FROM HOLLAND WITH LOVELY MUSIC AND SOMETHING TO TEACH US

Aug. 5, 1999

Dear Julie,

On a trip in the '80s, I stopped in Holland just long enough to want to go back. Amsterdam is beautiful, a city crisscrossed by canals lined with architectural wonders spared from the bombing that devastated many European metropolises in World War II. We went to a church that had been built in an attic behind secret doors to keep it hidden from the Germans. We walked through the red light district, of course, where prostitutes sit in the windows of buildings, lifeless as mannequins in a department store. We were served a "farmer's lunch," a heart-stopping array of sausages, other meats and cheeses. That night we had an Indonesian dinner called a "rice table," which consists of 27 different dishes that are passed around the table so that everyone gets a taste.

Most people spoke English, and the city seemed very sophisticated.

On a trip into the countryside we saw a different Netherlands. Those sausages and cheeses were born in these deep green lowlands populated by cows and people congregated in small villages. To one who grew up in Southeast Missouri, this Holland seemed the more familiar.

Recently we were treated to the company of some young musicians who grew up in these kinds of villages. They were here on a band tour of the United States. We were asked to house some of the musicians but decided not to expose them to the dangers of co-habitating with our beloved psycho dog Hank.

So we took the musicians who stayed at DC's parents' house to the movies, a treat because most of them live in towns too small to have a movie theater. It was fun for us to escort our nine new beautiful children to the movies.

We even fulfilled parental roles. One night after seeing "The Runaway Bride," one of the younger teen-aged girls confessed to DC that she felt funny. "What's wrong?" a worried DC asked. "I think I'm in love," the girl said.

"How long have you known each other?" DC asked. Two days.

They were disappointed that they couldn't have beer. The drinking age in the Netherlands is 16. I don't know what the rate of alcoholism is among Dutch teen-agers but suspect that drinking becomes much less attractive at that age when no one is saying you can't.

How is it that a country Americans think of as too permissive produced such wonderful children? How is it that so many of our own children are producing mayhem?

One of the musicians, a saxophonist named Sondra, told me she plans to go to a university next year to study psychology even though her mother is trying to discourage her because the job prospects aren't very good. I reassured her that the world will always need psychologists.

Most everyone in her village is old. Most young people move away when they can, just as she will.

Every Dutch school child begins learning English in the third grade. Sondra spoke it beautifully. "It's the language of the world," she said.

DC's father kept hoping they'd bring their instruments home to practice, but the instruments stayed in their buses. He worried about their performance.

He needn't have. They were astoundingly good. The conductor, a dashing man with a military bearing, chose music much more challenging than the usual band fare. One piece by a Dutch composer consisted of four movements representing the transitions between birth, death, good and evil. The piece began in discord and climaxed in such grandeur the audience rose to applaud.

At the end, the conductor donned an Uncle Sam hat and the band stood to sing "Hello, Dolly."

What's the matter with kids today?

Love, Sam