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Back in November of 1965, Biff Hawke, Gerry Dean and myself, Brian Jackson, checked out of the Grand Hotel Krasnapolski across the square from the Dutch Royal Palace in Amsterdam after a two-night stay.
The first squadron had experienced a tough go on our annual Fall NATO cruise to the UK because of the explosion onboard the Nipigon that resulted in the death of some of the crew. So the Kootenay got to go to Amsterdam for some R&R for a week and while there we had a 72 hour leave to take care of.
We did the usual things sailors do in a foreign port – a little shopping, a little site seeing, a little eating and of course a little drinking. After checking out of the hotel we headed back to the ship to drop off our gear and have a little supper and some rest. For some reason we found ourselves on this narrow side street that was to take us near to our Jetty and the ship. While passing an old bar, the sound of some good rock and roll music blaring out the door caught our attention so we checked that we had enough money for a beer each at the establishment before we carried on down the road to the ship.
The three of us had just sat down when a man at the bar, with an American accent, asked us if we were Canadian sailors. The reply was “Yes,” and he said, “Great, I would like to buy you three a drink and ask you a question.” We said, “Sure come on over.” I can’t remember what we had to drink, but I do recall the bartender was the biggest guy I’d seen for a while and I thought he was a bouncer, and may just be filling in on this Sunday afternoon.
The American brought over the drinks and told us he was in the US Air Force and asked us if we knew who the Vandoos were, because three Army guys came into the bar and said they were Vandoo and the Americans better get their wallets out to buy some drinks or there would be some smacking of heads. The Air force guys had heard that the Vandoos were supposed to be a really tough bunch of guys and they were a little worried by these so-called Vandoos1.
Biff replied that there would not be a problem and we, of course, agreed with him, and waited for these guys to get back to the bar while the Airmen topped up our drinks. Gerry had the window seat and said, “Here comes three guys up the road; one has a bottle with him and they are heading in here.”
The Airman confirmed that the three where the soldiers. When they came in we said, “Hi fellas come on over; we hear you’re with the Vandoos” The lead one said, “No, no, no, we’re PPLI (Princess Pat’s Light Infantry). Can we buy you guys a drink?” Well that was the start of a memorable afternoon in Amsterdam. The PPLI left without any incident. The air types bought us some more drinks and we found out there was a number of them on leave from an air base in Germany in the bar.
The big bartender even bought us some more drinks and thanked us for saving him the problem of dealing with the three soldiers. That’s when we found out he was a Dutch Marine and an MP besides; he introduced himself as Jan. He was working with his Dad who owned the bar and he said that he would introduce us to his Dad when he came to the bar, which he did. The owner also thanked us and he bought us another drink.
As the evening went on we needed to find the ‘heads’ (washroom) and everyone pointed to the spiral staircase going to the second floor. We went up and used the head and came back down. We sat down to finish our drinks but noticed the patrons were watching us and smiling when we came down the spiral staircase and sat down.
The owner, who was a large man himself and in his sixties said, “Watch this boys” in his best Dutch/English. Up the stairs he went, hopped on the hand rail one hand in front, one behind and down the spiral hand rail he came and landed as neat as could be at the bottom. Upon landing he said, “That’s how you go to the bathroom here boys,” and everyone cheered. Then he got us another drink. Biff said, “That looks so neat I’m going to give that a try next time I go to the heads”. Gerry and I said, No way; you’re crazy; don’t be stupid.
Later in the evening a couple of men came into the bar and the owner said, “These are the sailors that prevented a fight, so buy them a drink”. They bought us a drink, introduced themselves and told us they did Flamenco Dancing. Later on they went to the head and the next thing we know the two of them are coming down the spiral staircase in tandem to the cheers and clapping of the patrons in the bar. Gerry and I were having a chat with the Jan picking up our drinks when this happened and he said, “Did you see that guys?” We replied, “Ya, that was impressive and sat down with our drinks.” A while later Biff said, “I’m going to the heads.” We thought nothing of it until we heard Biff yell “Watch this you guys!” We looked around and Biff had hopped up on the spiral handrail and was ready to go for a ride to the bottom. We opened our mouths to protest but it was too late, Biff was on the move.
He seemed to be going faster than the other riders but we figured he had things under control. We were wrong; he didn’t slow down. Instead we heard holler as he shot off the end of the spiral handrail, sailed through the air and crashed into an empty table about five feet from the bottom of the stairs.
There was cheering from the patrons, and the flamenco folks went over, helped him up and made sure he was alright. Gerry and I thought we were in big trouble and would have to grab Biff and get out the bar in a hurry. Quite the contrary, no one had ridden the rail like that before and everyone thought Biff was great. The owner and his son fixed the table, got it upright, gave us some more drinks and everyone was congratulating Biff for his dare devil thrill ride.
We finished our drinks, thanked everyone for a great time and headed back to the ship. We asked Biff if he was drunk, crazy or both and he said “I forgot to get my lead hand on the rail to slow me down and by then it was too late”. We had a good laugh on the way back to the ship. That night will remain a fond memory of a great stay in a great port.
We did not sail Monday morning due to a storm in the English Channel so we were able to have another great night ashore at the same bar, but that’s another story.
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