A word from Germany
A bleak winter sun fights to make way through the white of clouds in the east. The frosty fields are covered by a thin layer of snow. A fierce wind is blowing off the Baltic sea, bringing the wind chill down to God-knows-how many degrees below freezing.
Northern Germany in late January was so far removed from my memory and now it feels like a shock. Yet I grew up in among this landscape, the wintry cold seems frightening now. I am standing here, shivering through the frosty days with the coldness penetrating into my body. Is it the cold weather alone alone which makes me shiver, or is the fact that mother is gone contributing to it? I catch myself longing to be back in the California desert. What a selfish thought! There are duties and plights to be fullfilled right here.
We have mother´s funeral coming up on Wednesday, and guests from various parts of the country will be arriving. There will be that afternoon after the funeral to go through with. A gathering at the local restaurant with scores of people. It´s gonna be a hard day for all of us. Dad has been holding up so far, but there are days after that. Lonely days for Dad. The big house out on the country always seems so cold, and the winter is far from being over. Classical music is waftring through the house. It was HER kind of music, but it was also music I grew up with. It never before sounded like today.

October 02

Tag der Deutschen Einheit

(Reunion Day)

BRD-Flag

DDR-Flag

Tomorrow is a day off for Germans in Germany. It is the day of the reunion of the two German countries DDR and BRD.  On October 03 1990 East Germany, Deutsche Demokratische Republik was absorbed into Bunderepublik Deutschland. Already during the fall of 1989 thousands of DDR residents fled the country by going through Hungary and Tchechoslovakia. Both countries allowed DDR residents to pass through the border into the west.

Soldiers watching from  Berlin Wall 
at Brandenburger Tor

DDR was a financially drained country. Russia had taken everything out of the country, leaving DDR with the scraps.

It was a time of major political change in Central Europe.

In 1991 I passed though the former DDR. At that time there was still a lot of decay on buildings and roads, and I saw a lot of Russian soldiers still being on the bases simply because Russia did not have enough accommodations for tens of thousands of their soldiers. In order to get the Russian troops out of the country, Germany spend a lot of money for construction projects in Russia.

When we heard the news that the Berlin wall was crumbling and that East-German border officials had opened the border to West Germany, we were sitting in our kitchen and it wasn't impossible that tears of joy found their way down the cheeks. To understand that emotion one must know that we were educated and grew up with the divided Germany. We were always told how bad life was for our Eastern neighbours. Grandpa and Grandma knew a couple in Dresden and they sendt Christmas packages to that couple every year. 

DDR-Border strip w. observation tower

Especially bad was it when another attempt of fleeing the DDR had ended in a rain of bullets fired from border officers from the border towers. How desperate for freedom must one be to risk being shot at. But there were also those who succeeded and got into the West. Some of them came across the sea in a canoe, others chose to travel through neighboring Eastblock countries and sneaked across a foreign border. Many had to leave close family behind. They couldn't even say Good Bye to their friends as one never knew whether these would keep the secret. 

Not the U.S.-Mexico Border

We can't imagine it, as we have always been free.

By 1989 the DDR-population was completely disillousioned and the pressure for change ended in a peaceful revolution and the end of the country.

The 3rd of October is a day where we think back on what has been and what happened.

East meets West in Berlin

East Germans cossing the border at
Helmstedt

Hope you all had a great Sunday and thanks for being here.

July 26


Time - so far away
I have been ranting about time on this blog before, but it seems the topic is still occupying my mind. Time seems to have a strong influence on our world as we know it.


I grew up in a Germany which was just recuperating from a terrible war. But people were full of hope for a new future and everybody wanted to forget the war. In my part of the country the British Allies were still ruling public life. The first German-made cars after the war re-appeared in the streets. Some of them were made of pressed and varnished cardboard! Some of them came along on three wheels, like a trike. Every couple of weeks a guy stopped in our street with a three-wheeled pickup shouting loudly RAGS (Lumpen). 

We could bring him almost anything. He knew how to recycle, but his private enterprise was soon forgotten as society took a full dive into the glitzy world of unstoppable consume in the 60's.
Money became more abundant, people bought new cars, and TV-sets started to invade the homes, with the result that fewer people went to the movies or met with their neighbors. We started down a road which led us where we are today. When the seventies arrived, drugs had arrived as well. We heard of people dying of overdoses.

Radio stations had already changed the music-style they played. In my ears it was to the worse, but that's personal. Today I am listening to oldies from the 60's again.


I often went down to the harbour to see the fishing vessels unload flounders, herring and cod. Behind the harbour were the fish smokers. When they were busy the area would bear the unmistakable smell of the smoke and the fish. My aunt used to work in the office at one of the smoke houses. One day her boss invited us all for a tour through the facilities. In my remembrance we walked through dark, smoke-smelling corridors. There, behind steel doors, golden shimmering fish was hanging in the smoke. 

Fish (sprats) in the smoker

My parents loved fish for dinner or in the evening with a slice of dark bread. In those days fish was cheap, because there was so much of it. The fishing fleet in town was at least 15-20 vessels.

Instead of fishing nets we see the many masts of Twohundredthousand-Dollar sailboats

Time made it all disappear. And I don't even know when that happened. It all kind of disappeared over night, although I am sure it took a couple of years, but I never noticed, because I didn't pay attention to things like that.

Lighthouse at the harbour

Under my last visit in my home town I walked down to the harbour again. Yes, it is all very pretty down there, luxury yachts are moored where smelly fishing vessels used to be. The quay has changed. In an attempt to retrofit the harbour to a long-gone era, fancy cobblestone has replaced the blacktop which covered up the original stone-plaster along the harbour. There are benches too, benches for the tourists to sit down on and take in the nice view of the moored boats.   Every now and then the tourism organisation arranges a huge party at the harbour with false pirates, a fair for the kids and lots of vendors selling all kind of food. I went down there with friends and we bought a smoked eel. When I was a kid, this eel would have been smoked right there in town. Not so today. The eel came from neighboring Denmark! Well, I thought, Denmark is only 40 miles (60km) away, but then this eel cost more than a steak dinner at a restaurant. Time changed that too!


Visitors coming to my town say it is a pretty place. It might be pretty, yes, but it is not authentic anymore.
The atmosphere of reality is gone and the trouble is most people don't remember it the way it used to be. When we see places like the harbour in my home town we look at an artificially staged scene, made to please our eyes and cater to our ever increasing demand for comfort.

Some views hardly ever change -
the beach as it could have been in my childhood.

Maybe that is the reason why I like to drive over to Head Harbour here on Campobello Island. I can still find authentic life  down there. Very few rich-boy looking yachts are around there, but I see the lobster boats of local fishermen with their bright colors reflecting in the dark water. And that pleases ME!

Head Harbour - Campobello Island