Index
One of my friends worked with IBM. He was a custom office engineer and repaired IBM office machines. Through his work he came in contact with many office girls and always had different dates. One day he called my apartment and asked me what I was doing, I said nothing. He said please help me out, I have this double date and I need someone to come along for tonight. I said John what does she look like. He said she is very nice and good looking. So I decided to come along. John, my friend, drove a brand new 1957 four door Mercury. The girls we were going out with lived together. When we arrived at their apartment John told me that the girl I was going to date was a red head. Somehow I never liked to date red heads. I was always attracted to girls with dark hair. There was nothing I could do, it was too late to back out from my date. Besides her red hair she was much taller than I. We went to a private club outside in the country. There was a large dance floor with a bar around. My date was too tall and I didn't feel like dancing with her. So I hung around the bar most of the time, hoping somebody else would ask the red head for a dance. John wanted to know what was wrong with me. I told him the girl was nice but not my type. She was so tall that I couldn't even hold on to her when we were dancing.
The girl was very nice looking but not what I wanted for that night. After the dance as we drove through the country side John decided to stop for a little while at a lover's lane. I said to him in Dutch, "you must be out of your mind having me sit in the back seat with her". But he didn't pay any attention to what I said and started loving it up with his girlfriend. I sat in the back seat with the red head and she was trying to get me interested, but I didn't have the slightest feeling for Her. I never felt so uncomfortable in my life. After we sent the girls home I told John off. I told him don't you ever call me for a blind date again. It was something I had never done before, but it was my first and last blind date I ever had. John was much smaller than I, and since I didn't want to date the redhead again, he dated her for many months. He told me that he liked tall women.
John and I were invited to a prom at a small college near Rochester in up-State New York. For that occasion I had bought a blue navy colored suit with a bow tie. I didn't even know what the work prom meant, but I found out when I got there. That evening my date was very nice. I found out that her father owned a Buick dealer-ship in Rochester, New York. We danced the night away and had a lot of liking for each other. But after the dance was over and we took them back to their college dormitory I never got in touch with her again.
I always liked to wear very expensive and nice clothes. Wherever I went I was always dressed well. Many of my friends kept persuading me to go study with some of the girls I was dating. They said that I would feel bad later on by letting some of the good chances pass by. I wasn't ready yet to go study with any kind of girl. There were so many things in life I had yet to do. How could I get serious with any kind of relation. I didn't even have a decent job yet. The job I had was good for the money I was making, but there was no future at all. I dated a girl from the Syracuse University. Her parents were German and we were able to converse in the German language. I met those girls in a pub close to the University campus. I was very familiar with the University campus grounds, especially where the girls lived. Rosy was one of the most favorable ones I dated there. She came from Aruba and was studying for her master's degree in Spanish. Since Aruba was one of the Dutch colonies in the West Indies Rosy spoke fluent Dutch. She was Jewish, and the first Jewish girl I ever dated. We had marvelous times together and even spent time together for several days as honeymooners at the Niagara Falls. When Rosy received her master's degree from Syracuse University, she went back to Aruba. I always thought that one day we would see each other again, but I was never able to take a trip to Aruba.
In the summer of 1959 a Dutch friend of mine who lived next door to my mother's home came to America as an emigrant. Since he found out I was living in Syracuse New York he came to me. I introduced him to my sponsor and he found him a job in one of the hotels in the city of Syracuse. We decided that the two of us would take a trip to Canada. We didn't have much money to spend for hotels but we would sleep in the car. Canada is such a wide land and in many places untouched in landscape. We drove for miles and miles without seeing a house. At night we would park the car around a lake somewhere, and just sleep in the car. In the morning we took a swim in the lake and got ready for our next day's ride. Canada is a beautiful country for sceneries. We visited Toronto and Ottawa and spent a few nights with our friends there. Across from the Niagara Falls on the Canada side is a little town called Saint-Catherine which my grandmother in Holland had told me about. Her oldest sister lived there. My grandmother's oldest immigrated to Canada fifty years ago, and not one of the family in Europe ever visited her. I had promised my grandmother that whenever I visited Canada I would go and see her sister. When I saw my grandmother's sister I could tell right away by our faces that we were related. She was so glad to see me and told me that I was the first family from Europe who ever came to Canada. She lived in a very nice home with her oldest daughter. I was lucky because the same day I was there, her oldest son was visiting with his oldest daughter from Toronto. We took many pictures together and I sent all of them to my grandmother in Holland. My grandmother's sister's oldest son invited me to come to Toronto to visit him. He told me at that time he owned a copper mine in Cuba, and had large investments in the copper mines of Sudbury Ontario, which my friend and I were planning to visit. His oldest brother lived in Sudbury Ontario, and we were going to stay with them for a few days.
Foreword
Old Rotterdam
World War II
After the War
Coming to America
Washington, D.C.
Southeast Asia
Philosophy of Life
Book Index
