SvdW

SvdW
With a gentle move the slim tall man takes the chocolate bar out of the supermarket shelf. His eyes spotting something else and mindless the chocolate bar falls just next the blue shopping basket. The signs of a man of age, grey hair, old navy blue skipper cap, glasses so dirty that the eyes must be remarkably good, long brown coat, trousers and shoes that only people of certain age will wear. The gaze on the chocolate bar is keeping for a while and there the movement comes. Probably the mind is already spinning how do I get this nice brown item from the floor or can I push it gentle under the shelf and get a new one. At the second try, and I want to get up to give him a help my wife is already walking and become the man his third hand. We drinking a free cup of coffee in a local supermarket, its costumers care I guess. Read in the newspapers that some supermarkets are thinking to stop with the initiative, because all day elder men are sitting there drinking coffee and do not buy anything. Understood also from my son that the supermarket next to his school is forbidding that people take the coffee, tea of hot chocolate outside the premises. The man say thanks to my wife puts the basket on the floor takes a coffee and is seated next to us and starts talking. In this occasions mostly the first question is the starter, what do you think what my age is? Yes we saw that one coming, I take the route to estimate minus 10 years. This always give the other person a good feeling, at least that is what I read on their body language. Before we can answer the 90 is over the table.
Early April in1945 my father send me to Groningen to visit his sister, it is almost 65 kilometer on the bicycle. My bicycle is well prepared, the difficulty is to have good tires. My trick is to double them, it looks like they are complete worn out but they aren’t. Auntie is doing good and the next day I decide to see how my uncle is doing, he is living more to the south next to the German border. It takes me all day to reach and when I spot my uncle working on the field his first question is how do you come here. Simple question requires a simple answer, on the bicycle. No he says you just traveled through occupied area. Wow just cycled through the line between the German and allied countries fighting line, I had no idea and it looks not risky at all. In the village I spot a nice looking lady and start talking to her, she comes from Rotterdam and is transported to this small village because their family house was bombed in the beginning of the war. I ask her if she would like to have me as her husband, the answer is not negative only she wants me in Rotterdam and for me it not negotiable. My uncle organize that I get a special writing of the village administration in case, that in the free land people are not starting to think if I’m a deserter or a Nazi-friend. Two years passing by and the lady is still not out of my head. I figure out that she is living in Rotterdam again and decide to take the bicycle and travel to Rotterdam. Jan Nieveen is the night boat from Friesland to cross the Ijsselmeer and the other day late evening I reach Rotterdam. And there she is standing just in front of their new house, the eyes blinking and the after the first hi my burning question is on the table. Do you already have found a man I ask, her answer is not positive. I propose her again and she says you know my answer. This I had thought over again and again, if I let you free to do what you want and you can travel as much you want to see your family. Can you agree on my proposal and come with me to Friesland. She closing her eyes and say yes I will. And so I got married with my wife he tells. The coffee table in the supermarket three people around and SvdW is telling his stories for almost 45 minutes. My wife calls it a day we shake hands and go. Google is loyal and I check the stories, the Skipper of the Tjerk Hiddes in Gorredijk and read even more stories of SvdW I didn’t hear off on the coffee table in the local supermarket.
Hulde Gosse