In Pursuit of Spring ( and Sanity)

For me this was an interesting segment -- the first use I know of for a term that later became a bit of a catch-phrase for John. And a few other little episodes that are distinctly of JC.  I'll let you find them yourself.  --- Monday June 14/65   After breakfast (this time the straight European kind) we went to the British and American Consulates and the American Express. I didn't find a letter for me but will write Canada House. Rod is not coming today and the Port authorities do not know when his ship will dock. We've decided to take a short tour of Belgium and try to get him on Thursday. Fort Breendonk, half way between Antwerp and Bruxelles, was our next stop. This was a fort in the 1st W.W. and used as a concentration camp for Jews and political prisoners by the S.S. and Nazis in the 2nd W.W. It is reconstructed as a concentration camp and many objects bear witness to the atrocities carried out here. Detention cells, whips and other torture implements, p...

No editorial content from me to preface this one. John and group travel around the Ijsselmeer ( what used to be the Zuider Zee). It was probably a larger lake then as much land was still being reclaimed at the time).  --- Thursday June 10/65  We drove over to the main Autopon and then our Mr Krieger drove us to the license place where that was picked up. It is a good thing that he was with us as it would have taken us about 2 hours. He took the papers and charged to the head of the line while the other people glared at him and we stood by awkwardly. Krieger was saying he has a son in Boston and that he was a prisoner of war for 2 1/2 years and therefore has no love for the Germans. A wood shop near the Autopon supplied wood and the owner built us a platform which will provide a bed. I'm sure that the most helpful and pleasant people in Europe must be the Dutch. They go out of their way to be helpful. For instance, we asked directions from a man and started off as inst...

About a month ago, on one of those -32c mornings that are exhilarating to those who love The Valley and perhaps too effing cold for those who don’t, I asked my 6 year old grandson Max if he thought that Spring would ever arrive.   His response was terribly cogent in today’s crisis and uttered in a sweetly derisive tone of voice that small children reserve for their obviously daft grandparents. “Of course, Spring always comes after Winter.”   The words “you idiot” were clearly implied but left unspoken. And, of course, as Max predicted Spring is following winter and has arrived. The snow in The Valley is running away surely. The 10 feet piles of snow along the roadsides have melted away and the flocks of redwing blackbirds and grackles have returned to Dead Horse Pond across the street. The ice-huts have been pulled in off the lake – more than a week early. Spring is springing – although we’re a long way from seeing any tulips at least the snow is off my two newly planted...