One of the things I can remember is that there was a time when there was some antagonism between people from the "Village" and those from Lago Heights. Because of this rivalry a fight was organized between Hendrick . . . . from one of those intermediate houses (which we called Castle Heights) and someone from below the hill. This Hendrick had a sister called Edie.
At 10 o'clock sharp, both fighters were ready and fists were up, accompanied by noise of encouragement from both camps. The fight got underway and lasted exactly . . . . .15 seconds. For all of a sudden there was some movement in the crowd and this big lady pushing everyone aside got between the two boys shouting:
"Now, stop this nonsense" and she broke up the fight (talk about disappointment in the crowd . . .)
That fine lady was none other than your (Fred and Edwin's) nextdoor neighbor, Mrs. Abrahams, and if my memory serves me correctly she even got the two fighters to shake hands. The crowd broke up and everybody went home for lunch, and that was the end of the whole thing . . .
By the way, Hendrick left to Holland before anything could be organised, but someone seems to have written to him, asking him to represent Lago Heights in a fight. So when he came back during the Summer holidays, he accepted.
Castle Heights.
We called it so, thinking that as the houses were built on these concrete supports, to us as kids with a good deal of imagination (and again with good Arubian logic), they looked like castles. After all, at that time, none of us had actually seen a real castle before, other than some pictures in books, and we knew that they were supposed to be very big and high. (By the way, I bought my house there.).
About kites . . .
As you know that nearing Easter is kite time. I had one my father made for me which I flew every year. And, as you well know, all the Lago Heights houses had a sink at the back for washing clothes or whatever ( I used it to bathe our dog) and I always tied my kite under that sink.
So still about that kite . . .
Rudy Macdonald lived above us at 927 and he and I used to spend hours on their house roof passing the time away on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and on the evenings during the week after school, looking at whatever activities were going on below us.
This particular afternoon about 4 PM we were admiring my kite flying just next to the water towers when, all of a sudden Rudy said:
"Hey Oswald, your kite is moving . . .". I replied:
"Yes, it's moving nicely in the wind . . ."., but Rudy insisted:
"No, man, the kite is coming towards us!!"
Then I looked closely again and I realised, hell yes, it WAS moving towards us as if someone was walking with it. You talk about scrambling down from Rudy's house roof. When we got down, what did we see? There was this guy from behind the wire fence holding my kite and walking away from my house in the middle of the little path between Rudy's house and ours.
(This path connected the 900 and the 1000 roads, and ran alongside the Coffi's (1026) and between 927 and 925. And it had steps built (a little bridge) over the pipes behind our houses.)
So, anyway, Rudy and I went up to this guy and asked him what he was doing with my kite. He replied:
"I am just holding it.". So we said:
"You mean you went on purpose in our yard and cut the string just to hold the kite?" and he said:
"Yes".
Of course, we took the kite away from him (all the time the kite is still flying) and tied it back under the sink.
Now every Sunday this fellow and his sisters went to Sunday school, and to get there, they had to take the path between Rudy's house and ours. On the Sunday following the day of the kite incident, we decided to wait for them to pass by.
Rudy said to the guy:
"Look, we are going to see your mother and tell her what you did." (Thinking we would scare him).
Then out came this reply spontaneously from one of his younger sisters:
"If ayou come in owah yaad, we gong backle ayou"
Rudy and I looked at each other and just broke out in one big laugh and while we were doubled up laughing, the lot of them continued their way and that was the end of the incident.
Talking about pronunciation.
Darlene Linscheer had a younger sister called Sandra, or Sandy. One day we were sitting around, talking with Ian da Silva. Sandy, having just lost her two front milk teeth, came out of the house and went up to Ian and said:
"Look, no neet", showing Ian the open space between her teeth. Here again, big laughs . . .
Referring to her missing teeth Sandy meant to say:
"Look, no teeth".
Since then, we used to call Sandy "NO NEET".
After returning to Aruba some 28 years later, I saw Darlene and mentioned the above story and, of course, big laughter, and she said that she would relay the story to Sandy who lives in the States.
There was this Trinidad man (I think), can't remember who. Telling this story at the Club. That he asked his son to boil him an egg, but that the son got distracted along the cooking line, and of course the egg got spoiled:
"Maan, ah tell dis baay to baayl me a egg an e done gaan, me no kno weh. An den dis egg, maan, e baayl, e baayl, e baayl, till when dee egg spaayl. So wen dee baay com back, I boolpoop heem!
Nicknames . . . .
As you may well know, everyone in Lago Heights knew me as "Squashy" and no on knows where that nickname came from. Well, the whole mystery is as follows . . .
It was the very first day I attended school at 7 years in 1947 at the Prins Bernhard School.
Rudy MacDonald was sitting next to me in the class and we had a visit of the Head Master (whose name I forgot). He was from Surinam and was later replaced by Mr. van Zijl.
Our teacher, Mrs. de Vries (Gerold's (#649) aunt) and this Head Master were going around the class asking children their names. When he got to my bench he did not ask my name, he just looked at me and said "Squashy". Talk about big laughter in the class. And as you know Rudy, for that kind of thing gets to him and from that time on he started calling me Squashy.
I never did get to know what that Head Master wanted to insinuate by calling me Squashy.
Continuing on the name Squashy.
We used to have a dog also, Prince. He used to be the terror of the 900 road. He was a very bad dog to others, but very good to us as he defended us very ferociously.
People were fed up of that dog and one day, Hugo Sharpe (917) decided to play avenger of poor people and Hugo passed by our house with big rocks in his hand, ready to throw at Prince to teach him a lesson. But as he did not know the dog's name and to still call the dog out of the house, Hugo shouted:
"Squashy dog, Squashy dog".
I cannot remember if Prince did come out and if Hugo managed to take his revenge . . . .
Going back to our dog Prince, I know that one Sunday evening, after matinee, Bruno Arends was coming down the road on his very new and clean Raleigh bike. Prince ran after him and unfortunately ran into the bike. Bruno fell down and was bruised a bit. I cannot remember if his bike was damaged and whether my father had to pay fo repairs.
Oh, oh, more dogs . . .
There was also the time when the Dirksz' (1038) black Labrador dog bit Laurence Richardson on his leg and took quite a bit of his leg . . . (he too was the terror of his road).
About donkeys . . .
I remember when we used to go out and catch them. The easiest one to catch was Sorey, for he had sores on his back. We used to use Sorey to catch the others like White Macho and Flying Macho and we used to have some good donkey races . . .
Frank MacDonald (927), Rudy's older brother, had his own donkey, which he had tethered behind the house with a piece of rope taken from some unsuspecting neighbor's clothes line.
Every night before he went to sleep he checked his donkey to see if the line was securely tied. But every morning he found the donkey wandering about loose, with the rope untied. Every evening he secured the rope better, but to no avail. The following morning the donkey would not be tied.
Even trying with a chain did help. Frank's belief in ghosts grew as his attempts to keep his donkey tied kept failing night after night. After all, only ghosts could be capable of such a deed.
Only years later did he find out that the "ghost" had actually been Romaldo Coffi (1026), who was intent on having a good nights' rest after coming home from the 4 to 12 shift, and not having a braying donkey disturbing his sleep. He was the one who night after light freed the donkey and chased him away . . . . .
I still think that Frank has remained with a trauma and still believes in ghosts.... Booo!
Believe it or not, there are more donkey stories
Remember the Black Street, where we used to go for soap box (garoshi) races?
Who can remember one night when there was the droning of a plane circling over Lago Heights trying to find the airfield to land. People rushed to the de Vuyst airfield with cars to light up the runway with their headlights and it was said that someone even pointed their flash light at the plane to indicate that the plane should go over to its left to avoid hitting the water tanks next to the airfield.
The plane turned out to be an American Air Force twin engine Bomber which was very low on fuel. It landed safely.
(Edwin also has a "plane" story . . . . .)
Christmas and New Year were always wonderful events and we as children, we really took in the maximum of those days.
I remember we used to have competition among ourselves as to who whom would be the first one to see the star and lights on the Cat Cracker (the catalytic cracker still) all lit up. Also, we used to look at the trees in the houses to see which was decorated the prettiest. And on Christmas, we youngsters, teenagers, used to go from house to house to wish people Merry Chirstmas and get a drink at every house (real alcoholic stuff)
Horses . . .
One day, all of a sudden, horses were the thing going on. Many people were bying horses and we, as kids, used to care for them.
There was one particular horse that I remember: it was Black Fury belonging to the Donks. One of George Arendsz' nephews and Brandon Moses used to take care of this horse. It was a very fine and heavy stallion, but it had one very stupid default,
which was that one should never let the horse graze in one place for more than one day. For if you did so, and decided to ride him the following day near his day-old grazing spot, he would just turn to that spot, stop dead there and not move again. If you didn't want this to happen, you had to take him miles away from where he grazed the previous day.
To illustrate this, the following story:
With all those horses around, people decided to organize a horse racing event, somewhere in Santa Cruz, I think. So, this particular Sunday afternoon this race track was just crowded with people, betting like hell. The favorite was Black Fury in one race and being ridden by Brandon Moses.
The race started; it was not a straight track but a circular one.
After about 50 yards, Black Fury was already out front leading. Then, just at the last left turn before the final stretch, some 100 yards before the finish, Black Fury dove into the crowd at a tangent to the right and stopped dead in front of the box where he was kept, and lost the race.
No one was hurt, but Brandon could just not head him off . . . Talk about a Pea Brain of a horse . . . Here again, deception in the crowd and a lot of people lost lots of money, but a very good laugh for the winning horse . . .
I used to ride a mare called Corona. When this horse was pregnant it was not easy to mount her for she would rear on her hind legs and she used to bite. The only way I found to mount her without her rearing was to fill a brown paper bag with some dried corn mixed with some molasses and while she was eating, you could then easily mount her. She used to stray way out in the cunucu behind the arifield and I used to go to catch her again after felling cactus here and there. I used to lure her with a brown paper bag with very small stones and by shaking the bag, this would make her come to you without any problems.
The above are just some to the things which have stayed with me and I am sure that anyone else reading this would be able to add some more. It has been a great pleasure for me writing this and it has brought back such good memories. There are, of course, lots more, but I just can't remember all.
I hope that these stories wil add value to your part.