My eulogy/autobiography (7/4/2025)

I just turned 72 and am sitting here on pins and needles waiting for the word that my first grandson was born. This will be a thing of the past by the time this writing will be made public, either as part of a memoire and/or a blog post. Why now, can we blame turning 72, my grandson, or my daughter or her wife for this introspection? I don’t know; it is probably a combination of a lot of things.

I am in a men’s group, and we assigned ourselves the project of writing our own eulogy. If that wasn’t enough, during a birthday get together a good friend asked me all kinds of biographical questions, and unbeknown to me he taped the whole conversation. He showed me that he was recording it after my birthday dinner at a Mexican restaurant. This made me feel self-conscious, and together with the fact that I now will have someone to carry on the torch (a grandson), it made me want to record a little more of mine and my family’s history. I have done a bit of this already in some of my blog posts, and I may refer to them when appropriate. I expect that I will publish sections of this writing in my blog, again in the hope that those of my direct family that comes after me will read it and find it interesting, useful and informative.

Where to start? But below is a section of the eulogy that I wrote for myself or maybe for those celebrating my life on this blue marble once I kick the proverbial bucket.

“What the heck is Kalemi? Well actually it is a town in the far eastern part of Congo. During colonial times it was the Belgium Congo, and the town was named Albertville after one of Belgium’s monarchs. I (my name) was born in that town on June ??, 195?. We are gathered here to celebrate the premature passing of Jan-Willem or as many of his friends knew him “Jan the man.” As he often told us that when at a doctor’s office no one got up when a name was called, it meant it was his turn to see the doctor. Everybody seemed to have difficulties pronouncing his name, and then when “Jan” got up they seemed even more confused. Is Jan a guy?”

Did it frustrate me that folks had difficulties with my name, my first and last name? Not at all, I found it amusing. In its own way it showcased the lack of cosmopolitan experience that I have observed in this country. Living in Cincinnati in the late 1990s I was always tickled when during our first meeting folks would ask me which high school I had graduated from. Like the majority in the area, they had never spread their wings, and they could obviously not fathom that there was actual life outside Cincinnati. Even more fun was when they told you about the great vacation they had in Indiana, a state maybe less than 20 miles to the west. Here in the Hampton Roads, where I currently live, it is a little less narrow-minded, since there is a large concentration of military and ex-military that have spent time in foreign countries on military installations or at war.

During the clandestinely recorded interview our friend Mason wanted to know how the heck I ended up being born in a small town situated on Lake Tanganyika (or now Lake Tanzania). Well, my father had a job there as director of a furniture company. That raised even more questions, so here we need to pause and start with the story of my father, which then raised the question of how my father and mother met. As you can imagine, the questions never ended.

I'll stop here.  If there is a next post it will be about my father before 1948.

Me as a 10-month-old on Lake Tanganika in the Congo

My dad and I around the same time.

Mother and son

Nomads, Long Beach 1, CA (9/22/2023)

This post I will name Long Beach, partially for obvious reasons, although it seems we have explored the entire Los Angeles basin. However, Long Beach is the home base where all our trips originated and returned to. Our daughter and her spouse live in Long Beach and that was the ultimate destination of our trip. Our girl, they always remain your girl, no matter how old they are, was going to be ordained as a Unitarian Universalist Minister and we needed to witness that.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon after a fun drive over the L.A. freeway system. It wasn’t that bad; I had a great navigator sitting next to me in the captain’s chair (“there will be a slowdown in a half mile”, get ready”; “do you see those brake lights?”). Parking in front of her apartment building was something else; it is basically a free-for-all, but we got a spot that we could squeeze the van in. We were advised to empty all the valuables, because of the homeless living down the street; my daughter already had their car window broken for what appeared to be an empty grocery bag. Some time after that we put shades and blankets in front of the windows to make sure the van appeared occupied, and no one could look in. This seemed excessive at first, but later in the evening while walking the dogs we observed a gathering of homeless folks and saw at least two vans that someone obviously lived in (a.k.a. boondocking). The doors to those vans were open and there was mosquito netting hung in the door openings, a sure sign of active living.

During our entire stay in the area, we were made very aware of the homeless crisis in this area. It is amazing. A couple of days later we visited a bonsai shop, and the owner (a 50-year-old Asian lady) started to blame the welfare state of California. We hesitated but did not tell her that Republican states are partially to blame for all this, by bussing them in.

A good friend of my daughter and fellow minister came in from Alabama the following day. She was going to sleep at my daughter’s place as well, and we needed to decide how to organize the sleeping of five persons and three dogs in a small townhouse. At night we had a small gathering at a microbrewery nearby and all was well. The first days we did not do too much, we had a ceremony to prepare for. Our daughter and spouse took good care of us, and we were acquainted with the area’s (Asian) donut shops (15 or so between home and her work), the taco stands (too numerous to count), and the ethnic food in the area, most notably Cambodian and Indonesian. The fermented fish dish at the Cambodian restaurant was interesting and delicious, but it or the uncooked vegetables gave me terrible gas. It seems that nobody cooks at home, and everyone eats out all the time.

Our daughter’s church where the ceremony took place is absolutely gorgeous and is in a beautiful location. We got there early which allowed us to scout out the place and take the nature trail, which is owned and maintained by the church, at the edge of the canyon that looks towards the Pacific Ocean. The ceremony was great, and we now have a reverend for a daughter. Afterwards there was a social gathering with a taco dinner, beer, wine and cake. We got to meet more colleagues, and congregants that we can remember. Later on talking with our daughter we heard the stories on all the folks we could remember talking to.

Sunday was a trip to downtown L.A. We visited Little Tokyo for lunch; this place is absolutely worth visiting and went for a hike up hill to the observatory. However, what goes up must come down and so did we. While the downhill was relatively easy, in hindsight I injured my knee; two days later it ballooned and was painful.

We visited the Huntington dog-beach on Monday (see the photograph below) and Tuesday was our bonsai and Japanese garden day.

I guess I’ll write more about our Long Beach visit (Wednesday, Thursday and maybe some other observations) in my next post.

We had to go wool shopping after the aquarium

One aquarium picture

The Japanese garden

Jasper did not like the waves at Huntington Beach

The view from the conservatory

Hiking to the observatory

One picture from the ceremony

Get together at the brewery 

Nature-deficit disorder II (6/14/2016)

What is the common thread in my life (other than my wife, family and friends)?  There are a few, but they all come down to the same common denominator which is nature.  Whether nature is green (the forests) or blue (the water or even the expansive sky), it does not matter to me, I like being out there.  I believe in the healing power of nature, it calms me down and heals the soul. 

As a teenager growing up in the Caribbean I could spend hours outside on our desert island imagining how to landscape the yard.  My parents had just built our home in this new subdivision and it was still a partial construction site.  But I just walked through the yard will all these designs in my head.  There was no day-time TV, no computer games or anything like that and yes we had to walk through 3 feet deep snow to school even in the Caribbean.  Just kidding of course.  I never go to landscape our yard; we moved away, back to the Netherlands.  But even in 3^rd and 4^th grade after school my best friend Michiel and I would be playing outside in the bush exploring things, finding what we thought to be hidden caves and beautiful flowering plants.

I still do it to present days, as I like to say to the dogs on Saturday mornings, “let’s walk the grounds”; our yard is slightly shy of a half-acre, so nothing to write home about, but I still imagine things.  I attempt to grow bonsais and I will go look at my trees trying to imagine what they will look like years from now.  One thing I do too little off during my rounds is, to my wife’s annoyance, pull weeds; I just enjoy a very slow walk and looking at nature, like the towhees digging through last year’s fall leaves that we left in all the perennial beds.  We tend not to use any pesticides or fertilizers in our yard and it usually teams with weeds, birds, frogs, toads, skinks, butterflies, squirrels, moles, voles, mosquitoes, and ticks in our yard.  We built a huge stick pile which is a refuge for all kinds of birds, a pair of rabbits, and the other day, our beagle flushed a fawn out of it.  We have a nature preserve behind our home and one of the things I do is to stand in our yard and look out over it in anticipation of fall weather when temperatures at night are low enough again for the chiggers and ticks to become dormant, so we can go out there again.

When not in the yard on his afternoon off from school, this teenager growing up on a Caribbean island was either sailing or swimming/snorkeling.  But he was always enjoying some other form of nature.  He was rarely ever brooding inside.  He was brooding outside. 

Regular readers know my love for the water and sailing.  Just a visit to the beach always amazes the family; I can just sit in the surf and never come out.  Sitting on the beach on the sand does not interest me one bit, I want to be in the water; that is where I am at home.  The same is the case for being on the water, in a sailboat. 

Extroverts need people around them to recharge.  I need nature around me to do that.  Being an introvert I wonder if all or many introverts recharge that way, or if they all recharge differently?  But for me it is nature, be it green or blue, it really does not matter to me. 

I know I am not alone in this.  When I began writing this post my wife ran into the following article published by the BBC.  It describes how exposure to nature is good for you.  It is based on a scientific research article published <here>.  It showed that people who where exposed to nature for 30 days or longer were significantly happier than before they were exposed to nature.  As I mentioned in my blog about Richard Lowe's book, he has seen the same in the research he has reviewed.  The book on the Blue Mind by Wallace Nichols has the same premise (see the list of books I am reading).  While it is slow reading for me, it is not a bad book (it is actually a great book); but I have so many other important things I am doing, like exploring nature and sailing.

A picture of this weekend's sail.  This was "Blue Mind" for sure, 15 knot winds, some fun intense sailing, we had no chance to think about anything else.  We were living in the moment.

Virginia Beach (5/12/2015)

This week's travel takes me to Virginia Beach.  At least I had a chance to walk along the beach after the "Stormwater Plan Review" class that I taught.  As usual, I was exhausted from a day's worth of teaching, but it was still nice to be out there.

It was warm, with temperatures in the high 80s (30 to 31 degrees Celcius) and there were a fair number of people on the beach for a Tuesday afternoon.

Virginia Beach is a great place for a family vacation; for us it is so close but so far away.  Political leaders in the area are desperately trying to make the Hampton Roads area one community,  but the tunnels actually divides the area into the south side and the peninsula.

What amazed me during my walk on the beach was the number of people on their smartphones.  Darn, it seems that people cannot just enjoy their surroundings and the environment but have to be connected all the time.  How many times do you sit in a restaurant and a couple comes in and after being seated and ordering they ignore each other and just stare at their phone.  While phones are a god sent for us travelers  (we stay in touch with spouses and find the nice restaurants on Yelp), it seems that human relationship seems to suffer.  Even on this beautiful beach, couples were sitting on benches staring at their phones instead of looking at people, the beach and the ocean.  So close, but so far apart.

A nice change of pace was the sushi counter at my favorite sushi restaurant: Kyushu Japanese Restaurant on Newtown road.  I was sitting there with three other people and we had a wonderful discussion.   Kyushu is really my favorite and worth a try for all that like sushi.  The fish is fresh, it tastes great and good conversation.

Yorktown (6/18/2011)

Yes you have not gone back in time, but I have.  I am reacting to a photo challenge I saw on the one of the photo blogs I follow.  They asked for pictures with squares, angles and triangles.  Now it happened that we are working on a photo book for a specific year.  We are using blurb, and slowly working on year books for our family.  We've got so many photographs that we figured we might as well put the good ones in a book.  Working on the 2011 book I found one of my favorite pictures of June 2011 that shows all the things that the challenge was looking for and then some.  Even the bikini bottom of this (unknown to me) lady has triangles in it.  I'm sorry but I love this picture.  It also fit in to the theme of this blog, pictures from the area I live and from my travels throughout the state and general area.  But yes it is a look through my photo archives.
Summers in Yorktown are amazing.  We have a fun beach, close-by restaurants and even a dock, where you can park your boat (to go eat).  During the summer it can get really busy during the weekend, and we tend to stay away from it at that time, maybe with the exception of the farmer's market on Saturday morning.  Just in summary, this is a good place to live.

Yorktown (4/13/2014)

It was absolutely beautiful on Sunday, and we decided to go for a walk with the dogs in Yorktown proper.  We parked up in the higher part and already when we opened the car door we were welcomed by the sound of bells ringing from the Baptist Church.  I assume it’s a large speaker system that puts the sound out over the village, but still it set a good atmosphere for Sunday morning.  When we got to the river (around 9:30), people were already staking their claim on the beach.  Also there were the guys with their metal detectors, looking for the things yesterday’s crowds had lost in the sand.  We had a great walk along the water and back up to the car.  In all we walked more than 7000 steps according to the fitbit that I wear, which is pretty darn good since my goal is 10,000 steps.  As I tell people, I am trying to get my girlish figure back, but it is a struggle, especially after a weekend of gluttony and wine tasting.

Yorktown is full with older buildings some of which are owned by the park service and others by individual.  There are also not so old homes, and even some older apartment buildings.  It is a nice combination, and a pleasure to walk.   The photo here is from the Nelson House, which dates from 1730 (here is another reference for the Nelson House).  It is a nice historic building that gives you a flavor of the importance of Yorktown in its hay days.  It’s amazing how fleeting some of these things such as fame and fortune can be, and only some will be kept in our memories forever.  People build monuments to themselves, such as ex-governor Nelson who seems to have built the largest house on Yorktown, or maybe the largest surviving house in Yorktown.  Guess we still do this in modern time, but I assume that most of the McMansions here in the US that are stick built, will eventually deteriorate, and few will remain as monument to their owners.  This is so very unlike the Europeans who built with brick and stones and where you still see many old buildings.

Now in modern time we have other means of leaving a legacy or our own monuments.  Some do it with the (non-biodegradable) trash they throw out of their car or fill the landfills with (my wife and I generate less than 2 bags of trash each week and compost all our food waste).  Others do it by writing, blogging or maybe even through things like facebook, twitter, or any other electronic way.  It should be interesting to see what will remain 100 or more years from now.  I personally hope that some of my writing (a few book chapters on scientific items), this blog, my photos on flickr or even facebook will give me some form of immortality.

Oh well, enough rambling.  We walked back by the beach an hour later, we were tired; the dogs had been swimming in the river and were wet.  Metal detector guys were gone and there was nothing left for future archeologists.  A lot more people were on the beach, ready to enjoy our first really warm day in the sun.

 

York River (1/17/2014)

Having a day off I got up early to take a few sunrise pictures along the Colonial Parkway.  Yes, the State Virginia gives off on the Friday before the Martin Luther King Holiday as Lee/Jackson Day.

This picture had not much to do with sun rise but I just loved the ice on the pole and the colors so close to sunup.  A second one show the sun rising behind the bridge.

Good Morning Yorktown (1/9/2014)

“Red in the morning, sailor’s warning.” This is an interesting saying and from what I can find on-line there may be some truth to it (http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/weather-sailor.html).  It seems that dust from an approaching storm is kicked up and that the sun light is refracted in it, with the red rays hitting our eyes.    

It was glorious this morning, and the sun came up right behind the Dominion Power Plant in York County.  Not sure if it is a good omen or not.  When we moved to the county in 2000 we read reports that this is the most polluting power plant on the east coast (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Yorktown_Power_Station).  I’m still not sure if that is correct, but there were reports last year that it is not very good (http://wydaily.com/2013/07/26/report-yorktown-power-station-as-operating-near-impaired-waterway/).  All I know is that when the wind is bad (maybe a few times in the year) you can smell the coal that is being burned at the power station.  Moreover, my sailboat is usually covered with ash from the power station.  Thanks goodness two of the three generating units at the plant will be shut down next year (maybe the rumors were not far off).  These are coal burning; the third is an oil burning unit which will remain operational.  Maybe it is a new day for pollution in the area.  Regardless it was a gorgeous sunrise.  I should really carry my good camera with me instead of just my phone.

 

Yorktown beach (6/26/2013)

Tidal flat at low tide.  After dinner we took the dogs for a walk on the beach.  I was struck by the algae on the rocks at low tide.