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Laughed too little (29-09-22)

Laughed too little

 How ashamed I was at the store that sells pigeon food. Not because of the 'pigeon clogs' that were not cleaned up, but because of few fellow sportsmen.
The Belgian customers present looked on with disapproving looks, since they all heard what 'those Dutchmen' were talking about. Or better, who they were talking about. And when people talk about others you know it. Then you rarely hear anything good. Now some fanciers were criticized because they played with so many pigeons.

OLD WOMEN

"Oh, you should know what you're hearing here the whole week and about whom," said the owner of the store. Some old ladies nodded in agreement. I vaguely knew one of them. It was the wife of a pigeon fancier who once asked me if I still wrote columns.
I nodded despondently. And why did I do that?
Well, I'm paid for something that doesn't require me to work up a sweat and I have a morbid tendency to open other people’s eyes.

Sometimes I think it would have been better to become a painter. Because no profession offers so many frenzied possibilities as that of an artist.
He may look terrible, he only has to wave a brush, which symbolizes the immortality of his talent , or, whoops, the prettiest women magically drop their clothes to pose for him icy cold. Something that contrasts sharply with the immense toil of the fellow man who is not blessed with artistic gifts to achieve the same.

WHEN
People sometimes ask me when I started writing and why I don't always stick to pigeons. I wrote my first article when there were only more than 1,000 fanciers in the town of Tilburg instead of the barely 50 of today. People then had pigeons for fun and also to make money with them.
But that money was won in the races. Today, some do dance moves with press guys who then promote even the poorest racers. In itself there is little wrong with their multicolored sales brochures and pedigrees that showcase fashionable names and breeds, were it not for the fact that some are barely able to win a decent prize. 

REAL START
The real start came when a new pigeon newspaper was founded, of course also a long time ago. I will never forget the first meeting. Roger (pronounce Rozjee) was there, Dick, Mark (pronounce Mark) and Chantal (pronounce Sjantal). I still remember her breathtaking beauty from Chantal.
Once, when she bent over, Mark's eyes fell so deep into her cleavage that he had to cling to the table, swooning, to keep from going off.
He was a heavy smoker (84 cigarettes a day) but he reduced that to 42 after he had a lung removed. Later I only heard back from Chantal and Dick. The first moved to Amsterdam where she turned out to be a very hospitable woman if you had 200 old guilders with you. Dick and I, two very talented writers (;-)) became mates. 

OTHERWISE
Dick would like men but so what? I still remember when the famous duo Dick and A S dived into a cafe with the name 'Cafe Best Kittel.
'The story goes that there is often a heated debate there who has 'the Best Kittel species' in pigeon land.As usual I ordered 30 beers for me and 15 for Dick, because he is a moderate drinker. You should have seen us, me in my jeans and Dick in his pink see-through blouse. And fun we had. Until Hank came in.
He also wrote in pigeon newspapers, but he could not stand us. "Thick necks, assholes, monkey heads" were the terms he usually used when talking about us. Because he had a feeling for prose. Until that day he had the misfortune that we had just decided not to accept that swearing anymore. Dick kicked him in a painful place for men, I set fire to his beard and a carrot in each nostril. 

CHILDISH
Henk left without even saying hello and he hasn't written anything positive about me since then, something I've never quite understood. Dick and I remained friends.
Too bad he didn't understand one shit of that other passion of mine, football. He didn't know what offside was, on a throw-in he shouted 'hands' and when the opposing team scored after the break, he jumped up cheering. He had no idea that the teams had changed from one half to the other.

LATER
Later I settled in Baarle Nassau (city of dreams) he in Antwerp. Antwerp is the place to be for a joint and only 2 of such men lived in B N; Cross-eyed Kees and Fons lice catcher’. We called him that because he was scratching his crotch all day long.
“Lice,” he said, until he tried that scratching on me. Since then he is no longer called Fons lice catcher but Limp Fons.
From then on, with his forever injured knee, he could forget about a career as a tennis player, but that didn't bother him, he wanted to become a footballer after all. But he made a carrier. He became the second best writer on pigeons this side of the Great Wall of China.
We went out together for a long time.
When a blonde once estimated him to be 30 when Dick was already in his 40s, he treated her so well that one must have heard her screaming all the way to the German border. It was the day I knew for sure that he wasn't gay as was often claimed.

 WHY
Why this story, you may have been wondering for some time?
The weather is too bad to even take a step outside and I am once again fondly thinking about the past.
Pigeon racing was fun then, people helped each other, the Chinese buyers did not exist and above all, there was still laughter.
More than today and that won't get any better if we don't have to bring in our clocks after the races any more. The price for the 'progress' so to speak ???