THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180353
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GUY FRIDDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
As the flags of 16 NATO member nations unfurl, the rousing Marine Band of the Royal Netherlands Navy will help welcome International Azalea Queen Emilie Larissa Patijn at 10 a.m. today at NATO's Norfolk headquarters.
Hosting the ceremonies at Norfolk Naval Station will be the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, Marine Gen. John J. Sheehan and his headquarters staff.
The salute to Her Majesty will include a troupe of high school students, Klopendancers, whose name seems to reflect their resounding wooden shoes.
Both band and dancers will appear throughout the five-day celebration that ends Sunday with an aerial ballet by the Blue Angels.
Many events will be free to the public, including a concert by the resplendent 60-member Marine Band at Chrysler Hall tonight from 8 to 10 o'clock. Its repertoire ranges from swing to hard rock to Bach.
Within it are a string ensemble, a combo and a dance orchestra.
Tickets are at First Virginia Bank locations, Waterside Festival Marketplace and at the Norfolk office of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce.
Rising alongside Nauticus on Wednesday was a 40-foot-long, 15-foot-high facade of fishermen's gabled houses, a backdrop Friday and Saturday for a Dutch craftsman carving wooden shoes.
On Saturday, Nauticus will be the scene for NATOfest as officers' wives from 16 nations preside at exhibits expressing their countries.
An idler watching a Dutch village materialize outside Nauticus was reminded of his first-grade introduction to Holland, wooden shoes.
Are they still clopping about?
Most certainly, said Arjen van den Berg of the press and cultural affairs office at the Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C.
As a child, the idler yearned for wood shoes because, he heard, one parked them outside the house and walked in one's sock feet.
``It is not an uncommon thing to wear them, especially in the rural towns,'' said Arjen.
The idler found solace therein.
``The shoes,'' said his tutor, ``are practical for gardeners and farmers working in the moist clay soil in which ordinary shoes would stick. Wooden shoes afford a large surface to stand on.''
Are they ever in colors?
They are plain wooden shoes, with no lacquer or anything.
The idler was comforted, somehow, by that assurance.
How does one differ in using Holland and Netherlands, he asked.
The official name is Netherlands - Nether (meaning ``low'') land.
A large part of the country is at or below sea level, Arjen said.
There is, he added, an excellent system of water management.
Holland, a colloquial use, attaches to the two most western provinces, North and South Holland.
``They have been the motor of industry as well as a concentration of the arts,'' he said.
And the Dutch costumes? Are they there yet?
Lace cups have almost disappeared except among elderly in enclaves of small towns.
Ah, rue, the idler mused.
Two Dutch frigates, mine sweepers, are tied up at Nauticus.
``Mine hunters,'' Arjen noted.
Friday and Saturday there will be others distributing information and offering, for sale, stroopwafels, a mouthful of a word denoting crisp waffles with syrup between them.
And did Arjen wear wood shoes?
``The thing is, I don't like gardening,'' Arjen said.
The idler resolved to return Saturday to ask questions of the 16 nations.
And eat stroopwafels. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
JIM WALKER
The Virginian-Pilot
This facade of gabled houses has been erected along Nauticus as a
backdrop for activities Friday and Saturday.
by CNB