Life discovery

I was born on 23 April 1951 in the Flemish city of Gent in Belgium. My French speaking parents had been married for a few years and their first attempt in producing a child had resulted in a miscarriage during the early stages. With me everything went fine and my mother quit her job as a teacher to have more time to raise me. I was baptized by a catholic priest and christened with the name of Luc. My parents were both members of the Roman Catholic Church but did not practice intensely. This means they followed all the official duties but didn’t attend church each week for normal services. Dad worked hard as a salesman for Coca Cola but made sufficient money for this little family to be happy. We didn’t live too far from my grandparents on mother’s side and because she also was my godmother we often were together. My grandfather had just retired from the Army and got seriously ill after having fought 2 world wars. I still remember sitting on his lap in the garden the day before he died and these are my earliest memories of my life. I also remember my dad often teased me because I always kept following the little girls with my eyes when my mother took me for a stroll in my little buggy. After crossing one they were always afraid I would fall out of my buggy because I turned around and stretched as far out as possible to look at them till they disappeared out of sight. I do not remember why I looked so intensely at those girls but still know when I was facing one close I became extremely shy and pulled back into my cocoon, probably because of the continuous teasing of my dad. Being the only child home I quickly learned to become independent and could play for hours in a corner with my model cars and trucks without complaining. I was what they call an easy child and rather frail and small for my age. While walking came at a normal time talking was something else. Everybody my age appeared to be at least able to say a good number of words but I apparently remained silent, much to my parents concern. One day I had them speechless because the first words I spoke were a complete sentence. We were driving to the coast and while approaching a busy intersection I just said (in French) “Attention papa, une auto”, meaning watch out dad, another car. From that moment I started talking and formed coherent phrases faster as other children my age. 

Kindergarten

At the age of 4 my parents sent me to (French speaking) kindergarten but I did not make many friends there and mostly spent my time playing by myself with the available toys. I didn’t dare to make contact with the girls and didn’t like the rough games boys played inside our out. I was afraid to look at the various girls and mostly kept my eyes to the ground in front of me. Maybe that is the reason I got interested in various footwear, especially the dainty queeny heels worn by most female teachers in that era.

I was much more interested in my teacher’s various heels as in the games she used to keep us busy. I remember going shopping with my parents, my mother bought some new shoes at a shoe store and I just looked at the different styles around. The next day I was at school and noticed my female teacher wore the same shoes I noticed in the store, I think it were sling backs with a 5 cm pointed heel (this was back in 1955). I told her I saw her shoes in the store and she punished me for telling that, by having to sit in the wastebasket for an hour. Of course this position offered me an even better view of her shoes. Quite a way to discover my addiction!!!  

During holiday I always spent a complete month with grandma in Blankenberge, a popular Belgian sea resort. The highlight of the day always was the hour I was allowed to ride on the dyke in one of those magnificent pedal cars with special bodies.

 Xxxxxpict pedalcarxxxx

The language incident and good morale

Because I was smart and ripe for it I was allowed to join elementary school at the age of 5 instead of the normal 6. The biggest problem was that we were living in the Flanders so I had to join school in a language I didn’t understand. Although my parents were bilingual my mom had a bad Flemish accent and we only spoke French home and in the family. The first days at school again felt difficult for me because I couldn’t talk with the other kids. Although I quickly learned the new language my vocabulary was still restricted and my teachers and parents helped me a lot. The only exception was the school priest who was a Flamingant, a grouping of people that wanted autonomy for the Flemish speaking part of the country. One day I came home and my parents asked what I had learned. I told them the priest had told us about the English in paradise. They were puzzled and only after telling them in Flemish he talked about “engelen” meaning angels but erroneously interpreted by me into “engelsen” which mean people from England, did they understand and clarify things for me. On a subsequent parental meeting my parents asked the priest to help me a bit with this new language but he refused making clear everybody in Flanders should be talking only Flemish. This innocent incident has played a major influence in my life because my dad went to the school director and told him his son would quit catholic lessons and start following the alternative “morale lessons” instead. After a few months nobody could guess I was not a native Flemish speaking boy and I slowly started making friends at school and in the neighborhood.