Who: Gerard Herbers
Place of residence: Arnhem
Distance: 150.3 kilometers (round trip)
Movement time: 5 hours and 28 minutes
Gerard Herbers emails Monday evening. “Delivery was almost perfect at my old address. Living on one floor, I seldom had to go down one flight of stairs in vain. Now I live on five floors and I go to the letterbox almost every week for nothing, albeit with the elevator, but still. Almost every Saturday the newspaper doesn’t come until around 11 o’clock, but I regularly have to read the Saturday Volkskrant buy, because without that newspaper my weekend cannot exist.’
He doesn’t mind not having a newspaper on weekdays. “But today it is a disaster that he is not concerned. After the great cycling weekend in Denmark I not only miss Willem Vissers’ commentary, but also the double photos of Fabio Jakobsen and Dylan Groenewegen.’
The Monday newspaper is also still welcome on Tuesday, he says. So off to Arnhem, a destination that automatically feels holiday-like on and off from Doorwerth, Heveadorp and Oosterbeek. Does that really only require a little height difference and river view?
The Let de Stigterpad, in the woods between Maarn and Rhenen, is one of the most beautiful and most fragrant cycle paths I know, I say to Gerard Herbers (82). He is waiting for me at the end of the afternoon at the entrance of the apartment complex where he lives, the former AkzoNobel headquarters.
He exchanged keys with the neighbor. Whoever wakes up first in the morning, usually him, takes the newspapers from their mailboxes. ‘She reads The Gelderlander and The Telegraph† Nevertheless she is nice.’ Herbers is disappointed with the erratic delivery. ‘If I knew a better newspaper, I would have canceled it long ago. The newspaper is my Bible, my Quran. For me, a breakfast without a newspaper is… no. Two slices of spelled bread, a nicely boiled egg, fruit and coffee. Coffee and printing ink belong together.’
Now: coffee on, TV off – he was watching the Tour de France. When he moved last year, he came across a folder with forty cut out letters that de Volkskrant published by him. His latest contribution, on the nitrogen issue, hangs on the bulletin board in the kitchen.
He is anything but life-tired, he says, and starts every morning with stretching exercises. ‘But as a cultural pessimist I can’t imagine turning 100. I hold my breath when I think about the political situation and I see no solution to the climate problem.’
And everyday life just feel like nothing is wrong. He thought about that this afternoon, on a bench in Angerenstein Park. ‘By a pretty flowery field, with a few beautiful oak trees on the edge.’ Not a good hope for the future, but for tomorrow. ‘If only I could do my shopping. As long as I can have a beer in my favorite pub ‘t Moortgat. As long as the newspaper is there.’
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