INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL : Thought of Holland Leaves Him in the Lurch

I think about the Netherlands a lot, which is unusual.

Not that it’s not beautiful. It is, and it’s one of my all-time favorite countries. But the truth is that the Netherlands is so much in my thoughts because it’s called to my attention about every other night by a force that seems to be beyond my control.

When my wife Joyce and I first visited the Netherlands we did the touristy things, as we always do. One of those things was a visit to a place called Volendam, which is about 15 miles north of Amsterdam and seems to exist primarily for the tourists.

If you want to see the Netherlands of 100 years ago, including costumes that are still being worn because the people are comfortable in them, it’s your answer.

If you like smoked eel, Volendam is the place to go. And the cheese is wonderful.

But I digress.

Though they sell some things from the outside world in the many quaint and colorful shops, most of what they have to offer in Volendam is Dutch.

Genuine Item

One of Volendam’s big attractions is the klompenmaker shop. At the edge of the village, amid mountains of wood shavings, is a genuine Dutch klompenmaker , hammer and chisels in hand, making klompens (wooden shoes).

On the shelves behind him are the thousands upon thousands of wooden shoes he has already made, waiting for the tourist trade.

We are the tourist trade.

Would a woman who owns such souvenirs as a Leaning Tower of Pisa key chain, a genuine Florentine leather lipstick holder (from Florence) and a one-inch statue of Joan of Arc that glows in the dark miss an opportunity to buy real wooden shoes made by a real klompenmaker from what is probably the most Dutch village in the entire world? Not likely.

About the klompen , she really didn’t have a chance. Besides having a penchant for souvenirs, my wife is an almost compulsive shoe buyer.

She has bought sandals in Greece that would be comfortable only if your feet were also made out of leather. In Spain we bought boots of “soft glove leather” whose tops, when warmed by the body, tend to slide down and ride around the ankles, like they want to get off.

She stopped wearing them because they kept giving her the false impression that the elastic in her panty hose had gone.

But I digress.

For Wall or Foot?

Joyce wanted wooden shoes.

“Ja, for to hang on der vall?” the salesgirl asked. “Or perhaps for to grow in, der African violets?”

“Oh, no,” said Joyce. “I’m going to wear them. I’ve heard they keep your feet dry. I can do my gardening in them.”

The lady agreed that that was a fine idea. She turned to me. “Und you, sir?”

“Sure,” I said. “Just something to lounge around the house. You know, for comfort.”

“Comfort?” She looked at me as if I were crazy, but only for an instant. Then she measured my foot and had a brief exchange in Dutch with the klompenmaker before returning to me to explain the facts.

Being an American size 13, and allowing for thick socks, I would take the equivalent of a large 14 in a wooden shoe, two of which would probably fill my suitcase. If I had them shipped, they would go by boat, take three months and cost more, in shipping charges, than the original shoes.

Joyce promised to get some other kind of a souvenir for me. She bought the shoes for herself.

“Ja, you be sure,” the salesgirl said, “to vere dem mit (with) zocks, ja?”

“Ja, thick socks,” said Joyce.

Tulips in Denver

I had told my wife a number of times how when I was a child in Denver, the city had planted tulips in all the parks and in the parkways of the major streets. When they all bloomed after the winter snows, it was one of the most beautiful sights in the world.

When we visited the world’s largest flower market, outside of Amsterdam, Joyce bought me an assortment of tulip bulbs. She also bought a book on how to grow them.

When we got home the bulbs went, as the book directed, into a brown paper bag and then into the refrigerator until “planting time.”

It would have to be very carefully figured, as tulips are a cold-country plant and Canoga Park, our home in the San Fernando Valley, is a reclaimed desert.

Three months after they went into the refrigerator our oldest daughter, Marian, diced a few of them to spice up some fried potatoes. “Mom, I think these onions you had in the fridge are going around the bend.”

“Stop!” Joyce shouted. She repackaged what was left and put them in the back of the refrigerator where no one would ever again mistake them for food. She also drew a skull and crossbones on the bag. She has used this sign for years to keep our offspring from eating things she wants to save for some reason, like dinner.

Bulbs Laid Out

The next time anybody noticed them, Jean, my health-food enthusiast daughter, spotted the skull and crossbones, assumed that there must be something pretty good in the bag and had the bulbs laid out on the sideboard with a view to including them in a tofu surprise. She put them back when one fell on the floor and the dogs refused to eat it.

My tulip bulbs finally went when our son, John, told his mother he’d found something nasty in the refrigerator and asked if Catherine was storing specimens. Catherine, at the time, was in charge of the stranded and sick animal department at Marineland.

When we got the wooden shoes home to Canoga Park, Joyce did not wear the recommended thick socks. There were two reasons. One, what a reclaimed desert’s sporting goods store thinks is thick socks is not what a Dutch wooden-shoe salesperson thinks is thick socks.

The second reason was that she saw no sense in wearing the wooden shoes to keep her feet from getting wet from the outside, while wearing socks that were so hot that they made you get your shoes wet from the inside.

After wearing her klompen for about three days with just her ski socks, Joyce found that she was walking a little like Quasimodo and scaring the dogs every time she tried to cross the patio.

On the third day of the break-in period she cleaned up the shoes and put them in a place of honor in our bedroom. It was on the hardwood floor, by a dresser, next to the door to the bathroom.

Room for Only One

Joyce discounted the fact that there was only enough room for about one shoe in the spot she had chosen.

My objection was also discounted.

“But I like them there,” she said. “They remind me of our wonderful trip to the beautiful Netherlands.”

I’m your average husband. If keeping the shoes in that particular spot would make her happy, I was willing to go along. Besides, I hate bloodshed. They went into the niche by the bathroom door.

Therein lies the problem. When I get up in the night, which I sometimes do for one reason or another, I tend to lurch a little. And about every third time I’ve gotten out of bed in the night in the last eight years, I’ve lurched into those shoes. It always sounds like somebody trying to flush a croquet set down a wooden toilet.

Joyce never complains about it. Sometimes she does sit bolt upright in bed, breathing hard, but she doesn’t complain. She didn’t even complain when, after a recent very bad lurch, she jumped up and ran all the way out in the backyard yelling, “Earthquake! Earthquake!”

“Sorry, did I wake you, dear?”

“No. No, it’s all right.”

There are other things that keep the Netherlands on my mind--Rembrandt’s house, the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Gallery, with all of their beautiful paintings.

Surprise Tour

Then there was our surprise Walkman tour of the heart of Amsterdam’s red-light district and my introduction to Indonesian foods. But then that’s another story. Maybe a couple of other stories.

By the way, according to Joyce, the statue of Joan of Arc that glows in the dark was not hers but mine, and it’s not St. Joan at all but St. Elmo, the patron of sailors. And because a form of ball lightning (St. Elmo’s Fire) was named after him, he has a right to glow in the dark.

OK, I’ll give her that. On closer inspection the statue does look a little more like a man.

She also claims that she did not run out of the house shouting “Earthquake! Earthquake!”

Maybe? Maybe not? After all, the poor woman was half-crazed by fear at the time.