Jaap and Hester and Bets and Herman and Heini and Toni, the story of a friendship beyond wars.

I wanted to do this blog around May 4th, as my contribution to the endless goings on around the memory of WWII. We are in the gardens, so this is late. Be patient, the relevant part is coming. First, we are setting the scene.

For a nature loving city child even an urban back yard was joy.

My paternal grandparents lived in The Hague, within walking distance of a beach, on a spacious triangular square [sic] with a large planting of shrubs and flowers in the middle. Notenplein 50 was a ground floor flat. No front yard, the windows of the living room were flush with the sidewalk. Anyone could look in, though people rarely did. I loved the feeling of being both snugly inside and almost outside. 

I thank Shers Gallagher for sending me this picture!

A dear online friend sent me this picture after she read the post. There were no parked cars in my memories.


There was a backyard.  It had a small paved section, then a lawn, and in the middle of the lawn a gold reinette apple tree. At the very back there was a chicken coop. I was a fearful child with no pets at home, leery of life forms that possessed teeth, claws, beaks or talons and could not be reasoned with. I have no memory of  the chickens themselves. I could not tell you what they looked like and if we actually got eggs from them. But to this day, years after I have kept many a flock for both eggs and meat, the sound of chickens clucking reminds me of waking to the pleasure of being in Opa and Oma's house. 

Our yard was separated from the neighbours by a sturdy hedge. A small section had been removed on one side, so we could visit Opa's brother's house next door by going around the back, from kitchen door to kitchen door. To a city child this was a delicious bit of country living. 

In 1961 I was preparing for the grueling final exams for the Gymnasium. Somehow it was decided I should spend the Easter vacation at Notenplein 50, because the place would provide more quiet for studying. Oma was widowed by this time.
The chickens were gone, the apple tree in rough shape. But the gap in the hedge was still there, and in the evenings we would go watch TV with Oom Herman and tante Bets.

This is where we get to the title for this post. They had company too: long time friends Toni and Heini, who were, gasp! German. We did not know any Germans personally. The memory of the war and occupation was still quite fresh. As my brother said, we were raised to be without prejudice, except for Germans. Though our always fair father admitted there might be some good ones. Mind you, he added you had to bring a flashlight to find them. So here were these nice old people, and it turned out they were friends not only of our great uncle and his wife but of our grandparents as well.

The three couples had known each other since the twenties, brought together by the same international choir "The Voice of the People", that had led Opa and Oma  to practice Danish. Heini and Toni were sweet and simple people without a lot of education. They were certainly no one's embodiment of evil.
Heini was minus one arm, courtesy of WWI. Their only child, a son, had been sacrificed to WWII. 

Oma's only sister, who did not have the protection of a gentile husband, had died in January 1945 in Auschwitz. I never realized till much later how close the sisters had been. Rosa was a single mother and worked while my grandmother cared for her daughter. As a child I knew nothing of this and it was never talked about. I did not even know that Oma was Jewish till I was 12. I wonder now what it had been like for all of them, how they maintained the friendship through the years. 

I like the fact that they did. 

On 1949 and the timing of wish fulfillment

Some memories from the year 1949. Yes, I do remember Harry Truman being president. The memory is that of a newscaster intoning the name as a man in a hat steps off a plane. It is indelibly linked to tinny music, the smell of french fries, and Popeye the sailor man.

Back then movie meant one thing: Cineac. (Picture from wikipedia.) Dad would take us there once in a while as a special treat. The Cineac in the Reguliersbreestraat, in between the Munt and Rembrandts plein, was a place where a one hour program, a combination of newsreels and cartoons, ran continuously.  The black and white newsreels were part of the overall experience, associated with the anticipated pleasure of the cartoons to come. 

One usually had to stand in line to get in. The narrow street where you waited was home to a number of snack bars, and many of the people patiently waiting their turn passed the time with a pointy paper bag filled with mysterious steamy strips of something. It was years before I got a taste. The air was redolent with the smell of what I now know to have been french fries. 

I loved all cartoons, nay, all moving images. Had I been born later I would have been such a TV addict. Popeye was a favourite because of the spinach connection. The visits to cartoon heaven were partly meant to encourage us kids to eat our spinach, prescribed by the pediatrician. In the spring of 1948 Jaap and I had almost died from an allergic reaction to a pinworm remedy that was later removed from the market. Anaemia was an after effect, hence Popeye.

Now for the wish fulfillment. In the summer of that year, the year I turned 6, I had been obsessed with the wish for a doll house. We did not have children's books but my parents would tell us stories. Some were traditional fairy tales featuring big bad wolves but some were tailor made. During that summer the happy ending of a tailor made story would always include reception of a dollhouse. 

Ah, the perfidy of timing!

The wish became reality on Saint Nicholas Eve of 1949. 
Dad's mother, father and sister had lovingly crafted me a dollhouse. It was a simple wooden rectangle open on top and front, divided into three equal compartments for living room, kitchen and bedroom. The furniture was exquisite. Later Jaap and I played with it lots. But back on that Sinterklaas avond in 1949, there was a bit of an anti climax. I remember people trying to draw my attention back to the doll house and me feeling vaguely guilty. You see, the other gifts included two simple books. I had just learned to read and all I really wanted to do was sit down with them. The cheap little books eclipsed the long desired doll house. I liked the doll house, but I was not ecstatic like I would have been a few months earlier. 

One part was salvaged: The furniture included a little book case complete with hand made books, see here.

The book case is an exact replica of the solid oak case that hung on the wall in our Amsterdam living room. My grandfather had made it for his brainy son. It was gifted to me when we moved away from that flat. My son has it now. I am happy to report to the ancestors that it is lovingly cared for. Opa had carved the miniature books and Oma and tante Betty had hand painted them, some even with titles. The ones on the top shelf have names: Ien, Japie, Miek, our cousin. It is a treasured possession and lives in the healing room.

I wish I could go back in time to express my gratitude for all the love that went into its making.

Homage to a teacher on the Ides of March.

March 15 1958. Latin class in grade 2 of the Lyceum, the first year we had the subject. Greek had to wait another year. The education we received, Gymnasium, was supposed to be the perfect preparation for the lofty halls of academe. In retrospect we were being trained to be perfect seventeenth century gentlemen.

The teacher gave everyone a chocolate bar to commemorate an assassination that had taken place some 2000 years ago. I remember that small incident every March 15. Not because of the candy, but because he was such a great teacher.

Kees de Keizer was only 24 at the time, still a graduate student. This meant nothing to us. He was a teacher and therefore on the other side of the dividing line between Us and Them. He was a grownup and that was that.

In spite of his youth and inexperience he was one of the best teachers I ever had. A tall, gangly young man, he had no problem dominating the classroom and keeping order. An orderly classroom is one of the prerequisites for a good learning experience. I don't think it is something one can learn. There may be some methods and tricks, but above all a teacher of teenagers needs a certain animal tamer quality, an inner stance of strength. It is a good thing I never tried to become one. I had a hard enough time getting my kids to pick up their toys.

Mr. de Keizer loved his subject. He brought the classics to life like no other teacher ever did. The memory of his lessons in Ovid still makes me smile. We had to learn reading hexameters, a tricky business since certain syllables can be either long or short, depending on the rest of the verse. Said he: "If you can learn to dance, you can learn to scan verse." 

Somehow my feet have never been able to connect to a beat in my ears. There is a block somewhere. Past lives in a monastery would explain much but that is of course pure speculation. Anyway, I loved Latin, hexameters and all. In spite of never learning to dance I excelled at scanning . It is sad that the brain has retained no more than a few fragments. 
One such fragment, from the story of the great flood, pops up every time I see a picture of a flooded landscape.

Terra ferax, dum terra fuit, sed tempore ab illo
pars maris et latus subitarum campus aquarum.

Fertile land, while land it was, but at that time
part of the sea and a wide field of sudden waters.

Once in a while I think it might be fun to take a refresher course, but let's get real. There are gardens to plant and too many kittens on Facebook.

Meanwhile, today I raise a glass (of carrot juice) to the memory of a beloved teacher.

A Platform in time. Thoughts on aging.

You know you are getting old when a queen announces her abdication and you remember the coronation of her mother. 

This refers to Dutch royalty. Juliana, mother of the present queen Beatrix took over from her mother Wilhelmina in September 1948. I was 5 years old and remember it vividly.

There was a carnival on an empty field in our neighbourhood, and massive decorations in downtown Amsterdam. The decorations mainly took the form of lights strung along buildings, the way we now see all the time in midwinter. In those drab years immediately post-war it was miraculous. We took the tram downtown to go see the 'verlichting'. The term used translates literally as 'enlightenment', indeed the same term used to describe the 18th century intellectual movement.

We had moved to Amsterdam from Nijkerk, in the country, in the spring of 1947. Our old friends and neighbours from Nijkerk came to stay with us for a few days with their  kids. Gertie was the oldest, my age. He and I were good buddies and planned to get married when we got older. I remember having the mad giggles playing on the guest bed on the floor in my parents' bedroom. After a few years we lost touch with the old Nijkerk neighbours, but I was quite thrilled when I later got a baby brother with that name.

Anyway, about aging in general. I have never understood the desire to lie about age, or the age-denying platitudes that people spout. "You're only as old as you feel." "Age is just a number." And so on.

Age is part of what defines us, much as our place of birth or family of origin does. Born in the Netherlands in 1943, I am young enough to have no conscious memory of the war, but old enough to be marked by the fresh collective memory of occupation and by the time of scarcity that followed. This has nothing to do with health, ability or lack thereof. Age is our platform in time.

When my children were small I would wish I could freeze them for a while at a particularly sweet stage. But then the next stage would bring its own joys. I feel much the same about my own aging. So far, I am enjoying the process, including the need to acknowledge I might need help with certain arduous tasks. At any stage in life, happiness is a choice.

Walks with Johan part 2: Noordwijk aan Zee.

I have been home since Friday afternoon. An uneventful trip with the help of the same good people who got me out, in reverse. It is starting to feel more normal. Funny, usually I feel as if I have barely been away the moment I get back. This time it took a few days. I would emerge from dreams disoriented and wondering in which house in Holland I was. 

I am starting to feel pretty normal, though disoriented in time. I am suffering from season lag, not jet lag. 
Normally I work my butt off in summer. By November I am happy to retreat indoors for a while, read and play internet. This year of course it was all different. This week is for resting up, but next week I look forward to taking up some volunteer work and to let reflexology clients know that I am back. 

Anyway, time to record some Dutch pictures. To start with; Noordwijk aan Zee.

In our childhood vacation time meant one thing: BEACH.  Starting in 1953 we rented a place in Noordwijk for the whole month of August. One of my mother's sisters lived there. Her daughter Anneke still does, as do her grown son and daughter. Anneke is six years my senior, and was a glamorous entity whose doings I followed from afar. But Margreet kept going to Noordwijk long after the rest of us, and developed a close relationship with our cousin in spite of the 14 year age difference. We always had planned to go visit together but never got around to it. This time I did. Anneke and her partner Leo were the kindest hosts. 
We yacked our heads off catching up on the doings of a lifetime, and Anneke  drove me around old haunts. The lighthouse is one of the few things that have not changed. 

The waterfront hotels used to be right above the beach. The sea was visible from the street in front, known as the Boulevard. Now a strip of dunes separates the walk from the view. It is all part of the ongoing  struggle to keep the North Sea from flooding the Low Countries. They actually built a dike in front of the narrow existing dune, then covered the dike with dune stuff.
The illustration below comes from here: http://www.kustvisie.nl/noordwijk.php

A viewing platform was built at the Southern end of the Boulevard.. 

There is also a path through the new dune with a view of the sea.

The day was sunny but very cold with a stiff breeze, perfect for a walk on the beach. At first the plan was to just walk the sea path, but once I saw the sea there was no way I was going to let a wonky knee keep me off the beach. It was glorious. 

We walked over the beach from the Southern end to the lighthouse. One of the beach pavillions was still up. We enjoyed a coffee in a sheltered sunny spot out of the freezing wind but still with a view of the sparkling waves. 

By the way, I never post pictures of other people unless I have their express permission, which is why my inspiring 75 year old cousin is not celebrated here. Both she and her 84 year  old partner are prime examples of aging well. They play tennis 3 times a week, bridge to sharpen the mind, and do lots of walking and cycling. Way to go Anneke and Leo, thanks for the good role model!

We walked back over the Boulevard and the sea path, then I insisted on a tour of the Hoofd Straat, below.

In our childhood, when the weather was too foul for even a trip to the dunes we would make a Boulevard/Hoofd Straat round.  We'd either get a treat of ice cream or French fries at the lighthouse end of the Boulevard, OR Jaap and I were given a quarter for a tiny toy at the general store in the middle of the street. It has been replaced by Blokker, a ubiquitous chain of household goods. Ah, the joy and agony of decision making!  The toys in question would reliably fall apart after half a day, but that did not matter. Most of the pleasure was in making a selection. Noordwijk will always bring fond memories.

And then there were three.

Back in the days when pictures were black and white and a rare occasion, our parents used to pose us children in a row. Here is one taken on vacation in Noordwijk in the fifties.

Later we repeated the ritual whenever we all got together, which was not very often once I moved to Canada. This one was sometime in the nineties.

The one below was taken in 2004. I am the one with the plate on my lap, sister Margreet is on the right, leaning against her twin. I love this picture of her. She was always so happy when we were all together.

The next one was taken during the day we all spent together in 2009, just before our mother's funeral.

There will be no more sibling line-ups. Our baby sister died on October 13 at 11 in the evening.

Margreet never married. She loved her work, steady night shift in an institution for the mentally handicapped. Apart fom her circle of co-workers the family of origin was IT for her. She lived close to our parents and was the loving rock of support in their old age.

 She made a truly brilliant exit.

Margreet had been diagnosed with lung cancer in August 2011. The prognosis was originally for 2-4 months, but was then changed to between one and 2 years. She was ecstatic about the extra time. She faced her fate with great courage and equanimity. She got all her affairs in order in the beginning of the process and made the most of her last year of life. When people expressed their admiration and amazement she shrugged and said: " Of course I could spend my last months crying in a corner, but what good would that do?" For a devoted sports fan like Margreet this was a good year. The Olympics happened in her time zone, and her soccer club won the national championship. Go Ajax!

She had no symptoms beyond getting a bit out of breath when she walked uphil. We all expected her to keep going for a while yet. On September 30 2012 she enjoyed a windy walk on the beach with  brother Jaap. Margreet had a wonderful time. When she told me about it on the phone she mentioned that this was one more thing to cross off the bucket list. 

Three days later she woke up to find her right arm paralyzed. The tumor had metastasized into her brain. The rest went insanely fast. Sunday she was still well enough to enjoy a walk on the hospital grounds with her twin bother Gerrit.

When I arrived in the Netherlands on Thursday morning Jaap and Marielle, my SIL, were there to take me straight to the hospital. Gerrit was with Margreet. The brothers had prepared me but seeing her was still a shock. She had stopped eating and drinking and was not responsive. She cried a lot. The only thing she said was "yes" to everything. Once the neurologist came in she responded a bit more. We arranged for palliative care at home. Margreet had had all the relevant conversations with her family doctor  months earlier. What a wonderful, civilized way to do things!

Once she knew she was going home Marg perked right up. She said a few words. We sat around her bed and told each other stories of her life. She laughed with us. By 6 PM everything was in place: a hospital bed in her living room, 24/7 nursing care and a prescription for morphine to keep her comfortable. Margreet settled in with a huge smile on her face. We shared one more memory/joking moment. She fell asleep, happily. And that was pretty much it. Apart from a bit of response while she was cared for by the nurse the next morning she did not regain consciousness. She died peacefully at home on Saturday evening with her hand in mine, listening to relaxation music with ocean sounds. She loved the sea.

We are now preparing for the memorial on Thursday. Don't worry sis, you'll have a great send-off.

Knitting inside the lines.

The conventional wisdom these days is that children are inherently creative, and will go nuts with crayons if only given the opportunity. 

Dear reader, I have a confession to make: I used to love colouring inside the lines. Not only that, my favorite kind of colouring book had the same illustration on two sides: the left side was coloured, the right side was for imitating the model. The more accurately my rendition would approach the example, the happier I'd be. 

For my ninth birthday I received 18 Caran d'Ache colouring pencils, the Rolls Royce of crayons. The metal box they came in included a little paintbrush. You could wet it and go over your coloured surfaces to get an aquarel effect. I got a huge new colouring book too. It kept me busy for many happy hours. The other present for that birthday was a thick hardcover, linen-bound book with short fiction written for children and youth by many well-known Dutch writers of the day. "Omnibus voor de jeugd." was read and re-read and I still remember many of the stories. My brother still has it. I might reclaim it one of these days. We digress. It's my blog and I'll ramble if I want to.

Now what does this have to do with knitting? Just this: I am utterly incapable of improvising. In order to create anything I have to have an exact pattern, designed for the wool in question. 

Once I got over the initial confusion described earlier I rather enjoyed knitting. My favorite creations were Cowichan-style sweaters made with white Buffalo wool. They not only went fast because the yarn is so thick, the patterns were designed exactly for that wool. I even mastered the Fair Isle technique, albeit only with two colours.

There was also an ambitious tweedy oatmeal-coloured cardigan that I made for my husband while pregnant with our son. It had a V neck and buttons in front that never came out exactly right. He wore it around the house, but it had been meant as a classy piece of apparel. The last successfully finished item was a beautiful teal green sweater for moi, with a mock turtleneck and a beautiful pattern of fake cables and lacey holes. It was a wee bit shorter than I had intended but I wore it for years.

That was all a while ago. How long ago? Let's look at the tragic history of the final endeavor. It was a fisherman-style kid's sweater in burgundy coloured acrylic. Cheap yarn, because I wanted to practice the cables. I was smart enough to start it a few sizes too big because I knew it would take me a while. Made it size 6. Alex, then known as Sander, was 2 at the time. He is now 32. By the time the darn thing got finished it would have been too small even for the grandson who had appeared in the meantime. I got as far as having a front and a back and two sleeves. Once I started putting it together it was clear that something was wrong with the proportions. The panels were much too narrow. A more inventive person might have salvaged the piece by knitting strips to insert between the front and back panel and inside the sleeves. Alas, the reality of such clever engineering is beyond me.

The failure turned me off knitting for years. But lately the urge has been growing. So I am investigating knitting sites. And came across this clever girl who recycles thrift shop sweaters by unraveling the yarn and selling it. You gotta love it! http://www.sweatergirlknit.com/yarns.html

How our Dutch family got into English Christmas carols, way back when.

In terms of religious practice, my family of origin was a mixed bag. Mom was a devout member of the Dutch equivalent of the United Church, a liberal protestant. Dad labeled himself a humanist. His childhood  home had been dominated by devotion to the improvement of humanity's fate here on Earth. At his funeral the music included the socialist hymn "Morgenrood". 

The fear of WW 2 was still strong in the air and especially in my mother's mind. I was in my early teens before I found out that Dad's mother was Jewish. Mom swore me to secrecy, in case there was ever another war and some bad people would take Dad away. I am not making this up.

As far as I know Dad's childhood had been secular and dreidel-free, though he once mentioned that his grandparents, who lived above them, had a Mezuzah on their door. And at his mother's funeral he said Kaddish. We wish we had asked more questions.

When Mom and Dad married Dad agreed to send future kids to Christian elementary schools, in order to compensate for the lack of church going at home. I was a devout little Christian girl till age 14 when critical thinking kicked in. Dad was mainly silent on the topic, but made no bones about his objections to fear-filled forms of religion that suck the joy out of here-and-now life.

Christmas was a rare time when Dad would set his normal cynicism aside and pretend. He'd read the Christmas story from the Bible, and join in singing carols around the Christmas tree, which was small but real and lit with real candles. 

Once in a great while he would even deign to accompany Mom to church, a sweet little chapel hidden inside the block of flats where we lived.

In 1954 Mom befriended the wife of the organist of the Anglican church in Amsterdam. They lived around the corner and had children of similar ages. For a while a friendship actually flourished between the couples. And somehow, our family got into Christmas Carols. Dad liked them because he was a total Anglophile, and because the songs were cheerful. We even attended a Christmas service in the ancient English church in Begijnhof, a truly magical place hidden in a busy part of downtown.

I still love the traditional carols. The childhood memories make them all the more special. 

I find deep meaning in simply celebrating Earth's turnings. I take my Gaia plain, but deities of choice can be inserted if desired.  The huge fires on Solstice felt so right! But meaningful traditions have to grow organically. The process can't be forced. I would have loved to belt out some hearty Herald Angels and other traditional carols as we stood in the circle.

A monopoly summer

Originally posted to Multiply July 21 2011

B.C. is having a cool, wet summer. We have had them before. This one is at least changeable, with some sun in between the showers and not too cold.  We are not being flooded or burnt out of our home, and the woods are loving it. There is no need for shlepping garden hoses around either. While I miss true heat, we should be grateful.


But what do we do with a grandchild on vacation when it is not beach weather? We play Monopoly, that's what. The grandson and I have been enjoying vigorous battles. The score is 7-7 so far.  He is at the other grandparents now, we have joint custody for the summer. :).


The game takes me back to rainy vacation days in summer houses in Noordwijk. My oldest kid brother Jaap and I played it endlessly. I hardly ever won, no matter how good my strategy or how promising my possessions. Somehow Jaap always managed to produce a stash of money that he claimed to have surreptitiously saved. Silly honest me believed him.
It simply never occurred to me that someone would systematically cheat, something he cheerfully confessed to about 40 years later. Both my brothers believe that cheating is an expected part of  game playing. I do not. Foolish naive me. 


K got the game for his 9th birthday, when he was still obsessed with Sponge Bob Squarepants. How does anyone come up with characters like that anyway? Like my SIL said, "substances must have been involved.." We digress. I finally know the order of the place names, vehicles etc in that version. But the Dutch version is engraved in my DNA. The following is just for my own entertainment. You can stop reading now.


"Ons Dorp" (Dorps straat, Brink) 
Arnhem: Steenstraat, Ketelstraat, Velperplein.  
Haarlem: Barteljoris straat, Zijlweg, Grote Hout straat.
Utrecht: Neude, Biltstraat, Vreeburg
Groningen: A-Kerkhof, Grote Markt, Heerenstraat
Den Haag: Spui, Plein, Lange Poten
Rotterdam: Hofplein, Blaak, Coolsingel
Amsterdam: Leidse straat, Kalverstraat.


PostScript:
The Boy spent some birthday money on a new version. I HATE it.
Canadian version: Instead of picking cities for each colour with real street names each colour group has a random bunch of cities. What is expensive Vancouver doing in the cheap light-blue section?
But what I really hate is the electronic banking machine. Instead of the cheerful shuffling around of pretend bills non-bankers seem to spend half their game time waiting for the machine to deal with cards. It also make it harder to keep track of your money. I wonder if this is a deliberate ploy by The Powers That Be to get us all used to the cash-less society? 

You hunt, I gather. Division of labour in the empty nest.

Update. This was written in 2011. Fairness demands that I mention that after the car accident/cancer episode  in 2012 Old Dutch has been taking on a larger share of the daily grind, without being nagged. It has been very nice.

Let's face it. For someone who is supposedly a card-carrying feminist the division of labour in our empty nest ought to be unacceptable. 

Sometimes I feel as if I am letting the side down by doing 99% of the daily grind of cooking and cleaning. The Man makes coffee in the morning and will occasionally do the dishes. He would do the latter more often if asked, but has creative reasons for leaving the chore to late in the day. I'd just as soon get them out of the way and do the rest of the kitchen while I am at it. Men(many young ones are better) Do The Dishes. Special shirts may be involved. Women just clean the kitchen.

These last few years my little household has been  functioning reasonably well. I'll never be Martha Steward and have no desire to be. But people can drop in without being met by frenzied scurrying. That only took about 40 years. 

The question of housework used to be frought with strife.

My born-organized mother was a genius at it, and at the same time resented it bitterly. As the oldest child (b.1943) I bore the brunt of her years of discontent.

Mom had a brilliant career and lovely gardens later in life.  But my childhood coincided with the years (1947-1960) she was cooped up in a small upstairs apartment with 4 children and no outlet for her burning ambition except the management of spouse and offspring.

Beware, all ye who wax nostalgic for the fifties. Social stability came at a heavy price. 

Mom ruled her roost with an iron hand. It was easier to do it all herself than to teach others to do more then post dinner dishes. Once serious homework kicked in after grade 6 I was excused from household chores anyway: I was destined for greater things! Another blog sometime about the double messages of that time. 

In spite of having a good example I never picked up Mom's tricks of the trade. I inherited neither Mom's boundless energy nor her gift for organization. Once I left home my housekeeping was an erratic wave pattern of gleeful rebellious chaos and crisis cleaning when the spirit hit.

As for sharing the chores, during our student years I rather enjoyed playing house in my own way. Besides, this was before the second wave of feminism raised our awareness.

More blogs about the long F word are brewing, but let me just say what feminism means to me: simply the freedom to be an individual first, and member of a group second. I was not angry at the men in my life. I was not into splitting hairs about politically incorrect language.

Resentment set in in 1972, the first time The Man was not working and I was.

I had been pretty naive, thinking the benefits of feminism to men were obvious. Who wants to carry that heavy burden of being the breadwinner all alone?

Surprise! Like many women of my generation I found that my otherwise liberal, left-wing spouse totally resisted doing housework, even when he was not wage-working and I was. Stressful times followed. Never mind the boring detail. Let's just say the issue simmered away for decades.

I finally gave up trying to change the mindset of a guy born into a son-worshipping family in the year 1936. With just two of us and a decent dwelling keeping the place nice is not the burden it used to be. I enjoy cooking.

 So here we are today.

He maintains the infra-structure. When the well drops down to dangerously low levels he is the one who manages the system by going down to the pump-house in the dark and cold to fill the tank manually, so the pump won't run dry. In winter he looks after snow removal. He maintains the cars. He takes garbage out and drives it to the dump. He used to climb up on to the roof to remove snow. More recently he climbed a ladder to paint some wood work below the roof.

All biggish jobs that only need doing once in a while. In short: He Hunts.

I cook and clean. All small things that need doing  daily. 
I Gather.

It may not be totally fair or politically correct. I am happy to report that our offspring has freed itself from sexist stereotypes. 

But overall there is peace, contentment and good food that is appreciated. For the remainder of this life time with this Old Dutch it will do.

Desk tops and knitting class

The year was 1952, the scene the third grade classroom in Holland.

Post-war Europe was more like a full employment version of the thirties than like Norman Rockwell North America.

As part of the regular curriculum girls were taught knitting, sewing by hand, darning socks, fixing holes in sweaters, and other skills indispensable to any housewife in the thirties. The boys got to do things with wood.

On the first day of knitting class we were given a ball of pale-green cotton yarn and shown how to cast on and "insteken, omslaan, doorhalen, af laten glijden" in other words make the four moves that constitute a knitting stitch.

I was utterly bewildered, especially by the part where one knitting needle dives underneath the other to pull the loop of yarn through.

After hours of strenuous effort I had produced a tangled mass of knots, black from my sweaty grimy little hands. We had a special teacher for needlework. The combined efforts of her and the classroom teacher could not unravel what I had wrought. They had never seen anything like it.

The state of my computer reminds me of that piece of work.

I often minimize something I am working on and come back to it later. I am always de-cluttering and re-cluttering.  As a Moon in Pisces with Venus in Virgo, I like order but tend to create chaos in my wake.  There is a blog brewing on ADD and the art of filing but that will have to wait.

What I want to know is: how in Pallas' name did I end up with a desktop folder inside the contact list that you get when you click contacts in the windows email program? C:\Users\Ien\Contacts\Desktop 2\Desktop

In retrospect a while ago my handy shortcuts had suddenly disappeared.I shrugged and made new ones. I will spare us the details but when I tried to get rid of the weird desktop things stopped working. 

It may be time for a refreshing reformat, but first I want to make sure my precious stuff is safely on a disk. There is no urgency, gardens first. But I do wonder how I did it.