OHME.
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE H
By JILL JOHNSON
Executive Director, Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce
It’s the end of an era. As with most true Oak Harborites, I am prone to bouts of extreme nostalgia. The mere mention of places like Chris’ Bakery, Kow Korner or Smiley’s Pizza evokes some pretty strong emotions, not to mention food cravings. So the idea that this is Elmer and Marlene Veldheer’s last Holland Happening is taking some adjustment.
Elmer and Marlene have been coming to the Holland Happening parade for as long as I can remember. They proudly dress in Dutch costume as Elmer spends the two days of the festival whittling away at a block of poplar wood, slowly turning it into a wooden shoe. He carves by hand, no modern day tools or technology allowed, and he patiently answers the same questions year after year: What kind of wood is it? How long does it take to make a pair of shoes? Are the shoes comfortable? How did you learn to do that? When Elmer gets tired of talking, Marlene gamely steps up and fills the silence with her joyful words and Elmer drops his head and returns to carving. It’s a glimpse inside a
culture that is slowly slipping away. In today’s overly homogenized world (let’s admit it, we are a culture that likes the familiar), and in the midst of a street fair that is anchored by a buzzing and neon-lit carnival, Elmer and Marlene offer a wonderful respite…a connection to what we have romanticized as a simpler time, and a purer way of life. True, carving wooden shoes is more of novelty than a practical skill in today’s world, (today’s machines can carve a pair in less than 30 minutes!), but watching Elmer carve is less about the product and much more about the process. Last year, when they said they were not going to be able to come again, a sense of serious loss settled over the Holland
Happening committee. We were not prepared to say goodbye…not yet. We needed a little more fanfare. So bring on Holland Happening 2012, The Year of the Wooden Shoe! In honor of Elmer and Marlene, who have blessed us with their talents and allowed a new generation of Whidbey Islanders a chance to carve their own memories out of a simple block of street fair activities. And as for those questions I was asking earlier, of course I am not going to give away the answers. Those conversations are for Elmer and Marlene. You can pose those questions to them yourself, when you visit their woodcarving booth…for one final year.
See inside for Vendors, Event Schedule and Entertainment Details!