1986 ICS Niagara Conference
“Wietse, Sietse and Casey”
Talent night story told by Herman de Jong
This story is about three daddies and their firstborn babies. It happened at the first AACS Conference held at Niagara College. Some of these daddies are still coming to these conferences. It is therefore better not to mention names. Even though the story happened some twenty years ago, today’s ramifications would be disastrous. For these three babies had and still have mommies.
I see two of these daddies sit in the audience. One has turned completely gray, the other is as bald as a medieval cannonball, and he probably swallowed one too! Daddy number three? Well, let’s not talk about him.
Fine young men they were, these daddies, some twenty years ago. Their chests did not heave, their knees did not tremble as they set up their tents. Not only were they capable to set up tents, but family and a Kingdom as well. They were of the lineage of Groen Van Prinsterer, Abraham Kuyper, Dooyeweerd and Runner. Yes, these fine young daddies would become pillars of a Reformational movement.
This then is the story of Wietse from Chatham, Sietse from Sarnia, and Casey from Cobourg … or was it Barrie? They had erected their tents, playpens, and diaper lines. For once they had helped with the dishes, a rare event at a time of unlimited headship. The gong sounded for the evening lecture and people ran to hear Runner.
Not the three young daddies. As Abrahams of old they sat in front of their Canadian Tire tents. Wietse had said to Atty: “I’ll babysit!” And that was fine with her! Sietse had said to Lientje: “Let’s draw straws” and Lientje had won. Casey from Cobourg (or Barrie) had no choice. His Martha had said: “You watch the kid, and don’t walk away from the tent!” Even today, Wietse’s altruism, Sietse and Lientje’s way of making important decisions, and Martha’s unilateralism are still prominent in their families.
Deep down Wietse and Sietse and Casey were still naughty Dutch boys. When the North Sea surf thunders, when low hanging rain clouds hurry across the Dutch sky, any Dutch boy feels a mischievous tingling in his body. And then he wants to do silly things, bizarre things, and things that are best forgotten until old age, when the subconscious pushes out the highlights of one’s life to create a tear, or a secretive grin on a wrinkled face.
Anyway … when Runner began to roll his eyes, banning baby thoughts from the brains of young mothers, above Buffalo, a big thunderstorm began to brew. And the young babysitting daddies felt the electricity within them. As unbridled young horses they began to pace the boundaries of their tents, boundaries that couldn’t be crossed, because inside those tents, after two bottles and some bang-burps, their firstborns fitfully slept.
Was it Wietse who called to Sietse: “Want to continue last year’s card game?” The three daddies placed Casey’s unstable card table at an equal distance from each tent, so that, just in case, they could hear their babies cry.
As they played, pangs of guilt soon subsided. Didn’t they see other young daddies sneak away from their tents? and congregate around the sinister figure of Stan De Jong, whose old and new jokes were always worthwhile to listen to?
Sietse, Wietse, and Casey were more intelligent … they weren’t the talkative kind of young men. Sietse and Wietse came from Groningen, where people who talk too much are simply thrown across the border … into Fryslan. Casey, ever since he had gotten married, didn’t need to talk anymore.
A baby began to cry. “Sarnia,” said Wietse. Deftly Sietse from Sarnia poured some lemonade, which the three had been drinking out of teacups, into a baby bottle. Within minutes the baby stopped crying.
Another baby whimpered. “Chatham,” said Sietse, and Wietse ran over to this tent, poked his head through the tent flap, whispered “Kopdicht” and that did the job.
Suddenly loud laughter from the gathering around Stan de Jong’s tent clattered as pelting hailstones on the tents and the three babies howled instantly. Shucks, said Sietse from Sarnia … those guys! The three daddies had no choice but to interrupt their card game, haul the babies out of their tents, and deposit them in the first empty playpen at hand. Caringly, Casey covered the three little bundles of reformational hope with an extra blanket. Sietse warmed up one baby bottle, expertly sprayed some of its contents on his arm to test its temperature, poured three equal parts in small bottles used for Pablum, and the three daddies stuck the nipples between screaming lips. Soon, one after the other, the bottles rolled away, and the three babies, tired from gulping down the milk which had streamed too fast through the much larger holes in those Pablum bottle nipples, were asleep again.
The thunderstorm stealthily crossed the river. Suddenly a fierce wind whistled through the diaper lines. A blinding flash of lightening set the auditorium in an eerie light. The accompanying thunder crash unlocked the clouds and buckets of rain came down.
Almost as fast as the lightening, the three daddies pulled the playpen under the canopy, but even there, a horizontally driving rain soaked the little bundles within seconds, and the caring fathers packed up what they thought belonged to each of them and sprinted to their tents, where they peeled off the wet blue and rose little pajamas and by the light of their cigarette lighters found substitute clothing. In those days kerosene lamps were used, but never inside a tent. Too dangerous … and they stank! So in utter darkness Sietse and Wietse and Casey huddled over their offspring, knowing that before long their parental responsibilities would be shared by their wives.
All of you know what a thunderstorm can do to an audience. It creates enormous anxiety, especially among young mothers. They spill out of the front and side doors in three seconds.
When Atty, Lientje, and Martha reached their respective tents, they found everything in good order. They found their young husbands huddling over their babies, and there was a feeling of pride in the those mothers’ hearts.
It kept on raining and the whole tent camp decided to call it a day. The watermelons could wait til tomorrow. In those days, in preparation for a quiet night, most babies were filled up with milk just before the mothers put down their tired bodies. So baby bottles had to be found and filled … no mean task in utter darkness. Breastfeeding would have been so much easier. But baby bottles were in, and breasts out … except in Chatham.
Sietse’s Lientje from Chatham could not fathom why especially this night, when she really wanted to go to sleep, her head reeling with Runner’s oration, baby had trouble to find the source of its nourishment. “Did you feed her pablum while I was away?” she asked Sietse. “Ja, kind of …” said Sietse sleepily.
Wietse’s Atty was pleasantly surprised that her baby emptied the bottle in record time. He usually was such a slowpoke.
Casey’s Martha was completely conked out after that long conference day. For the first time in his fatherhood, Casey was allowed to feed his child. Martha mumbled: she empties her bottle in two minutes flat … and slid into slumberless sleep. Casey counted to 120 and put the bottle away. He had a suspicious feeling that the bottle was still full, but if Martha said two minutes, she must know what she was talking about. Young mothers do not err!
Casey from Cobourg could not get to sleep. Deep down in his heart he felt something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He knew he had disobeyed his wife’s orders, but he did not feel guilty about that anymore. It was almost an impossible task to obey a hundred orders each day.
Suddenly a flaming fear fizzled in his guts. What if … what if … sakkerdejee … it couldn’t be! He crept toward baby’s makeshift cradle and lifted her out. Inch by inch he opened the zipper of the tent door. Oh, Martha … please … please don’t wake up!
Casey finally stood outside and quickly walked over to the bright cone of light over the women’s washroom. Carefully he lifted the protecting blanket from baby’s face … and two little eyes blinked in the sudden light. A cry wrestled from Casey’s mouth when he saw he was holding Wietse and Atty’s baby.
It would take much too long to describe the next hour or so. Luckily all three fathers had served in the Dutch army and their Indonesian experience had taught them to stay cool even when they silently crept through threatening jungles.
Casey knew that his stark white body would be noticeable in pitch darkness. He put the baby down and smeared the muddy soil in front of the auditorium over his body. Suddenly a deep voice: “What are you doing?” Casey looked up into the face of an older gentleman who held fishing gear in his hand. “O well,” mumbled Casey, “I’m just taking a mud bath for acne, you see!” “Ja,” said the older man, “and I’m going fishing … they really bite after such a storm.”
Moments later Casey lay outside Wietse’s tent, baby in his arm. “Wanna go fishing, Wietse, they really bite after a storm.” Ten minutes later Casey and Wietse, holding babies that didn’t belong to them, crept around to Sietse’s tent. “Wanna go fishing Sietse, they really bite after a storm.”
Half an hour later all babies lay in their own beds as if no cock had crowed for it.
The next morning Atty and Lietje and Martha had coffee together just before the morning lecture. And as young mothers do, they related the experiences of the previous day and night to each other. They couldn’t understand why Sietse and Wietse and Casey stuck so close to them during that coffee klatz.
Shoo, said Martha … go play you boys … this is women’s talk. As the young husbands walked away with grins on their faces, they heard Atty call after them: you better take a shower you three, there’s mud stripes on your backs!
Ja … said Sietse … we did some mud wrestling before you ladies woke up.