Tuesday, 07 August 2012
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PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE
The future is not there yet and it is part of our fantasy and dreams.. It becomes shorter and shorter with time.
The Past, stays in our memories, and it keeps changing all the time also; our private past, our public past, our dreams of the past.
In the town of De Haan, every year they pretend to go back to the past, to the Belle Epoque time, when people thought life was fun (At least rich people thought that).
I was curious to see this past which has been shown in the present. I found some of French part of the past, was not being remembered. Why? For what reason had there been the removal of the French past of this period?
De Haan was Le Coq Sur Mer. Not much left of the Coq now if not in the tram station.
Like most voyages in time, we start at the tram station, the central point. The North sea tram (The Kusttram) is one of the longest tram lines in the world. It runs along the all Belgian coast. It has not the grandeur of the American rails that connected east and west, but it has some historical and economic values.
Of course it takes time to wait for the tram to come; in those days time was slow, we were slow as well and I am still slow, even now.
Some wealthy people want to show the difference between the rich and the not so rich and the wealthy would use their own transport.
Or just take the bicycle to do some shopping at the corner shop.
The people of that time liked to go around, chatting and gossiping in the streets of De Haan. Dogs have to go to.
Fisher ladies, and fishermen wanted also to go out to sometimes, on a Sunday afternoon, if it were not raining.
Not far away from the sea is the 'Polder' land, and there the potatoes had to be harvested. Frites had to become the national food.
You need some machines to help with the farming; so the tractors were invented.
The horse were not very happy at the evolution, they were afraid to become dinner, don't worry horses, you can do some work too.
The Mayor of De Haan thinks 'If the car does not carry me, I 'll carry the car.'
The time warp is not always exact and some things are mixed up in our memory. Like this guy who is singing 'Its Amore'
Oh well! it was a tiring day in the past. Time to go back to the present and go home to pay the bills. They didn't have credit card's in that time.
Good? or Bad?
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Comments (5)
It's good to look at the past, live in the present, and hope in the future. How in the world do they get on those bikes with the big front tires?
''I love going back in time with you, Carlo, and this time the rain waited till you enjoyed the festivities. You did not share your photograph taken with the vintage automobile. It too was quite special. Perhaps you may reconsider. AMEN''
Fascinating. I would love to visit this town.
My city in Colombia, Medellín, is planning to add trams so they can have the distinction of having all the means of mass transportation: metro, metro-plus (large hinged buses in special lanes), buses, taxis, and now trams.
That's a lot of clothes to wear. It must be cooler there than it is here.
Very nice photos. It's like being there.
I like those events which show to those who weren't there how it was back then. In the French Wikipedia they say the event is called Trammelant, which seems difficult to translate in French or English. From what I could gather it would mean something like going out of one's way, making a big fuss about something, having fun, finally. 
Then again I may be totally off track.
About Le Coq/De Haan, In my country it's the opposite. The current federal government (Harper and his neocons) are not hiding parts of the past, they are turning insignificant parts of it (4 pages in a 1000 page Canadian history book) into the founding event of Canada (the 1812 war with the Americans). It's called 'nation building', aka creating a Canadian identity from scratch. Maybe they are trying to pull a similar trick in Le Coq/De Haan??
I never understood why those who invented the bicycle wanted to kill themselves by the same token. How did they ever get on those things, and more importantly, how did they ever get off of them?
There is a dog in one of the pics who looks terribly like Speedy, and the woman who holds his leash looks terribly like your life companion. Isn't that an extraordinary coincidence!
I met a guy at the Sardegna stand in Little Italy this weekend and who is originally from Olbia (from which he returned from a trip just six months ago). We talked about Turri, and nuragi and other Sardinian stuff. It was fun. He said that the best beaches (in my sense, that is not infested with loud tourists) are those on the east side, where there is a bay, near Orosei. Apparently they have stopped the building of huge touristic complexes there so that would be the reason it remains so nice. Ah... some day... Sardegna, sto arrivando!