Chapter 1
Excerpt from my autobiography:
REAL to REEL: My Journey from
BACKPACKER to WAR PHOTOGRAPHER to APOCALYPSE NOW
Man is Not the sum of his experiences: He is the sum, of what he has learned, and retained from his experiences. CG
Chapter 1
1943 The Beginning
My father was Dr. Ir. F.C. Gerretsen and my mother, Berendina Gerretsen-Tammes was his third wife. My parents wanted to name me Charles Arthur. It was 1943 the middle of WW2: there was a problem when my father tried to register my birth at the city hall in Groningen, a University city in the North of the Netherlands. A minor bureaucrat told my father, “These are not Christian names. They are not allowed.”
“What about King Charles of England and King Arthur?” said my father, “Were they not Christians?”
1955 – 1961 My youth
The year was 1955. We lived in Groningen at 83a Parkweg, a lower-middle-class neighborhood. It was around 6 pm and getting dark. I was 12 years old, a tall and gangly kid and as usual played with my friend and downstairs neighbor Nico, in the meadows behind the long row of three-story apartments.
We jumped ditches, trying not to get our feet wet or land in the mud. “Arthur, come home, dinner’s ready!” my mother yelled from the second-floor balcony. (many years later I would obtain the name Chas) It was the third time she’d called and by the tone of her voice, I assumed that the food would be on the table and that by stalling I had avoided questions like, “how was school today?” I went to school in Helpman, about 3 km away, and disliked it intensely. I believe this was mutual from the point of view of most of the teachers: I asked too many questions they didn’t know the answers to and I made observations they were not comfortable with. Also, I made their lives miserable by misbehaving.
One of the teachers used to bring every Monday morning a newspaper clipping, which he thought important for our education. This time it was about a skilled worker in America, who’d lost his arm in an industrial accident. “Listen to this,” he said. “A worker lost his arm because of an accident and now he is suing the company he worked for. He’s suing the company for a hundred thousand dollars! Just imagine he wants a hundred thousand dollars for his arm! How ridiculous! Don’t you agree?” The class enthusiastically voiced their agreement.
Disagreeing, I put my finger up into the air.
“Yes, Arthur“
“Sir, isn’t it fair that the man gets compensated for his arm since he’ll never be able to earn again, what he used to earn with two arms?”
“How can you demand money for something God gave you?” The teacher looked around with a smug expression. “Don’t you agree that Arthur again asked a silly question?”
The class in unison, “Arthur is silly. Ha, ha, ha.” The teachers rarely answered my questions and despite my constantly being ridiculed, I continued with my ‘silly’ or stupid’ questions.
My attention span for regular, institutionalized learning was low. The result, I spent a lot of time in the corner, with my back turned to the class. My report card showed mainly 4, 5 and 6’s. History was the only 7; I liked the stories. (10 was the highest) Finally, the teachers decided that there was no place for me in their school. They got together and told my parents that I belonged in a school for ‘the specially gifted.’
My father, a lecturer in microbiology, at the University of Groningen did not take their word for it and took me to a psychologist: “He’s a normal child, with an average IQ.” I stayed in school.
But at least one teacher was not finished with me; my birthday is the 22nd of July and school usually ended for summer vacation around the 19th. I’d never had a birthday at school. One had to stand in front of the class and the kids all sang ‘Happy Birthday.’ You were allowed to hand out candy to your classmates and go from class to class, handing out two cigarettes to each teacher.
My parents requested permission for me to celebrate my birthday on a school day and it was approved. Imagine, me standing in front of the entire class, not because I was punished for something, but to celebrate my birthday. That night I couldn’t sleep, I tossed and turned, scared to death. With a heavy heart I went to school that morning; I was excited, I was scared, I wished I’d never asked for this special privilege. As usual I bicycled to school; nothing to indicate that this day was going to be special.
The day passed slowly, I could only think of one thing, standing in front of the class and all of them singing “Happy birthday dear…”
Finally, at the end of the day the teacher, a ‘spinster’ in her late forties, said, “Arthur, come here.” I clutched my bag of candy and the pack of cigarettes in my clammy hands and walked somehow, in a daze, to the front of the class room. “Arthur wants to celebrate his birthday today, but his real birthday is on the 22nd. So, since it is not his real birthday, we will not sing for him.” She smiled triumphantly. I started crying, all that tension, all the fear, all the hope.
With those few words, “we will not sing for him”, she’d accomplished what no other punishment had been able to do: crying I handed out candy from student to student, from classroom to classroom. No, I did not like school.
What do you think? Which part of my life would you like to read about? Comment down below.