The Dutchman

I met the Dutchman when I was much younger and prettier than I am now.
Good thing too about the prettier part, as I think my brains were scattered all over the landscape; out looking for my common sense. He found me utterly charming.
I found him a marvel of nature.

It was a chaotic relationship. He decided that I should speak Dutch to him therefor he spoke *only* Dutch to me. I would cry in frustration and blush. One day there were six or seven people in the room along with me, and he was telling a story. I laughed. It was a moment before I realised I had understood the humour, in Dutch. He knew what he was doing all along the canny old bird.

Unlike me, he could tolerate the sun and would garden from dawn to dusk some days. He had a regular sized city lot in Vancouver which means 33 by 110 including a lane allowance. There was not a strand of grass left. He provided his year round vegetables from that little lot and could not understand why his neighbours did not follow suit. Having lived through 2 wars and the depression he was thrifty to say the least. In world war 2 he managed to keep the family going while all around him people starved. His front room was bombed out and he was roused from his bed in the middle of the night while German Occupying Officers searched his house for the radio they had been informed he listened to. He never caved in to the pressure nor did they ever find it. He was really clever about things, even in those years.

Once the war was over, his little family expanded to include more children, and he contemplated a move to Canada. Inbetween work and musings he sang in a baritone tenor for the entire block to hear. After all, is that not why God gives some of us louder voices? To share with all around the marvels of his creation? Cor certainly thought so. That was his name.
Cornelius Wilheim. God gave him a double heaping helping of moxie. He would need it. But for now there was the Choir.

A nearby Cathedral was recruiting voices for their touring choir. Naturally Cor knew God would want him to do that and so he joined up and had the honour of going to the Vatican and singing for the Pope. The Choir was further rewarded for their efforts by a personal audience with His Holiness, the Bishop of Rome. When they were all assembled the Pope went down the line praising each man for his part in the recital. He came to Cor and was about to praise him when Cor decided to share with him: "I'm not Catholic you know."
He said the Pope laughed. I bet the Choirmaster didnt tho.

Cor did move the family to Canada in the 1950s where he had another daughter to complete his family. She was young enough to be the child of his first daughter who was long since out of the house and married with kids of her own. He doted on this last child of his and took her out of School at the drop of a hat if there was even a whisper of an excuse to do so. He got more of a murmuring when his sister arrived from Holland for a visit. Naturally he took his beloved youngest daughter with him to pick up the Aunt and he, his wife and daughter and sister set out from the airport on a sight seeing driver around Vancouver.

The roads in West Vancouver can be steep and slippery but they are well maintained. Cor was driving up a 22% incline when a car pulling a load of gravel slipped in front of him. He let the car gain some distance as he pointed out various local attractions and visages to his sister.
He thought he saw some little thing out of place but could not quite get his conscious brain to identify it until he realised with a start that the gravel trailer was going the wrong direction having snapped off from the towbar. The trailer which was fully loaded was careening down the hill towards him.

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Let bravery be thy choice, but not bravado.
Menander Greek comic dramatist (342 BC - 292 BC)