I was all set to depart today, for the deck repair in a covered spot in Zaandam. But doing a last-minute check, an hour ago, I learned that I had no reservation after all. I had responded to their offer for four weeks from now and sent a follow up two weeks ago.

But the problem was that the subject of the continuation of the correspondence was based on last year’s change of plans when I had arranged to come to Zaandam for the bottom repair. But the leak was becoming an emergency and the YC here in Amsterdam was able to lift me out right away with their travellift. So, the subject in Outlook was still “Cancellation” and they did not read further. Lesson learned…

From May 15^th , when I went back into the water, there has not been a drop of rain, I could have done most of the deck repair without having to cover the boat constantly, like before May 15. This long high-pressure period, with strong cold N.E. winds blowing from Siberia is due to change for low pressure from the west bringing in wet weather from the Atlantic Ocean.

On the 12^th of June I will have used up my 90 Schengen days, from my March 14^th arrival. I had all my fingers printed and passport photos taken on May 25^th and I am supposed to hear back on my residential permit by June 27^th.

In the June issue of “Zeilen, the most read Dutch sailing monthly, is a four pages article written by Michiel van Straten about me. I believe, I am his second or third target under the heading “Unknown Celebrities”. It’s about time that I get some respect for bungling my way around the globe.

The header of the article:

TAAI EN VINDINGRIJK
Dat faillissement is het beste wat mij ooit is overkomen.” Jack van Ommen
heeft in zijn leven flink wat tegenslagen gehad. Hij leed met zijn Fleetwood
meerdere malen schipbreuk, kende teleurstellingen in de liefde en verloor
een dochter. Desondanks staat de solozeiler zeer positief in het leven.
“Dankzij mijn geloof in God vaar ik nooit alleen.”

Tekst MICHIEL VAN STRATEN Foto’s JACK VAN OMMEN

I discovered a few things that I was not aware of but I am very pleased with the way Michiel describes what drives me, much better than I could put it in words. I like as many as possible to know that you can pursue an active life after retirement and with limited means. He explains the importance of my Faith and gratitude for the free gifts I enjoy every day.

It has already brought in a number of new customers for “SoloMan” and blog followers. It also puts a couple more arrows in my quiver when reckoning comes for the unexpected hidden boat defects expenses. The seller earns his living from the people who read “Zeilen”.

I will attempt to translate the article into English, now that I have some extra time before the real work starts.

I sang with the large choir at the Pentecost service.

The Missa Princeps Pacis from A. Lloyd Webber was used for the liturgy, Entrance Song: Veni Creator Spiritus – Cl. Casciolini, Veni Sancte Spiritus (Gregorian), HALLELUIA by Mawby, Offertory: Tantum Ergo in Es – Franz Schubert, Communion: Ubi caritas et amor – O. Gjeilo, Recession: Jubilate Deo (KV 117, part 3 from Benedictus sit Deus) by W.A. Mozart.

Many a large congregations would be tempted to commit venial sins to have a building like the Sint Augustinus church, a pastor like Ambro Bakker, magnificent organ and organists, the L.K.P. and the other 4 choirs of this church. But the neighborhood does not seem to have a need for it. Maybe there will be another opportunity, God forbid for the victims, Deo Volente for the near empty churches, like 9-11, when the churches had standing room only for a short spell.

Last Tuesday, I attended a presentation of a new book, at the same Saint Augustinus church. It was the biography of the architect who designed this church which was built in 1935. The architect Jan (Johannes Martinus) van Hardeveld 1891-1953. The same generation as my father 1898-1956. He was also not well known. But the presentation revealed that he should also be a Celebrity. It was the period of the Amsterdamse School and Modernism, Bauhaus, etc. Van Hardeveld met his future wife, a Bretonne, when studying and working in France. He faced a similar predicament as I did in 1959. Skiing at Mammoth Mountain in the spring of 1958, I ended in a double seat chairlift with a total stranger. I worked fast on a long ride. I told her I was a Christian, well, so was she. She was Roman Catholic and raised Christian Reformed I attended the Presbyterian church. I suggested a cheap date: “Maybe you can come sometime to my church and I’d like to see your church” Joan answered: “You can come see my church, but I am NOT going with you to your church”. The woman always wins. And it turned out that the author, Mart Franken, of the biography is also a convert like me and Jan van Hardeveld.

I met the grandson Annick and Jean Martin (French version of his grandpa’s name). Annick is named after her aunt. The aunt was the very last of the Dutch women couriers to be murdered on the very last day of the 2nd World War. She was 21 years old. Born in 1923. She is the last of the total of 11 female Dutch resistance members executed during the second world war. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annick_van_Hardeveld

She is mentioned with the 11 in my book “The Mastmakers’ Daughters”. The best known of these 11 is Hannie Schaft who was executed two weeks before war’s end by Maarten Kuiper, the same Dutch Nazi butcher who arrested my father on April 4, 1944 and 4 months later was part of the SD patrol that arrested the Frank Family. He is one of the few Dutch bad guys who was death sentenced and executed by the Dutch justice.

Staying on the subject, I am reading a new book “The Watchmaker’s Daughter”.

Title inspired by my book “The Mastmakers’ Daughters” ?? A well-known American author, Larry Loftis, who is expanding on Corrie ten Boom’s story “The Hiding Place”. My research that came up with the 11 names was prompted by the part in “The Hiding Place” that claims that all the women her age were gassed after she had been discharged from Ravensbrück concentration camp. This was grossly inaccurate, it never happened. The book also gave a count of 700 men being executed just before the evacuation of camp Vught on September 6^th 1944, where our mother was part of. The real number was 170. My book gives more details of these errors. This new book has the number at 180 but has left the outrageous claim of the murder of her companions a week after her release. And he has added a few of his own.

An example: that 140 resistance men from the Haarlem area, were executed as a reprisal for the killing of two Germans, in October 1943. And that there was an aerial battle over Camp Vught on August 23^rd, 1944, with thousands of allied airplanes. The D-day forces had not reached Paris yet on that day. The eye witness reports for my book have none of that, other than one spotter plane coming to take a look. They could hear artillery fire from the British attempt to secure the port of Antwerp in the last days before the camp was evacuated on September 6^th. I’m not half way through the book yet. Not until the battle of Arnhem from September 17 until the 26th, might a the description be attributal to. Corrie and her American ghost writers can be excused for some of her inaccuracies, no Google searching then, Camp Ravensbrück remained behind barbed wire in the German East Zone until 1989 and has since become more accessible.

This was my Culture Vulture week. It started with another new book presentation  at the Atheneum book store in Haarlem, just around the corner from the Beje, the ten Boom watchmaker shop. Frits van Oostrom presented his newest publication.

Many versions of this 13th century poetic fable exist. This is definitely one of the most complete reference work and interpretation. His talk was fascinating. What I got out of it was that in order to bring some order back in our judicial system in the United States you must learn to think like this Reynaert. Incredible the complex strategist this fox was. Oostrom has even come up with an intricate diagram of the steps involved of talking yourself outof the gallows and get away with making a fool outof the accuser. I was invited because my name is mentioned in his book. For those of you who have read “The Mastmakers’ Daughter” the youngest son, Gerard Arendt, of the “other” the Nazi Mastmaker’s Daughter Rennie de Vries, earned his doctorate on the same subject and his work and life is a major part of this book. Jan de Putter a younger student of the same midieval literature at the University of Leiden found the references in my book and shared his discoveries with me and Frits van Oostrom.