Big reservations (20-12-24)
Believe it or not, one of my former frustrations was 'being a pigeon fancier’. For many years I had the habit of giving an evasive answer to the question what my hobby was. When I said 'pigeons', the reaction was predictable. 'Pigeon fancier? You?' Often the word 'roofshitters' was also used. If someone wanted to speak to me when I was in the pigeon loft, my wife would say: 'Sorry, he's not here.' The words ‘pigeons’ or ‘pigeon loft’ remained unspoken. But I got over it. Now I talk about pigeons manfully and without shame. That turnaround came through a thorough study of the hobbies of people around me. 'Then I'd rather be a pigeon fancier'.
THE NEIGHBOR
Take Kees, the neighbor. He loves golf. Just the way he pronounces that word makes me want to stick a finger deep in my throat. The middle finger, that is.
Tennis was always THE 'sport' to distinguish yourself from the common people, but today the racket and the mini skirt have had to make way for the 'golf stick'.
Since the simple farmer's son can also play a game of tennis with verve, you can no longer maintain the illusion that you are a bit more important when you play tennis.
Admittedly, I once felt like it too.
But to see who all played tennis was reason enough for me to give up. Even those provocative miniskirts were no reason to remedy that.
Now you see plaid pants dance all around us instead of short skirts.
Kees believes that the carelessly placed remark 'I'm going to play golf' immediately puts him in the better classes. He throws around terms like 'hole in one' and 'fairways'. And then to know that golf has emerged from the habit of simple shepherds to aim pebbles into rabbit holes with their shepherd's staff out of boredom. No hobby is so capable of turning an initially sympathetic person into a poop.
BROTHER-IN-LAW
Karl, my brother-in-law, also only dares to whisper behind the palm that A. S. someone from the family is a pigeon fancier. Do you know what he does? Going to the sea on sunny days to look at half naked or completely naked ladies.
Once I was tempted to go with him, even to the nudist beach. It still makes me feel real bad when I think back on it.
Of the 10 naked ladies, 8 were a walking advertisement for the clothing industry. The anti-climax was when such a group of nudists started volleying.
Ever seen anything like it?
It leads to comical effects such as a black eye due to a swishing breast.
Turn a bunch of naked volleyball players into a commercial and the entire clothing industry is out of the problems. Voyeur Karl is a sucker as far as I'm concerned.
COLLEAGUES
FRANS AND ED The former colleagues are/were the worst. I don't dare to talk to them about my hobby at all. They are retired, but that has not stopped them from buying a cyclist's outfit and a real, it seems, racing bike.
I can understand why Frans did.
His belly protruded so far above his belt that he had not seen his ‘young gentleman, or call it dicky-boy’, in five years.
I don't know about you, but here in the region that 'bike racing' is becoming a craze. On a nice day you can't even sit down along a forest road to train your pigeons or a bunch of demons on a bicycle, most of them graying and with a belly, will whizze past you like a whirlwind. They come out of nowhere and disappear into nowhere.
Normally they look like you and me, but when they have hoisted themselves into such a 'wonderful' cycling suit, all reason disappears. They sit on the saddle, arch their backs and you don't see them anymore.
What they bring about is scare children and cause (even) elderly people to suffer a heart attack. This is no longer a sport or relaxation, but a state of hypnosis, in which the self-activity of the brain is limited to a blurred view into infinity.
Fanciers however let their brain function. They study the shit of their pigeons with great attention every day.
It is also remarkable that you rarely see such a specimen of fellow human beings alone. For some obscure reason, they prefer loneliness.
MY SISTER
My sister is also embarrassed by her brother's pigeons.
She herself has 'being creative' as a hobby.
She is also a heavy feminist, a combination with which you ask for problems. With like-minded people she cuts corks, works with clay, in short; she does what all girls did in my youth. Only now it's called 'being creative' and they get a subsidy for it too.
I would say 'withdraw that subsidy' and they will get really creative.
It is inevitable that all those discussion groups, and girl groups will playfully succumb to their own creativity. The topics of conversation are of a triviality that is endearing and testifies to a thinking ability that barely exceeds the shoulder height of an ant. Once, in one of those feminists' clubs, they were talking about sexist approaches by men. Two admitted that this had never happened to them, something they clearly regretted to a great extent. It was the president and the secretary, but of course that doesn't prove anything ...
SO MUCH
I don't even want mention the hobby of that 'friend' who works on his carnival float for six months. Nor about that young skater. After a whole year of hard training, he had managed to nibble two tenths of a second off his record in the 500 meters. Wasting a year of your life for two tenths of a second? This is where the madness really starts to take tragic forms.
But I have changed. When I get visitors, I no longer anxiously slide my pigeon magazine under the tablecloth, but leave it ostentatiously, or open it defiantly.
A golfer for whose hobby half of our country is deforested is now a pitiful figure for me. When I have visitors, I don't squeeze out anymore to take care of the pigeons, they should all know why I have to leave for a while.
I am now even thinking about adding 'Pigeon fancier' to the nameplate next to the front door. "He's with his pigeons," I heard my wife say some time ago. Have never loved her so much. My resolution for 2025? If the above people want to ridicule my hobby again, I push a pigeon paper with this article under their noses.