Dear Jeril... Love, Dad. Wayne P. Anderson
space in the wall to others.
Disappointment of the week: we drove up to Piancavallo that is only a half-hour drive into the mountains. It’s a beautiful ski resort town that looks much like those in Colorado. Really convenient skiing—the problem is we leave here for Holland November 27 and skiing never opens before December 1.
What the guidebooks don’t tell you because there’s no reason for you to know:
1. Dogs in Venice roam freely about, but all wear muzzles, often of excellent design and workmanship.
2. In restaurants you get one menu per table, regardless of the number in your party.
3. It’s almost impossible to ask an Italian a question in Italian and get a yes, no or over-there gesture. You are flooded with words and body movements. They assume that if you know enough Italian to ask the question, you should know enough to understand the answer.
This will be my last letter from Italy. We now enter a crazy period of last-minute preparation for travel, and then the mad dash to get settled in Holland before my next classes start.
Love, Dad
CHAPTER 3
AMERSFOORT, HOLLAND, 1979
Amersfoort, Holland, January 11, 1979
Dear Family,
Our oldest daughter, Jerilyn, spent two weeks with us over Christmas, but it wasn’t the season for being a tourist. The weather was as cold as in North Dakota, with storms bad enough to stop the trains running and to close the autobahns. This is the worse winter in twenty years here.
During one blizzard we had had it with being indoors and took Jerilyn on a trip to what used to be the Zudier Zee. We went to Flevohof, a 350-acre farm with connected buildings with demonstrations and exhibitions open every day of the year. We had the whole place to ourselves for a two-hour ramble. The Dutch had too much sense to go out.
By the way, what you don’t see in those famous Dutch paintings of skating scenes is what poor skaters the Dutch are. It really freezes so seldom they get little practice and show it in their style.
At this point in our visit it would be safe to say that the Dutch do not seem to have the flair for dressing that the Italians do; but I suppose that when you are trying to keep warm, fashion may not count for much. In spite of the cold we’ve been surprised to see how few Dutch wear hats or gloves.
The roads here are kept heavily salted to keep them free of ice. My poor car is rusting out before my very eyes—and it’s too cold to keep it washed off. This rusting is very significant here. The Dutch police are fanatics about cars. They must be in good shape. Rust is a sign the car is not in good shape; therefore, they can and do impound cars that show too much rust. As a result you see few old cars in Holland, and very few with dents or other body damage.
It is not nice for me to perseverate on a topic, but I continue to feel like Alice in Wonderland when it comes to money. The way it changes buying power seems like something out of a feverish dream.
Take housing. In Italy our apartment cost the equivalent of $115 a month; here it costs $465 for roughly similar housing. Utilities show similar differences. If you aren’t very careful, traveling can be expensive.
We brought Jerilyn back to Frankfort for her return flight, and because a new storm was threatening, we wanted to leave her in a hotel at the airport. The lowest single, no breakfast, was $90. The natives, of course, treat prices as if it were all very natural and don’t seem to understand our concern about money as we try to find rooms at low rates.
A Dutch house, which is more like our town houses, runs $125,000 to $200,000 for an average-sized house. Even with a minimum wage of eight dollars an hour, that’s a lot of money. A similar set-up in the United States would run maybe $50,000. We obviously can no longer afford Europe on an American professor’s salary.
Some Observations:
Movies are shown in their original languages with Dutch subtitles added. As a result we get an average of one show a night in English on our TV that we bought to prevent snow madness.
The statues in the public squares are very different from what we’ve seen in other countries—no generals on horseback or valiant solders of past wars. Instead you might see a fat, tired lady complete with shopping bag, or a family of five in bronze sitting on a bench observing a canal, or perhaps two bronze children on stilts walking in the main square. Every town seems to have statues with modern, simple everyday themes.
Christmas is almost purely a Christian holiday in Holland and not much commercialized. Their celebration centers around the Eve of Sinterklass on December fifth. Sinterklass (Saint Nicholas) comes from Spain on a boat with his black Moorish servant, Swartz Piet (Black Pete) and they distribute presents. Often gifts that poke fun at people’s foibles are given over a period before December fifth.
The Dutch like dogs, particularly big dogs carry extra prestige. You seldom see a Dutchman just walking around the area unless he has a dog leading him. They also allow dogs in restaurants and stores. Since there are so many of them and they don’t curb them, it provides an extra hazard when you are walking or jogging.
Both of the girls have read the bestselling book, Gnomes, which was originally written in Dutch by a local author. I understand that it was very close to here where he made his first contact with a gnome that went so well that it led the gnomes to give him the contract to write-up their history and their way of life.
Love, Dad
Amersfoort, Holland, February 2, 1979
Dear Jeril,
Greetings from the retired old folks living in Holland. Boy, what a spell of no work we’ve had. In the last four weeks, six if you count Christmas, I seldom met a class. It’s either the weather, or an alert, or this week inspections that caused my classes to be canceled. Because of the weather we are not able to go anywhere. Only three weeks left in Holland and all those classes to make up, so my schedule is set for me. If the weather goes bad again, I don’t know how I’ll be able to finish teaching my courses.
At Aviano they have decided to start closing down the graduate program for lack of students. They’ve now decided to do the same thing here in Holland. That means we couldn’t have waited if we wanted to see parts of Europe other than Germany.
To set up the closing, Joe Strain, the academic coordinator of the program who is stationed in Germany, visited here this week. His secretary and he stayed with us three days, and we drove him around to his appointments. Your mother really enjoyed their visit, and she talked a blue streak while they were here. It was good for her mood to have company again.
As is usual I find it amazing how much time you can take to do something when you have a lot of time in which to do it. My big thing is still reading—and at times I must read a book a day. Some junk, some good.
Just as I thought, Jeril, your company was very lucky to get you. I hope they recognize your competence when pay raise time comes. Speaking of money, as Debra probably told you our account at home in the United States was overdrawn. I will try to put this month’s check in that home account when it comes so we’ll have some backup. Things should get better for us now that some of the main traveling is done. Still if we get ahead a little, I would like to take the little guys skiing.
The sun shines today, the slush is deep, and we think we’ll go out to dinner and our first movie in two months. It looks like a loser, but less a loser than what else has been available lately.
Love, Dad
Amersfoort, Holland, February 1979
Dear Jeril,
Eating is what we seem to do best here in Holland and mostly at home. Stephanie is developing into a first-rate cook and is willing to try almost anything. Both your mother and I are angling to get her to take over our part of the cooking when we get to Germany, but I think your mother will