The Dutch Connection!

I Married a Dutchman! You may think….yeah, that is cool. Yes, it is.  But what a journey!

Let’s see, I was sixteen and he was eighteen when we met for the first time. The first day of my senior year of high school. Let me tell you, I was NOT impressed. He was a foreign exchange student from the Netherlands and he was weird.  Haha, he came into my English class wearing these old blue jeans and a blue Shetland style sweater and green high top sneakers–tall, blond and lanky. I totally dismissed him. I usually liked the tall, dark and brooding look.  He, later, told me that he thought I was stuck up.  I guess you could say he grew on me. We kept running into each other in school classes and school events.  I was twirling rifles in the marching band and he came to all the fall football games with his American family.  I knew his family from town and church. I sang in the choir with his American mom–she sang tenor!   We started talking more and more and I got to understand him a little better.  I was a total music nerd and he didn’t seem to care. He was different from the American boys in school.  Not a jock and VERY frank. We started “dating” and time went on. At the time, I was wearing a frosted afro,  so I got the nickname of Frisky Frosty.   Argh, thanks to his American sister.  I was frosty, but really not frisky.

I knew his family was interesting but little did I realize I would soon see for myself. At the beginning of December that year my, then, boyfriends uncle surprised us with a visit. He was considered a little “gek” (crazy) by the family–but in a good way.   My boyfriend’s American mom and his Dutch uncle had been having a running argument. She was a journalist for the local paper and he was both Dutch and a photographer. What was their disagreement about? Why, Santa Claus, of course.  In case you didn’t know it, the Dutch claim that our Santa Claus tradition was stolen from the Dutch. His name is Sinterklaas. He was a saint who traveled around giving gifts to good little boys and girls. He travels to Holland from Spain on a steamboat and then rides a white horse with his troop of helpers called Zwart Piets (Black Peter) to deliver toys.  Now before you start claiming that is racist, the helpers get dirty from going up and down the chimneys. Well, okay, they are usually portrayed by men in blackface but the Dutch have had this tradition for hundreds of years. For more information see this link: The Sinterklaas story

So where was I?  Oh yes, the big argument!  My boyfriend’s uncle apparently felt so strongly about it that he decided to surprise his nephew and his American mom with a visit. He flew in and rented a car, which he drove to our town.  He didn’t know exactly where “Mom” lived and we didn’t have GPS then so he found the town diner. He enlisted the aid of the owner, who also called in the town major to help. They somehow managed to find enough stuff to dress him up as Sinterklaas.

 

Sint and the Pope must have the same costumer.   However, they made it work.

“Sinterklaas” came to our high school to visit all of my boyfriend’s teachers and his American Mom. (she was warned)     It was truly memorable. As the year progressed, I got to meet many of his family.   Of course I didn’t understand a word.   But that is another story.   All in all, quite an introduction.

So, the usual procedure is to have the exchange student go home to their families and live their lives.  Didn’t happen…Weel, he did go home in June but I worked really hard and saved enough money to fly over to Holland to visit him in September. We, somehow, managed to convince his parents to let him return to the US to go to college in the states. In December, he returned and stayed with my family this time. (Convenient, wink wink :))

That’s it!     Wait….nope forgot to tell you about how we ended up married so soon.

He had a student visa which worked fine but at the time, it had to be renewed yearly. The only way to allow him to stay in the states for any length of time was to be married to an American. So, although a proposal had already been given and accepted, we ended up planning a wedding in the course of three weeks.   That didn’t complete the process though. We had to travel to the nearest embassy to get his green card.   In the end, it worked.   Many ups and downs over the years, but here we are almost 38 years later. I eventually did learned Dutch.   Why? I had to know what his family was saying about me, didn’t I?

Contact me at:  taketimetolivelife@outlook.com