Derick was born "out of the love of a man for a woman" on their wedding night "Late December '63" (see the song "What a lady what a night")

Derick was born exactly 40 weeks later on 3 October 1964 in Sanatorium Hospital on the island of Curacao, an ex-colony of Holland, just before St. Francis birthday, the patron saint of animals. Luckily for my tiny red little baby weighing under 5000 grams and only 52 cm long, otherwise kids in school and throughout his life would teasingly say "Happy birthday, Derick, you dog you" or a similar joke. Yes October 4th is 'dierendag' or animal-day in the Dutch Antilles and Holland.

Because you were so healthy, I was allowed to take you home, but my baby was so small I carried him on a satin cushion and changed his nappies while he was lying on my knee.

Crying, he did a lot, and I as a young mother was at a loss what to do next.

I often took him to our GP for advice.

Once he had been crying for two hours non-stop, I was very worried. In the waiting room of the doctor I learned that he was not in his office, but his wife (herself a nurse) saw how terrified I was and looked at the baby. 'He must be in terrible pain' I said. 'He looks O.K. to me' she said, 'just a bit red from all the crying'.

She took him out of my arms, held him straight over her shoulders, and ...... burped him. You should have heard the little, sorry big noise from such a tiny baby.

Well that was that.

I felt very ashamed, because I had indeed burped him after his last feeding. (you were breast-fed till about 5 months) So we went home. You did not cry anymore and neither did I.

Derick you must have had "fear of heights". You never crawled, but moved around on your belly like a snake, while truly hating your playpen. Whenever I put you in there it was 'howling time'

You were really a baby-in-arms. Many pairs of arms to carry you around at my mother's house the whole day long. All my brothers and sisters (5 in total) lived directly across the street in Arnhemstraat, with their first nephew and Oma's first grandson so spoiled spoiled with Oms's cooking being hand fed constantly and getting fat into the bargain.

My baby got so heavy and round that I had great difficulty carrying him while walking & swaying him to sleep. Especially after they moved to Holland when you were 6 months old and I had to sing and rock you to sleep, not in a rocking chair like Oma, but just walk and walk and sing and walk and sway.

Those days your father had to work shifts (at ITT) so when he was at his 11600 - 2400 shift, I used to call him "Please come, my back hurts, and Derick is still not asleep". Then he would race down in the little Triumph and we would go for a spin, because with the noise and motion of the car you fell asleep, but .... as soon as you felt your mattress in your little crib...... Waaaaaaaahhhh !!! Baby crying again.

At that time we had a maid named 'Ligia' who looked after you when I went to school.

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Derick Gerard Linegar was born October 3rd 1963 on the beautiful Caribbean island of Curacao. It is a rather small, sun-drenched island which is saved from excessive heat by the fact that it lies smack in the middle of the trade winds which carried Columbus and all his followers direct from Europe to the Caribbean. Derick grew up surrounded by a loving family of two younger brothers and his parents.

Derick had a happy childhood, accompanying his parents on vacation every year to places like Venezuela, Bonaire, Colombia, Holland, and the United States. His favourite destination was of course Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. He and his brothers just could not get enough of things like "Space Mountain". However along with the fun, these trips were mind-broadening and helped to mold his easygoing but inquisitive character. While still an adolescent he traveled to Holland to visit his mother's family accompanied only by his younger brother. He returned home from that trip much matured indeed.

In Curacao, the trade-winds die down for a few weeks each year, just before lent. Then when lent begins, the winds pick up again stronger than ever, almost as though a switch has been thrown. This is the signal for all the children to begin making and flying kites. Every year, the first sign of lent is the excitement of young boys assiduously working on their kites. Derick was no exception, but his poor father only knew how to make Canadian-style kites. However the traditional kite in Curacao is hexagonal, and it has a noisemaker built into it on the top edge, that can be heard several kilometers away. So Derick's dad tried without success to learn to make a Curacao kite. Luckily just when everything seemed darkest, Derick spotted the "kite of his heart" in a store, bigger and better than any kite he had ever seen. Kite problem solved ! Kites lead to model planes and even to this day, Derick is an enthusiastic remote-control plane builder & flyer.

While in Junior High, Derick became intrigued with computers. He asked for and received a computer for his birthday. A Commodore '64. No monitor, no hard disk, not even a floppy drive, but the moment he put his fingers on the keyboard, his future was set. Earlier he had wanted to become an airline pilot. His parents convinced him otherwise and he fixed his sights on a career in what is known today as IT. Even back in the seventies, his dad, a telecommunications technician was encouraging him in this direction, although the computer revolution had scarcely begun. To anyone in the business, it was obvious that this field was growing by leaps and bounds and that it offered unlimited prospects for bright kids with a bent in this direction.

Derick's mom was and is an animal freak. Their house has always had three or four dogs (mostly poodles), a couple of cats and assorted birds, rabbits, hamsters as well as fish. Today Derick and his lovely new wife Shannon have two extremely energetic Spaniels.

From his earliest school days, Derick excelled at learning. Although his father is Canadian, because the school system in Curacao is in Dutch, his parents decided even before his birth to speak Dutch with their children. Consequently, until he went to University in Canada, his native tongue was Dutch. He also learned to speak the native Creole language of "Papiamento" because that is what all of the kids around him spoke. In school he quickly mastered English and Spanish. So he is truly multi-lingual. In fact once the children had mastered Dutch, conversation in the Linegar house was usually a combination of English/Dutch/Papiamento with words from any of these languages often found in any given sentence. His mother (an English teacher by profession) outdoes Derick in the language department because in addition to the above mentioned languages she also speaks French and another Creole language "Taki-Taki" ( Papiamento is based on Portuguese and Spanish as well as African languages, Taki-Taki also known as "Negro English" is based on English and African languages.

Derrick's father had left his island home of Newfoundland for the sunny shores of Curacao when he was 19 years old. Derick reversed this, moving from Curacao to the somewhat chillier shores of Newfoundland when he was 19 in order to go to university. He attended Memorial University of Newfoundland where he graduated in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science degree.

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