Dear old Mr Adam

I received a email of reunion site of one of my schools I've been to. It seemed my math teacher and principal Mr Fred Adam has passed away. This was, as I have been thinking about him today, a figure I had a lot of respect for. It was a kind man, survived a japanese war camp and told us stories about the time he spent there. One of his stories was about him arriving at the camp and that he was asked what he was good at. He replied that he could cook which was in fact the opposite but it gave him the opportunity to have relatively enough food and survive the ordeal. He also told about how they baked bread without yeast making them tough as brick. He then took the inside out and used them as shoes.. He also made me come back on a saturday morning as a sort of punishment for pooring itching powder in a classmate's t-shirt during his math lesson. I had to make a drawing for him and later I found out he had a hobby painting. I can remember he was actually quite a good painter. That explained why I had to make a drawing.. The time I had to spent at school on that saturday moring was not long but I needed to find an excuse to explain to my parents why I had to get up early on a saturday morning and take the bus to The Hague.. I always wondered if he was still alive and how he was doing.. Now I know.. Selamat Djalan