Aftermath

When we arrived in Winnipeg we rented a studio apartment off of Portage near the airport... A young couple helping us to get settled - they were "Bohemian artist" types - I assume they were volunteers of some sort.

The first couple of months were rough... The apartment was one room with a kitchen and bathroom. I slept on the couch and mom and sis slept on a "Murphy bed" that folded down out of the wall... Yeah - I know that's redundant - I'm just not sure that everyone knows what a Murphy bed is :-)

BTW - One of my first school assignments in Winnipeg was to memorize the "Yarn of the Nancy Bell". My mom and sister threatened to strangle me if I didn't stop reciting it... You tend to get on each others nerves living in a single room... But I digress :-)

The apartment manager was "Mrs. Rosenthal"... She was short and heavy with crooked teeth and had a habit of letting herself into people's apartments when they weren't home. There was no particular reason for it - I think she was just really nosy.
We'd gotten food and blankets from the Salvation Army. The blankets were like "comedic props". They were constantly giving off little bits of fluff that stuck to you and made you look like a half plucked chicken :-)

Now - Germany was completely different from the U.S. - there was no doubt you were in a foreign place... But Winnipeg didn't really seem that different at all. It wasn't exactly the same, but it was close enough to call home... Eh?

As I've mentioned - living in a German boarding school meant being isolated from the outside world. So my sister and I had some catching up to do...
A lot had changed while we were overseas. OMG - I could not believe how short girls skirts had gotten! (It was wonderful.) And what the heck was up with go-go dancing? Was that goofy or what! And that Batman show on TV??
And it turns out there was a war on in Vietnam... Yeah... But most importantly, we'd missed out on some epic music. So, during those first few months my sister and I bought "Rubber Soul", "Aftermath", "My Generation" and "Pet Sounds" (among others). Amazing albums - couldn't believe we'd missed them :-)

Of course, we had arrived right before the start of the Canadian school year... That was an issue because the German school year started in April... I'd only spent a few months in Untertertia (chronologically the 8th grade) so I probably should have enrolled in the 8th grade... Excuse me - I mean "grade 8" (that's Canadian for 8th grade)...
But since the coursework at Aloisiuskolleg was way above "grade 8" level my mom decided to try the local Jesuit high school (St. Paul's - all boys). Even though I was not quite 13 my mom talked them into admitting me as a freshman (on scholarship no less). Yeah - she did the "poor widow raising 2 children alone" routine - tossed in a few tears - it worked like a charm :-)

My sister was admitted to Sacred Heart (all girls) - also on scholarship - but as a junior. She was a bit upset about that - she was 3 1/2 years older than I was but now she was only 2 grades ahead...
BTW - That was when she decided to go by Karina. She often changed her moniker when we moved... I don't know why she picked Karina, but she stuck with it for the rest of her life...

And it was only after we left Germany that I discovered just how much anger and resentment my sister felt over the whole boarding school thing...
Back in St. Louis she had been "farmed out" to a boarding 10 miles from home. She was still angry over that experience when she ended up in the dorm at "St. Adelheid" a mere half-block from my aunt's house (where our mother was living).

Now - I'm obviously the kind of person who analyzes the hell out of everything - except my parents... I was very young when I gave up trying to make sense of anything they did :-)
So I never questioned why I got stuck at Ako. I just did the best I could under the circumstances... Yeah - I got overwhelmed near the end, but on the whole I did well and frankly, it was better than living with those 3 old maid aunts :-)

But every day at Adelheid my sister woke up furious at dad for "walking away" and mom for letting aunt Vesti put her there... She never got over it... Not even close...

And then there was mom...
Her entire life she'd either been married or lived with family - never had to work to support herself (let alone 2 children). So this was really the first time she'd been on her own... It was kind of like letting the genie out of the bottle - or opening pandora's box... I'm not sure which is more apropos... :-)
So she subtracted 10 years from her age, declared herself a "widow" and took on the persona of the "brave and adventurous pioneer woman providing for her children". She was such a drama queen :-)
And despite having virtually no work experience she immediately got a job in the advertising department of the (now defunct) Winnipeg Tribune...
Now - some of you might say "Oh. That was easier to do back then". Actually, it was a lot harder. Women did not work in advertising in the mid 60s - especially with no experience.

Like I've said before - mom was a force of nature. She could talk almost anyone into anything :-)