The car was stickered with a thick middle finger and the text ‘Fuck Den Haag’ | column Maaike Borst

On the way to Schoonebeek it was the flag hanging upside down that stood out. He waved proudly on a stick in front of what looked suspiciously like a farm.

,,Red, white, blue?”, my passenger asked to be sure. You would almost forget how it should be – fortunately it is almost King’s Day.

The flag gave some hope that things might still work out between the countryside and the other side of the canyon, but soon after we drove past a car that was stickered with a thick middle finger and the text ‘Fuck Den Haag’.

We were back on familiar ground.

In Schoonebeek a couple was taking pictures of the pumpjack on the square. Limburgers on vacation. There was something everywhere, they said. “With us you had the mines. Everyone was working on it, so no one was complaining. And suddenly – poof – it was gone.”

It was once the pumpjack who closed the gap in Schoonebeek between the poor Drenthe countryside and the prosperous modern age that oil brought with it (although in the beginning only the children of the NAM employees were allowed to go to the brand new swimming pool).

Today, oil exploration brings as much worry as it does riches, and has opened up chasms on all sides that are easy to stumble into. That is also why it is nice that King’s Day is coming, a little fraternization around the fair can do no harm in this country.

From the pumpjack I walked to three men in orange work overalls who were hoeing among the bushes at the edge of a lawn. They had a break and leaned on their crooked hoes.

“Can I walk on the grass?”

Wide grin: “If you don’t run too fast.”

They were right: I was rushing. Anyone who wants to enter someone else’s domain will have to take it easy, otherwise you will be kicked out again. I slowed down and modestly sided with them.

Spring sun on the head, friendly conversation, orange clothing on: it started to look like it.

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