “why don't we exchange skin color.” After I swallowed successfully my pills she carried on

“Why is it that we often so desperately want things we know we cannot have?”

“Do you think that a person is allowed to pray for something like that?” I asked. She smiled

“If it would change my skin tone to yours, I would sure go on my knees,” she said.

“Is it so important to you?” I asked. “And if it doesn't work?”

“Have you noticed a difference?”

“Are you telling me that you really did pray about that?”

“People wish for all kinds of things and pray for it as well, but when we approach god formally in prayer we must come to him only for important things. I can live with my own skin, I am not that that desperate, and besides – I am married.”

Tomorrow hundreds of beautiful butterflies are being released from Menno place on their journey to Mexico.

That in itself is a wonder if one considers that such vulnerable insects are going by the tens of thousands worldwide on a journey of that magnitude without maps or parents to lead them to a place not larger than an acre, thousands of miles away, carrying hundreds of wishes.

some of these six were not at the ceremony

Friday...

Today is the day that butterflies are going to be released to start their journey to Mexico.

I feel an urge to join them, it is dark and rainy and if the weather does not change fast to being a little warmer the poor butterflies will perish.

First I attend the annual memorial service at Menno place chapel, in which all patients and residents who passed away in the bygone year are remembered by name and photograph on a large screen.

The chapel where the dignified service is held is filled to capacity, without a sermon, but with appropriate passages out of the bible and suitable poems, alternated by some of the most loved hymns sung solo by a young colored woman who sang them with so much feeling, it filled me with joy one moment and with tears the other.

I remember some I have been close to – Dave, 102, born in Siberia, who at birth was going to be thrown away by the woman assisting his mother because 'he was a weakling who would not live anyways'.

Bernie, 93, a born again Christian who frequently asked a blessing before our lunch, and spend the war years in northern Manitoba as punishment for being a conscientious objector.

Maaike, 87, born in Berlikum, or Beltsum as we called the town, that was only a stone-throw away from where I was born. One year ago near Christmas Maaike and I sang together the angel song Ere zij God in dutch, (glory to god) before a few dozen female university students volunteering at Menno place.

The butterfly release ceremony afterward, was started a few years ago as an additional ceremony, and to me the most important part of this ceremony are the wishes going with the colorful fluttering creatures, the least likely beings to go on such a long and dangerous journey.

What were the wishes of my great grandchildren?

I haven't got the faintest idea, perhaps they didn't have any, but I had.

I wished a happy life for my children steaming into retirement age.

I wished a happy life for my grandchildren who have taken over or soon will.

I wished a happy life for my 13 great grandchildren, 2 girls and 11 boys.

I wished a happy life for a very important friend in Fryslân, including her family, and was helped with that by Dea, the only one who was held by my wife only months before she died.

The release of the butterflies was fun but short as the fluttering creatures were anxious to leave for a warmer destination and I don't blame them.

There is a Native legend about wishes and butterflies that goes like this -

A Native American Legend

If you desire a wish to come true
you must first capture a butterfly
and whisper your wish to it.
The butterfly will carry
your wish to the heavens.

As the butterfly makes no sound
its voice cannot be heard
by anyone but the Great Spirit,
Who will grant your wish
as a reward for setting the
butterfly free to return to Him

there is always something to do, something important, even after letting a butterfly fly.

Memories of my Youth #6

Memories of my youth #6
by Hendrik Smid

It was tough, sometimes mother had literally not a penny in the house.                            That happened once when she was in her late thirties, and on one occasion she sang a psalm ...but the Lord shall bring relief. Psalm (42:8 or 9) And He did.                                    In the afternoon, who came hobbling out of the woods? Old Albert, that’s who.                   He came to mother for half a pound of butter. [Mother churned butter too] Mother’s fortunes didn’t change dramatically, for Albert was a miser, but relief had come.

So when the time arrived for Lumke, the oldest child, to go to school, mother insisted that she’d go to the Christian school. Father asked what that would have to cost and his hair stood right on end when he heard the answer. The cost of the buildings as well as the salaries of the teachers had to be born by the parents. But mother said

“Even if I have to eat dry bread, the children are going to have a Christian education.”      She got it her way, all her children were brought up in the Christian school.                       For years our parents carried their pledged money to school, every week twelve to fifteen cents, depending on the amount of children attending school. Children of farmers paid more and a supplement fund was available to help unemployed and sick parents.

Before I was allowed to go to school I had to be vaccinated against the smallpox. The pox came up as it should and I was allowed to go. It was a half-hour walk, but I didn’t mind, I was proud to go with my slate and pencil, and sponge eraser box.                                           I felt like a king.

My first teacher was a son of rev. Groot-Nibbelink, a kind man, a little too kind, he had a hard time to keep order in the class.                                                                                    Relieve came for him when he got drafted and after his stint in the army he managed to become principal of a school in the province of Zeeland.

My second teacher was from Groningen, who started by drawing a line on the blackboard. Who was tardy or disobedient got his name under that line and got a detention, he also taught us what we considered nice songs about cats catching mice and birds, which we had to act out too, but when I demonstrated that at home to the pleasure of everybody, father got really upset.

My father worked in Germany that year where he stayed for half a year.                                After about three months mother received a post card, it showed a Bavarian with a big mustache, with the message                                                                                                “Dear wife and children it is well with me I hope with you too From Fokke Smid.”

“Another one of those mustaches” grumbled mother, happy to hear something from her husband, to whom she wrote to every week. My father wrote after that no more, since it was only three months that he would be home anyways, no need to waste another stamp.

By the time father came home was all the misery forgotten. Father was frugal, he saved his money in a leather pouch, which he carried on his skin, supported by a strap around the neck, for as long as he was in the foreign country.                                                               Nobody was going to steal his money.

It has been a another mystery to me how Pake Fokke and Beppe ever got together.                    Pake was not brought up 'in the faith' and therefore not allowed to participate in the baptism of their children. Beppe Aukje was. Beppe stood by herself to answer 'yes' to the questions asked by the minister before the baptism was performed on three or four of their children.

The minister told pake that it would be wise and beneficial for his family, to be able to stand by his wife, and pake finally agreed. He did confession of faith and when their fifth baby was born, stood by his wife in front of the congregation, to answer 'yes' to the questions asked on the baptism form, when their son Bernardus was baptized in that terrible cold year of 1913, and did the same when later their sons Roelof, Daniel, and Bertus were born.  lex

Another riddle to me was the outright racist songs heit taught me. This one goes about the church bells of Haarlem tolling bim bam, abruptly changing into – the beul, the beul, (the hangman) of Haarlem, who lashes the jew, the jew cries, the jew cries, o what hurt my posterior.

That my father would teach me that has always been a riddle to me, but that was not the only racist ditty he taught me.                                                                                                         There was another one even worse, which I as a five year old, proudly recited and acted out going from door to door in the neighborhood for candies.

How that fitted in with my heit's faith, teaching us about god's son, the Jew Jesus, I could never understand, and neither could pake Fokke obviously, because he says somewhere 'if that is all they teach at that christian school, his children were better off at the public school and – 'which doesn't cost me money either.' lex

Father said, “Is that all you get taught at that Christian school?” I was not allowed to sing that kind of song anymore, and got orders to tell that to the teacher.

So I refrained from singing in class and when the teacher asked why I didn’t sing, I didn’t dare to tell him, so I was detained.                                                                                          I didn’t want to tell my parents of my punishment for fear that father would scold me, so I carried the injustice of it all, as I saw it, by myself, deep within my heart.