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It was during the last school-year of the technical school of the town Meppel, that it was clear that I should not stop there, like most of my class friend used to do. At that time and still now, it as usual at that time that after having completed the technical school that one would start working at day-time job and pursue his education in a evening school in order to complete his / her professional training.
However some of pupils did continue their education, I did choose that time electronics, it was my passion that time. I did not stop to fiddle around with all sorts of things, and that of great despite of my mother who really hated all this.
Ok, it has been decided that I would go to Hilversum where as a High-School specialised in advanced electronics, ( “The Institute for advanced Electronics Rens & Rens” ) who had and as of today still has, a very good reputation. This Institute who belong today to an electronics firm, belonged in my time to the sir's Rens and Rens, that's where the name came from. The institute has been founded about 75 years ago by them.
So we have taken our car and moved on the way to Hilversum, my parents even bought me a watch somewhere down on the way, and this has been the only watch I ever had. First, at least the first year I was an internal student, I lived in the same building as where the courses were.
Afterwards during the school-year I went home one weekend out of two, the other ones I stayed in Hilversum.
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The two upper levels and also a part of the backside of the building had the sleeping room for the internal students. The remaining space were all classrooms, with the exception of the garden house, which as reserved for the kitchen personnel, and a had also practical workshop. |
No this name is nothing special, it is just the name of the family where I lived after my “Internal Student” period. Nearly all my room mates did quit be Internal, and had taken a furnished room in town. This way we could at least go out and study like we needed to do, then in opposite to what people tend to think, to force someone to study, go out , come in fixed hours is not a guarantee for a good result. One should not that some self-discipline has to be learned to.
Family “Pronk” a retired Cattle-merchant, his wife being a lot younger as he was, rented three furnished rooms of their house, food included, to students and young workers. The two other rooms were rented out to one ho worked in a construction equipment firm and the second work at the radio.
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This how family's “Pronk” house looked like, it is a typical Dutch house, all in line, every one with a little garden at the front and a small place at the backside. This house was next to market place and not very far from the railway-station, and I did not need more as a dozen minutes to go to the Rens & Rens Institute. I lived in room under the roof, it was really quiet up there, and this was also the largest of the three rooms, the other ones were just sleeping rooms. I stayed a long time in contact, conserving a friendship relation with them, and that far beyond student time. I even did specially come back to see her (her husband died already for a long time at that moment) a last moment, I was that time already in Geneva for some time, and thereafter I have not heard or seen any news from her. She had, in fact contacted my parents, (she did not my address in Geneva) that she would like to see me a last time. |
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Hilversum was and today for sure still is a preferred place for radio, artists and music. On the right are shown two pictures of the radio-societies “NCRV” et “VARA”, that time nearly all of the radio and television societies were very political oriented. But that made not a very big difference to us, students, than all invitations to assist at the radio recording were welcome. The distribution of the tickets were usually done by an association, anyway we were always going to them to get any tickets. Sometime it was them who contacted us because they needed some public for the one or other radio recording. I did not mention television, because television was and still at time in a next to Hilversum, and that was a longer way to there. It had had also not same culture nor the same type of artists We went there from time to time for some TV recording, but we had always to find someone with a car or take the train. If I remember right, we that time about a half a dozen radio and television societies, each of them got a proportional amount of the total emission time attributed as the number of members they could display. |
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I was that time also member of an association called “Soos voor kamerbewoners”, for people living in furnished rooms or alone in studio's. This association was run by a girl of our age “Els”, and it was with this organisation we had most of the contacts with the various artists.
As with everything, also good things have an end. The school year 1965 - 1966 was the final preparation for the examination, who have taken place in”Den Haag” either in once everything or twice with 6 month in between. Me and some of my friends have taken the 6 month option, this in order to have more time for the preparation. I was anyway impossible to find any job so close to for going to military service.
It is in this period that I went very often to the“Soos voor kamerbewoners” or simply to “Els” who ran this origination. I liked very much, but there was nothing, just friends, anyway we shared some ideas about society and about re-incarnation theories. She had plenty book on this subject in her room and also books on related subjects. Her room was full of model cars “Dinky Toys” the she was collecting them.
When after military service I came back to Hilversum to see I friend, I heard that “Els” was killed in a car accident.
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I met her when I went with a friend of mine to “Loosdrecht” to see her sister were he was going out with. In fact we had a common interest for the american singer “Buddy Holly” (alias Charles Hardin Holly), that was, at least for the two of us, our favourite artist, and that was where everything started with. This relationship however faded away during my military service. She was to young anyway to have a fixed relation with someone. Much later, I did have some more contact when I was already living in Geneva, but somehow this contact is lost, and I have not had any news from her since then. It is maybe bad, but that's the way live is, and we will have to accept it. |
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After we all succeeded our examination we decided that we should meet at the place of one of us, who lived in place called “Koudum”, to stay a last weekend together. The upper photo has been taken at the persons place, and it was there were had our last meeting-party. The second picture has been taken in a fisherman's village somewhere on “Ijsselmeer” coast. At least this time it was not me who took the picture. On the way back we stopped at my parents place, thereafter everybody has take his own way of live. For me it was a last goodbye, than I have not seen anyone back. For me the military service period was coming nearer, and after military service, two years in “Amersfoort” the departure for Geneva had come and contacts faded away.
This was
then the end of the |
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Murdering of J.F.K. in Dallas.
The Vietnam war.
“I Have a dream” Martin Luther King.
Starting of “The Beatles”.
Starting of the Hippy “Peace & Love” period.
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click on the name!
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Wolter Smit, Freelance Computer engineer, Customer support, installations and system maintenance of Microsoft Windows, Linux, Unix, including the support of the database systems Oracle, PostgreSQL and MySQL. HTML, JSP (Java Server Pages) page support. Technical support, End user support. | |||||
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Here
is a picture of the garden of that institute, the whole was in a
rather big villa ( maison de maître ) which had
three levels of room, classrooms and also two other buildings, a
rather big garden house and large barrack, like the dismountable
ones the construction firms use have, which served also as
classroom.
Voilà,
a friendship which was a lot more as the others, and which is
worth to be mentioned here. Her name is
“Bea” coming from her real name “Beatrice”
(she really hated that name!). Why I
mention her specially?, because it was by knowing her that I have
learned that there is a difference between being in love
