WHERE DO I COME FROM?
My grandparents on both sides were elders in the “Christelijk Gereformeerde Kerk in Kornhorn, Groningen. If in the afternoon church service a nap was more seductive than the sermon, my grandfather whose name I share- a dairy farmer- would resolutely stand up so not to succumb to an unholy bit of shut-eye. Yes, my parents, my wife – a minister’s daughter!- and I have our roots in what here is called the Netherlands Reformed Church, better known as the heaven-fanatic, very conservative, black stocking church. The last words my late older brother –who kept the faith of the fathers – said to me “We will see each other again in heaven.” Indeed, my background is convincingly pious.
I was slated to become a minister, and was sent after grade school to the minister-doctor-lawyer preparatory school, the Christian Gymnasium, 6 grades with some 100 students in total, almost all male. I still have a picture of the grade 5 class: 13 young men 18-20 years old, all in suits and ties. Besides Latin and Greek – Hebrew was the only option, which I now regret not taking- and four European languages and six mathematical subjects, it taught me discipline.
No, I did not become a minister. Instead I moved to Canada in 1951, after serving a short time in the military. I could have become an air force pilot, but my father refused to give his approval.
Independence categorizes me. Within a year in Canada I was my own boss, selling insurance. Formed my own agency in 1957, became a real estate broker in 1965, the same year I was chairman of the Young People convention in Niagara Falls with the motto “Alive for Christ in ’65.” Always active in something: school boards, Ontario Alliance, an elder. In 1959 when I saw a client die of lung cancer I decided to quit smoking and take up running. Ever since then running has been part of my life.
1972 was for me a turning point. Three books changed my life: Lappe’s Diet for a small planet, Teller’s Sterven,,,, en dan? (After death….what?) and The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth.
Lappe’s book convinced us to become vegetarian. Telller’s book made me see the importance of the earth as our eternal destination, and the Club of Rome taught me that we live in a finite world.
The church? I still love it, but had my disagreements there. I remember speaking at a chapel service at Beacon Christian High School in St. Catharines right after I had seen the Light about creation and wanted to share that not heaven but the earth needed our total devotion. My minister was also in the audience, disagreeing so much that he sent a letter to all parents. Later he wanted to discipline me. Fortunately he left the denomination.
He was one reason why in 1975 we sold our house and business and moved to Tweed, far away from it all. I also wanted to use less of earth’s resources. We bought 50 acres from friends and built into a southerly slope an energy efficient house, two storeys on the south side with large windows on both floors, and one storey on the north with only one small window there. I even made insulated shutters for the windows as glass is a very poor insulator.
Again I created my own job. Living on savings, I used my time to qualify as a real estate appraiser, taking courses at Trent, Queen’s and York Universities and preparing three master appraisals of more than 100 pages each, one on a single family dwelling, another on apartment complex and a third on an industrial building, all required to become an accredited appraiser. In 1978 I had all my qualifications and launched Hastings Appraisal Services, subsequently hiring residential appraisers, one for South Hastings County, one to cover Central Hastings and another for North Hastings. I did all the commercial stuff, an airport, river dams, the entire Bruce Peninsula for an Indian land claim – 500,000 acres – , lots of work for Public Works Canada, as well as an uranium mine with 4,500 acres and numerous summer camps, grocery stores, hotels, schools, you name it.
When I sold out in 1993 I installed 10 solar panels and expanded my garden, converting the soil from pure sand to something fertile, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, carting from a neighbour’s yard pure precious black manure and also working in our compost. I grow much of what we eat, bike to town 11 km daily – in June I ran a 10 km race in 1.05 hour- grind our own flour with an electric mill, buying the kernels from Grain Processors, where we also obtain oat flakes and other bulk foods, bake bread.
I try to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, fully realizing that this path is different for each person.