It was also the year that a Dutch family figured the end of the world was at hand. (Many attribute this to the Saints winning the Super Bowl). So they huddled together in their farmhouse basement and waited.
And waited.
And waited, until last week when the 25-year-old son, Jan, figured he had waited long enough, and escaped, running to a local bar called the Café de Kastelein.
The bar owner, Chris Westerbeek, told the news that Jan had come into the bar recently a few times and finally broke out the whole story.
Westerbeek said, "He said he had not been outside for nine years. Later he also said that he had four brothers and one sister who lived in the farm. He was the oldest and wanted to put an end to the way they lived."
Jan "admitted that he had run away and that he needed help" so Westerbeek helped the young man by calling the police.
I hope he told the police that Jan is 25.
So, the police go to the farmhouse, look things over, and find the family cooped up in the basement, with the stroke-victim father lying in a bed, needing medical attention.
A 58-year-old man, one "Josef B.," was booked on charges of deprivation of liberty and harming the health of others. He is not the father, although he is the person who rented the farm. His relationship to the family is unclear.
Family children ranging in age from 18 to 25 were found in the basement, and the police report that they had no knowledge of any other people alive in the world. Cut off from the world, they raised vegetables and cared for some animals on the farm, and that was their whole life.
Dutch authorities are not releasing the family name or the location of the farm, fearing that too many Americans will find this sort of lifestyle appealing and flood the area with humanity.
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