Bill Daniels

I first became aware of the presence of Marijke and
Evert from Jeanne who told me about a Dutch man she
had met in the hot tub at the Elkton YMCA. Of course
it required a few odd exchanges such as "Are you
British?" to uncover their mutual Dutchness (I shall
never understand why Netherlanders do not seem to
recognize a Dutch accent in others of that
nationality!) but it did come about.

Evert turned out to be one half of the energetic and entertaining team
of "Marijke and Evert" whose anniversary we are
celebrating. We soon exchanged visits and discovered
we had many acquaintances in common such as Bernie and
Roz, and even more importantly we made many new
friends such as the Dranes, Stevens' to connect our
various worlds. This led to dinners, movies, picnics
(!), in short a whole new additional focus of our
intellectual, artistic and social lives.

We also had
the pleasure of meeting Victor and Liz and their
children about whose activities we are kept up to date
by M and E. Possibly a culmination of these activities
was our several week exploratory trip through the
wonders and pleasures of Spain during holy week.
Several weeks of sharing a car and many new decisions
each day (especially since many of our destinations
were spontaneous, unrehearsed and without
reservations-the latter risky during holy week)
creating some inevetible stresses and strains.

I remember particularly the anxious looks on the faces
of Marijke and Evert when Jeanne and I would decide to
take a "shortcut" vaguely indicated on a map and would
be thundering down a rutted dirt road into the unknown
with fuel running low.However, we weathered it well
considering some fundamental differences in degree of
order and security the two couples preferred. It was a
great introduction to Spain and to the pleasures and
difficulties of travelling together!

We have tried to isolate "favorite stories" of and
about M and E but find they are too overwhelmed by the
background of so many pleasant events such as the
weekend evening films at either the Nemours Theater or
at home with rental films (and more recently the van
Buchem "Netflix" program), the many "Dutch" menus or
exploratory restaurant excursions, to select one or a
few special events. They have all been special!

In rethinking however, one event does stand out. That is,
the narrative and photographs of their pilgrimage to
Indonesia in Fall 2004. Tracing Marijke's early
history there (and possibly exorcising some demons)
worked out so well, and the obvious pleasure they had
with Bali and Java were a joy and inspiration to us as
well.

We look forward with pleasure to a long continuation
of our experiences together!!