Each a touch of sadism (23-09-23)
Each a 'touch' of sadism
Yes, sorry. Again, I'm stuck with something from earlier years in my head. That happens so often that I sometimes think 'shouldn't I see a doctor'. Such a thought would never have occurred to my father. He and his contemporaries didn't have time to see a doctor. And no money either. Now as a 12-year-old I was already crazy about pigeons and read the pigeon newspaper of the whole of the Netherlands every week: Het 'NPO.'
We 'shared' it with three four fellow fanciers, I couldn't afford a subscription, the others were too stingy. I was the brat of the club, got that newspaper last and it showed. Someone had always finished the crossword halfway, another had cleaned his mackerel on it. Or even worse, ‘his ass’, uncle Jan could not stop joking.
ANOTHER
I didn't throw that pigeon magazine away, because sometimes someone would come along who also found it was too expensive. He came to read it with us. Well, reading? Hmmm. He looked up the results and, when he found them, sometimes chuckled with satisfaction. Boy, how ugly that guy was when he chuckled, I remember. Of course, you can't blame others about 'being ugly', it is not their fault, but there are limits. You reach it when the fish in that pond of us dive deep away when they saw his face.
Why the joy you could sometimes read from his face?
I found out about that too. He was always looking for the results of someone he hated wholeheartedly. And he got that satisfied chuckle over his ugly face when he didn't come across that man's name. Which meant that he hadn't won a prize.
Only I had ever heard him laugh out loud. That was when ugly faced fancier heard about the daughter of the man he hated so much. That beauty had briefly dated a 'rich' American who had suddenly left, leaving her without an address, but with a big belly.
ALL?
Now I can't deny that a little sadism is not new to me either.
You dear fellow fancier are of course different, more sporty, but I hope every weekend that the wind is good for me and my pigeons, so to the disadvantage of the sportsmen. In the past, when National Orleans youngsters was immensely popular here and followed all over the world, I prayed days before basketing that on Saturday the wind would be Northwest. That was beneficial for my pigeons, bad for many others. And sometimes I suspect half of the sportsmen are no different.
That they, like many fellow human beings, often secretly enjoy themselves about the suffering of the other. I had a dog at the time that I suspected of having secret powers. Every time an early pigeon showed up, it started barking like crazy.
But to lament in the club that the pigeons had lost a lot of time was something I had unlearned. After all, that, I learned, was exactly what they wanted to hear.
Whatever I also learned? Eyes usually twinkle more the bigger the name of the sportsman and the bigger his misfortune. Do you know the difference between shooting stars and shooting pigeon racing stars?
There is no difference between them. Both bring happiness to many!
OF ALL TIMES
Schadenfreude was always there and always will be. It is of all times.
I mentioned Orleans of yesteryear, the flight of flights. When the pigeons were about to drop, the gate would be locked. Pigeons that come in badly, I could never stand that, so no risk was taken. On such days I was as tense as the elastic in Celine Dion’s underwear.
When fellow fanciers wanted to see arrive my birds they had to pay attention on the street and they did. Later I heard from fanciers who were between the ‘watchers’ on the street that some secretly hoped that my birds would fail hopelessly. The same ones who wished me luck before.
A race from Pithiviers was once an unprecedented disaster for me. I lost my 10 best birds and these were good ones. I'll never forget the fun eyes of some when they heard that.
THERE TOO
Unlike now, I regularly went on pigeon visits in the last century. Especially to Voets, IJSkout and Houben. At Houbens were also a lot of people on the streets when birds got home from flights like Bourges.
A lot? There were about five of them in my street, at least fifty at Houben’s.
In those days no one there knew me. So I could stand quietly among the people in the street and they could gossip unabashedly and they did.
I never wanted to say it to the Houben family, but for some they would certainly have been less hospitable if they had to hear what I heard.
STILL
Schadenfreude when it comes to stars is no different than a kind of folk entertainment. If a Borsato, Overmars, Johnny Depp and so on color outside the lines, it spectacularly increases the circulation of gossip papers. And, with all that social media, it only seems to get worse.
We live in the time of the Great Reckoning towards people who stick their heads too far above ground level. I never saw happier people like my Rotterdam friend heard Ajax was beaten again.
You no longer hear about Dutch pigeon fancier Jan in Belgium and (his) ex-manager Wout and his bird called Wout. Nor about the more than 200 pigeons with which the Breda native is trying to compete.
But do not give up. The champion parades are coming soon, the axes can taken out of the oil again, the next reputation in our sport, it can also be a writer in a pigeon newspaper, can be shattered.
And that champion who wishes me success before every race? Sometimes I tend to respond with, "I've got you through mate."
In the street where Houben lived. Nearly 100 fellow fanciers were watching the home coming of the birds from Bourges.