When I went to and from school, I had to cross the canal.\u00a0 There was a small, narrow bridge, the church bridge, or in Frisian the \u201ctsjerkedraai.\u201d\u00a0 It was only for pedestrians and bicycles.\u00a0 The church was on the other side of the canal, hence the name of the bridge.\u00a0 It was a swivel bridge, and if a ship had to pass, the bridge keeper came out of his little house, unlocked the bridge, and pulled the bridge open with his long hook.\u00a0 He would be standing on the bridge, and he had a long stick with a small bag on it, in which the captain of the ship had to put a few pennies.\u00a0 When the ship had passed, the bridge was closed again, and the bridge keeper went back to his small house.\u00a0 It was not a real house, but a small wooden shed, from where he could see the bridge and the ships.(1)<\/sup><\/p>\n He was an old man, we called him \u201cPake Sjoerd\u201d [Transl.\u00a0 note: Frisian for grandpa George].\u00a0 In the summer we would bring him our grass, after it was mowed, because he had rabbits and did not have much grass himself.\u00a0 He lived with his wife in the back of an old farmhouse.\u00a0 The big barn with wide, high doors faced the street.\u00a0 When we brought him the grass, we got a big lump of sugar candy with the string still in it.\u00a0 It would last a long time, but as it got smaller, the sucking became easier, and then it was soon finished.\u00a0 Sometimes we walked on the bridge railing.\u00a0 It always went OK, but I think now sometimes, that if I had fallen in the water, I would not be writing quietly now.<\/p>\n Over the Dwarsvaart, the canal that formed a T with the Big Canal, was a high bridge.\u00a0 It couldn\u2019t turn or go up, the ships had to go under it.\u00a0 The skippers had to lower the mast, and move the ship under the bridge with a long pole.\u00a0 Of course, that worked fine, otherwise there would have been a traffic jam under the bridge.\u00a0 The fun part of that bridge was that there was a tow-path under it.\u00a0 The skipper or his wife walked in a harness on the line and pulled the ship.\u00a0 It was sometimes a sad sight, to see the woman, half bend over, pull the ship, and the skipper standing easily at the rudder, but it was not easy to steer the ship through the narrow canal, with other ships moving and ships laying along the banks, because there could be no collisions, and they had to go as fast as possible to get the peat, or to bring it away, because most of the ships were peat ships.<\/p>\n There were also houseboats, sometimes very poor ones.\u00a0 Once I was in such a dilapidated small boat, it was almost incomprehensible that people could live in it.\u00a0 Sometimes a horse would pull the boat.\u00a0 We could see that also when we were visiting my grandfather, who lived at a canal, the \u201cPekelder Hoofddiep\u201d [Transl.\u00a0 note: the main canal in Nieuwe Pekela<\/a>].\u00a0 It was fun to watch, the ships there were frequently bigger, they could sail also on the sea, but near the coast.\u00a0 Ships with bales of straw for the straw board factories, and ships with potatoes for the potato flour factories.\u00a0 And the tram from Winschoten to Stadskanaal ran regularly along the canal.\u00a0 Once I was going to visit my grandfather, but in Stadskanaal I was much to early for the tram, because friends had given me a ride in their car and dropped me of in Stadskanaal at the waiting room of the tram.\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t feel like waiting so long, so I started walking.\u00a0 After a while I met the tram going back, it was further than I thought, and with my suitcase I could not walk very fast.\u00a0 The tram passed me before I was at my grandfather\u2019s house, and when I didn\u2019t arrive with the tram, he was rather frightened.\u00a0 Fortunately the engineer told my grandfather, that he had seen me walking, so everything came out alright.<\/p>\n Next to my grandfather\u2019s house was a side canal, called a \u201cwijk.\u201d From the direction of Winschoten were a large number of \u201cwijken.\u201d(3)<\/sup>\u00a0Of course they were crossed by bridges, because the road had to cross them, and if you were walking along the \u201cwijk,\u201d you reached other canals with bridges.\u00a0 It was a maze of canals and ditches, all from the time of the peat industry.\u00a0 When I stayed with my grandfather, I went to get milk from a farmer, who lived close by.\u00a0 I had to cross two bridges.<\/p>\n Once my aunt treated me to meringues with the coffee, but I didn\u2019t like them, too sweet.\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t dare to say so.\u00a0 So I took it outside and threw it in the water.\u00a0 There it probably got soon soft.\u00a0 Maybe some fish have enjoyed it, who knows.\u00a0 Real special were the \u201chard breads,\u201d hard tack, very hard, flat rolls.\u00a0 They stayed fresh a long time.\u00a0 You had to cut them in half and then put butter and cheese in between.\u00a0 It was good to chew on.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t have them in Drachten, so it was something special for us.\u00a0 Groningen fruit cake I didn\u2019t like too much, because of the candied lemon peel and ginger in it.\u00a0 Nowadays I do like it, but maybe there is less candied peel in it.<\/p>\n Later, when we moved from Drachten to Purmerend, we again came in an environment with lots of waterways and bridges, but that shall be another story.<\/p>\n (1) See also: Drachten: een terugblik<\/a>. A lovely site with many pictures and maps. A number of the places mentioned in this and other pieces are pictured in the site (Dutch only). The Church Bridge When I went to and from school, I had to cross the canal.\u00a0 There was a small, narrow bridge, the church bridge, or in Frisian the \u201ctsjerkedraai.\u201d\u00a0 It was only for pedestrians and bicycles.\u00a0 The church was on the other side of the canal, hence the name …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-1060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","tag-de-haan","column","onecol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dutchgenie.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dutchgenie.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dutchgenie.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dutchgenie.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dutchgenie.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1060"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/dutchgenie.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1067,"href":"http:\/\/dutchgenie.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1060\/revisions\/1067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dutchgenie.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dutchgenie.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dutchgenie.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n(2) For more maps, see also the website of the ‘kadaster<\/a>‘ (land register maps), where you can choose place and time period to view. (Dutch only, but easy to maneuver).
\n(3) These side canals were also called “wijken” in Drachten.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"