Opa Dekker. Eighty and still fit as a fiddle. A bit stiff in the bones in the morning, but by ten he is still resiliently walking around the block. A lifetime of hard work has not spoiled his body. Well, a somewhat high back. Almost a hunchback. Some men who have cut peat for a long time keep that from it. Opa can laugh about it. “That’s where the money is, da’k never got ien hands,” he then says. Take that with a grain of salt, because he’s well off now. When the peat no longer yielded, Johannes Dekker bought a vegetable cart and drove along the streets of Assen. He could talk cosily, as the Drents say. The housewives took in his cheerfulness with the fresh vegetables.