A Ring Of Permanency

Holland, Amsterdam,
09 Aug. 2010.

According to an old Apache saying; Many Paths Reach The Same Destination, something flashing through my head while cycling to the Anne Frank House for my one-man Mandala business, always cycling the same streets, through the heart of the ancient Jordaan, the oldest part of Mokum...a certain superstition is running wild with me, originating back to the years before my licence, back to the years when I always had to be on my Qui-Vive for police activity, hiding behind the endless queue and selling my handmade product quick and fast....

Well, these days of the old Apache saying can pretty much go the way of that famous Apache chief called Geronimo, gone with the wind, a few shattered bones left in a dusty museum but definitely not forgotten...his zealous ways to stay alive despite facing overwhelming odds have made him a hero in the heads of todays population...

My street selling activities can easily be compared to this great warrior, starting back to the middle eighties, last century when there was nobody and Nadie in the street apart from some illigal Africans having come over from Paris, selling fake silver and gold jewelry, hoping to marry a Dutch blond sexbomb, often asking me if a knew of anylady blond Dutch gal available, doing their business under the tunnel of the Rijksmuseum...

I survived Israeli and Eastern European invasion armies who often told me in a threatening way to do my business elsewhere, wanting the place to themselves, I survived the police who threw them all out of the city and eventually I reached the Era Of The Licence...

Yeah, there is a certain ring of permanency involved here, I guess, and that with the same path is plain old superstition going back to the Years Of Fear, back to the years when Amsterdam's finest where not those of today I inform of pickpocket activity and the happenings in the world of street alcoholics, no, dealers and shitholes, the police then where those in the possession of the feared ticket book...yeah, definitely a Ring Of Permanency involved here...