Bumpy bus ride

Translation from Hobbelige busreis

Today 75 years ago, May 17, 1949, my parents, Reinder Beert Lont and Grietje Tamminga, married in Leeuwarden. They had five children: Jikke, Dirk, Ytzen, Johan and Feikje. Twenty-five years ago we had a big party and family reunion in the Open Haven (Open Harbour) in Zeewolde, the church center from which we later brought our father in 2001 and mother in 2012 to the cemetery on Dasselaarweg.

This morning I cleaned the grave of my parents in Zeewolde and this afternoon the grave of my brother Johan in Barneveld. Maybe this place will also be my last address when the time comes. Just like I had earlier for him, he still has a place available for me. But we are not there yet. Now first wipe the dust and splashes from my clothes and then go to friends, my childhood friend from across the street, since we came to live in Barneveld in January 1960, when I was four years old. 

This afternoon I experienced the bumpiest bus ride of my life in a seemingly suspensionless minibus from Nijkerk to Barneveld. Every few meters I flew high into the air at yet another speed bump and without a parachute I collapsed back into my seat, I had to hold on to a pole all the time. You could make an adventurous travel televisionprogram from line 509 Nijkerk to Barneveld. The line is run by EBS of the Israeli bus company Egged. I have previously experienced many adventurous bus trips with Egged, drivers who always take a hairpin bend through the mountains or the Negev desert with one hand on the steering wheel, radio on loudly, I am quite used to it.

But today is a winding and bumpy journey to my youth and further past, where I came from.