Preface

While researching through my files, I discovered a preface, and thought that others might enjoy reading some history-a history that gives me the strong desire to have been there then, knowing what I know now.

From the article, Fishing Floats by Peter Vermeulen & Juergen Bohrens, comes this preface.

In the second half of the fifties, I (Peter) used, as a boy,to camp in the summer holidays in a very small village at the North-Sea beach called Groote Keeten. It is situated nearby Callantsoog, in the Province of Noord-Holland.
Sometimes-when you were lucky-you could find, after a storm, a glass ball. Mainly they were green, but sometimes, clear or violet. They had a certain spell I must admit.
Local fisherman told me that these balls were used to keep the upper side of their nets floating.
Only "old fashioned" boats were still using these glass floats. Modern boats were using plastic variants.
Some habitants of the village had surrounded parts of their gardens with a line of glass floats, instead of a fence.
Each year I took some floats home, but they always vanished during the traditional spring cleaning of the house.
So, discovering some fishing floats in our annual, club bottle auction, this was really a "aha" experience!
As Juergen was born in Plon, near the Baltic Sea coast, he knew the floats since he was a little boy, but of course seeing them so often, he had no special feelings on them.

It's little pieces of history like this writing, that help to get me a little closer to that time now past, and which also give meaning to why I am collecting and writing about glass fishing floats.