100th post?

So - this is my apparently 100th post... I'm surprised (to say the least) - Who would have guessed I'd keep it up this long? ... And I haven't even gotten to the really "trippy" stuff yet :-)

There have been a number of benefits to doing all this...

In "rethinking" my childhood I've gained insights into some heretofore puzzling events... I've worked through a lot of issues that have bothered me for decades... And (I hope) I'm providing my descendants with some sense of who I was (be that good or bad)...

And the biggest plus - expressing myself in "English" is a lot easier now:
I've spent the past 30 years developing computer software - well over 1/2 million lines so far. I've worked on compilers and debuggers and operating systems and logic simulation and static timing analysis and (most recently) functional equivalence proving - and no matter how obtuse or terse my 'code' is, the computer always understands precisely what I want it to do... Unfortunately, natural languages don't work that way... And having 'limited' writing skills can be a bit of a liability when you intend to practice law in your old age...

So - since I'm taking a break from telling "the story" I'll just toss out some odds and ends...

In my post covering my parents' immigration to the U.S. - Journey to Ellis Island - I mentioned my father working on the ship's newspaper. A few years ago another passenger sent me a copy of the cover - my wife recently found it and I scanned it (click to enlarge):

The "upper right" caricature is my dad. The man who sent me this is in the lower right. And based on the date it was not the crossing when the Sturgis sprung a leak - it was the subsequent one... According to my mom they encountered some pretty rough seas and there were concerns about whether the repairs were going to hold up...
BTW - The first line at the bottom says "In memory of the faces of our editors." and I can't figure out the last word of the last line. "The press with our landing proves ???"

Next - even as a small child I was fascinated with the relationship between my "senses" and my "sense of being":
When nobody was watching I would pretend I was blind and walk around with my eyes closed and think about how I would perceive my surroundings if I had never seen them.
I also used to wonder if I was seeing the same things as other people. I couldn't think of a way to tell that everyone's brain translated a particular stimulus into the same image... I remember trying to explain that to the other kindergartners ("What if blue looks the same to me as yellow looks to you?") They just gave me puzzled looks:-)

Now - I don't think I've ever told anyone about this:
I also used to try and figure out where my 'self' was located inside my body. I mean I certainly don't perceive myself as being in my hands, or my feet or my chest, right? And it does seem to be a single spot... So, I would close my eyes and touch my face and head in various places and ask myself if I the touches were above, below, in front of or behind where I was "located".
As near as I could tell I'm at the base of my skull, which is perfectly reasonable since that's where all the senses get processed...

But apparently normal children don't obsess about that kind of stuff :-) Of course, no one ever accused me of being normal...

Three Seasons in Hell

We celebrated my 12th birthday right before I left for the boarding school in Bad Godesberg. I still remember my present - it was a telephoto lens for my Kodak Instamatic 100... Here's a picture from the party. It was in Vesti's basement:

Ah yes - the ever-present cigarette :-) You can tell from the picture that mom absolutely adored me... I could do no wrong :-)

By that point Mom had gotten a part time job selling coats at Appelrath-Cüpper (a women's clothing store) in Bonn - so we weren't totally dependent on Vesti for spending money any more.
But that's not the point of this blog entry - it's about my time at Aloisiuskolleg (colloquially known as "Ako"). And by the end of this entry the title at the top should make perfect sense...

I spent one calendar year at "Ako" split across 2 academic grades (Quarta and Unter-tertia) - the school year changed in April. During the year there were 3 breaks: Christmas, spring and summer. In addition there was 1 day between each break when relatives could visit the campus. That worked out to an average of 6 weeks between the times you were allowed to see your family.
In the lower grades you were also not allowed access to TVs, radios, newspapers, magazines, etc. - absolutely no information (other than personal letters) from beyond the school walls - your life was academics and athletics and nothing else. You attended school 6 days a week - Monday through Saturday. Sunday was devoted to church and organized activities (long distance hikes, museum tours, etc).

Here's how the typical day went:
"Light's on" was at 6AM. You had 10 minutes to wash, dress, make your bed and line up in the hall. You marched downstairs for a 20 minute breakfast followed by school from 6:45 til 1PM (with 1 recess). Next, there was a quick lunch followed by 2 hours of athletics - either soccer or gymnastics (your choice). Study hall started at 3:30PM - no talking allowed. There was a quick break for supper then back to study hall until you finished your homework - usually between 6 and 8PM. Finally, you had a bit of time to socialize or read a book or write letters until "lights out" at 9:30PM... This was repeated ad infinitum - or so it seemed :-)

Of course, I had it tougher than most... German was not my native language - that increased the difficultly of a curriculum that was already among the most challenging in Germany. And I also had to catch up on 3 years of Latin - I met with a tutor (who assigned additional homework) twice a week... So - yeah - it was rough - even for someone as egotistical and arrogant as I am :-) But I did OK - 'structure' works for me...

One of the interesting things about "Ako" was the number of international students. Bonn was the capital of West Germany and most of the embassies were in Bad Godesberg. The U.S. embassy had it's own school so I was the only American. But "Ako" had students from all over the world... The kid next to me in study hall was Russian - I'm pretty sure the priests put us together on purpose (the "Cold War" and all)... He wasn't what I expected (and vice-versa)... I never even had to punch him :-)

But the hardest part was being away from your family... There was nobody to comfort you when things went wrong - or to encourage you when you were feeling down. You had no choice but to be responsible for your own well being...
Now - if I there had been any stability in my life it probably wouldn't have been that bad... But we were stuck in a foreign country living with relatives. I had no idea if my parents would reconcile. I had no idea what my dad was up to. I had no idea if (or when) we would return to the U.S. Everything in my life (present and future) was either unknown or undecided.

That's not to say I didn't have good times at "Ako". I have some great memories. But the sense of loneliness and apprehension was always there - lurking just below the surface...

Summer of 1965

My past few blog posts have focused on our activities in Germany during the summer of 1965. That was a very busy time - and for me it was a period of wonder and amazement...
One of the things that really struck me was the difference in what was considered "historic" in the U.S. vs Germany. I walked through villages where almost every house predated the American revolution... Some of the cathedrals were over 1000 years old... There were museums full of artifacts from the days of the Roman occupation... Now that's historic :-)

Near the end of the summer my mom, sis and I took a week long trip to the Black Forest. We started out visiting Stuttgart (where mom lived after WWII). Then we went to Freudenstadt (a "health" resort in the Black Forest) and down to Donaueschingen (the source of the Danube River) then over to Freiburg and Karlsruhe (to visit relatives) before returning home. I'm not even going to try and describe the Black Forest - let's just say it's amazing...

OK - I had one of those totally weird experiences in the hotel in Stuttgart... When I woke up in the morning I realized that I was seeing people and cars moving about on the ceiling above me - the images were clear but elongated - as if they were being projected there. I laid there for quite a few minutes trying desperately to make sense of what I was seeing... I wasn't entirely sure that I was awake (or even alive)... Then I remembered how cameras work - and located the pinhole in the window shade that was causing the "phenomenon"... Despite the logical explanation it was still pretty damn strange - I've never seen it happen before or since :-) But I digress...

While we were in Stuttgart we visited the woman who had been mom's "personal assistant" while mom was the leading lady at the Stuttgart opera. We showed up unannounced - the woman recognized my mom instantly and absolutely freaked out. We spent the next couple of hours listening to the woman gush about how incredible my mom was and how much she adored her... That sort of thing happened a lot while I was growing up - people telling me how amazing my parents were - everyone pretty much worshiped them - it got old after a while :-)

Meanwhile, my aunt Vesti was still trying to find a boarding school that would take me. Since she was the dean of a highly regarded girl's boarding school she had lots of connections. In Germany you had to have connections to even get an interview at the better schools...
My final look-see was at Aloisiuskolleg - a well known Jesuit school in Bad Godesberg (just south of Bonn). Now - I seriously didn't give a rat's ass if I got into that school or not. So, although I was polite during the interview I certainly didn't go out of my way to impress anyone... And afterward the Rector told mom and aunt Vesti that he found my honesty and openness to be quite refreshing - as a matter of fact, I was exactly the kind of young man the school was looking for... Yeah - they just didn't give me enough time to punch anyone :-)

So as summer ended I packed my stuff and headed off to Bad Godesberg. And at the same time my sister got stuck in the dorm at St. Adelheide (a mere block from Vesti's house)... Now - getting sent off to boarding school is bad enough, but my sister could literally see the house we lived in out of her dorm room window... If you recall, she had already "done time" at Villa Duchesne (in St. Louis) . And now it was happening again... She took it very personally - I don't think she ever fully got over it...

Life After Dad

So there we were - stuck in Germany - living with my 3 aunts - and dad had asked mom for a divorce. After mom got over the initial shock and anger she started adjusting to the idea that we were "on our own". Back when we lived in that huge house in Havertown we had pretty much kept to ourselves. But now mom, sis and I were doing all sorts of things together - from sitting and talking in the evenings to visiting historical cities and sites along the Rhine - checking out ancient cathedrals - and going on trips to visit old friends and relatives...

Soon after we arrived I was introduced to a relative in Beuel (across the river from Bonn) who was over 100 years old. He had retired from the Austro-Hungarian army before 1910 and showed me this amazing medal - I think it was the "Order of Franz-Joseph" - I'm not sure which level.
Queen Elizabeth visited Germany a month after we got there and her "parade route" went right past the old guy's 2nd floor apartment. So we stood on his balcony as she passed and waved. She looked just like her 'likeness' on the toilet paper at the Heathrow Airport :-)

My aunt Vesti was very religious (went to mass every day) and of course expected us to attend mass regularly. We discovered that a church in Beuel (about a mile from her house) had a Saturday evening service. So mom, my sister and I attended that mass so we could sleep in on Sundays.
Now, I felt a bit guilty about this: There was a bakery about a block from the church. If you've never tasted authentic German baked goods you haven't lived :-) As we left for "church" Vesti would give us some money for the collection plate. One Saturday evening we decided to spend the money at the bakery instead of going to church - and it evolved into a regular thing - getting dressed up and going to the bakery... We were so bad :-)

There were lots of things that struck me as odd - here's a few:
One day my mom was walking down the street smoking a cigarette - and before she got to Vesti's house 3 of the neighbors had called to complain. Ditto when she was wearing shorts...
Then we tried to see the Bond movie Goldfinger and they wouldn't admit anyone under 16 (even with a parent). The scantily clad women were not the problem. It was the 'violence'.
Let's see... There were the sidewalk vendors selling paper cones of french fries - served with mayonnaise. (Quite good, actually.)
Next - there was some road construction in front of Vesti's house. One night we were awakened by a loud crash - someone had hit a barrier. By the time I made it to the window there were people in their pajamas and robes coming out of every house on the block heading for the scene of the accident (Vesti included).
The next morning I asked her why everyone had responded and she looked a bit puzzled and told me it was the law - apparently it was a crime to see or hear an accident and not respond.
But I digress :-)

That surprise visit from dad ended with a huge fight - mom told him there was no way she would ever agree to a divorce. And afterward she started getting rather paranoid - wondering what his next move would be.
She was sure that at some point dad would try to kidnap my sister and I and told us to be very wary around him - he didn't really love us - he just wanted to use us to hurt her... She was also afraid that he was going to try and frame her for 'infidelity' - some guy was going to run up and kiss her while someone else took a picture. Things like that... Those fears were very real to mom and over time they became real to my sister and I as well...

OK - This is chronologically related and I don't know where else to put it so here it is. It involves a girl (of course):
Every year there was a fair/carnival in Putzchen (where my aunt lived) called Putzchens Markt. It's an event that dates back to the 1300s and draws a huge crowd from all over Europe.
One evening around sunset I was in a corner of the fair near the gypsy wagons. (I'm talking real gypsies here.) I heard someone call a girl's name - and I turned to look... She was about 13 (a bit older than me) - hurrying past - not quite walking and not quite running. She was barefoot and her full length dress flowed around her as she moved. She had blue eyes, dusky skin and her wavy black hair almost touched the ground behind her... She was way beyond stunning...
That 'vision' lasted only a few seconds but she dominated my thoughts for weeks afterward... I didn't go back and try to 'find' her - I knew better than to go anywhere near the gypsies :-) But the sight of her remains one of my clearest and most intense memories...

The Best Scout Trip Ever - Conclusion

Here's a picture from that famous scout trip. I think it was taken on the 2nd day (it was cold and rainy):


I'm the one on the left. I was the same age (11) as the kids next to me (but obviously a bit bigger). You may also notice that Lederhosen are being worn...

OK - this is kind of funny - there's actually a hidden story in this picture:
If you look closely you'll notice that the left side of my face is a bit puffy. (No - it wasn't that wasp.) And if you look closely at that unhappy kid in the middle of the group you'll notice that the right side of his face is a bit puffy. There's a perfectly simple explanation for that... I punch with my left hand and he punched with his right :-)

I felt kind of bad about it. I don't think he realized I was getting mad. Heck - I don't think I realized I was getting mad until my fist was enroute to his face ... stupid adrenaline rush :-) At least he fought back (and did some damage) so we got along fine afterward. (That's one of those guy things...) But I digress...

The camping trip was actually a bit longer than a week - maybe 10 days. I've covered most of the significant events. There was also the typical horseplay - and practical jokes - and exploring - and swimming in the river - and flirting with the cute teenage girl that worked at the store in Tintesmuhle :-) Then there was peeling potatoes and cleaning pots and pans... And riding around on the back of the scoutmaster's motorcycle (with no helmets)... The usual stuff :-)

There's just one more story to tell:

It is "potty related" so I've been debating whether I should tell it or not. I've decided to go ahead because it's still one of the weirdest things I've ever seen... So to clean it up a bit I will henceforth refer to the object in question as the "Object in Question". And I swear I am not making it up... Here goes:

A couple of posts ago I described the "facility" we had constructed so it should come as no surprise that I used it as infrequently as humanly possible :-) And as we neared the end of the campout I thought I was "good to go" for the trip home. But as we were packing up I realized I was mistaken. The "facility" had already been decommissioned so I grabbed a small shovel and some TP, headed up into the woods and squatted over a short drop-off next to the trail.
But when I went to bury the expected "Object in Question" it wasn't there... I was a bit freaked out... I was pretty darn certain that I hadn't imagined having done what I had just done, so it should have been there... (the TP was there...)

Then I spotted it... There was a slender branch - almost invisibly thin - about 2 feet off the ground between two bushes... And the "Object in Question" was sitting perfectly aligned and perfectly balanced on that branch.
I burst out laughing - it was just too wierd! The thing was literally suspended in mid-air... I almost expected to hear angels singing :-) I mean - you could spend your entire life dropping an "Object in Question" nose first onto a spindly branch and never have it end up like that... If that's not miraculous I don't know what is :-) Heck! That almost deserves a shrine... (The Shrine of the Balancing "Object in Question" - bus tours daily - no flash photography???)

But I didn't show it to anyone - they would have accused me of "staging" it anyway (ewww) - so I just knocked it down and buried it... But although it has long since returned to the earth from whence it came I have never forgotten it and it has now been immortalized in this blog post :-)

Yes... I'm in my mid 50's - and my sense of humor is still that juvenile... I would apologize but I'm not the least bit ashamed :-)

And here's the conclusion:
Everything was all packed up and loaded onto the hay wagon - we were minutes from leaving... A few of the scouts ran over to the store in Tintesmuhle to get some munchies for the trip - and when they came back they informed me that a man claiming to be my dad was looking for me...

I was not exactly thrilled - I'd been looking forward to the trip home with the rest of the scouts... I remember wishing that we'd left 10 minutes earlier so dad would have missed us :-) Heck - I couldn't believe he actually managed to find the place - but there he was... Leave it to dad to add an imperfect ending to a perfect occasion :-)

Since my stuff was already in the hay wagon (across the river) we all headed up the hill to the "staging area" in Dahnen. I retrieved my gear and said goodbye to the rest of the scouts while dad was BS'ing with the scoutmasters - he was a smooth talker and spoke fluent German - everyone liked him... And dad and I got into his rental car and headed off. We talked a bit about the camping trip and then I slept the rest of the way back to Bonn.

Epilogue: At the end of the summer I transferred to a boarding school out of town... I never saw the scout troop again...

Orienteering

The night after we got back from Clervaux the scoutmasters woke us up at 2 AM and stuck us in the back of a covered farm truck. We were split into 6 or 7 man teams and driven out to the middle of nowhere. Each team was dropped off at a different place with a flashlight, compass and handwritten instructions to get back to camp.

Keep in mind that we had spent the past 2 days hiking around Luxembourg and had hardly gotten any sleep so we were dead tired (physically and mentally) - and a lot of the instructions were "landmark" based... Now - I'd been out on some dark nights before but nothing like this one. There was no moon and it was overcast so we couldn't see the stars. There wasn't a light in sight - we couldn't even see the ground we were walking on let alone any landmarks :-)

At one point we arrived at a tee intersection in the trail and it seemed like we should turn left but our "landmark" was an abandoned mill and we couldn't find it. A few of the scouts spent the next 10 minutes arguing about whether we should turn left - or backtrack looking for the mill - or keep going ahead looking for the mill... I didn't care - I just wanted to get back to camp :-)
Finally one of the scouts took the flashlight and panned it very slowly around the intersection - and discovered that we were standing right next to the mill. Granted, there was a lot of overgrowth, but we were so close we could almost touch it - that's how freaking dark it was...

The next couple of hours were a comedy of errors. We kept missing landmarks and ended up hopelessly disoriented. (That's sort of a pun given the topic of the post). Finally as dawn approached we could begin to make out our surroundings and one of the scouts spotted a familiar hillside off in the distance. So we tossed the instructions and headed cross country - through barbed wire fences and across the pastures, pitching dried cow-patties at each other along the way :-) We got back to camp around sunrise and (at last) got a bit of well deserved rest...

I wouldn't exactly call it an enjoyable experience - being woken up in the middle of the night and tossed in the back of a truck rarely is - but it was a memorable one nonetheless...

One more quick story:
A few nights earlier around dawn I was awakened by a wasp stinging me on the cheek (I probably rolled over onto it). I opened my eyes just in time to watch it crawl down inside my sleeping bag... Now - it doesn't seem like it should be possible to get out of a zipped sleeping bag in a single move without using your hands but I'm pretty sure I managed to do that...
I was afraid to try and find the wasp because I thought it might take off and sting me in the face again (that really hurt!) so I just sat there cold and tired waiting for the stupid thing to crawl back out of my bag so I could kick its butt... After about an hour the patrol leader woke up and asked me why I was staring at my sleeping bag. I explained about the wasp and he was nice enough to locate it and "off" it for me so I could finally get a bit more sleep...

I think the main reason I've never forgotten the experience is the hour I spent sitting there consciously weighing my desire to avoid pain against my desire for warmth and sleep. As usual, "pain avoidance" won :-)

Clervaux

Midway through that scout trip on the German / Luxembourg border we went on a two day hike. It was unlike anything I had experienced before.

We were split into two groups of roughly 10 each. The senior scout in each group was given a map with a route to follow. We packed light (not much food, no tents) and headed out - without any adults. The scoutmasters stayed in camp.

We headed south from Tentismuhle across the "legitimate" bridge toward Dasburg. As we crossed the Our river I noticed that there were concrete triangles in the water on both sides of the bridge. I asked what they were and was told they were tank traps - we were camped right on the Siegfried Line. There was further evidence up the hill - we passed a destroyed bunker. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how the Allies managed to blow it apart. It was made of concrete at least 10 feet thick and there was steel re-bar sticking out of it everywhere... Totally amazing.

We hiked on - the countryside was beautiful and the weather was perfect. At Dasburg we crossed into Luxembourg and headed west through Mamach to Clervaux. We got there mid-afternoon and spent a couple of hours exploring the castle on top of the hill. It had been burned during the war and was being slowly restored. The coolest part was the Sherman tank sitting out by the castle gate. I had never seen a tank up close before and spent quite a while playing on it.

As evening approached we headed north out of Clervaux into the countryside. The sun was starting to go down and it was at that point that I started wondering what we were going to do for food and shelter...
Eventually we stopped by a farmhouse. The senior scout (who was only 15) told us to wait by the road as he headed over and knocked on the door. Someone let him in and he reappeared a few minutes later motioning for us to come in. The farmer fed us some potato soup and bread. Then we headed out to the barn where we stacked some hay bales and did some raking - and spent the night...

That was all a shock to me. The American scout trips were always arranged and coordinated by the adults. But in Europe (at least at that time) scouts were expected to be able to head cross-country unaccompanied and work for food and shelter along the way - basically surviving on their wits... It was a real eye opener :-)

The next morning we headed up through Heinerscheid and Kalborn back down to Tintesmuhle. I don't recall where we stopped for "brunch" but the senior scout tracked down the mayor and offered to do a little cleanup in exchange for food.
We got back in the early afternoon and (as I recall) spent the rest of the afternoon riding our air mattresses down the Our (there was a small waterfall just upstream from the camp).

It wasn't until recently that I discovered how historically significant our route had been. The part from Dasburg to Clervaux was the same route the main thrust of the German attack had taken to Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. In Clervaux a few American infantry companies and a handful of tanks had stalled the German advance for almost 3 days - enough time for the 101st Airborne to get to Bastogne before it was cut off. And the Sherman tank I had played on was disabled in front of the castle during that battle.
As the Germans retreated back through Luxembourg in January of 1945 they followed the same route - fighting all the way. And finally, in February 1945 the 6th Armored had crossed the Our river within a half mile of where we were camped and breached the Siegfried Line just up the hill...

Tens of thousands of men on both sides of the conflict had shed their blood on those fields and roads ... We had been on "hallowed ground".

The Best Scout Trip Ever - Part 1

In the summer of 1965 my aunt Vesti found out that a nearby scout troop was going on week long campout and she arranged for me to go along. It turned out to be one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

There was a bit of weirdness beforehand: Dad showed up at Vesti's house (out of the blue) right before I left on the trip. He wanted to see his kids and discuss the whole divorce thing with mom... But I'd been looking forward to that camping trip for weeks and there was no way I wasn't going :-) So I went and avoided most of the fireworks...

The trip started out by train. It was just the scouts - the 2 scoutmasters took their own vehicles. One of them also brought his girlfriend. I think the justification was to provide a "motherly presence". Umm - she was a bit young for that.... But she was very sweet and had this "natural outdoorsy blond" vibe going on ... OK - she was hot - so none of the scouts minded :-) And that was just one of the many things that would be verboten in American scouting...

Getting to the camp site was rather involved. I don't remember all the details but we ended up in hay wagon going down a winding road through the woods. The campsite was in a field right by the "Our" river (it forms the border with Luxembourg). For the curious - we were just across the river about a quarter mile northeast of Tintesmuhle, Luxembourg. (I can't believe how easily I found the place on Google maps after 45 years). And for the really curious, the GPS coordinates of my tent were roughly 50°05'43"N 6°07'54"E... (You can cut and paste that in Google - it'll find it.)

We got everything unloaded - the scoutmasters were already there and had set up a WWII surplus mess tent big enough for the whole troop. And we were setting up our patrol tents when we had the first casualty - my patrol leader was hammering in a tent peg right next to me using the butt end of his hand axe when he suddenly stopped... I looked over and he was kneeling there with this blank look on his face. I started to ask him what was wrong - then the blood started running down his forehead, his eyes rolled back - and he fell over... He "came to" a few seconds later but the gash (from his axe) required medical attention. The scoutmaster (the one with the girlfriend) bandaged him up, put him on the back of his BMW motorcycle and hauled him out to the nearest town. The kid came back a few hours later with 7 stitches in his scalp...

The next interesting thing was setting up the "facilities". There was a really steep forested hillside just east of the campsite. I guess they figured that rather than digging a deep pit it would be easier to just cut a hollow into the hillside - so that's what they did. There were a couple of trees 3 feet apart up the hill from the "hollow". They lashed a tree branch knee high horizontally between the trees, added a "backrest" rope (also horizontally between the trees), and hung a tarp behind it. So here's how it worked:
You sat down on the branch, positioned the "backrest" rope behind you and slid backwards until your weight was supported by the rope and your butt was hanging out over the 15 foot drop. Then you prayed nothing went wrong as you did your "business". It was somewhat "disconcerting" :-)

The following day we built an "unauthorized" international bridge across the "Our" river by the campsite. The purpose was quick access to the store in Tintesmuhle. The German side of the river was steep and heavily wooded and it took forever to get to the "official" bridge.
So the scoutmasters cut down a number of tall slender trees on the Luxembourg side - probably also unauthorized :-) We built three "A-frame" supports in the river using larger trees. They were held straight with ropes tethered on both banks. The deck was made from smaller trees (lashed together with ropes). We even added "international border crossing" signs on both sides...
We had to take a break during construction when the "non-girlfriend" scoutmaster stepped on a wasp nest and got stung about 30 or 40 times. He wasn't feeling too good and had to be hauled out for medical treatment. But the bridge was finished by the end of the day and the "scoutmaster who brought the girlfriend" tested it by riding his motorcycle across it. Yeah - he was what I'd call a "risk taker" :-)

We spent the next 2 days hiking through Luxembourg. And I think I'll leave that story for another post...

Venlo

Back in the 1960s the German school year began in late April so my sister and I arrived just in time. I think my sister was in "Untersekunda" and I was in "Quarta. Time/age-wise Quarta was around the 7th grade but we were doing quadratic equations in math and studying three languages so it was a bit more advanced :-)
And by the time summer came around I was reasonably fluent in German and spoke well enough to be mistaken for Bavarian rather than American... It's amazing what a few months of "immersion" can accomplish :-)

But for some reason my aunt Vesti felt I should be in a boarding school. I think it was because she actually believed it would provide a better education, but it may have just been to get me out of the house :-) And one day at the beginning of summer vacation in 1965 Vesti and I took the train to Venlo, Holland (just across the border from Germany). There was a Catholic boys boarding school in Steyl (just south of Venlo) and they were having a week long "open house" for prospective students.

I really liked the place. Venlo is a beautiful little town - apparently it dates back to Roman times. It was just very cool and very laid back - hardly any cars - all bicycles... The school had a full color printing press and published a magazine. And it was right on the Meuse river - you could wave to people on the barges as they passed. (The barges were family homes - there were kids running around, laundry hanging out, etc)

The week went pretty well with one exception:
There was a pair of German identical twins who decided it was "pick on the Ami week". (Ami is derogatory slang for American.) They were on me like white on rice. For days they spent almost every waking moment insulting, taunting and goading me. And I just took it - in my experience if you ignore those kinds of idiots long enough they lose interest... But those two were a whole different breed of idiot.
For 4 days I patiently ignored the bullying. Then one of the twins tripped me and I went down. They thought it was funnier than hell until got up and punched the 'tripper' in the face.

Now - I really didn't hit him that hard - I was just trying to "get his attention". But the next thing I know I'm watching a reenactment of that scene from the Wizard of Oz after Dorothy slaps the cowardly lion on the snout:
Both of the twins were crying like babies... I couldn't believe it! To quote Dorothy: "My goodness! What a fuss you're making!!" And they ran off with tears streaming down their faces to tell the priest how the big bad American had brutally assaulted them for no reason whatsoever.

I told the priest my side of the story and showed him the abrasions on my knees from hitting the stone floor but it didn't matter... For the remaining few days I was "persona non grata" - everyone avoided me. And then there was the "grand finale":
At the end of the week I happened to notice the "innocent little angels" across the courtyard with their parents. They were pointing at me as if they had just spotted the perp in a police lineup. "There he is!!! That's him right there!" I couldn't believe the expression on all of their faces. (If looks could kill.)

Needless to say I was rejected by the school... And in retrospect my only regret is that I didn't put my full weight behind that punch :-)

St. Adelheid

Shortly after we arrived in Germany my aunt Vesti decided I was going to be an altar boy at St. Adelheid. That's the Catholic girls boarding school (Gymnasium) where she was dean.

I have to admit I was somewhat mystified as to why it would be hard to find young men to serve as altar boys at an all girls school (ages ~ 11 through 18) - but apparently there was a shortage... Go figure :-) The Catholic mass was still conducted in Latin in those days and the vestments (goofy outfits) were pretty much the same as in the U.S. so I was "good to go"- and it didn't require much arm twisting...

Now - I have to mention that back when I was at Seven Holy Founders in Affton, Missouri I didn't go to confession during the summer between the second and third grades. And when I told the priest: "Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last confession" he blew a gasket - chewed me out for a couple of minutes - if I'd been hit by a bus I would've ended up in Purgatory, etc...
I was a bit shocked. I knew that the priest represented Christ on earth but I was pretty sure Christ wouldn't have yelled at me like that :-) So the next day in Catechism class I asked "If Christ is all powerful why can't he forgive my sins directly?" The nun's answer implied that Christ was not all powerful, which I (of course) quickly pointed out. After a bit of back and forth it became clear that we were getting nowhere and she was getting agitated so I dropped the subject :-) Bottom line - I didn't want to risk getting chewed out again so I stopped going to confession - and therefore never took communion again (that's one of the rules). But luckily there's no rule against being an "unconfessed acolyte" so it didn't stop me from being an altar boy :-)

Aside: Despite having been both a Boy Scout and an altar boy I was never molested... What are the odds??? But I digress :-)

Now I've always liked girls (a lot) but there was a certain age range where it was not "OK" to like them - that whole "cootie" thing :-) But by the time we got to Germany I was solidly past that. The only negative aspect of the whole "girls school altar boy" experience was that I was facing away from the congregants during most of the service :-(
But communion more than made up for it. The hosts (sacramental wafers) were brought from the back of the chapel by a blond senior girl who was one of the loveliest young ladies I'd ever seen. I would meet her at the altar rail and take the hosts to the priest.
Then there was communion itself. The girls would come up and kneel at the altar rail. The priest and I would move along the rail and I would hold a small silver plate under each girl's chin while the priest placed a host on her tongue. So in a way I got to be "up close and personal" with every girl in the school :-)

Alas, it all ended four months later when I was sent off to an all boys boarding school. But it was fun while it lasted... And what's the point of all this? There isn't one... It's just a pleasant memory - one of my favorite religious experiences :-)

Where was Dad?

So there we were at my aunt's house in Germany. The "plan" (as we knew it) was for dad to sell the house in Havertown, put everything into storage and then come to Germany to "rescue us" from Vesti's benevolent grasp.

Shortly after we arrived we got some really nice letters from dad. And then ... silence. Many weeks passed and not a word... Our phone in Havertown had been disconnected... We had no idea what was going on... And then mom got a letter - he wanted a divorce - she broke down a cried for hours... And then she got mad :-)

Now, there was no such thing as a "no fault" divorce back in those days (not in the U.S. at least). One party had to be "at fault" (e.g, adultery). Only the "injured" party could file and the "guilty" party got seriously reamed (e.g. alimony). So, there was no way dad could initiate a divorce. And mom's reaction was "no way in hell". That led to some interesting dynamics - but that's for a later post. Let's just say that the whole situation brought out the worst in both of my parents for years to come...

BTW - I could never understand why mom still wanted to be with him. I wished they were still together - that was the only life I had ever known... But to be quite honest they could not have been more incompatible. He could never be who she wanted him to be (and vice-versa) but in 18 years of marriage she never gave up hoping... I don't know if it was love or pride or what - it didn't make any sense... But I digress :-)

I wasn't worried about the things I left behind in Havertown. I assumed that dad would keep them... I was wrong. Dad brought a small box of stuff to me in Germany that summer, but it wasn't any of the things I cared about...
Now, I know that possessions don't matter (matthew 6:19-21 and all) - there's lots of ways to lose things. But it's different when they are deliberately disposed of by someone you love and trust. (It's the thought that matters??) That is the part I've never quite gotten over...
I have to admit I do totally sympathize with his situation: The house was sold. There were 3 stories and a finished basement full of stuff that had to be dealt with. So I assume dad picked out some things to keep - all of his stuff, some of the furniture, mom's paintings, the photo albums, etc. And the rest was probably disposed of... At least that's my best guess. I never asked... All I know is I never saw any of it again...

Aside: Shortly before my 6 year tour in the military was up (2/22/79) Debbie and I sold our house in Sacramento to return to Oregon. It held a lot of memories - we had scrimped and saved to buy it. At first our only furniture was a mattress on the floor, some cardboard boxes for tables and a couch so ratty that Goodwill wouldn't take it :-) Then we had our first child - and he took his first steps in that living room ...
I'm not know for being emotional (quite the opposite, actually) but as I made my last pass through the house before turning the keys over to the realtor I broke down crying... Even though we were going home to Oregon (a happy occasion) - I was sad to be "closing the door" on a wonderful chapter of our lives. So I can only guess how difficult it must have been for dad to clear out that house in Havertown - it was the ghostly remnants of a marriage and family irretrievably lost...

But the key point is that Dad not wanting to be with mom anymore changed everything. And thus began the toughest part of my life...

Together Again

I didn't pay much attention to my mother's reunion with her 3 sisters - I didn't really grasp the significance at the time. After having survived WWII the sisters were all living together in Stuttgart when my mom met my father. And he stole her away - took her to another continent against all of their objections... And now she was back where she belonged - the 4 sisters - together again for the first time in 14 years.

Vesti (Margarete - the 2nd youngest after my mom) had a PhD in mathematics and was the dean of a girl's boarding school a block away from her house. She was also the "benevolent dictator" of the family. She sacrificed all personal pleasures and comforts to take care of relatives. She supported the sisters who lived with her as well as sending money to the relatives who had remained in Hungary and Romania. She made all the decisions and pulled all the strings - she always "knew best". And we were now completely dependent on her for everything.

By the time we arrived in Germany my sister and I had already been enrolled in "Gymnasiums": Starting around the 6th grade Germans students with high academic potential are transferred to Gymnasiums - very rigorous college prep schools. Attending the "right" Gymnasium was an absolute prerequisite for getting into a decent college...
My sister was enrolled at St. Adelheid (all girls - Vesti was the dean) and I started at Erzbischofliches Gymnasium (all boys - now Kardinal-Frings Gymnasium). We were each given bicycles to get around and Vesti had already picked out our friends. Mine were Gerd, Helmut and Walter. None of them could really speak English - that led to some strange but not particularly interesting events.

BTW - One of the first things I noticed is that Germans (at least in the upper Rhine region) are exceedingly uptight. I guess when your population has been that tightly packed for that many centuries avoiding getting on each other's nerves becomes a priority. And Americans (as it turns out) are exceedingly good at getting on German's nerves :-) It wasn't just because of the "bombing the crap out of them" in WWII thing - it didn't take too long before I started noticing it myself:
Germans are very quiet in public... Americans aren't... If you were in a restaurant and there was a American present you immediately knew it. Once I was in a hotel lobby and there was a American woman prattling on about how much her poodle was enjoying Europe. I remember that loud, shrill voice saying "Imagine! Fifi in Paris!!!" I wanted to strangle her :-)
Another time I was walking down the street wearing lederhosen (yes - German kids actually wore those back in the 1960s) minding my own business when some American tourists grabbed me to pose for some pictures. They were having such a good time I didn't have the heart to tell them I was from Philadelphia - I just responded "Wie bitte????" to everything they said :-) But I digress...

Those first few weeks at school were quite disorienting. Some of the teachers were aware I didn't speak German - some weren't. The English teacher kept correcting my pronunciation - I apparently had no aptitude for that language. And riding a bicycle to and from school was rather terrifying. The roads tended to be narrow - there was an incident where my right elbow was brushing a wall while a passing truck was brushing my left elbow. (No blood, no foul?)
I used to imagine that the whole thing was a joke. Like everyone really spoke English - they were just making up "German" on the fly - and only when I was around. And sooner or later somebody was going to slip up and they'd yell "April Fool!!" :-)

The surrounding area did have a lot of interesting attractions though, like Beethoven's birthplace - the Cologne cathedral and the Remagen bridge. And we lived about 10 miles from Drachenfels - where Siegfried (i.e. Siegfried/Brunhilde - Ring of the Nibelung) killed the dragon and bathed in it's blood.

So the first few months were difficult but entertaining... And that's where I'll leave off for now...

Flying to Germany

My mother , sister and I left for Germany on a PanAm Airlines 707 out of JFK airport on the evening of 4/15/1965.

It was only the second time I had flown - the first was an Ozark Airlines DC3 'excursion' flight out of Lindbergh Field in St. Louis - we did some sight-seeing around the area and returned to the airport. I was 4 or 5 at the time and was interested in planes so dad figured it would be fun for me (and it was)... But we always vacationed by car because in those days air travel was a lot more expensive than driving. In the mid-1960's a lot of people were still opting for ocean liners for transatlantic crossings. But I digress :-)

April of 1965 was the strangest month of my life (to that point). I'd given away my trains. Bozo the retriever became a casualty of the move - my parents said they found him a good home but I suspect they took him to the pound...
And when the day of departure came we drove up the Jersey turnpike, had dinner in Manhattan and headed over to JFK. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the carry-on and checked luggage had to weigh less than 40 lbs per person - so we stuffed all the small heavy things into our coat pockets for the weigh-in and after our carry-ons were tagged we put everything back. (Dad knew all the tricks...)
And when the time came we all hugged dad, said our goodbyes and boarded the plane. (I had no inkling that I was only going to see him 5 times in the following 6 years...)

Transatlantic flights were still rather luxurious back in the day. There was good food and real plates and silverware. I tried to sleep but couldn't - I had a window seat on the left side so I could see the bit of faint light over the northern horizon - and the next thing I knew the sun was coming back up - it was a very short night.

We landed at Heathrow about 8 hours later. When we were on final approach I couldn't believe how surreal all the houses and cars looked - like miniature toys - it was hard to convince myself they were real... When we disembarked we all headed for the restrooms - and came back laughing... I swear I am not making this up:
Each sheet of toilet paper was embossed with some verbiage about it being government property together with the likeness of Queen Elizabeth... Seriously!... I'm sure someone was just following established standards for marking British property. But they really should have made an exception considering what people do with toilet paper :-) The next time I was at Heathrow (a couple of years later) the queen's visage was gone - I was somewhat disappointed...

It was a very short layover (maybe 45 minutes) before we boarded a Lufthansa flight to the Cologne - Bonn airport. The main thing I remember from that flight was the 8 year old unaccompanied German boy next to me. He kept unbuckling his seat belt during final approach and I'd make him fasten it again. After we landed he showed me that he had only been pretending to buckle it - it was actually never fastened :-)

After we went through customs my mom's sister Margarete (whom everyone called Vesti) met us at the airport with a friend who had a car - we loaded up and headed for Puetzchen.

Vesti had a 2 story house with a full basement. The "above ground" part of the house had 8 large rooms with locking doors - each room was a complete living space with beds, desks, shelves and chairs. There was a bathroom on each floor, and the basement was the "common area" with a kitchen and a large eating/sitting area.
As I've mentioned before - after WWII mom's 3 sisters all lived together (celibate) and they had been in that house since the left Stuttgart (around the time my parents emigrated). So even with each of mom's sisters having their own rooms, and my mom, sis and I having our own rooms there were still 2 spare rooms for visiting relatives (plus a little cottage out back).

It's hard to describe just how different everything was. I'm talking language, street signs, roads, building materials, building styles. Every little detail was just a bit off. The ceiling heights, the doorway dimensions, the light switches, the outlets, the toilets, the "feather beds", the furniture, the food. I mean absolutely every last thing.
And Vesti was frugal to a fault! There was no car or refrigerator. She walked, rode a bicycle or used public transit - and she bought the day's food each morning. There was no TV - just a couple of radios and record players. I was surprised she had a telephone - probably just for emergencies - it was rarely used.

And none of the mom's sisters were used to having children around - our behavior was as much of a shock to them as their expectations of "how to behave" were to us...

It was culture shock to the max... :-)

Getting Ready to Go

Sometime in the spring of 1965 my sister and I were told that we were moving to Germany.

My parents claimed that dad had been offered a corporate VP job there. I honestly don't know who came up with that story but I'm certain it was BS. Dad had been out of work for so long and we had run up so much debt that we had simply run out of options. The plan was that my mom, sis and I were going to stay with mom's 3 sisters in Puetzchen (outside of Bonn) while dad sold the house and wrapped everything up. He'd be there as soon as he could. At least that's what I was told - who knows what the real plan was...

It wasn't until after my dad passed away that I found out he had told everyone that mom "left him"... I guess it's possible he saw it that way - like I said, I'm not sure if he really intended to follow us to Europe or not. But I can say with absolute certainty that if mom was "leaving him" she was totally unaware of it at the time :-) Heck - I still have the letter from dad telling me how wonderful mom was and how I needed to be extra good for her - not exactly the kind of stuff you say about a woman who just left you...

But I'm getting ahead of myself :-)

At that point I was looking forward to a change - I was actually rather excited - mom could make anything seem like it was going to be great fun... So we got our passports and my sister and I got "conversational German" books to start studying up... And I told everyone I was leaving - friends, classmates and the scout troop... Someone would invariably say "East Germany?" (a communist country at the time). Then everybody would laugh - it got old pretty quick :-)

Then there was all my stuff... I ended up giving my Lionel trains to my friend Robert because they were just too big to ship to Germany - I'm still in touch with Robert and AFAIK he still has them... At the time international flights limited total luggage weight (checked and carry-on) to 40 lbs. - so I had to think really hard about what to take with me. My parents didn't approve of some of my choices but I held firm on most of them:
In addition to the usual clothes and toiletries I took some of my Stan Musial memorabilia, a few Beach Boys LPs, a car model I had just finished (custom '23 T-bucket), a "paint-by-the-numbers" picture of a collie (also recently completed), my trusty Dymo label maker and my Boy Scout uniform. Everything else was left behind...

I spent the last Friday night at my friend Robert's house. On Saturday we headed to the nearby woods with his brothers and some neighbors to play "War". This was back when kids actually invented their own games and the local variant of "War" had an amazingly detailed set of rules. E.g. - there were various objects you could find in the woods that qualified as "grenades" and if one landed within a certain distance you had to freeze while you counted to 60 - stuff like that... I don't really recall there being any notion of winning or losing - the fun was in playing the game.

Now I have to interject here - I still remember Robert's childhood address and phone number from 45 years ago and I just checked online. His folks are still there (and have the same phone number). Amazing... The weird thing is I remember it being pretty far away from us but it was barely over 2 miles... Heck I could've walked if my mom had let me... But back to the story:

An hour or two into the "War" game I was running down a narrow path when I tripped over a tree root. As I tried to get up I discovered there was a pointed stick jammed into my left ankle. (It wasn't a trap or anything - just bad luck.) I screamed for help and after convincing everyone that it wasn't a trick they gathered around staring at the stick in my ankle. Robert's oldest brother Fred calmed me down, told me to take a deep breath, grabbed the stick and yanked it out.
It didn't bleed much but I was in a lot of pain and limping badly so mom came and took me home. We went to the doctor on Monday and I found out that I had badly sprained the ankle.

So I had to make the trip to Germany hobbling around with a cane...

Alone

I'm a bit surprised about how little I've been inclined to say about my mom during the years in Havertown. As I've mentioned - she had a hysterectomy shortly after we got there and she was on meds for years afterward. She was irritable and stressed most of the time - and she honestly wasn't that much fun to be around - she wasn't 'herself'...
She still played the piano and sang occasionally, and I really enjoyed that (as long as it wasn't "Aida"). And my parents still entertained quite often - to the rest of the world they still appeared to be the perfect couple. They were great at putting up a front...

And I have to admit that I was fortunate to be the male child. Despite my mom's fiery disposition she was deeply vested in traditional gender roles and my sister bore the brunt of her expectations. Mom was constantly lecturing her about what she needed to do to get a "decent man". (Ironic since mom had 3 highly volatile and failed marriages...)
So when we could no longer afford the maid my sister got stuck with a lot of the cooking and cleaning. It was not a role she relished, but she did it (grudgingly). Of course, I wasn't expected to do much of anything - I was a male :-)

My sister amused herself by writing up menus for the suppers she fixed - there weren't really any selections - she just listed the courses. And she put food coloring in almost everything (e.g. blue mashed potatoes, green milk). But I guess it kept her from 'losing it'. And her lunch specialty was what she called "Tahiti" - a big mound of instant mashed potatoes in a bowl of onion soup...
Even when money was tight we never skimped on food. Mom only bought nationally advertised brands of canned and frozen foods - and all our meat and dairy products came from "Farmer Rush". He was a "modern Mennonite" who came around periodically in a Ford Econoline van selling farm goods. The stuff was amazingly good - it was all organic. Of course, this was decades before anyone knew what "organic" was. But I digress :-)

The topic I'm (very slowly) working around to is that there were occasions when I felt very much alone... As I got older it became increasingly clear that I just didn't think or feel like other people did - I didn't 'get' them and they didn't 'get' me. (My wife thinks it was/is Asperger's.)
And as the family's problems started consuming everyone's attention nobody stopped to wonder how I was doing... My sister got a lot of attention because she acted out. But I would just sneak off to one of the rooms on the 3rd floor and stare out the window wondering why I was different... and feeling quite isolated... That's one of the strange ironies of my life: I can't stand being alone yet I feel uneasy and out of place in social settings. I like to be around people but not necessarily with them :-)
But sadness wasn't a 'constant' thing. I've always been easily amused :-) I'd spend hours bouncing a tennis ball off the side of the house. Or I'd sort through my baseball cards. Or ride my bike. Or listen to my Beach Boys albums. Or play with my trains. Or label things - my Christmas present in 1963 was a Dymo label maker (embossed tape). It was one of my most prized possessions - I still have it :-)

And there's lots of little things I haven't talked about - like how Bozo the retriever would run upstairs and wake either my sister or I upon my mom's command. And how I used to put my clothes on the radiator near my bed on cold nights so they'd be warm in the morning. And how much I hated those high end restaurants with lighting so dim you couldn't see what you were eating except when the waiters set it on fire... And the time Bozo ate a pack of cigarettes and spent the next 2 days licking the living room carpet. (Trying to get the taste off his tongue?) And Lou Bradfield's "astronaut ant" game - it was "mix vinegar and baking soda to shoot the cork out of a bottle" except he taped an ant to the cork first :-)

OK - but I really have to mention the china cabinet:
Mom bought it for $10 at an antique barn out in the country. It was painted bright pink but the trim and glasswork made her suspicious that it was a 'high quality' piece... And she was right. She spent weeks laboriously stripping the paint (there were at least 5 layers) to expose some exquisite cherrywood inlay work. Everyone who saw it was amazed by it. She was quite proud of it and wondered why anyone would have painted something that beautiful in the first place...

I think dad sold after we left for Germany - it was rather valuable. Regardless, it was among the many things I never saw again...

Dad's Sandwich - Mom's Face

As I've mentioned before - my parents yelled at each other a lot. Especially during that last year in Havertown. Throughout most of their marriage they had argued in Hungarian, but they eventually realized that my sister was becoming somewhat fluent in it - so they switched to German (which neither my sister or I understood at that time.).

BTW - I typically ignored their fights but I do remember my dad constantly yelling "Aber, warum denn Olly???" That phrase stuck in my mind because "aber" is such a stupid sounding word and "warum" sounded like "Varoom!" :-)

There was no end to the things they argued about. After 14 years of marriage neither had managed to meet each others expectations. Mom wanted constant romance and adoration... Dad wanted "old school" devotion and unquestioning 'loyalty'... It was a sad state of affairs...

They fought about my sister's and my behavior. They fought about our school performance. They fought about my dad's unwillingness to take any job to support his family. They fought about all the money they were having to borrow to maintain our lifestyle. They fought about his Cynwyd Club membership. They fought about him hardly ever being home. They fought about the liquor cabinet not being properly stocked. They even fought about the dog... It was open warfare...
But there was never direct physical violence. I added the 'direct' qualifier because I did have to dodge the occasional flying house shoe. Dad had a quick temper but he never threw anything that could cause injury... And that leads to the "Day of the Sandwich".

It was 1964. My mom's oldest sister was visiting for the summer and all of us (except dad) were lounging on the patio furniture in the shade out back. (Dad never voluntarily spent time around any of mom's sisters.) At some point mom and I went in to the kitchen (probably to get something to eat). Dad was already in there making himself a ham and swiss on rye.
I don't recall what triggered it, but the next thing I knew mom and dad were screaming at each other across the counter. Dad raised his half-finished sandwich as if to throw it at her, and she responded by saying "Go ahead! Do it!!"... And he did... Right in her face.

It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life to that point. Mom ran out of the house crying. I followed and all of us ended up consoling each other. Mom was wondering if the marriage was over - it seemed as if my whole life had been turned upside down in that instant.

A short while later I got curious if dad was OK so I headed inside. I found dad (who had apparently made another sandwich) in the living room sitting on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table happily munching away while watching a baseball game.
Dad asked what was up and I told him that mom was really upset. He seemed surprised and asked why. I said "You hit her in the face with a sandwich" (i.e. - Duh!). He said something like "Yeah. She told me to." (i.e. - What's your point?)
And that was dad's "tragic flaw". Nothing he did was ever his fault. And if you got upset by it that was your fault too. Not only that, but it was unfair to him that you felt that way... That attitude used to drive me nuts :-)

The whole incident did blow over after a couple of days. But the fighting only got worse...

And I've just about reached the point where we left for Germany.