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...