On 20 December Alexander Baldal was born. In
Nijmegen, Holland, at 11:30 AM, son of Joseph Baldal and Magdalena Cornelia
Hagendoorn. I was the third child after Anne Marie and Joseph Johan Jacob.
My first birthday party in
December. I remember nothing.
The fifth day of May, the war with
Germany is over. No memory of myself yet.
I am 2 years old, the family has
moved to Oegstgeest, nearby Leiden, in the west of the country. No memory of
self at all.
In December I’ll be 4 years old. We went with the 4
children in the two-door dark blue little Opel Olympia to the beach in
Noordwijk or Katwijk to make long walks, eat ice cream, buy fresh rolls, and
have fun. It was often cold and windy, the sea green-gray. Dead jellyfish lay
on the beach. We throw them all over.
1947 Pig year,
3 years old, kindergarten, the
only thing I remember was that the maid Beppie, or Bep, brings me in the
stroller to the play school on the Warmonderweg.
4 years old, 5 years in December,
We went by train to Eindhoven to
celebrate grandfather’s birthday (from mother’s side), with the whole family. I
remember “het Silveren Seepaerd” a classical restaurant. Grandfather had had
the railway station’s restaurant. His style was old-world, luxury, silver,
uniformed waiters, the works. His birthday is on the last day of the year, so
the party is combined with New Years party. I went downstairs to get bottles of
wine and champagne from the cellar.
5 years old, going 6 in December.
I do not remember anything much of those times. I do not give the milk money
for the play school to the woman teachers but buy ice cream for it on the
corner from the entrance to the Leidse Hout, a park with trees and walkways. There
was the ERMI ice cream three wheeler with a old man selling the icicles on wooden
sticks. Deep in his tin lined insulated car with dry ice he kept the wanted
delicacies.
Primary school in Oegstgeest. This
year or the next I started at the “Lagere School” in Oegstgeest, de Terwee school on the Terrwee weg
Elize Rebecca is born this year,
first called Elsje, later when she grew up and married, Rebecca. No clear memory
of these times at all.
I am 7 years old. I became 8 years old on 20
December.
Lagere School. Do not remember a
thing of these times. I must have been at school learning writing and reading
and all that.
9 years old, I think, around this
time, I learned sailing from Egbert Lubbers, who was a boy in my school class
and who lived in the Spaargarenstraat, where our garden was. He had a sailing
canoe, type Corjaal, a narrow two seater, paddles to get through narrow waters,
a short mast for a gaff sail, a mid-sword that could be lowered and raised, a
jib, a rudder, everything to sail about in miniature. We sailed from Warmond to
the “Kager Plassen”. I learned from ‘Eppie” all the basic tricks to sail a
boat, how to make some basic knots and handle ropes, which served me very well
later in life. His parents rowed a “wherry”, a narrow, long sleek boat with a
sliding chair for the rower, a seat facing forward in the back for the person
steering with a small rudder operated by thin ropes. It had very long oars, went fast and was
light. One day when Eppie and I went in his sailing canoe through a narrow
water, towards the open lake, there were two pit bulls barking at us, I tried
to hit one to make it go away, but it bit the paddle and never let go anymore.
I pulled the paddle with the pit bull on it under water, but it bit the paddle
right in pieces, and came out of the water with the wood in his jaws. A real
nasty doggy. What a bummer. From the sailing I remembered to sit in front, we
sat one behind the other, the midsword between my legs or no, I sat on the high
side, wherever the wind came from. It had a gaff sail, that means a short mast
with a long stick on the peek of the mainsail. The jib was thus not high,
attaches to the masthead which is only
three quarter up the main. Still it could pull in the young boys hands and I
held it often stiff and strong. I learned to sail the right way, without
winches yet, just a cleat and a sheet. What a great time on the lake it was.
I am 9, going 10 years old
Still at the primary school in
Oegstgeest. De
Openbare Lagere School.
1955 Goat year,
10 years and no real memoirs,
maybe Aad Timmermans was my friend already. I sat high on his shoulders and he
carried me to fight another young lightweight on the shoulders of another power
boy. I remember playing marbles, having a sack full at times, and none but two
at other times. Aadje’s full name was
Adriaan of course, he was my adjudant I now realize, I always had a guy who
stood by me in to help, protect, assist and even fight for me if I was attacked
by bullies.
1956 Monkey year
12 years in December, what
happened those years???
12 years old. 13 in December. Was it
this year that my father got a stroke? It was so serious that he never really
recovered, he went to various hospitals, starting in Wassenaar, Leerdam,
Utrecht and more. He came home a year or more later, dragging a leg and his
right arm and hand were lame. His speech was affected, his mouth dribbled and
he had become another person altogether. I had never known him at all, and
didn’t know him much afterwards. But I loved him better after he came back from
his sickness. I was at school at the Rijnlands lyceum, misbehaving, giving my
mother more trouble than she needed. Unruly to the max, rebellious total
because my freedom was at stake, my expression of loving the world, the father.
I was often by mother Timmermans and her 4 boys, they were my good friends. The
third, Aad would defend me at the school when I had made someone angry or they
tried something on me, as I was small and a little frail. I could never swim like him, but he was my man,
whenever force was needed. This year I went to the lyceum, a high school that would
prepare for the academy later or the university. I was considered intelligent
already then.
Now 14 years old I was at the “Rijnlands
Lyceum” Rebellious like shit, I remember fights with the teacher English, she
went so desperate that she was ready to jump out of the window.
14 years and going 15 I was kicked
out of school. Jan de Kater came with a cigar he had stolen from his father. He
shit in his pants when we smoked it and our first cigarette, we where nasty
kids, in wintertime we walked the thin ice and in summer we shot with air
pistols on the cows. I did not want to follow the religious hour, bible
lessons, I questioned every word and statement of the bible. Had the first
interests in sexual matters, sold condoms to other students, during Bible
lessons. Had impertinent questions about the religions. Got removed from school for bad behavior. No
violence, but rebellious and adverse to the trend. Five boys like me got
removed from the Rijnlands Lyceum. We broke into the school one night and
emptied the foam fire extinguishers and did some vandalism.
15 years, private lessons at home,
then to the Hague, Scheveningen, de Zonnebloem School. Somewhat numbed into a
life without goal, young, living without vision yet.
At school in Kijkduin, somewhere
close to Den Haag. From home to school went as follows: Wake up around 7 am, go
downstairs to the kitchen, put the gas under the pan with the porridge, eat it,
dress in outside coat, take the bicycle out of the shed and paddle to the train
station in Leiden. Take the twelve-minute ride to Den Haag, jump on bus 19 all
the way to the end, which takes about 40 minutes, and walk 15 minutes to the
school building. Every day 5 days a week,
I continue school, examination tests are
coming up. One evening mother asks me to
put some letters in the mailbox which is situated opposite our house. We live
in the Regentesselaan 46, by the Emma pleintje. Next to the big, red, cast iron
letterbox is a blue machine that dispenses stamps. You have to insert coins,
turn a handle and collect the stamps from a little window, lick them, glue them
on the envelops and throw these in the slit of the big red box. In order to free
hands I laid the letters on top of the stamp machine. Put the dimes and quarts
in the machine, turned the handle and took the stamps out the little glass door
in the bottom of the machine. When I had the stamps to put on the letters, I
felt on top of the machine to get the letters, and I felt something else also,
that happened to be a purse. Without looking I quickly put it in my pocket,
finished my business, and went back home. Upstairs in my room I opened the
purse, and found a lot of money, it was more than 700 guilders. I had never
seen so much money. The next day was the day of the examinations for the end of
the school period. I hardly slept that night and in the early morning I went to
Den Haag as usual, and threw the empty purse in a letterbox near the train
station. The mail service would take care of that, it contained papers,
addresses, whatever, and instead of taking a bus to the examination place as
usual, I took a taxi, maybe for the first time in my life. I felt elated,
confident and over and above myself. I finished the tests much faster than all
the other kids and instead of eating my prepared sandwiches like all the
others, I fed the birds in a little park nearby and went to have lunch in the
restaurant close by. There the teachers and inspectors also went for lunch and
every body ate in style. I ate two fried eggs sunny side up with bacon and ham
on bread, wow. Finished the tests and went home. Next day I found out that I
had passed the test with no room for error, I reached just on the limit. One
more mistake would have made me fail.... The summer recess had come, vacation
time. The weather was good, I went sailing with the son of the village druggist
in his Z24, a red painted ‘Vrijbuiter’, a sleek, fast little thing with a jib and a full battened
sail. It was built during the war years and some limits in the measurements
were allowed, so that all the few Vrijbuiters that got built were all pretty
different. Then I found big BM from a friend of my brother Jos. I had all the
money remember. With some of it I rented the BM. An old Mercury outboard came
with it, antique looking, maybe one of the very first outboards ever made. I called the boat: “De Schuifpeen”, which
means the “Sliding Carrot”. With all that money I was rich beyond comprehension,
and who the friends were I don’t recall, but they were there. I had a crate (24
bottles) of beer on the foredeck and another on the aft-deck. Moored off at the
“Bonte Koe”, which means: “The Spotted Cow”. Soon I had the nickname: “Het
Bonte Kalf”, meaning the spotted calf. Bont means also wild, as we say in
Holland: “Make it not too bont”, means: don’t go it too wild, take it easy. One
day, a sunny morning, I moored the “Schuifpeen” at the dock of the restaurant
disco-bar De Bonte Koe, where I had the
waiters serve me breakfast on board, around 11 am. A man who was sitting on the
terrace came up the pier and asked if he could see the old outboard engine that
was behind on the transom. It was an odd old engine, brand name Mercury, with
two handles, one for gas, acceleration and one for rich or lean. It had a four
blade screw. It started by winding a thin rope around the flywheel on top and
then pulling it. One had to experiment, according to the weather, the
temperature, rain or shine, how to set those two to make it run. It was noisy
and smoky, but it ran. I called it my cream whipper, and mysteriously it
worked, while it had been on the attic of my friends home for almost twenty
years until I had discovered it there under an inch of dust. The man identified
himself as the country’s agent general for Mercury motors and wanted to buy it.
He wanted it for the showroom of his company. It would be maybe the oldest
Mercury in the country. After much beer and talk we made a deal. In place of
the old relic the man gave me a brand new one, latest model, more power, less
noise and smoke, a modern miracle. I used it until the end of that season and
then gave it back with the boat to my brother’s friend. I do not remember doing
anything special the rest of that year
My somewhat recovered father had secured me a
job. I start working on the “Rotterdam”, at the time the fifth biggest cruise
ship of the world. It was made to just pass through both the Panama and the
Suez Canals. I made trips with the “Rotterdam”, from Rotterdam to Le Havre, to
Southampton to New York. The ship stayed three days there, in Hoboken. Then one
week at sea again, two days in Rotterdam and back to sea. I started as bellboy.
I was dressed in a funny uniform, green pants with a silver stripe on the
outside of the legs, a short jacket with silver buttons and on my head a
pillbox. Than I was also elevator operator, and guide to bring people to their
cabins and the restaurant and the various bars on the ship. It had 11 floors
from the top to the waterline and 7 floors, decks they are called on a ship,
under the waterline. My quarters were up front, port side, high over the
waterline. The crew cabin housed 6 of us, most having the same rank in the same
line of work. We were somehow the lowest of the civil crew, but there were
lower ranked crewmembers than we, like the Spanish workman who we paid a little
to clean out our cabin, change sheets and towels and keep it tidy. The crew bar
was located in the crew mess room, and opened from 11 AM. I remember that for
every door I opened the passing passenger would press a quarter in my hand.
Four quarters in a dollar which was 3.60 guilders those days, a lot of money.
The crew bar was only a hole in the wall were we could buy drinks and take it to
the table or wherever. We could drink as much as we wanted as long as we came
sober on the job. The price for a glass of foaming beer was 8 dollar cents! We
would sit in the cabin and send one of us to the bar to fetch one plateau full.
The one who went down did not have to pay, and took two dollars to come back
with 24 glasses. It happened that I was on my way from the mess to the cabin
with a plateau full of glasses on my shoulder together with a boy from another
cabin in the same area. We had to negotiate various doors, staircases and
corridors. The ship was moving a lot, outside we had an atlantic storm. Some
beer spilled over me, but I managed to hold my course. The staircase was made
of open iron web, and when the boy 2 decks higher than me crashed and his
plateau with 24 glasses came down, I had to move out of the way fast, or I
would have been showered with beer and small bits and pieces of glass. Later I
worked in the restaurant as a beginning waiter and became a member of the crew
show. I was a wild young crazy fellow and when I had a good drink I could dance
on my hunches like I had seen the Russian Cossacks do. The cold war was very
real those days and anything Russian was always a little strange, suspect or
kind of forbidden and frowned upon. So, me being the only one who could dance
on my hunches for real, the show organizers made a Russian show. I did the real
Russian dancing, and the other guys sat on a low bench pretending to dance,
throwing their legs up and down. That activity and the constant work with heavy
loads running up and down stairs on a moving ship resulted later in having bad
knees.
The trip around the world on the
“Rotterdam”. It started in New York took only 80 days. After the book of Jules
Verne. From New York to Southampton and le Havre to take on more passengers. We
made the boat Cruise ready. Straight to Gibraltar, the Rock of the British,
stolen from Spain when England was mighty and terrorizing the rest of the
world, they called it Ruling The Waves... Well I was ruling the waves and
looked with wonder and awe upon my world. High ranking crewmembers got
passenger cabins in the aft lower part of the ship. We had only half the
capacity of guests on board. Maybe a few less than 800 and we had 800
crewmembers. One on one. Very luxury, not exactly the Titanic, but still very
high class. In Gibraltar I got permission to go ashore, called shore-leave. I
took a tour like a tourist, sightseeing. I did see a monkey, and some
Englishmen. Nice old fashioned shop signs and white and black checkered caps on
police men. On we went to Malaga and
took on some passengers. Then to Menton, or Marseille for more guests. On to
Milan, in Italy. I went ashore and met Italian poor hustlers offering black and
white photographs of naked women. My first contact with pimps. It was cold, the
locals where wearing old fashioned long heavy coats, everything was cold,
almost freezing in a place that is built for heat, for a blazing sun, not for a
cold howling freezing wind. In Athens it was also cold and I didn’t get off the
ship. We never stayed more than a day or so in port and in no time we were back
at sea. Now the weather got better. Real sunshine and arriving in Cairo I hung
over the railing to see what happened. Egyptian boys diving in the water next
to the ship when passengers threw coins over board, they seemed to have an
endless supply of quarts in their pockets. I had little time, but could walk
the pier beside the ship and there I tried to resist the dozens of hustlers.
They offered Players, English cigarettes in sealed new tins, which later
happened to be filled with paper and sawdust. Little giraffes and camels, made
from genuine camel leather, only to later, when coming in moist surroundings,
to fall apart because they were made of papier mache.
Through the Suez Canal. Although I
had to work, I could look out now and again. Majestically the giant luxury
floating palace which is my home now, slides through the desert. Pyramids are
far away, but camels are close by and walk along the shore of the channel. My
first contact with this new reality. A great lake in the Canal made for a stop.
Passengers went to the pyramids, I stayed and worked the restaurant very much.
I had to work breakfast, lunch and dinner shift. We had 4 ranks in the restaurant
hierarchy, I had started at the lowest, called commie. I had to clear the
stations of used things, and bring them away. I worked from 4 sets of 4 tables
and two stations that held all the plates, cutlery and all else. There I put
the food, which I got from the kitchen. A commie was not allowed to come close
to the tables with eating passengers. The “commie de rang”, the next rank up,
would put food from the station on the tables. The “chef” would hand it out,
put it on the plates and the “chef de rang”, the highest of the four, only
walked around with a broad smile, asking if the food was good, and took the
compliments, and tips, and he cut the meat. Complaints went to the cooks, the
chef de rang had never done anything wrong. The “chef” ladled the soup, the
“commie de rang” took away the dirty plates, put them on the station from where
I, the commie, brought them away, down the rolling stairs to the dish washing
factory. Many a good piece of exquisite food was never touched and if the
others had not taken it, I could indulge. The older workers knew how to order
food for themselves, I was still a b