Where Did It All Go Wrong?

by Adrian Dekievit

Overview

Born in poverty in Holland at the tail end of the feudal system during the Great Depression, Leonard Demerwe immigrates to Canada at age twenty-eight. For many years, things are good for him. He and his wife, Mandy, operate two businesses and have two children. But as Leonard finds out, life sometimes throws nasty curve balls, and not everyone’s story has a happily-ever-after ending.

Where Did It All Go Wrong? explores Leonard’s life and tries to determine exactly when it all started to unravel. This memoir delves into the many issues the family experienced. Mandy’s many surgeries and disabilities, a rebellious teenage son, infidelity, psychological abuse, business issues, financial trouble, and, finally, divorce.

Discussing the highlights of Leonard’s life and examining the events that shaped the man he has become, Where Did It All Go Wrong? narrates the story of one man who has not experienced a dull life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475952216
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	12/07/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	590
File size:	658 KB

Read an Excerpt

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

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By Adrian Dekievit

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Adrian Dekievit
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-5220-9

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Chapter One

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Leonard was standing at the port side of the M.S. Maria which was sailing smoothly off the coast of Scheveningen, The Netherlands, with the flag half-staff. His daughter, Elsie, was at his right side, and his son, Denis, at his left while he glanced over the seemingly endless North Sea which empties into the vast Atlantic Ocean. Never had he thought it possible what he was just about to do.

The sea was calm but his heart was in turmoil and his mind started to turn like a kaleidoscope. Within seconds, his entire life seemed to pass by in reverse, pausing only momentarily at highlights of his life. How was it possible that after living for 43 years in Canada, he had suddenly returned to Holland to fulfil an important duty?

Born in poverty at the tail end of the feudal system, during the early years of the Great Depression in Holland, the little country situated on the North Sea, there was not much to shout about. The Great Depression was followed by five years of war and incredible lean post war years. It seemed that the world had little to offer to a boy who wanted to travel and see the world. At that stage it wasn't written in the stars that things ever would change for the better.

Yet, he had managed to leave Holland for greener pastures at the age of 28 and now he was back. It sure was a stormy story with many ups and downs, a story where one could write a book about.

The greatest step he had taken in his life was to emigrate to Canada. After a lousy start things started to look up for the first time of his life. With a tremendous lot of effort and also a lot of luck he finally belonged to the middle class and everything he touched became gold.

It had taken twelve years to find a niche in the new country. He recalled a meeting that took place 12 years after he had arrived in Canada. The meeting had been called by the Chief Electrical Inspector for the purpose of discussing the new code book. When Leonard entered the room, it was as if everybody said in unison: "Hi Leonard."

He knew the inspectors, the wholesalers and all the other electrical contractors that were his competitors. At that time, his life had become a success story. However, at the end everything in his life screwed up like a whore's dream. The proverbial fly had landed in the ointment and had managed to make a hell of a mess. It seemed that he had slipped through the floor boards and now everything he touched became shit. Where did it all go wrong?

He certainly wasn't the only one in the world to ask himself that question. Many lives start promising and somewhere they screw up but good. Even Queen Elizabeth wondered where it all went wrong. She called 1992 the worst year ever. There was the Windsor Castle Palace fire which cost her $109 million to repair and for the first time in her life she had to pay taxes. Top that off with the divorce of Prince Charles and Diana and it's understandable that the queen wasn't amused at all and saw the year 1992 as a hemorrhoid.

The marriage of Prince Charles and Diana was supposed to shore up the sagging popularity of the royals but the opposite happened. Three of her four children got married and all marriages ended in divorce. Prince Andrew and Sara Ferguson were divorced and Princess Ann had divorced as well. If you talked to the queen you were well advised not to talk about her children.

Leonard found it difficult to put his finger on the time and place that things started to go wrong for him. It doesn't happen suddenly, it takes time for things to deteriorate but once it gains momentum it goes rather fast.

Chapter Two

The First Dark Clouds Were Moving In.

Up to 1970 everything seemed to be honkydory. By that time Leonard and his wife Mandy, had two businesses and two children, one girl and a boy. What else could they possibly want to be happy? They were both working hard together and made enough money to go on a holiday in winter. It was a perfect blueprint for happiness. If at that time, somebody would have said that this happiness wasn't going to last and that their marriage was heading for the rocks, Leonard wouldn't have believed it. Sure, in every marriage there are good and bad times and sometimes an argument can clear the air.

Every winter they went on holiday preferably to a place where it was nice and warm. That was a break and they took always the children along. Usually, the holidays were taken during the Christmas holiday season when the kids had already two weeks Christmas holidays. Most of the holidays were about three weeks and a visit to the principal gave the kids the additional time off. The principal always said: "When you take the kids around the world, you teach them more than I can teach them during that time."

The only problem with the holidays was Mandy's health. A couple of months before the planned holiday, she was usually sick, which could mean that the holiday had to be cancelled. There was cancellation insurance in place but that could mean no holidays for that winter. Leonard was holding his heart when she got sick just before a planned holiday; he was always looking forward to the winter holiday. With two businesses to run there was always a lot of work to do. Besides the work there was bookkeeping and chasing people to pay up their bills. A holiday with the family was also nice when you were just with the family together and had no worry about the telephone. You could spend time with just the family. Luckily, miraculously she was always cured before the scheduled holiday. It was plainly mind over matter, she wanted to go on the holiday so much that she made sure she was better again before they had to leave on their holiday. Leonard was always wondering when their luck would run out and the holiday had to be cancelled.

Of course, the kids Elsie and Denis, were enjoying the holidays as well and always were wondering where they would go next. Indeed, it was an education to them, especially when the holiday took them to Japan.

Between the winter holidays, there were summer holidays from school for the kids. Mandy usually stayed with the kids a month in Waskasiu, in the Federal National Park and Leonard went there for the weekends. Moreover, Leonard took in summer time off to go fishing for at least two weeks. At first, he went with Rick his cousin and when Denis, his son, was old enough he took Denis along as well. When the fishing trips took them ever farther up North, Rick had enough of it and Leonard would just go with Denis.

The first big trip with Denis was to Reindeer Lake and after a few trips to Reindeer Lake they went to Wollaston Lake which was another 125 miles farther up north. Camping and fishing with your son was an excellent idea to have a good relationship. Moreover, Leonard went with Denis to demolition derbies and hockey games. Everything was just perfect and if anybody had told Leonard that this perfect relationship wasn't going to last and would be replaced by severe hardships, Leonard wouldn't have believed it.

Of course, Leonard could expect a time of teenage rebellion in which the kids would know everything better than their parents. Leonard knew where they were coming from; he had been a teenager himself and he hadn't forgotten that time. Eventually, the kids would find out when they reached the age of twenty that their dad had smartened up a lot and that he wasn't that bad a guy after all.

Chapter Three

More Trouble Brewing.

It seemed that Denis ran into some problems at high school. He was the star student of the class but his behaviour wasn't the best. Mandy and Leonard were told this on parent's night. The teachers were full of praise about Elsie, their daughter, but when Leonard asked about Denis, the teachers acknowledged that he was a very bright student who had to be disciplined quite frequently. They usually said: "Well, he is a good student but a poor example for the other kids."

It didn't seem too big a deal and Mandy and Leonard thought that it were typical teen age problems which would correct itself in the next few years. Girls were usually better behaving than boys and eventually he would smarten up.

When Denis came to puberty, he was like everybody else attracted to girls and when he was fifteen years old, he had his first girl friend. It was not only a good looking girl, it was a decent girl as well whose parents were staunch supporters of the Lutheran Church. Only one problem; her parents went to church and the girl went with them. Denis didn't go to church which was not a real problem but one developed when Denis was swearing. Her father said that he wouldn't allow swearing in his house and if he kept up swearing, he was not allowed to date his daughter anymore.

The man talked to deaf ears and shortly after, Denis was swearing again. Her father said resolutely: "You leave this property and never return. I've warned you but you keep swearing. You are no good for my daughter."

"That old geezer has to be taught a lesson," Denis thought. He went home, took half a dozen eggs out of the fridge and threw them against the windows of the house. Moreover, he broke the broom stick that was present on the property.

When Leonard got the complaint about Denis' misbehaving, he made Denis clean the windows and told him to replace the broomstick. While Leonard was talking to the girl's father, Denis cleaned up the mess and when Leonard asked about the costs of the broomstick, her father said: "That's fine, a broomstick doesn't cost that much and it was nice to talk to you. As long as Denis stays away from my daughter, we are doing alright because my daughter deserves better than a swearing boy friend." That solved that problem.

Denis said: "Just as well, I was not fond of that family anyway; all they do is play the organ and sing hymns."

The next problem occurred when Denis made a heck of a mess at the golf course with his friend, which included damaging the greens. When the owner promptly phoned the police, the police made them work at night for a week at the golf course as punishment, and that problem was solved as well.

So far, this was not really extra ordinary behaviour for a teenager. Leonard himself had been a teenager and his behaviour had made his dad shake his head. Some kids are giving more problems than others. An early indication of trouble was when Denis came home drunk; he stated that his friend had had a bottle of rye and after they drank it, they were naturally quite drunk. It looked to Leonard that the bottle could have come from his liquor cabinet. He had white and red wine, rye, Scotch, vodka, gin, and two kinds of rum. Whenever he re-supplied his liquor, the bottles were not always quite empty. He never counted the bottles and wouldn't miss a bottle.

Some parents marked the content level of the bottles so they could tell if somebody unauthorized had taken some of the booze out. The result was that the children would take from the bottle and replace the stolen liquor with water. Leonard hated to put things behind lock and keys, it shouldn't be necessary. However, to make sure that he wasn't the supplier of the parties the kids had, he put a lock on his liquor cabinet.

It occurred to Leonard that Denis didn't have the best of friends. When the kids are growing up, you have to teach them responsibility. Elsie provided a way to do just that. She had been invited to a girl friend's party and her parents had left the teen age girls alone. That way they would learn responsibility and take care of things.

Actually, that looked like a good idea and Elsie had her party with her friends while Mandy and Leonard went to the movies. When they returned from the movies, the girls were drinking their soft drinks and were just talking while they were listening to some teen age music.

After a while the girls said: "Good night," and left quietly.

Of course, Denis wanted to have such a party with his friends as well. He was two years younger than Elsie which posed no problem. As they say: "Learn it young and you'll do it when you are old."

When Mandy and Leonard went to the movies, they left Denis with his friends at home. They had soft drinks, potato chips, cheesies and peanuts to munch on and of course, they had loud music which was no problem when you are not home. Mandy and Leonard left and Leonard said to Denis: "You are in charge!"

After the movies when Mandy and Leonard returned home, they couldn't believe their eyes. The place was a mess with spillage of the soft drinks and munchies everywhere and one of the teenagers was dancing with his shoes on the glass plate of the coffee table. Of course, the glass plate was broken into many pieces and the wood of the coffee table had scratches in it.

Leonard couldn't make himself heard because of the ear deafening music and shouted: "Turn off that damned music!"

When the music was turned down, Denis asked: "What's the problem?"

Leonard replied: "If you don't see a problem you are crazy. This is no way of behaving; we trusted you but you just bungled it. Get all those ignorant kids out of the house; they don't respect somebody's house and don't know how to behave."

Mandy and Leonard had expected that boys would make more mess in the house than girls but they hadn't expected a mess like this. Denis was mad that his dad had sent his friends away. It didn't matter; Leonard was resolute and told him, "If you had proven to us that you can handle responsibility, you could have had another party in the future. However, you just showed us the opposite which means no more parties here. Go to the house of your friends and make a mess like you did here and see what those people will say."

A few weeks later when Leonard and Mandy returned from a meeting at the Club, Denis had a few friends in the house and they had been drinking beer; they were half pissed and had made a terrible mess with empty beer bottles lying in corners on the floor. Leonard said: "I thought I told you no more parties in this house. You bungled again; you could have showed us that you were grown up and could handle responsibility. If you had been sitting with a few friends in the house and had not made a pigpen out of this place, we could have allowed it. However, you have showed us that nothing has changed; get those pigs out of this place right now."

After his friends left Denis said: "You are just a f...... asshole, you don't talk to my friends like that!"

"This is my house," Leonard said, "and for your information I will talk to them the way I see fit. And moreover the way you talk to me is not admirable either. For the next two weeks you forfeited your weekly allowance."

"You can't do that you asshole," was Denis' angry reply, "I need money."

Leonard knew how to deal with annoying adolescents and said: "You just said that I'm an asshole. Well, I want to be a real asshole by not giving you your weekly allowance for two weeks. It's my money and I'm not giving money to kids that call me an asshole. Moreover, you are grounded for the next two weeks as well because I'm an asshole."

I can't do anything in this f ... ing place," Denis shouted angrily. "I can't even bring in friends and I can't live by your stupid rules."

"I'll tell you once more," Leonard said, "This is my house and as long as you live under my roof and eat the food that I provide, you do what you are told, stupid rules or not."

The problem was that Leonard was working at night and Mandy didn't enforce that Denis was grounded. Denis left at night and Mandy didn't say anything. All this created a certain friction in the house which would pass in due time, Leonard thought. He hadn't expected that there would never be a disagreement or an argument with growing up kids.

In the good old days, they didn't recognize teenagers; you either were a boy or a man and a growing up boy did his utmost to be classified as a man. However, those were not the good old times and things were different. Teenagers were quite often more than a regular nuisance. Unfortunately, Mandy and Leonard didn't have the foggiest idea what was going on, but they were going to find out sooner or later. It was sooner.

When Leonard's Ford station wagon burned out on the highway to P.A., he needed another wagon. He couldn't afford a new wagon which meant he had to shop around for a second hand one. After looking at several wagons, he came at International where they were having a few second hand wagons for sale. One of them was a four by four which was the very thing that Leonard needed for his fishing trips up North. He had tried to go to Reindeer Lake with the Ford station wagon but because of heavy rains, the roads looked like farmer's field and consequently he didn't make it. This four by four was the very thing to have on rain soaked roads.

There was also a yellow station wagon for sale with normal rear wheel driving. Mandy couldn't even drive a car, yet she asked: "Can I have the yellow station wagon?"

They never had talked about having more than one car because at the best of times it was hard enough to maintain one car. However, there was a lot of work and money was being made. If Mandy had a wagon she could drive, she could transport some of the equipment that was needed on the jobs and Leonard didn't have to take her there and transport her back home. Leonard made a deal to buy both cars and all what was needed was to teach Mandy to drive a car.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Where Did It All Go Wrong? by Adrian Dekievit Copyright © 2012 by Adrian Dekievit. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

1. Where Did It All Go Wrong?....................1
2. The First Dark Clouds Were Moving In....................3
3. More Trouble Brewing....................5
4. The Dream House....................12
5. Gaining A Bathroom....................24
6. The Volunteer....................30
7. The Odd Couple....................82
8. A Gentlemen's Agreement Without Gentlemen....................85
9. The Night of the Long Knives....................108
10. The Last Straw....................112
11. Miracles Still Happen....................120
12. Darkening Clouds....................128
13. The Gathering Storm....................153
14. The Project that Became an Obsession....................160
15. The Triangle....................167
16. No Fairytale Marriage....................179
17. The Man With the Brown Paper Bag and the Man with the Piggy Eyes....................200
18. A Shitty Shit Story....................209
19. Happy Birthday....................230
20. The Making of a Calendar....................241
21. The Critical Year....................265
22. In Living Color....................272
23. May Parade....................282
24. The Master Plan....................289
25. Life Is No Hollywood Movie....................296
26. Nightmare On Elmstreet....................300
27. Sit....................307
28. Aftermath....................316
29. The Revised Master Plan....................319
30. Counter Strike....................332
31. Going off the Deep End....................340
32. The Dr. Baltzan Monster....................342
33. Operation Fan Blade....................353
34. Voiture Rouge et le Lumiere de la Fenetre....................363
35. Custer's Last Stand....................378
36. Will You Be My Valentine?....................385
37. Picking Up the Pieces of the Pieces....................393
38. Quicky Divorce....................396
39. The Dismantling of an Empire....................398
40. The Years of the Gremlins....................413
41. A Clerical Mistake....................419
42. Business Problems....................437
43. They Have to Win....................519
44. Not Just Yet....................524
45. "Now, She is There!"....................528
46. Return to the Old Country....................538
47. Epilogue....................560
48. Further Reading....................568