Cheeseheads

The Dutch victory over Spain in the seventeenth century is still a big deal in the Netherlands. Our host in Alkmaar, Netherlands, Leen Spaans, told me that. He’s the town historian, but more than that, he knows everything about what happened in that part of the Netherlands, and all around it, all the way back to the Middle Ages. He and his wife live in a house that has a sign that says it was built in 1623, but really it’s 30 years older than that. He showed Meg and me bricks from the old wall that the town erected in those days to defend itself. The reason the bricks were easy to come by is because the Spanish came with big cannons and patiently bombarded the wall until it crumbled. Later, civic leaders from Alkamar visited an Italian delegation to learn how Italian cities defended themselves. Build a moat to keep the cannons at a distance, the Italians said, and then build walls out of earth instead of bricks; rather than blasting down the bricks, the cannon balls will stick in the mud.

We were in Alkmaar to visit the memorial to Truus Wijsmuller, the Dutch heroine who rescued 10,000 children from occupied lands in WW II and who inspired Meg’s novel The Last Train to London. We met the sculptor too, Annet Terberg, who depicted a larger than life Truus with children in her arms and all around her, some consoling others in their grief at being separated from their parents, some with their small bags or stuffed animals, all with faces that showed their pain and courage. That was something that struck me about the children, their faces were true, rendered in bronze as if in flesh, by someone who, like Truus, understood children on their level.

The day we were there was also the opening of the cheese festival, and we saw the orange wheels of gouda and the cheese carriers taking the big rounds to be weighed on huge balance scales. One of them told us about the cheese carriers’ guild. Once a member, you were a member for life, and you could depend on your fellow members to look after you when times got tough. What he described was the best of what unions offer their members, an honest version of what, in the United States at least, ultimately became protectionist schemes with politically corrupt leadership that led to their demise, and a loss for workers.

The cheese traditionally was made in round bowls with wooden lids about the size of a skull cap. In the war—I wasn’t sure which one—the wooden tops were worn on the head for protection, like helmets. The people wearing them were called cheese heads. And here I thought that term only applied to football fans in Wisconsin with foam blocks of cheese for hats. 

What I learned in Alkmaar is what I always seem to learn in Europe. Over the centuries, the people are constantly in strife with their distant neighbors, but always close to their near ones. It is the same today. Even now. Especially now. Again. 

It makes me wonder, as always, why the love and empathy we feel for one another when we are close at hand cannot be extended further. Perhaps it is not the limits of our love and empathy that are the problem, but rather the ambitions for power of our leaders, who for their own gain, not ours, convince us that our distant neighbors are our enemies.

A Stranger in a Strange Land

 I might as well have come to Earth from Mars, like Mike Smith in Robert Heinlein’s novel, or the desert wanderer of the King James Bible. I am in alien territory.

To try to get my bearings, I imagine myself in Washington DC, where I go to the Department of Education, thinking they will know what is happening. No one is there. 

I find the Environmental Protection Agency to see if pollution is clouding my vision. I am told that clearing the air is no longer their mission. A kind woman who looks ashamed says that even though the sky is hazy brown, the next car I buy will be cheaper because it won’t have to meet emission rules, and the gas for it will be too, since they aren’t going to worry about refinery pollution either.

There is a small group of protesters outside the Justice Department waving flags from other countries and saying that people who are here legally cant be deported just because they don’t see the world a certain way. I wonder if that includes someone as lost and confused as me. Big men in ballistic vests and wide tactical belts begin cuffing the protesters and loading them into the backs of vans. One of the armed men meets my gaze and says something to the man beside him, who takes my picture with his body camera as I turn to hurry away.

I decide it might be best to get out of there, so I try to buy a subway ticket to the airport, but my credit card isn’t accepted. I try an ATM machine. My account has no money, the screen says. I should see a teller inside. I walk away quickly, glancing over my shoulder to be sure no one is coming after me.

With no money or credit, I can’t get to the airport, and I couldn’t buy a plane ticket home even if I could. I pull my ball cap down low over my face and walk out to the highway west and put out my thumb, hoping for a ride somewhere, anywhere, as long as its some place I might recognize as my country.