De nalatenschap van Theo

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Ex-vriendin dwarsboomt biograaf Theo van Gogh

"Schrijver Max Pam is gestopt met het schrijven van een biografie over Theo van Gogh, omdat hij wordt tegengewerkt.

Van Gogh-biograaf Max Pam, die al anderhalf jaar aan een biografie over de bijna vier jaar geleden vermoorde cineast werkt, is recent gestopt met schrijven omdat hij geen toegang krijgt tot Van Goghs privé-archief. ‘Het is me teveel gedoe. Theo heeft honderden dozen met spullen achtergelaten, van brievencorrespondentie tot aan potten en pannen. Die zou ik graag inzien, maar ik krijg geen toestemming van de familie.’
Vooral de correspondentie aan familie en bekenden zou nieuwe inzichten kunnen bieden in het leven van de columnist/regisseur. ‘Wat er in die brieven staat, weet ik niet. Theo verspreidde vaak wilde verhalen en daarvan was vaak niets waar. De correspondentie zou duidelijkheid kunnen verschaffen.’

Pam hoopt dat hij op een later tijdstip toestemming krijgt van Lieuwe van Gogh, de nu nog minderjarige zoon van Theo van Gogh. Nu wordt de nalatenschap nog beheerd door Heleen Hartmans, de ex-vriendin van Van Gogh. Zij weigert Pam toestemming te geven. Pam: ‘Als Lieuwe achttien wordt, volgend jaar, kan hij het archief misschien openen.’
Johan van Gogh, de vader van Theo, noemt de handelswijze van Hartmans ‘belachelijk en afschuwelijk’.

De ouders van Van Gogh beklagen zich erover dat zij hun kleinzoon al jaren niet meer gesproken hebben. ‘We hebben Lieuwe vlak na de dood van Theo nog gezien, maar daarna is het contact verbroken.’ Hartmans was niet bereikbaar voor commentaar."

Bron: DE PERS

Zondag is het vier jaar geleden dat Theo van Gogh werd vermoord. Het plan voor de biografie volgde kort daarop. Max Pam was er volop mee bezig.

De signalen dat het niet boterde tussen Theo's ex + hun zoon Lieuwe EN de vrienden / de ouders van van Gogh had ik al lang geleden opgepikt.

Theo was een provocateur, maakte makkelijk vijanden en was niet vies van een fikse ruzie.

Desalniettemin zou dit hem hoogstwaarschijnlijk intens verdrietig hebben gemaakt.

Fotocursus 4

Vanavond moest ik een - door vakantie gemiste - les inhalen.

Grappig, dit was een heel andere groep. Veel vitaler, vrolijker en luidruchtiger dan "mijn eigen" achttal.
Toen ik drie weken geleden de opdracht "thuis een voorwerp dichtbij halen" hoorde, wist ik meteen dat Jacobs sleutelrekje (zoals zoonliefs kleuterwerkje al 25 jaar wordt aangeduid) in ieder geval één onderwerp was.

Door de vakantie had ik maar heel weinig tijd en dat wekte vandaag veel onrust op.

Ik stond eindeloos bij het Nespresso-apparaat, lopende koffie te fotograferen. Zo veel cafeïne heb ik op een ochtend nog niet naar binnen gewerkt.

Zelf vond ik de slok (lijkt meer op een hap) uit de cappuccino nogal artistiekerig. Maar dat raffinement werd door de klas niet opgemerkt.

Voor het sleutelrekje had ik maar twee pogingen nodig.

En laat nou die foto vanavond als mijn beste (van de vijf) gekozen worden.

Krom

Willem is ziek.

Een soort griep, veroorzaakt door stress. Althans, dat verklaart zijn vertrouwensarts.

Zijn vier assistenten zijn ontslagen en daar is hij kapot van. Althans, zo wordt het naar buiten gebracht.

*****

Communiceren is niet Willems favoriete bezigheid. Hoewel hij er als "expert" behoorlijk op los lult in televisieprogramma's.

Uitnodigingen voor optredens, die niets met voetballen te maken hebben, neemt Willem graag aan. Voor een imitatie van Joe Cocker of een praatje over golf, laat hij zich makkelijk strikken.

On top of that is daar ook nog de columnist van Hanegem, die zonder tegenspraak zijn gal spuwt.

Willem staat garant voor lachwekkende, opmerkelijke (boute) uitspraken en is daardoor een graag geziene gast.

De kassa van de BV van Hanegem - bestierd door zijn echtgenote - rinkelt onophoudelijk.

*****

Maar de persconferenties na afloop van Utrechtwedstrijden?

Nee, daar had de Kromme geen trek in. Dat liet hij aan John Van Loen over.

Alles waar hij geen zin in had liet hij aan John Van Loen over. En deed John Van Loen het niet naar Willems zin, dan was Willem boos. Van Hanegem dreigde zelf(s) op te stappen.

Althans, zo lees ik het in de krant van Willem - het AD.

Maar van Hanegem schijnt een grootheid in het coachen te zijn. Die wilde het bestuur van FC Utrecht niet zomaar laten gaan. En dus was het vier maal doei tegen Van Loen, Druppers, Nascimento en Arts.

Geen woorden maar daden.

De heiligverklaring van de Kromme blijkt een grote vergissing. Willem is schijnheilig.

Ineens tuimelt de hele voetbalpers over hem heen. Als er één schaap over de dam is.....................

Ja hoor, ze durven eindelijk!!

En dan gaat er ook een vuil boekje open over de voormalige Schat van de Kuip.

Zoals toen hij Dick Advocaat als een baksteen liet vallen, vlak na de nederlaag van Oranje op het EK tegen Tsjechië. De bondscoach werd verketterd en uitgekotst. Het Robbenfoutje, weet u nog wel?

Van Hanegem, destijds assistent-bondscoach, hield toen een persconferentie. Op zijn bekende manier dolde hij met de pers en zei doodleuk dat híj Robben had laten staan, terwijl Advocaat eerder had beweerd dat het besluit unaniem genomen was.

Olie op het toch al hoge vuur.

*****

De pers smulde er toentertijd van.

Nu men zo veel mogelijk anti-van Hanegemdocumentatie aan het verzamelen is, wordt dit voorval ineens 180 graden gedraaid opgedist.

*****

Van Hanegem was een magistraal voetballer. Zo had hij ook de geschiedenis in moeten gaan.

Maar zoals zovelen moe(s)t no. 10 alles aanpakken om het financieel te bolwerken.

En echt publiciteitsschuw is Willem heus niet.

*****

Hij werd en wordt omschreven als ruwe bolster, blanke pit. Ja, misschien veertig jaar geleden.

Maar hij is in de loop der tijd geslepen - en dat de pers dat niet heeft opgepakt, begrijp ik niet.

*****

Willem lult wat recht is krom.

Zie dat maar weer eens recht te draaien.

All the Presidents Wives 7

RACHEL DONELSON ROBARDS JACKSON

Born:

Born near the Banister River, about ten miles from present-day Chatham, Virginia, Pittsylvania County, in 1767; the exact date of her birth was not recorded at the time, but has been invariably attributed to the month of June, with some sources designating the date as 15 June

Father:

Colonel John Donelson, born 1718, Somerset Count, Maryland, hunter, surveyor, foundry owner, Revolutionary War soldier; a member of the Virginia Assembly, co-founder of Nashville, Tennessee, died by murder in 1786, assailants unknown on return from Virginia to Tennessee

Mother:

Rachel Stockley Donelson , born in Accomac County, Virginia, 1730, married there in 1744; died, Nashville, Tennessee, 1801

Ancestry:

Scottish, Irish, Welsh, English; It appears that Rachel Jackson's paternal great-grandfather was Patrick Donelson, who was born in Scotland about 1670. He had a son named John who settled in Maryland. His wife was Catherine Davis of Welsh ancestry. They had a son John who married one Rachael Stockley, daughter of Alexander Stockley and Jane Matthews: the Stockley family allegedly originated in Ulster, Northern Ireland, and the Matthews from England. Both Rachel Jackson's father and paternal grandfather are listed in the DAR Patriot Index.

Birth Order and Siblings:

Tenth of eleven children, seven brothers, three sisters;

Alexander Donelson (1749-1785); Mary Donelson Caffrey (1751-?); Catherine Donelson Hutchings (1752-1835); Stockley Donelson (1753-1804); Jane Donelson Hay (1757-1834); John Donelson (1755-1830); William Donelson (1756-1820); Samuel Donelson (1758-1804); Severn Donelson (1763 or 1773 -1818); Leven Donelson (1765-?)

Physical Appearance:

Short, brown hair, brown eyes

Religious Affiliation:

Presbyterian

Education:

There is no extant record of Rachel Jackson having received a formal education. In light of the fact that she spent the first twelve years of her life in a relatively rural part of Virginia, and there was not a tradition of educating young women beyond the basics of reading and writing. She was taught housekeeping duties such as sewing, spinning, weaving, embroidery, as well as preserving foods, overseeing the kitchens and generally managing the plantation life, including direction of the slaves' duties. She played musical instruments and was an accomplished horsewoman. Although most of her correspondence was destroyed in an 1834 fire at the Hermitage, her extant letters show that while her spelling and grammar were poor, she intelligently conveyed her thoughts. In later life, most of her reading was of the Bible and other religious works, yet she also had an extensive collection of poetry.

Occupation before Marriage:

Rachel left Pittsylvania County at age 12 when her parents moved to what would later become part of Tennessee. The Donelson family and other families totally about 600 people, were led by her father, transported on 40 flatboats and canoes for almost 1000 miles from Fort Patrick Henry along the Holston River to the Cumberland River and the new settlement of Fort Nashborough, later to be named Nashville. The Donelsons were on the largest boat, Adventure. Settling in April 24, 1780, the Donelson clans were among the first and most prominent settlers of Nashville. RachelJackson's siblings and her group of nephews and nieces, totaling 63, would dominate the city's business, civic and political power base for generations. They removed first to nearby Mansker's Station, and then to Harrodsburg, Kentucky because of serious threats of attacks on white settlers by Cherokee and Chickasaw native peoples in the region.

Marriage

First marriage:
18 years old to Lewis Robards (born 1758, Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Kentucky; died, 15, April, 1814, Harrodsburg, Kentucky), land owner, speculator, on 1 March, 1785, at Lincoln County, Kentucky. Lewis and Rachel Robards lived in Harrodsburg with his elderly mother for over three years, until the late summer or early fall of 1788. Divorce: The ultimate divorce of Rachel Jackson from her first husband would come to shatter all precedent in presidential history. It was the first time that such a deeply personal event would be used against a presidential candidate in a campaign and it was also the first large public consideration of the conceptual ideal of what kind of personal background a First Lady should ideally possess. It thus unwittingly played one of the first and important public debates in the history of First Ladies. Lewis Robards and his defenders would claim that his former wife had shamelessly flirted and that he asked her brother to remove Rachel from her marital home, but that he later sough reconciliation. Upon his return to Nashville, they claimed he found her in an inappropriately close relationship with Andrew Jackson, a circuit lawyer boarding with the Donelsons who then eloped with her in Natchez, Mississippi in an illegal marriage. This resulted in his seeking and gaining a divorce. In contrast, the Donelsons and Jacksons claimed that Robards had physically abused Rachel and that she ran first to her mother's home and then - when word came that Robards was coming to take her back to their Kentucky home - fled for fear of her life to Natchez with friends, a married couple, all of them guided and protected by Jackson. They further claim that when Jackson returned to Nashville alone that he was told that Robards had boasted that he had successfully processed a divorce from Rachel, thus leaving her open to marry Jackson. The Jackson defenders would suggest that Robards had purposely misled them so that if Andrew and Rachel Jackson did marry and live together that it would make the union an adulterous one that was all the proof needed for Robards to then gain a divorce. The Jackson evidence was weakened by the fact that no legal marriage of theirs could be legitimized in then-Spanish-ruled Mississippi because they were Protestant and only Catholic wedding ceremonies were recognized as legal unions. Robards did follow the law by first obtaining a required legislative grant to file a divorce. He then did so based on the fact that Rachel had openly committed adultery, and the divorce was granted on TK to him, she found to be guilty of abandonment as well. The Jacksons remarried legally in Tennessee, but the incident had made Rachel Jackson a bigamist and adulterer.
*Rachel Robards Jackson was the first of three First Ladies who marriages previous to that of a President had ended in divorce.

Second marriage:
26 years old, to Andrew Jackson (born March 15, 1767 in Waxhaws, North Carolina - died June 08, 1845, at the "Hermitage," in Davidson, Tennessee) on January 7, 1794, Nashville, Tennessee at the Donelson home. For the three years following their "Natchez" wedding, Andrew Jackson and Rachel Robards had lived with her mother and the Donelson clan in Nashville. They continued to make their home there until TK, when they began construction of what would be the first building to later comprise their famous Hermitage plantation.

Children:

two adopted sons:

Andrew Jackson, Jr. born, December 04, 1808 in Davidson, Tennessee, died 17 April, 1865 in Hermitage, Davidson Co., Davidson, Tennessee; he was actually Rachel Jackson's nephew, one of a pair of twins born to her brother Severn Donelson; since both of his parents were alive at the time of his adoption, the reason he was given to them is not clear; Lyncoya Jackson (c1811-1828), an American Indian child found by Jackson on a battlefield with his dead mother and raised by the Jacksons from the age of two.

Legal guardian for six boys and two girls: John Samuel Donelson (?-1817), DanielDonelson (1801-1863) and AndrewJacksonDonelson (1799- 1871) were all nephews of Rachel Jackson, the sons of her brother Samuel Donelson who died in 1804. The last of the three, another namesake of the president served as his private secretary in the White House, and married his cousin, Rachel Jackson's niece Emily, the daughter of her brother John Donelson; Andrew Jackson Hutchings (1812-1841), the orphaned grandson of Rachel Jackson's sister Catherine Donelson Hutchings; Caroline Butler, Eliza Butler, Edward Butler and Anthony Butler, children of Revolutionary War General Edward Butler, who named Jackson as guardian to the children and who often came to live at the Hermitage following their father's death.

Occupation after Marriage:

Through her husband's public career in the military, business and politics, Rachel Jackson largely remained at home, at the Hermitage Plantation, supervising the large number of slave families that carried out the household tasks, farming and maintenance of the vast acres. Jackson was a lawyer, circuit judge, land speculator, farmer and businessman. He later moved into politics, was a soldier of national renown especially for his victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Rachel Jackson greatly resented his frequent absences and their lengthy separations, once admonishing him, "Do not, my beloved husband, let the love of country, fame and honor make you forget that you have me. Without you I would think them all empty shadows. You will say this is not the language of a patriot, but it is the language of a faithful wife, one I know you esteem and love."

Her life, in direct relation to the scandal of her bigamy, caused Rachel Jackson to withdraw from society’s glare. Although she confessed that she preferred to confine her public appearances to religious services, she joined her husband during his most important political endeavors to Pensacola, Florida, New Orleans, Louisiana and Washington, D.C. She was in the capital for the House vote in the contested 1824 election and despite what some considered a backwoods manner marked by her smoking a long-stem clay pipe, she was befriended by the urbane First Lady Elizabeth Monroe. According to family tradition, as a child, RachelJackson had been brought to the homes of GeorgeWashington, ThomasJefferson, PatrickHenry and Richard Henry Lee, all of whom were colleagues in Virginia politics with her father, a member of the House of Burgesses. She had grown up in a world of politics and was thus comfortable engaging in conversation with and welcoming as her lengthy houseguests the national political figures associated with Jackson. She also hosted regular gatherings for Jackson's political supporters.

As for her personal influence on Andrew Jackson, there are several accounts that she was able with a small gesture or word to shut down his impulse to respond to an insult or a political remark with which he disagreed, thus saving him from creating more of a long-term complication for his career. During Jackson's short stint as Governor of Florida, the increasingly religious fervent RachelJackson persuaded him to declare edicts banishing alcohol sale and consumption on Sundays. He also resigned the governorship "as Mrs.Jackson is anxious to return home." Senator Thomas Hart Benton stated that she also had "a faculty - a rare one of retaining names and titles in a throng of visitors, addressing each one appropriately…"

Much of Rachel Jackson's focus remained fixed on the estate that would become part of her husband's legend. From a cotton farm property he bought in 1804 with a loghouse he had decorated with French wallpaper, Andrew Jackson's famous plantation, the Hermitage evolved; in its earliest stages RachelJackson had a direct role in designing and then managing it. The acreage, outbuildings, and main house, along with the number of slaves bought to maintain it, grew over the next decade and a half. By 1821, an 8-room, two-story brick mansion was the Jackson home. In the main stair hall, RachelJackson selected scenic wallpapers imported from France that depicted themes from Greek mythology. The mansion, however, continued to grow and evolve, especially after Jackson became President; thus, Rachel Jackson never knew the famous white-columned southern plantation that was to later become the familiar vision of the Hermitage.

Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:

Early in the 1828 presidential race, the story of Rachel Jackson's former status as an adulterer, bigamist and divorcee was used against her husband by the press supporting his rival for the presidency, John Quincy Adams. These included an anti-Jackson pamphlet called Truth's Advocate, printed in Cincinnati, and articles in the St. Louis Post Dispatch,National Banner and Nashville Whig. One editorial asked, "Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband to be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?" Many of Jackson's detractors claimed he was not fit for the presidency based partially on his professional and personal behavior stemming from the circumstances of the Robards divorce and his marriage.

The Jackson campaign organized what was called the "Nashville Central Committee," the first political public relations effort to clarify his "domestic relations in reference to his fitness for the presidency." Numerous pro-Jackson orators, like Thomas Kennedy made stump speeches that avoided the details of the Robards divorce but attacked the lack of chivalry and "abominable" conduct of using the "affectionate partner" of Jackson for political purposes. The Nashville Central Committee produced a thirty-page booklet prepared and written by Robert Coleman Foster. It incorporated testimony from many different sources including a large contribution from Jackson's longtime friend, law partner and campaign contributor Judge John Overton, who had also known the Robards family. Nevertheless Rachel Jackson's controversial marital history was sensationalized in the opposition press that year.

Such widespread dissemination of her personal life at a time when women considered such matters to be exclusively private created enormous shame for her; one historian recounted that she spent much of the campaign crying and depressed, which only further stressed a strained heart condition that had first manifested itself in 1825. There were even later claims that she had personally encountered public degradation by overhearing taunts about her in a Nashville shop. A factor that contributed to her severe stress that is often eclipsed by the dramatic impact of the campaign was the sudden June 1828 death of her sixteen year old son Lyncoya, then working at the Hermitage.

While she was later quoted as stating after her husband's election that she would "rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than live in that palace in Washington," she also wrote a statement of spirited self-defense to a Jackson campaign manager declaring her innocence against the enemies of her husband who she said had "dipped their pens in wormwood [poison]." There was a concerted effort by the Jackson campaign managers to encourage women whose husbands had supported Jackson or who were western to arrange to be in Washington, D.C. for the Inauguration as a concerted show of support for Rachel Jackson. Calling for women to organize a public action with such political intent was unprecedented. She intended to attend the Inauguration and had even purchased a gown and white slippers for the traditional ball. Despite this, her physical and mental health had so drastically deteriorated that by the fall she had a near fatal heart attack. She seemed to recover but died suddenly three days before Christmas. The president-elect was so stunned that he held her dead body in hopes that she could be revived.

Death:

61 years old The Hermitage Plantation, Nashville, Tennessee 22 December, 1828

Burial:

The Hermitage Plantations garden Nashville, Tennessee

Droomsels

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In mijn eerste slaap is er nog niets aan de hand.
Tegen het ochtendgloren, zo om een uur of vijf, moet ik naar de wc. Daarna val ik weer als een blok in slaap.

En dan komen ze - die absurde, angstaanjagende dromen. Ze zijn gruwelijk, onnavolgbaar en een ware kwelling. Ik word bekaf wakker. Ze blijven bij me, soms de hele dag.

Af en toe val ik P. er 's morgens direct mee lastig. Ik moet het kwijt.
Maar er is geen touw aan vast te knopen, daarom laat ik de smerigste details vaak buiten beschouwing.

Of ik ben er van overtuigd dat er iemand in onze slaapkamer is. Dan sta ik zelf ineens voor het raam en begin te praten. Daar zijn verschillende illustraties van, maar ik pak de meest idiote.
- Ik schuifel door de slaapkamer, rond het bed. Aan manliefs kant kruip ik op de grond.
"Tssjt, ga weg, ga weg".
P. wordt wakker. "El, wat is er? Wat doe je?".
"Sst, er zit een leger onder het bed. Duizenden mannetjes met zwaarden".
"Nee El, er zit geen leger onder het bed".
"Jawel, er zit een leger onder het bed. Aan jouw kant, ik zie ze toch".
P. blijft dan rustig en kijkt - om mij een plezier te doen - onder het bed.
"Kom nou maar in bed, El. Ik zie ze echt niet".
Ik stribbel dan nog even tegen, maar kruip terug onder de wol en val meteen weer in slaap.

- Ooit heeft hij me om drie uur 's nachts uit de douche moeten halen.
"El wat doe je nou?"
"Opschieten P., we moeten weg".
"Nee, we hoeven helemaal niet weg".
"Jawel, we moeten weg".
"Nee schat, het is pas drie uur. We moeten slapen".
Hij moet dan heel voorzichtig mij onder die douche vandaan zien te halen.

Wat mijn dromen zo gruwelijk maakt, is dat het altijd over bekenden, vrienden en/of mijn geliefden gaat. Achtervolging, bedreiging, bloederige scènes en dodelijke ziektes. Het lijken visioenen.
Mijn ouders komen terug tot leven en terwijl ze door mijn huis lopen word ik wakker. Badend in het zweet en in de veronderstelling dat ze er inderdaad zijn, stap ik uit bed.

Het uitkomen van een droom is bizar. Nee angstaanjagend.

Ik droomde dat mijn neefje Lucas zich met een mes in zijn hand had gesneden.
Twee dagen later had ik mijn zusje aan de telefoon. We wisselden jonge-moeder-ervaringen uit. Aan het einde van het gesprek zei ze: "ik moet Lucas' pleister verwisselen".
"Wat is er dan", vroeg ik.
"Hij heeft zich met een schaar gesneden".

En zo zijn er nog meer voorvallen geweest, die ik (in een droom) al had meegemaakt. Dan werd ik uitgelachen. " Ja ja, leuk om dat achteraf te zeggen - ik heb het gedroomd".
Sindsdien vertel ik dromen die mij helder bijstaan.

En dat is de laatste maanden dus het geval. Meer dan mij lief is.
Dromen zijn bedrog. Dat kan wel waar wezen.
Het zijn ongewenste gasten - ze verstoren mijn nachtrust en maken mij bang.

Tenzij ze iets leuks te melden hebben; dan zijn ze welkom.

Vakantietip

Terwijl we zaterdag zaten te genieten van de wijngaardslakken, één van wijnboers' grootste vijanden, evalueerden we onze vakantie.

Veel gereden, veel gezien, veel hotels, veel restaurants, veel verschillende temperamenten ontmoet en veel geluk met het weer gehad. In tegenstelling tot Italië zijn we in Frankrijk geen avond met tegenzin aan tafel gegaan.

Ik wil toch een paar positieve tips achterlaten.

1. De Bourgognestreek (600 kilometer vanaf Rotterdam)

2. Nice - met hotels in de buurt van de oude stad.

3. Haute Provence.

4. Mijn hotel/restaurantwinnaar van deze vakantie is Manoir Sornat (78,-) in Bourbon-Lancy

Ondanks wat tegenslagen - vooral met de hotels - hebben we twee heerlijke weken gehad. Het leken er wel vier.

Idioot: eenmaal thuis voelt het alsof we niet zijn weggeweest.

Proeven

De laatste dag in de Bourgogne hebben wij verscheidene wijnroutes gereden. De gerenommeerde Meursault fascineerde mij zo, dat ik P. vroeg langs een paar caves in het gelijknamige dorp te rijden.

Overal nodigen borden degustation je uit een bodempje van het één of ander goddelijk vocht te komen proeven.
Echter, de gastvrijheid is ver te zoeken wanneer je binnenkomt.
Je ziet ze denken: 'daar heb je weer zo'n toerist, die komt drinken maar niet zal kopen'.
In veel gevallen wordt eerst je kennis getest. Nu pretendeer ik niets en zeker niet dat ik kennis van wijn heb, maar ik weet wel wat ik lekker vind.

Bij de eerste wijnboerin ging het nog goed. Ze schonk enthousiast drie verschillende witte Bourgognes.
Jammergenoeg was er geen crachoir (spuugbak), noch brood om de smaak te neutraliseren. Ik bleef dus met een wrange sherrysmaak in mijn mond zitten.
Dat ik de wijn niet lekker vond, was haar om het even. Een stel meeproevende Duitsers kochten wel een fles.

Vervolgens ging het naar een wijnverkoper met een enorm assortiment uit verschillende villages. Toen ik vroeg om een rode Meursault (die wij zo heerlijk in Bourbon-Lancy hadden gedronken) werd ik nagenoeg voor stom uitgemaakt.
Rode Meursault is zeer zeldzaam (maar 8% van de gehele oogst) en dus kon - of liever gezegd wilde hij die niet laten proeven.
De geklimatiseerde kast met proefflessen - ook de witte - bleef voor ons gesloten. Oké, maar dan ook niets (ver)kopen. Stelletjes arro's.

De buurman met een aantrekkelijk proeflokaal - maar veel kleiner assortiment - was gelukkig wat vriendelijker. Hij vroeg wat wij lekker vonden en hoeveel we wilden uitgeven.
En potdorie: hij had wel degelijk een rode Meursault, voor een niet al te gekke prijs.
Jammergenoeg liep ik nog steeds met die sherrybek, waardoor het proeven weinig zin had.
Maar we kochten de rode Meursault.
Triomfantelijk bleef P. voor de etalage van de (tweede) onwelwillende wijnverkoper staan en duwde demonstratief de doos tegen het raam. Hij zag ons en dook weg onder de toonbank.

Ook bij ons Château-hotel André Ziltener in het schilderachtige Chambole-Musigny mochten we, als goed betalende gasten (standaardkamer kostte 220,-), gratis plaats nemen in het enorme proeflokaal (foto). Ook hier weer die onverschilligheid en zogenaamde oververmoeidheid.
Nu kwam er wel een mandje droog brood op tafel, waarmee ik eindelijk die zure nasmaak van de eerste witte wijn kon wegkauwen.

Het was me inmiddels duidelijk dat wijnproeven niet mijn bezigheid is. Althans niet zoals gebruikelijk is. Er wordt jonge wijn geschonken, die nog wat jaren moet blijven liggen.
Dat is aan mij niet besteed.
Ik wil een nu drinkbare wijn proeven - nu genieten. Een paar maanden geduld kan ik wel opbrengen, maar ik investeer niet in wijnen.

Want hoe weet ik nu of die - nu nog wrang smakende - wijn over vijf jaar wel naar mijn zin zal zijn?
Zo ik er dan überhaupt nog ben.

Ell-en vacance 9

We zijn in het hart van de Bourgogne aangekomen en blijven hier twee dagen.

Goh, wat goed dat onze Mini zo mini is, want ik zou hier anders helemaal verkocht zijn. Ongelooflijk zo veel wijn"boeren".

Ook het aantal hotels blijft niet achter, maar om er één te vinden valt dit weekend niet mee. Het is herfstvakantie en bovendien schijnt deze streek een favoriet weekenduitje te zijn voor de stedelingen.

Met grote "Espaces" rijden ze langs de caves & chateaux en zijn na de lunch al behoorlijk over de rouge.

Morgen gaan wij dat dus ook doen.............proeven.

De pech met het vinden van hotels is meer regel dan uitzondering deze twee weken.

Nu zitten we voor 80,- in Hotel les Paulands (ALOXE CORTON - wijnen) in Ladoix - tussen Dijon en Beaune in de Côte d'Or. Het krakkemikkige hotel - dat mij erg doet denken aan het huis in Psycho - zou in geen geval wat voor Nederlandse keuring dan ook doorstaan. Het voldoet - volgens mij - aan geen enkele veiligheidseis.

Maakt de Fransen niet uit. De bedden zijn goed, de kamers zijn groot en de verrukkelijke wijn maakt alles goed. En als ik mijn vertelseltje kan typen, ben ik tevreden.

Het hotel zit tot en met december ieder weekend volgeboekt. Zo ook morgen, waardoor wij moeten uitwijken naar een ander onderkomen dat ik na een uur internetten en bellen heb gevonden. Het is een chateau, dat derhalve ook 140,- duurder is.

Vanavond mocht ik bij het prima vijf-gangenmenu (35,-) uit de wijnkaart kiezen. Geweldig, een hotel met zijn eigen wijnen. Bij de zalm namen we een glas witte Meursault (is in NL niet te betalen). Het ging verder met een fles rood uit Savigny les Beaune (2003). Jammie.

P. was onder de indruk van mijn keuze.

Morgen mag hij weer.

Ell-en vacance 8

Over onze eerste etappe richting Nederland kan ik kort zijn: prachtig.

Zodra je Nice (in noorderlijke richting) uit bent, verdwijn je in de bergen.

De Haute Provence heeft een machtig gebergte-landschap.

Het ging via Digne naar Valence en vervolgens richting Lyon.

We hadden ons alleen een beetje verkeken op de tijd. Over 75 kilometer deden we twee uur.

Stops hielden we alleen voor de hoognodige plas, vandaar de vele foto’s vanuit de auto.

Op Col de Cabre (die wij omdoopten tot Col de Cabrio) verdwenen wij in een dikke, koude wolk. Toen was het uit met de pret. De temperatuur kelderde van achttien naar zeven graden.

Het dak ging dicht en ik vrees dat dat zo zal blijven tot ergens in het voorjaar.

Na bijna 500 kilometer besloten we de RN te verlaten bij Lac Ternay (Annonay) – ten zuiden van Lyon.

Uit de guide van Chateaux & Hotels hadden wij Hotel du Lac gekozen. Een mooi gerenoveerd hotel met Laura Ashley-achtige kamers. De ligging aan het meer en aan de voet van de Col de la Republique (waar wij morgen aan moeten geloven) is erg mooi.

Het restaurant zag erg veelbelovend uit. Helaas………………
Alle hoofdproducten waren dermate gekruid of gezoet, dat ze hun eigen smaak verloren hadden. P. had een soort van Tarte Tatin, die naar rozenblaadjes smaakte.
Mijn voorgerecht – eend in bladerdeeg – had net zo goed pittig gekruid rundergehakt kunnen zijn. Het gebruik van kruiden en specerijen was veel TE voor mijn smaak.
Als je daar van houdt, dan is dit het juiste adres.

*******

Maar over de rit ben ik lyrisch.

Waarom de Tour de France altijd over dezelfde bergen gaat is mij een raadsel. Wij hebben over zo veel prachtige cols met uitstekend wegdek gereden.

Misschien een categorie te zwaar?

Moet er nog dieper in de EPO-buidel getast worden.

Ell-en vacance 7

De locatie van "ons" Hotel Brice is zondermeer perfect.

Binnen vijf minuten loop je naar zee of ben je aan het winkelen. Ook zijn er talloze eettentjes, in alle soorten - maten en prijsklassen, in deze rustige buurt te vinden.

Een busstation, op nog geen vijftig meter afstand van het hotel, verlost je van een eventueel vervoersprobleem binnen de stad.

Met de auto naar en in Nice kost je een klein vermogen. Het hotel biedt een persoonlijke parkeerbox aan - tegen betaling van 17,- per dag.

Maar het is en blijft een stoffig, in verval geraakt hotel: al doet de buitenkant heel anders vermoeden.
Vandaag en gisteren kwamen we om 14.30 uur terug op onze kamer, die er nog net zo uitzag als wij hem ’s morgens hadden achtergelaten. Daar was madame gisteren al ontstemd over, doch toen kon het kamermeisje nog bij haar lurven gegrepen worden.

Vandaag was de vogel gevlogen. Wat wil je als er hooguit acht kamers bezet zijn.
Dus moest het juffie van de receptie - geheel tegen haar zin in - het jasje van haar mantelpakje verruilen voor een schort. Ze toog ziedend met de stofzuiger naar kamer 301.

De kamer met twee uitstekende bedden en veel ruimte.

Maar ook de kamer waar de airco uit de muur hangt, waar de föhn uit elkaar valt, waar de vloerbedekking vol verfvlekken en stof zit, waar het water uit de koelkast loopt en waar het naar pies stinkt.

Goed dat madame zelf pas polshoogte kwam nemen, nadat P. met boek was vertrokken naar de boulevard om wat af te koelen.
Madame nam een uur de tijd om met mij de staat van de kamer en de rest van het hotel door te nemen. Ze schrok van wat ik haar liet zien. Als ervaren hotelganger stelde ik lachend voor alle tachtig kamers te doorlopen. “Oh non” klonk het wanhopig.

Het is doodzonde, want hier is niet tegen op te renoveren. Zeker niet wanneer je dat (financieel genoodzaakt) in etappes doet, om zo open te kunnen blijven. Er zijn nu vijf kamers op de vierde etage klaar. Ze zijn simpel gehouden, met zelf opgeknapte meubeltjes. Maar die beschadigde deuren worden dan weer niet aangepakt en zo blijf je achter de feiten aanlopen.
Daarbij is de concurrentie van 4-sterrenhotels in dezelfde straat moordend. En madame hoopt ooit quatre étoiles te halen.
Daar heb ik weinig fiducie in, eerlijk gezegd.

Wat ik ook zo vreemd vind: voor WiFi moet ik via Orange tijd kopen. In de kleinste hotelletjes onderweg was dat perfect - gratis - geregeld. En dan te bedenken dat hier ook vertegenwoordigers en andere zakenlui overnachten.

Vanmorgen leek het een bewolkte dag te worden. Er was regen voorspeld (tot dusver niet uitgekomen), dus de ideale museumdag. Het werd Chagall.

Prettig in en van Nice is het openbaar vervoer. Voor één euro kan je 75 minuten heel Nice doorbussen - of trammen.

Morgen begint (na een heerlijke week) de terugreis, maar het wordt een absoluut AU REVOIR NICE.

Fun

Joe of John the Plumber: de Amerikaanse versie van Jan Modaal

All the Presidents Wives 6

LOUISA CATHERINE JOHNSON ADAMS

Born:
12 February, 1775
London, England
*Louisa Catherine Adams is the only First Lady born outside of the United States .

Father:
Joshua Johnson, born 25 June, 1744, St. Leonard, Calvert County, Maryland; U.S. Consul, merchant, businessman, Superintendent of Stamps; died 1802, Washington, D.C.
*In 1774, Joshua Johnson's brother Thomas Johnson served with John Adams in the Continental Congress, and later was elected Maryland 's first governor. In 1801, as President, John Adams offered him the position of Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia .

Mother:
Catherine Nuth Johnson, born 1757, London, England; died 29 October, 1811, Washington, D.C.
*Louisa Catherine Adams' parents did not marry until sometime between November 1772 and February 1774 when she was ten years old.

Ancestry:

English

Louisa Adams' paternal great-grandparents immigrated to Maryland from England. Her mother was born in England. One of her maternal grandfathers had been a brewer in London and one of her maternal great-grandmothers had been one of 21 children.

Birth Order and Siblings:
second of nine children; seven sisters, one brother;

Anne "Nancy" Johnson Hellen (1773-1811), Carolina Virginia Marylanda Johnson Buchanan Frye (1776- 1862), Thomas Baker Johnson (1779-1843), Harriet Johnson Boyd (1781- 1850), Catherine "Kitty" Johnson Smith (?-1869), Eliza Johnson Pope (?-1818), Adelaide Johnson Hellen (1787-1877)

Louisa Adams' sister Kitty married Billy Smith in 1809; he was the nephew of John Quincy Adams, the son of Adams ' sister Nabby. Her sister Eliza Johnson married U.S. Senator John Pope of Kentucky in 1810. After the death of Louisa Adams' sister Nancy Hellen, her widowed husband Walter Hellen married a second time, to their sister Adelaide . The daughter of Nancy and Walter Hellen, Mary, married her first cousin, John Adams II, in the White House, the only wedding in the mansion of a president's son.

Physical Appearance:
Brown hair, brown eyes, 5' 6"

Religious Affiliation:
practiced Catholicism in France and Anglicanism in England; baptized into the Episcopal faith in 1837

Education:
Roman Catholic convent school, Nantes, France, 1781-1783 , learned to read and write in French and became so proficient in French that she forgot how to speak English, also learned to play the harp and piano, and to sing; English boarding school for girls, England, 1784-1789, her education continued with further study in, rudimentary mathematics, philosophy, embroidery, needlework, stitching, drawing. One of her teachers, a Miss Young permanently changed her way of thinking about herself and the place of women in society, teaching her to express her true views and to use direct language instead of repressing herself as most young women of her class and era were trained to do. Later, Louisa Adams pondered whether her having learned to view the world and humanity with the clarity that she had was not a mistake since women were discouraged to involve themselves in larger and public issues that were the sole purview of men. Private tutor, London, England, 1789 to approximately 1793, when her only brother was sent to study at Harvard in the United States, Louisa Adams and her sisters were pulled from boarding school and received further instruction at home. As a young woman during this time, she began to write poetry and essays extensively, later to enlarge her craft to playwriting.

Occupation before Marriage:
Joshua Johnson came to England from Maryland in 1771. With the American colonies at war with England while he was there, he moved his family to France in 1778 to the port city of Nantes. Louisa Adams grew up in great luxury and indulgence, a lifestyle she attributed to her mother's insistence. In France, the Johnsons entertained many Americans, including John Adams and his son, then-twelve year old John Quincy. Louisa Adams would long afterward consider her identity to be more French than English, in terms of her cultural interests, personal manner and worldly sensibilities. When she returned to England with her family, she even had to relearn how to speak English. Although she had not been baptized in any faith upon her birth, as she matured, Louisa Adams worshipped as a Catholic, attending masses and strictly adhered to what the nuns in the convent of her first school had taught her. Consequently, when thrust into Anglicanism in England with no explanation of the transition, she found herself confused and overwhelmed, repeatedly fainting when she knelt to pray in the new faith. Her parents as well as other observers and associates over the years Louisa Adams' unusual sensitivity towards others, intensity in her quest for answers on existence, and brilliant musical and literary skill. These traits stood out all the more because Louisa Adams had an openness that was uncommon among young women of her era. In 1795, while attending one of the many lavish parties held at the Johnson home on Cooper Row near Tower Hill in London, the young American diplomat John Quincy Adams was drawn to her because of such qualities. Engaged in 1796, Adams nevertheless had reservations, fed in part by the concerns raised by his influential mother, Abigail Adams, who reminded him how poor choices in his personal life could impact his future political prospects. In the year preceding their eventual marriage, Adams sent a series of harshly critical and blunt letters to Louisa Adams, emphasizing the importance of prudence, economy and lack of frivolity that would be required from a wife of his. When Adams further delayed the marriage due to his lack of funds, Joshua Johnson promised to pay for their passage to his next assignment, in Lisbon, Portugal. Adams consented but just before the wedding, Louisa Adams' father took his wife and the rest of his children and fled England for the U.S., leaving enormous debt to British creditors.

Marriage:
22 years old to John Quincy Adams (11 July, 1757 - 23 February, 1848), on 26 July, 1797, London, England; shortly after their wedding, the Adamses had planned to sail to Lisbon, Portugal where he was to assume a new diplomatic mission. At the time of his marriage, Adams had served as the secretary to the U.S. Minister to Russia (1781), and to the Minister to the Netherlands (1794). Instead, he was re-assigned by his father (who had at that point been President of the United States for four months) to serve as Minister to Prussia. The wedding of the President's son to a British-born subject attracted national press back in the United States, the Boston Independent Chronicle's14 September, 1797 edition noting that, "Young John Adams' Negotiations have terminated in a Marriage Treaty with an English lady…"

Children:
Four children; three sons, one daughter; George Washington Adams (1801-1829); John Adams II (1803-1834); Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886); Louisa Catherine Adams (1811-1812)

Occupation after Marriage:
Louisa Adams commenced her role as the wife of a public servant immediately after her marriage, when she moved with her husband to Berlin, where he served as the U.S. Minister to Prussia. Her European sensibilities, love of dancing, fluency in French all served her and her husband well, even to the point where the Prussian royal family befriended her. Despite this, Louisa Adams suffered a series of physical and emotional troubles, with miscarriages, fainting spells, fevers and extreme fatigue. This was complicated by such a shortage of funds that she was unable to entertain at a level that was commensurate with other diplomats. Furthermore, her husband was impatient with and ignored her needs, having a generally dismissive attitude towards women's intelligence. Louisa Adams' deep sense of isolation, however, only deepened what would eventually become an enlightened view of gender equality. When his father lost his re-election in 1800, he recalled his son immediately so his successor, Thomas Jefferson would not have the opportunity to make political hay of it. Louisa Adams then made her first voyage to the United States. At her home with her husband in Quincy, Massachusetts she found an immediate and lifelong friend in her father-in-law, former President John Adams. As to her new mother-in-law, the former First Lady Abigail Adams, Louisa Adams wrote that, "to a woman like Mrs. Adams, equal to every occasion in life, I appeared like a maudlin hysterical fine Lady…" Abigail Adams considered her European daughter-in-law to lack the substance of a sturdy American woman and judged by her thinness and poor health that she would not live long.
Louisa Adams would not have to share a home long with Abigail Adams. When John Quincy Adams began to practice law in Boston, the couple moved into the city. Shortly thereafter, in 1802, he was elected by state senate to the U.S. Senate. As the son of a former President, John Quincy and Louisa Adams had immediate entrée to the most powerful figures in Washington, D.C. when they arrived for him to begin his tenure as a Federalist U.S. Senator from Massachusetts - they dined with Thomas Jefferson, James and Dolley Madison. On an earlier visit, in 1801, they had visited former First Lady Martha Washington at Mount Vernon. It proved to be a useful introduction for foreigner Louisa Adams in the American capital and she retained a strong sense of public bi-partisanship in her creation of a social salon for political figures - despite her private defensiveness of her husband and his views. Adams' occasional support of Jefferson and Madison policy enraged his constituency and embarrassed his parents. His break with the Federalist Party came in the summer of 1807 and he resigned a year later. Newly-elected President Madison, however, offered Adams the post of Minister to Russia. Without consulting Louisa Adams, he accepted. To add insult to injury, it had been decided for her by him and his mother that the senior Adams would raise her eldest two sons, George and John at home in Massachusetts, while Louisa Adams was permitted only to take her third and youngest child, George. She would be separated from her two sons for eight years. She later claimed it was one of the most upsetting moments of her life.

Louisa Adams did not recall her life in St. Petersburg fondly. After a difficult transatlantic crossing at the height of the Napoleonic wars, she was grateful for the company of her sister Kitty. It was much like her time in Berlin, in that she became a personal favorite of the royal family, particularly the powerful Tsar Alexander I who frequently requested her as his dancing partner. The Adamses, however, did not have the financial wealth to maintain the lifestyle expected of them. She found the winters especially painful with the bitter cold and long, dark days. Abigail Adams agreed that the move had been a bad one and even wrote to President Madison, urging him to bring her son home; Madison let Adams decide and he chose to remain. The one great bright moment of her time there was the 1811 birth of her fourth child, the daughter she had longed to have. The first American citizen born in Russia, the girl was named after her mother. Tragically, a year later she died, leaving not only Louisa but John Quincy deeply bereaved. Adams petitioned for a return home to America, to have his family reunited as Louisa wished but he was assigned to help negotiate a peace treaty at Ghent, Belgium to bring an end to America's naval war with England. Left alone in St. Petersburg, Louisa Adams flourished, entertaining and managing better than even she expected without her husband. When he bid her to close up their home and meet her in Paris, she began one of the most extraordinary adventures of her life. With her son Charles and sister Kitty, Louisa Adams made a six-week excursion through Russia, Poland and Germany towards France in the middle of winter and war on a carriage on a sleigh bottom. Despite warnings from Germans she met along the way and the fields littered with the dead soldiers of war that she passed through, Louisa Adams pressed on, even ordering her coachman to risk their lives by proceeding over iced rivers. Nearing Paris, her Russian vehicle was surrounded by hostile Napoleonic troops and camp followers who called for her death, assuming she was Russian. Louisa Adams had her servants whisper that she was Napoleon's sister traveling incognito, and in perfect French stepped out of the carriage to rally the troops to salutes to Napoleon in her obviously perfect French. This period was followed by a joyous time: two years in the land of her birth, England, where her husband served as U.S. Minister. Her two sons were sent from Boston to London and the nuclear family was reunited. They lived in the countryside, and Louisa Adams enjoyed attending church and a renewed emotional intimacy with her husband. From here, the Adamses returned to Washington, D.C. where he was made Secretary of State to the new President, James Monroe. During a brief visit to his parents, Abigail Adams expressed a new respect for her daughter-in-law and after her death in 1818, Louisa Adams maintained a lively and personal correspondence with her father-in-law. As a Cabinet wife, Louisa Adams followed the lead of First Lady Elizabeth Monroe in refusing to make social calls on other political and diplomatic wives and briefly earned their enmity. Nevertheless, her home became the social center of the city, where she frequently hosted large and lively open house Tuesday night receptions and dances. It also introduced her to the key political leaders of the time. This knowledge, combined with her wisdom about human nature shaped Louisa Adams into a keenly acute political commentator, a role that would benefit her husband's 1824 presidential candidacy.

Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:
Despite her frequent expressions of dislike for political life, Louisa Adams believed strongly in her own husband's ability to be President, and often seemed to do more, at least publicly, than he did in pursuing that goal. With her weekly open house reception and regular attendance at legislative sessions, Louisa Adams curried favor with Congressmen, who were to serve as the final electors in the campaign of 1824. In 1822, while she was confined in Philadelphia with her brother who was waiting to undergo surgery, Louisa Adams gathered around her a group of political figures and powerful newspaper editor. In vain, she urged her husband to join them and to campaign more openly for the presidency. She made other trips to Maryland, where she talked up her husband to influential family friends with the promise that their influence on the state's members of Congress would lead to support for her husband. She and Adams bought the former home of James and Dolley Madison on the city's then-fashionable F Street of rowhouses and she had it enlarged with the specific purpose of constant and large entertainments, again to give a sense of national prominence to her husband. Her most famous effort was a January 8, 1824 ball honoring General Andrew Jackson on the 10th anniversary of his successful defeat of the British at the Battle of New Orleans. It was the Adams' camp's recognition that he and Jackson were the leading contenders in the presidential election ten months later. Jackson and Louisa Adams spent most of the party on each other's arms as hostess and her guest, and the general was as solicitous of her as she was of him. It was also an unsubtle (and unsuccessful) attempt by John Quincy and Louisa Adams to manipulate Jackson into either throwing his support to Adams or considering running as his vice presidential candidate. About one thousand guests attended and the Washington Republican newspaper even memorialized the event in seven stanzas the morning before the ball actually took place. Louisa Adams continued to canvas for her husband using the social parlor as Dolley Madison had done.

Although Andrew Jackson won the popular and electoral votes in the election, he did not take the required majority of the latter and by the rules of the time; the election outcome was decided by the House of Representative. Adams ultimately won the presidency through a deal with Henry Clay in which he suggested the Congressman might have the position of Secretary of State if he could convince a voting block of southern-Midwestern states in Adams favor during the House of Representatives vote. "For myself, I have no ambition beyond my present situation," wrote Louisa Adams, "the exchange to a more elevated station must put me in a Prison." She did not attend the 1825 Inaugural ceremony, although she was in Washington.

First Lady:
4 March 1827 - 4 March 1829
52 years old

Perhaps there was no more genuinely depressing period as a political wife for Louisa Adams than her tenure as First Lady. Acrimony stemming from the bitter election results - and many charges that Adams had gained his office by immorally manipulating a backroom political deal - overshadowed the Administration. While she remained loyal to her husband, Louisa Adams was also deeply disappointed in him for the deal he had made to get the presidency. She also was discouraged by the increasing factionalism of the nation's political system, believing that voters made decisions based on emotions and not rational decisions. A diplomatic mission would have been better for her and her husband than the presidency, she concluded.

Secondly, Louisa Adams was also genuinely suffering from a variety of real and imagined physical ills, stemming partially from her menopause but also the fumes she inhaled from the coal-fired heat grates in the floor of her bedroom, where she spent much of her time in isolation and addicted to eating chocolate shells. Not the least of the causes of her misery was the mansion itself. She found it too large and cold, with an overwhelming sense of isolation from the rest of the city and then loneliness for each individual who lived there. She found the condition of the house to be so deplorable that she opened it up for what may have been among the first regular public tours for citizens - just to prove that she and the President were not living in great luxury as was charged. This sense was exacerbated by the fact that she felt herself now being used as a "puppet" for "political maneuver[s]" or displays and that when she complained or protested against making a public appearance that she was told it was a mistake that she was invited but it was too late to change and she had to go through with it.

Much of her anxiety during her White House tenure also stemmed from troubles involving the young people of her family. Her son George used opium to sleep and fathered an illegitimate child by a chambermaid. Her son John had been thrown out of Harvard, her son Charles confessed to being "addicted…to depraved habits" while at school there, using prostitutes at times. Two nephews and two nieces of her husband (the children of Thomas Adams) were often part of the household seeking escape from their father's alcoholic tirades. Louisa Adams was also raising her late sister's two sons and daughter. One of her nephews, left in charge of the White House while the rest of the family was vacationing, began an affair with a maid and then ran off to marry her. Her niece, Mary Catherine had a flirtatious affair with both her cousins Charles and George before finally marrying their brother John in the White House on February 25, 1828, the only time a presidential son was wed in the mansion.

Even in her role as the White House hostess, Louisa Adams felt a large degree of isolation. By following Elizabeth Monroe's custom of declining to return calls, she had less contact with other political spouses than she had when her husband held any other public positions. She organized regular dinners for thirty or more guests, but often absented herself from attending. Certainly her greatest event as hostess was in August of 1824 when she entertained the visiting Marquis de Lafayette, who was then completing a grand public tour of the United States. He and his large entourage stayed in the mansion requiring the presidential family to give up their private bedrooms and room together. Nor was the White House domestic staff large enough to serve the great Franco-American hero and Louisa Adams was required to hire extra servants. She did break some traditions, encouraging dancing at her son's wedding and participating herself. At receptions, instead of standing apart from her guests with the Cabinet wives, she mingled.

Few presidential relationships deteriorated as much as did that of John Quincy and Louisa Adams during their White House tenure. Adams consistently refused or ignored his wife's opinions or input even on matters involving their mutual personal well-being. It was not Louisa Adams' ideal of a "helpmate," which is what she had expected her role to be as First Lady. The couple spent many of their summers apart, with the First Lady away from her husband in Quincy, Massachusetts, in mid-Atlantic and New England spas, beaches and rivers where she indulged herself in rowing, swimming and fishing with other women friends. She also began reading the letters of her mother-in-law Abigail Adams and believed they should be published as an inspiration to all American women. The concept of "women's rights" and equality became a passion of her's and even a newspaper story of an Irish servant girl who committed suicide after being seduced by her master caused her great anguish. For herself, she began writing more poetry and a series of bitter, sardonic plays, often skewering her husband. In one, "The Metropolitan Kaleidoscope" she writes sadly of the repressed spirit and intelligence of a character she named "Lady Sharpley" who was clearly herself. While it is known that she often entertained guests with her singing and performance on the harp, it is not known to what extent she encouraged the enactment of her plays.

Louisa Adams was nevertheless also adept at defending herself in print. When the White House asked for a congressional appropriation to cover the purchase of a billiard table for the president's family (Adams had already purchased it with his own money and was simply seeking reimbursement for the object was to be left behind as government property), anti-Adams, pro-Jackson newspapers suggested that table had been bought for the First Lady and that such "gambling furniture" was common in castles of Europe's "rich and great." Soon enough the implications were made that the Adams lived like royalty and that during their days in St. Petersburg that John Quincy Adams had encouraged a sexual liaison between his children's nursemaid and the Czar - with the cooperation of Louisa Adams - to win points for the U.S. It was an outright fabrication and the First Lady directly addressed the story, as well as other facts about her life - including that her father was an American. Her piece was published in a pro-Adams newspaper, Mrs. A.S. Colvin's Weekly Messenger in 1828. It was not only the first time a presidential candidate's wife and First Lady was directly attacked and used by the opposition press as an issue reflecting the candidate's character - but certainly the first time that such a woman responded so boldly and directly to false charges in the national media. The bitterness caused by the 1824 election extended into the next election cycle as Jackson supporters felt that their hero had been cheated and determined to undermine the administration of John Quincy Adams and defeat him in 1828, which they did.

Post-Presidential Life:
Embittered by the defeat of her husband for a second term and believing that the nation was threatened by Andrew Jackson. "Popular governments are peculiarly liable to factions, to cabals, to intrigue. The people may often be deceived for a time by some fair-speaking demagogue, but they will never be deceived long," she wrote of the General she had formerly admired so much. Just weeks after leaving the White House, Louisa Adams suffered one of the most significant emotional blows of her life when her son George drowned a likely suicide by jumping from a ship. The death of her son John was no less trying but he left a wife and children that moved in with his mother. In fact, Louisa Adams would take a renewed joy in life by helping to raise her two granddaughters.

In 1830, two years after her tenure as First Lady ended, Louisa Adams resumed a central role in the social and political life of the capital city when her husband was elected to Congress as a "National Republican," a strong anti-slavery party to become known as the Whig Party, a position he held until 1848. Although Jackson's successor, Martin Van Buren was a Democrat who her husband often defied in Congress, she was a welcome guest at his official dinners with the former President. She was especially close to the short-lived Whig President William Henry Harrison, a friend to her husband.

It was through her husband's intense struggle against slavery as one of the nation's most overtly abolitionist figures that Louisa Adams had a sense of redemption for her own existence as a woman who had promise to make great contributions yet who lived in a world where that was not encouraged of her gender. She made a direct correlation between the repression of African-American slaves and American women and in that context assumed the role of Congressman Adams' most passionate aide. During the fight for the "right of petition" in 1842, Louisa Adams began reading, filing and cataloguing the many anti-slavery petitions with which he was flooded. A large number of them came from women's organizations. At the same time she had begun a closer study of the Bible and came to the conclusion that it did not seek to justify the subordination of women at all. Soon enough she began one of her intense correspondences, this time with the famed abolitionist and women's rights advocates, the sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimke, the latter having authored Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and on the Condition of Women which Louisa Adams had read and believed to be important.

When the former President was felled by a stroke on the floor of Congress and died in a nearby chamber shortly afterwards, Louisa Adams was notified in time at home and came to his side before he died. Despite her deep ambivalence about the cost of her husband's devotion to public life to her family, Louisa Adams remained the strongest defender of his record and reputation. She quite rabidly disliked the slaveholding President Zachary Taylor when he evoked her late husband's name, for instance, because she believed him to be disingenuous and exploitative. As a presidential widow, Louisa Adams continued to live on at her F Street residence. She suffered a stroke in 1849 and lived for three more years. Although she did not write a book for publication about her life, she did author several autobiographical writings: "Adventures of a Nobody," "Record of a Life, or My Story," "Narrative of a Journey from Russia to France, 1815."

Death:
15 May, 1852
Washington, D.C.
77 years
*Upon the death of Louisa Adams, both houses of Congress adjourned in mourning, making her the first woman whose death was so acknowledged by the federal government.

Burial:
United First Parish Church
Quincy Massachusetts

Bron.

Ell-en vacance 6

Gisteren maakten we een prachtige autorit langs de kust van Nice, via Monaco naar Menton (waar het doodstil was).

Foto-update.

Er is een wereldwijde economische crisis aan de gang, maar daar trekken de (soms wanstaltige) decadente miljoenenstulpjes met giga-uitzicht zich niets van aan.

Oppassers, beheerders, homewatchers en vals gedierte bewaken de paleisjes van de rijksten der aarde.

In Monaco lagen wel wat "Prince de Lignacjes" te koop. Knappe, gebruinde, afgetrainde boys lopen met spons, zeem en glassex en poetsen het koper tot de glinstering pijn aan je ogen doet. Dag in en dag uit, totdat de baas beslist een eindje te gaan varen.

Monaco is ook een bouwput. Denk je een vrij uitzicht over zee te hebben, weten ze er nog weer een flatje voor te bouwen.

Nog voor geen tien miljoen zou ik in deze Bijlmer aan de Middellandse Zee willen wonen.

Vervolgens ging het een stief stukkie omhoog, de Maritieme Alpen in. Daar was het koud en mistig.

Een afspiegeling van hoe de wereld er vandaag de dag uitziet.

Colin Powell

, de man die ik graag als president van de V.S. had gezien, heeft openlijk afstand genomen van de krasse uitspraken die Palin en McCain hebben gedaan over Barack Obama.

De gematigde Republikein Powell heeft er sinds de inval in Irak duidelijk de pest in. Sinds zijn aftreden hield hij zijn mond, maar zijn lichaamstaal spreekt boekdelen. Hij ergert zich aan de conservatieven binnen zijn partij.


Ik heb herhaaldelijk gezegd en geschreven dat over niet al te lange tijd zijn memoires zullen uitkomen. Het wachten is op het verstrijken van de Bushtermijn.
Dan gaat de eerste beerput open.

Daar zullen noch George Bush, noch Dick Cheney blij mee zijn.

MalEze

Zaterdagavond:
Ik kom dampend, naakt de badkamer uit. Sta ik oog in oog met een “mijnheer en mevrouw de Bok-achtig” stel, dat met bagage in de deuropening staat.

Foutje van de receptie. Geef mij die ouderwetse sleutels met loden hangers maar.
Afijn, ik weet niet wie er meer schrikt.

Zondagochtend: wij verlaten, na een nagenoeg slapeloze nacht, het BW-hotel.

In de kleine kamer naast ons slaapt – nou ja, slapen? – een Spaanse gezin in één bed. En dat geeft een feest.

We hebben een hotelletje geboekt in het – volgens de gidsen – pittoreske dorpje Eze (twee kilometer van Nice).

Op de Col d’Eze arriveren we, in de ijzige bergkou, bij het hotel. Aan de buitenkant ziet het er in ieder geval zeer aantrekkelijk uit.

Het parkeerterrein staat bomvol. Er is een communiefeest, waardoor ook het gezellige restaurant geen plaats meer heeft.

Het was van mij de zoveelste poging uit de gids van Logis de France, waar wij dertig jaar geleden zo veel leuke adresjes uithaalden. Maar Logis de France is wat betreft de Logis niet met haar tijd meegegaan. Het draait op de zoveelste teleurstelling uit. Een superior kamer (105,-excl. ontbijt) zonder tafel, met een houten stoel is mij echt van de TE zotte.

Dus terug naar het warme Nice, waar ik toch met pijn in het hart afscheid van had genomen.

We hadden de stad net goed leren kennen. De honderden eettentjes, terrasjes, prachtige winkels en nog mooiere architectuur in de oude stad – we waren er smoorverliefd op geworden.

Nice is relaxt. Dat komt volgens mij vanwege de Italiaanse atmosfeer.

Maar ook de Promenade des Anglais – die prachtige boulevard aan de Middellandse Zee – waar het heerlijk wandelen en turen naar de horizon is, waar verliefde paartjes ongegeneerd zitten te zoenen (wat overigens zeer aanstekelijk werkt) en waar de terrassen niet idioot duur zijn.

Terug naar die stad.

Na even zoeken vonden we in de Rue Maréchal Joffre dit prima hotel “Brice” voor een prima prijs. Misschien een beetje gedateerd, maar erg gezellig.
Voor 100,- (incl. ontbijt) hebben we een grote kamer met bureau, zithoek, badkamer en aparte wc, (lege) koelkast en een safe.

In tegenstelling tot de BW ligt dit hotel ligt in een veilige buurt, heeft het een restaurant, grote lounge en bar.
Dus heb ik bijgeboekt tot donderdag, wanneer wij toch aan de onvermijdelijke terugreis zullen moeten geloven.

Logis de France ging "joekeledokie" de prullenbak in.

010 vs 020

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Nee, onderstaand gesprek heb ik niet met Theodor Holman gevoerd. Ik heb hem een e-mail gestuurd, waarvan de inhoud totaal niet strookt met onderstaand relaas, dat ik in Het Parool las.

Ik kreeg een telefoontje uit Rotterdam.

''Zo, nul-twintig, wij hebben lekker Aboutaleb! En je bent jaloers hè, met je arrogante Amsterdamse kop. Ja, je bent jaloers, dat wij Aboutaleb hebben!''

''Eh... ja...''

''Hebben we weer van jullie gewonnen, stomme nul-twintiger, omdat jullie gewoon te dom zijn, en daarom hebben wij Aboutaleb. Dikke middelvinger voor jullie. Geef toe dat jullie verloren hebben met Aboutaleb, en dat wij met Aboutaleb de winnaar zijn.''''Eh... ja..''''Zeg dan, arrogante nul-twintiger met je pleures Ajaxkop, zeg dan: Rotterdam is met Aboutaleb de winnaar... Gefeliciteerd. Zeg dan!''

''Ja... Gefeliciteerd...''

''En Aboutaleb wordt nu lekker een Feyenoorder. Dat kan je ook niet zetten, hè. Maar hij wordt een echte Feyenoorder.''''Met Fortis op zijn shirt...''''Wat zeg je daar, kuttekop, met die stomme Ajaxlipjes van je?''

''Niks... eh... gefeliciteerd... eh... ja... wat een slag voor... eh... Amsterdam.''

"Je zit me toch niet in de maling te nemen, hè, prul-nul-twintiger? Want anders stuur ik zo de Marokkaanse geheime dienst op je af, want je weet, die zit hier ook op Zestienhoven...''

"O ja... nou... gefeliciteerd.''

''En Aboutaleb heeft twee paspoorten hè. Daar kan je zeker ook niet tegen? En weet je waarom niet? Omdat je verloren hebt! Daarom niet. Waar of niet?''

''Eh... ja... eh... waar of niet...''

''Zeg dan: Rotterdam heeft fijn gewonnen en nul-twintig heeft verloren.''

''Rotterdam heeft fijn gewonnen en nul-twintig heeft verloren.''

''En zeg: Oei, oei, oei, wat heeft Rotterdam ons weer een slimme streek geleverd.''

''Oei, oei, oei, wat heeft Rotterdam ons weer een slimme streek geleverd.''

''Rotterdam, de stad met de eerste moslimburgemeester! Hartelijk gefeliciteerd Rotterdam.''

''Hartelijk gefeliciteerd, Rotterdam.''
''Met de eerste linkse moslimburgemeester.''
''Dat is boffen.''
''Ja... gefeliciteerd.''

Watjes mogen ze in Amsterdam houden. Daar horen ze ook thuis.

Fort(is) blut

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Kan pinnen bij Fortis nog? Wij ervoeren van niet.

Bekijk dit filmpje maar eens.

Ell-en vacance 5

Vandaag hebben we Nice - vanuit zo’n open tourbus - beter leren kennen. Druk is het niet in deze gezellige, flamboyante, zonnige, mooie stad aan de Côte d’Azur. Genoeg toeristen, daar niet van, maar reserveren is nergens nodig.

Ons Best Westernhotel ligt aan de bekende Avenue Jean Medicin. Het is een lange winkelstraat waar je alle grote winkels, zoals Lafayette, kunt vinden.

We hadden zoveel BW-punten gespaard dat er twee gratis nachten in dit uitstekende hotel vanaf konden.

Nice heeft ook een donkere kant, waar je niet omheen kunt.
Misselijkmakend zijn de bedelaars, die hun opengereten benen aan het winkelende publiek opdringen. Ze zitten tegen de koele muren van luxe winkels en steken hun etterende benen provocerend uit. ’s Avonds liggen de daklozen in de portieken.

Het oude deel van de stad (met de markt en talloze restaurantjes) doet erg aan Italië denken.
Dat Garibaldi, de stichter van de Italiaanse staat, hier geboren is - wist ik niet.

Nice is nice!!

Aboutaleb

Met grote verbazing lees ik (in Nice) dat Rotterdam een islamitische burgemeester met twee nationaliteiten krijgt.

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Amsterdam en Rotterdam een PvdA-burgemeester. Waarom?

Vriendjespolitiek van Guusje? Een truc van de gemeenteraad om Leefbaar Rotterdam buiten spel te zetten?

****

Natuurlijk verdient hij het voordeel van de twijfel. Desalniettemin vind ik deze keuze onbegrijpelijk.

Ahmed Aboutaleb maakt een turbo - carrière. Hij houdt meer van woorden dan van daden.

****

Of hij opgewassen is tegen de eigenzinnige Rotterdammers, die juist zo blij waren met de schoonmaakploeg van wijlen Pim Fortuyn, betwijfel ik ten zeerste.

Zij houden van een sterk bakkie, niet van zoete thee.