Growing up in Moerwijk-The Hague

The other day I submitted my story to a Dutch website devoted to the neighborhood I grew up in. It was a cathartic experience. I've written this story before many times, but writing it in the Dutch language somehow made it different.
Just being forced to write and think in Dutch again made my memories clearer, and I remembered a few more things that way.

I was about 5 when we were one of the first families to move to a brand new part of town called Moerwijk. We lived in the Beverweerdstraat number 162. In a four room flat, in those days you still only got as much room as you needed.
Livingroom, my parent's bedroom, the boy's bedroom, the girls bedroom, a W.C., a bathroom (no bath or shower, but room for the washing machine) a kitchen a hallway, and a balcony in the back (our generic laundry dryer). The place was tiny, the kids slept on opklapbedden (like a Murphy bed, but not in the wall, you would fold it up against the wall and close curtains around it, with a nice wide shelve on top.)
The only heat came from the kachel in the livingroom (coal) and our rooms were freezing cold in winter.
We lived in the three story building at the end of the street. Middle apartment. We had a small balcony there. This picture was taken about the time we moved in. I actually remember the street being "bricked"

My father worked for the telephone company, he was a technician, installed phones in homes (which at that point was still rare) and businesses, and was also involved in providing the telephone system/network for the entire area.

I was the oldest. I had two brothers, and in 1956 when my sister was born, the family was complete and my mom put a cork in it.:>)

It was pretty lonely in those first days , I missed my little friends from the old neighborhood. But in no time more and more families moved in, and before I knew it we had a street full of children.
My brothers and I made life long friends. Some of the girls and I are still in touch.

I had already attended kindergarten for a year in my old neighborhood, so I had one year left. The school was in the same building as a printing business. A brick building somewhere in the woods. Since new schools were being built as fast as they could manage, (I think we had the largest and most prolific parish in the city) I spent 1st, 2nd and 3rd in one building, then 4th and 5th in another, and finally my 6th year in the new school next to our church. One building for girls run by nuns, one building for boys run by monks (and never the twain shall meet!!)

There are a few memories that stand out from those school days. Our father Oerlemans, who taught Cathechism, who was very modern for his time and drove around on a motor scooter. Since the priests still wore long skirts, he quipped: Rock and Roll!
The biggest impression this man ever made on me, something I have never forgotten, was when he taught us:

"No matter how quickly you lie, the truth will follow eventually"

And being a liar extraordinaire, that really freaked me out, as I learned that this was certainly true in my case. :>)

We had to attend mass every day. Sober...so you could receive communion.
You would get this little ticket, which at the end of the week was collected by your teacher. We still went to school 6 days a week. If you had all 6 tickets, you were safe, and received a 'bidprentje' a small prayer card for your churchbook. (yeah!) If you did not have 6 tickets you would most likely get a stern talking to from your parents.

School hours were from 9 to 12. We then would walk home for lunch. My favorite sandwich, fresh from the baker white bread with butter and sugar. The afternoon school hours were from 2 to 4.
So we did a lot of back and forth walking. I guess all that walking took care of all the sugar we ate. :>)

All of us kids were members of the gymnastics club. The moms had to sew our costumes. Which consisted of a blue pair of shorts with elastic in the legs (poofie pants), a white sleeveless shirt with our yellow emblem, and a white pleaded skirt. White socks and tennies.
We would do our actual excersizes in our poofie pants, and wore the skirts outside the gym.

My dad and brothers played...of course...soccer...

When I was seven I got my very first own bike. I remember so well when I got it. One Wednesday on our way to swim class, my father stopped at a stranger's house and went upstairs. I was to stay down...a surprise, he said. When I saw that bike being backed out of the door, I was so excited!!! From that day on I didn't have to sit on my fathers 'bagagedrager' (carrier)
I felt like a very important person to be riding on my own bike next to my dad.

(In earlier days dad would ride his motor bike with me sittin on the back with my legs in the saddlebags....no helmets, not tied down...just hanging on to dear life)




Around 6th grade or so, there was this couple in our parish who started organizing film matinees for the children in our parish. The idea came to them after they rented a projector and some movies for one of their kids (they had a few) birthdays. Why not rent a larger projector, and use the old church building, and invite everyone?
It was a great success. I do remember us going to see Laurel and Hardy and cowboy movies.

This couple then got an other idea. They wanted to start some kind of cabaret/variety show with/for children.
So after the movies we were given a form for our parents to fill out, to sign us up for this new venture.

Being a bit of a trouble maker (MOI?) in those days my parents jumped at the chance to get me out of their hair a few hours a week, so they signed me up immediately.

And since I played the guitar (well, what is playing...ahem..) I became part of this little band/orchestra called :The Melodicas.

Our theme song was Wein, Weib und Gesang by Johann Straus. A march-like tune which was totally inapropriate for the kind of instruments we had:
One acoustic guitar, 6 or so melodicas, three accordions, and one drumset.

I can still hear this. It sounded aweful, but hey.

Their idea was the perfect way to keep some of us off the street, and learn a few things at the same time. We started performing in nursing homes, and just basically at every function in the parish. We did little skits, we had a magician. We played some South American things (hence the white fluffy blouses)

Of course come December, our fearless leader would dress up as Sinterklaas, and some of us as Zwarte Pieten. I wasn't in this picture, but I was there. The black stuff was impossbile to remove afterwards and for weeks I had raccoon eyes.

I found an old report card from fourth grade. This card went home every week. The first grade was for cathechism, the second for conduct, the third for dilligence.
At the end of the month we would also get grades for Math, Language, History and Geography.

I am only showing the first page here, as my grades went gradually down the drain on the next. :>) Ten being perfect....5 being unacceptable....etc

One time my report card was so bad that I tossed it in a canal on my way home.
Good riddance!
When I got home fifteen minutes later, my report card was already home, mom holding on it it with murder in her eyes. I SAW it fall in the water, drift under the bridge, how it got home, I never found out, it wasn't even wet!! Gotta little lickin' for that one.

Anyway, I digress.

The group picture was taken at the Zoo, when our group spent a weekend at some sanatorium for (what we were told) mothers who were suffering from nervous breakdowns.
It was a place run by nuns (what else) and we spent the night sleeping in nun rooms. Tiny sparse
rooms that scared the crap out of me. Thank God I we had to double up, so my girlfriend at that time shared a bed with me.

The point of all this is that I grew a decent amount of respect for this couple. They did everything themselves. She sewed all the costumes, he made all the stage props, rehearsed us till we were blue in the face, wrote his own skits, and was always, always busy. They also had quite a brood at home, and he must have had a real job too. These people were an important part in my life, and which brought along awareness with the less fortunate, and of hard work, and most of all of music and laughter.

Back home us kids were never bored either. We had a basement where we performed skits and entire musicals. We built rafts and meandered through the canals. We fished. We caught pollywogs, stickelbaers, and waterfleas with little homemade nets. We would put our newfound pets in glass jars and hid them under our beds, until mom would shreek in horror after finding a bunch of little froggies jumping around the room.
We climbed and fell out of trees, we played doctor in the basement (oh yes we did!)

We organised garden festivals, with games and icecream self made skirts of crepe paper, egg runs, sack races.

We collected rosehips and made god aweful jam, we collected ladybugs and jammed them in matchboxes, we collected spiders the same way. We played a miriad of games we invented ourselves, like girl catcher. We encouraged our friend Kareltje who had Down syndrome, to step in dog poop, or we would tie him to a lightpole and made him try to catch us. We did not do this out of malice, he loved playing with us, even though, in hindsight, we did take advantage of the guy. But...he was part of the group, he loved us all, and he loved my sister the best. :>)
And he always maintained that one day he would marry her.

We went from the hopscotch era to the jump rope era, to the marbles era to the spinning tops era to the kite era. Explanation: One person would start to jump rope and we ALL started jumping rope, and would for days...until someone started with something else.

We had a marvelous youth in that street. Something I'll be forever grateful for. Our parents made sure we ate well, learned well, played well, we always looks neat and clean, we were lucky to be able to go on vacation for two weeks a year. Our parents kept their problems to themselves, at least mine did.
This gave us a safe and happy childhood.

Those were the days.....what happened? Huh?

SGMKJ!