The man looked at me with a weird smile and left. It must have been the two thousand and fiftieth time that I was asked that same question.Īt that point Frederick jumped in and said “I am sorry to tell you sir, but it was not my finger in the dike.” He ignored that and asked me if I was the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. The next thing he said was “you are Dutch aren’t you?” I was at a party and a man approached me and said are you Bert de Vink? Frederick has made life difficult for me many a time. So when the teacher asked “ why do you think Hans thought the church tower has fallen over?”įrederick jumped in and said “because Hans is stupid and lives in a fog.”Īs a result I was kicked out of the class. To Frederick, who was at that time not interested in the German language it was a plain stupid observation by Hans. The mommy answered “oh, no Hans that is the fog.” In the German textbook was a chapter about Hans, who said to his mother “mommy, mommy the church tower has fallen down.”
As an example in Holland it was compulsory to learn three languages besides Dutch. Frederick can be a very unsocial misfit that at the most unwanted times makes me look like a you-know-what-hole.įrederick got a hold of me at a young age. At this point in my life I have to introduce Fredrick Fuffelfinger, my alter ego that does not give a hoot about politically correct language or being polite at all times.