#2 Algemeen commentaar

A) Gebruiksaanweizingen

Iedereen kan op iedere “post “ een “comment” geven. Om alle comments bij elkaar the houden leek het beter om een speciale comment post op te zetten. Deze algemeen commentaar “post” wordt hopelijk de plaats waar je alle comments achter elkaar kunt zien. Een foto van Park Royal  South past daar goed bij

Met een gmail account is het heel makkelijk om een comment te geven. Het is ook heel makkelyk een gmail account op te zetten. Zonder gmail account moet je de “open ID bar” gebruiken en dan een ander ID address zoals Facebook Yahoo AOL Sears of Flikr invullen. Het is soms ook nodig om een aantal onregelmatig geschreven letters netjes uit te tikken. Hoewel je je email adres moet invullen voor een commentaar, dat adres komt niet zichtbaar op de blog

B) Verhalen van ons en anderen 

Ons blog wordt ook door anderen gelezen. Vandaag 20150724 waren er 8 "pageviews", gisteren 25. dat is meer dan normaal want ons totaal tot zover is 649. Ik kan alleen maar zien waar de lezers van de laatste paar dagen woonden. Ditmaal was het Canada 37, US 7, China 1, Duitsland 1 . Er zyn allicht Hollanders in andere landen die willen laten wete hoe ze daar terecht kwamen en hoe ze zich daar aanpasten. Dat kunnen ze doen via een comment op deze post. Hier volgt wat ik hoop een verzameling van ervaringen zal worden. Die van onszelf kun je via Leo en Hans opsturen

20150724

Via via via ontving it dit verhaal van Joep Diening. Het is een persoonlyke rapportage om te laten zien hoe dankbaar de Hollanders zyn dat de Canadezen ons bevryd hebben. Ik hoop dat vele Canadezen het kunnen lezen.  Zyn opmerking  “With 7 kids arriving and expecting my youngest sister in December of 1960, we were a classic immigrant family with Dad the only who spoke English, very little money at any time” is niet dat classiek. Velen zoals ik kwamen op ons eentje en deze familie had vermoedelyk  heel wat meer moeite. Hier volgt zyn verhaal:

May 5, 2015

Beste Allemaal,

Today is the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Holland.  If you have been following the news, you probably realize how much love, gratitude and appreciation that the Dutch have for Canadians, for their tremendous and vital part that they played in liberating Holland and the significant sacrifices that they made in doing so.  The Canadians had to fight their way across the various types of waterways that existed and through a multitude of villages, towns and cities.  All of Holland was finally free on 5 May 1945 when the German army surrendered to Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Foulkes, Commander 1st Canadian Corps.  Around 7,600 Canadians gave up their lives in the fight to free the Netherlands.  Holland observes Remembrance Day on 4 May each year.  I have visited several of the Commonwealth graves in Holland and elsewhere where many Canadians are buried.  Each of these cemeteries are kept absolutely clean and well kept and school children do their part to keep them so.

My parents experienced the whole war while living in Amsterdam, got married in 1944 and my older brother was born in March of 1945 while the northern half (including Amsterdam) was starving throughout that extremely cold and bitter winter (The Hunger Winter).  Dad was involved in the resistance movement but would never talk much about it.  My parents hated war and what it did to people.  After the war, much rebuilding had to be done and by 1960, my parents decided to come to Canada. 

We emigrated from Holland 55 years ago today, flying with KLM and landed in Montreal in the morning of 6 May, flying to Toronto later that morning, a flight/journey and experience that remains still fresh in my mind to this day.  With 7 kids arriving and expecting my youngest sister in December of 1960, we were a classic immigrant family with Dad the only who spoke English, very little money at any time but we all had a very strong work ethic and managed to survive and thrive as a family.  Canada was for us a land of opportunity, open spaces, where working together, families could make a go of it, and so we did.  In November 1965, I proudly became a Canadian citizen and kept my Dutch heritage close to me.

I write to you all with this detail to let everyone know how the Dutch feel about Canada and Canadians, how we are very lucky to live in the country that we do and to express eternal gratitude for the Canadians that liberated my country of birth 70 years ago.  No doubt, all of you probably know either through family or friends, Canadian veterans who fought in Europe and some who did not come home.  It is the reason why it is so important to have a Remembrance Day.  It is the reason why my family and I feel such deep gratitude to Canada.  It is the reason why I am so proud to be a Canadian and to have served in the Canadian air force for 31 years.  So, from my family who immigrated to Canada, and from my own family happily living in Penetanguishene, a heartfelt thank you to you, your relatives who served in the Second World War and to all people of Canada for living in one of the best countries in the world.

Hartelijke groet,

Joep

20150720

Gelezen in de “North Shore News”

Hier volgt een interessant verhaal over de honger winter en een uittreksel van myn gepubliceerde brieven.

Honger winter belevenissen van Marleen Cotterill

Leo gaf me een afdruk van een “North Shore News” artikel en vroeg of het mogelyk was dat op de “blog” te laten zien. Ik vond het op hun “website” De foto kon ik niet direct in de blog zetten maar het is gelukt via een “screen print”. Hier volgt dat interessante verhaal:

http://www.nsnews.com/living/seniors/memory-lane-west-vancouver-woman-survives-dutch-famine-1.1945235

MEMORY LANE: West Vancouver woman survives Dutch famine

LAURA ANDERSON, CONTRIBUTING WRITER 
MAY 24, 2015 12:00 AM

Marleen Cotterill recalls the hardships faced by her family growing up during the Second World War in the Netherlands. Photo Cindy Goodman Marleen Cotterill has lived in Canada since 1963 and in West Vancouver since 2001. She is a Canadian citizen with sons and grandsons born in this country, yet a piece of Marleen's heart will always belong to Holland.

Marleen's family goes back a long way in that part of the world, to the 1700s. Her father was "pure Amsterdam" and her mother half Dutch and half German. She had uncles who fought for the Allies and for the Axis forces during the Second World War. Twelve years old when the war ended,

Marleen was six and just starting school when it began.

"It stays with us, the part I remember. It was very cold and we were very hungry. It was," Marleen counts in Dutch, "1944 to '45, the 'Hongerwinter.' We made the beds with our gloves on and ice flowers grew on the insides of the windows. There was no heat. We got light from kerosene lanterns and from oil lamps that spilled and left greasy marks everywhere."

A dozen people lived in the family home in Bussum during the war, including Marleen's parents, her brother Paul and her five sisters. When baby Tineke was born in 1943, an aunt came to help out. There was room for an orphaned cousin and a girl from the country, stranded by the war. Two neighbour boys regularly found refuge with the family. "The Germans marched through the streets looking for food or reinforcements, whatever they wanted. We knew when they were coming, they were always singing. The boys would run to our house and we would hide them inside a cupboard behind a trap door."

There was no food. In the attic was a big, round yellow cheese.

"We never touched it. It was there if we really needed it. I still see that yellow cheese but I don't remember what happened to it. Mainly, we ate potatoes. My sisters would go out to the fields and search for potato plants that mother made into soup and even cookies," she says. When there were no potatoes to be found, they ate "rabbit food" - wild greens that her mother transformed into a dish she called "spinach."

"My father would take his bicycle without rubber tires and go for food from the farms. Once he went off with a friend, pulling a wagon. After two days, they returned with eggs, meat and potatoes. There were no fridges so we cooked the meat and put everything in the basement. The smell of the cooked meat; I guess that's how it happened. The next morning, everything was gone. Only the potatoes were left. The thieves must have put a child through the iron bars on the basement windows. The only time I saw my father cry was that day and on the day I left for Canada," she says.

Life went on during the Nazi occupation. When the German army took over the schools to house its soldiers, the Dutch children learned their lessons in neighbours' houses, "except on sunny days when the bombers flew over us," remembers Marleen."Our parents were always very social. Towards the end of the war, they would slip out under cover of the neighbourhood gardens to friends' houses where they could 'bridge' and have a bit of fun."

On May 5, 1945, the First Canadian Army liberated Holland. They brought peace and with it, food, coal and medical supplies. "The Canadians were so friendly, always smiling, and generous, always giving us all the food they had with them."The war left its mark on the family. Marleen's feet ache from years of wearing shoes she had outgrown. Her bones ache from that wartime diet of potatoes and little else. But, she and her brother and sisters, still living back in Holland, remain as closely connected as they had been in childhood, through Skype, phone and email. Marleen attends St. Stephen's Anglican Church and continues to "bridge" at the seniors' centre, where she also volunteered for many years. Her sons and grandsons live nearby. Life for Marleen Cotterill continues to be productive and fulfilling, and in her refrigerator there is always a wedge of Dutch cheese.

Email lander1@shaw.ca

© 2015 North Shore News

Koolstof belasting

De “North Shore News” website  bevat ook twee brieven die ik schreef om te laten zien hoe belangryk koolstof belasting is . Ik geloof dat daar ook wel belangstelling voor is. De eerste, 

http://www.nsnews.com/opinion/letters/letter-reduce-parking-promote-ride-share-1.1588271 

laat zien hoe we met minder autos kunnen leven en dat met al die hellingen hier een electrische fiets erg handig is om wat minder brandstof te gebruiken. Een koolstof belasting kan zulke besparingen aanmoedigen. De tweede . 

 http://www.nsnews.com/opinion/letters/letter-wind-power-not-site-c-the-way-to-go-1.1940770 

ducumenteert hoe, zonder algemene koolstof belasting, BC heel wat geld verliest. BC Hydro is verplicht om alle groene electriciteit van onafhankele firmas op te kopen. Als gevolg hebben we een !0c/KWh surplus  dat voor 4c/KWh verkocht wordt. Site C zal dat erger maken. De 8.5c/KWh is gebazeerd op een productie van 5100 GWh per jaar. Als, zoals nu, vanwege  surplus hydro beperkt wordt tot, zeg 4000 GWh per jaar voor site C , de kost gaat omhoog tot 10.8c/KWh. De directe oplossing is om Alberta the verplichten om veel meer groene electriciteit  te gebruiken voor hun olie industrie. Dan kunnen we met modern wind en zon  equipment heel wat 7c/ KWh electriciteit verkopen en dat maakt site C overbodig. Een algemene koolstof belasting is de uiteindelyke oplossing. De 7c voor zon en wind ontdekte ik later en staat niet in de krant. Ook moest ik het tot 400 woorden beperken zodat de mogelyke  10.8c/KWh voor site C niet naar voren komt.