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Thankful to be Alive

Posted on November 25th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Daily Life

It’s the time of year when Americans everywhere like to say what they are thankful for. I have a very good reason to be thankful this year. I’m thankful to be alive! I doubt if many of you have had the opportunity to wake up and find your bedroom full of paramedics dressed in Day-Glo orange. Last Friday morning, I had that opportunity. I was roused by an emergency doctor who said,  ”Come on, you need to go with us to the hospital.” My enlightened response was, “Hospital? Why?” They had what they thought was a good reason. Some of my readers know that I am diabetic. I have been for over 20 years. I take insulin twice a day, and managing the diabetes is a continuing struggle. Diabetes is not necessarily a death sentence, but it is certainly a life sentence.

A few weeks ago, I needed to get another prescription for insulin. It is extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, in these times for a civilian to get in to see one of the military doctors. I got to see a PA (physician’s assistant) who seemed quite competent. She prescribed my medications for me and ordered some lab tests. I had the blood and urine work done, and the next day after the tests, I got a call from her telling me to come back in to the clinic because I was spilling sugar into my urine. For the uninitiated, that’s not a good thing. She told me that I needed to see an MD, a medical doctor, because my problem was beyond her level of comfort. OK, fine. I called for an appointment, and wonder of wonders, I could get one that day. (Civilians are second-class citizens with regard to military health care. The health care providers are here for the troops and their families. Civilians must call after 10:00 AM for a same-day appointment.) I told the appointments clerk that I needed to see a physician. I reiterated, “An MD!” She said that I could see Dr. X (name redacted to protect the innocent) at 1330. When I got there, I was surprised that Dr. X turned out to be a lieutenant colonel, which means that he had some experience. That was promising. When I related my history, he said, “I’m a PA, just like her. But I can confer with the doctor.” Well, that’s just dandy, but one takes what one can get. I need to digress to explain that the German medical system is first-rate. I have no problem with them, and we do have a German physician that we see regularly. However, the insulin that they use here is not the same as what I can get from the American pharmacy. It’s risky to switch meds without intense supervision. I may have to do that, but for the moment, I am still using the American system. So, the PA, after consulting with the doctor, upped my insulin just a bit in order to control my high blood sugar. I was to keep a record of my sugar levels three times a day. In addition, I took an extra dose of Metformin (an oral medication) each day. He told me that I needed to come back for a re-evaluation in two weeks. “But you can’t possibly realize the difficulty in getting an appointment,” I said. “No problem. I’ll give you a written form to give to the appointment desk.” OK, fine. I took the written order to the appointment desk, and the clerk said that I was to be seen by LTC X in 2-3 weeks. (Note the difference already). They schedule those appointments 24 hours prior and they would call me. On Friday, it will be four weeks, and I still haven’t been called.

Well, the additional insulin caused me sometimes to have hypoglycemia, which is low blood sugar. If it gets too low, it can cause shock or even death. Last Thursday night, before I went to bed, I checked my blood sugar. It was low, so I ate two glucose tablets, half of a Ritter Sport candy bar, and a bag and a half of M&Ms. That should have been enough to send the glucose level into orbit! Not so. My wife noticed at around 2:30 that I was not conscious, and she could not get me to respond. After trying various interventions which didn’t work, she finally called the Bavarian equivalent of 911. They told her that she had to calm down in order for them to help! She must have been a wreck. Anyway, they responded and hooked me up to an IV of what was probably glucagon, but I don’t know for sure. After infusing me with enough sugar to bake a few apple torts, I was roused. I argued with them about going to the hospital, and I finally was able to convince them that I was lucid and would be OK. The blood sugar has been on a roller-coaster since then, and I’m worried about resuming any exercise for the moment, yet exercise and diet are two of the foundations of good diabetes control. I’ll keep you posted. By the way, the German system has a position called Notarzt, or emergency doctor. He/she accompanies the paramedics on necessary occasions. I just got the bill for the Notarzt, and it was close to $500. I still don’t have the bill for the FOUR paramedics who were crowding into my bedroom. All I can say is that I should have eaten more M&Ms that night!

What else am I thankful for this Thanksgiving?

I wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving and a start to what I hope is a joyous holiday season.

Retired-Ed

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How I Helped to Tear Down the Berlin Wall

Posted on November 17th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in History

In the first of this trilogy of posts, I wrote about the history surrounding the opening of East Germany and the Berlin Wall. In my most recent post, I told of my experiences traveling through East Germany to Berlin via Checkpoints Alpha and Bravo. But it was what happened after I entered Berlin that still gives me chills. After reading so many cold war spy novels, entering Berlin seemed like a dream. I had read of people getting shot trying to cross from east to west. I had seen pictures of the famous wall, pristine white on the East Berlin side with a raked “warning track” in front of it. The wall was covered with graffiti on the West Berlin side and, in fact, was an ugly scar on the landscape. The Brandenburg Gate, or Brandenburger Tor in the German language, supposedly sat on the demarcation line. However, it was only tantalizingly close to the line separating east and west. In fact, it was wholly in East Berlin. We could look through the gate, but we couldn’t walk throught i, which had once been the symbolic entrance to the city. Some of the city’s most famous landmarks were in East Berlin, such as Alexanderplatz. This square was the site of the Fernsehturm, or television tower, which was topped by a sphere that was the object of amusement to the westerners who could view it across the demarcation line. The orb was designed by Swedish engineers who may or may not have realized the effect that the sun would have on it. Whenever the sun shone on the tower, its reflection would appear in the shape of a cross, which did not go over well with the atheistic tenets of communism. No matter what the city fathers did to the tower, the cross remained. Westerners referred to it as “the Pope’s revenge“. Seeing it was always worth a good chuckle.

Not that West Berlin was without its own landmarks. I was struck by how green the city was. There seemed to be parks and green belts everywhere. I was not really prepared for that, but it was a welcome surprise. Perhaps the most popular area to Americans was actually a street known as Kufürstendamm or simply “Ku’damm” to the locals. It was a major shopping area and the center of some of the nightlife in West Berlin. Along the broad avenue one would find the Gedächtniskirche, known in English as the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It suffered bomb damage during World War II, and the damage was left unrepaired as a reminder of the horrors of the war. The church was also the location where one could find many “creatures” (my word) of the two-legged variety after the wall was opened. Some of these low-lifes would slither out from under their rock and congregate at the church in the very early 1990s. Drugs were a problem, and you could find many of their compatriots at one of Berlin’s famous train stations, the Berlin Zoo Bahnhof. (Note to purists regarding some of my links: I KNOW that Wikipedia is unofficial and may contain some inaccurate information. However, many of the locations have webpages in German, and I’m assuming that my readers, for the most part, would prefer to read about these locations in English).

I loved walking up and down the Ku’damm and visiting the shops and trendy restaurants. I’m sure that most of you have heard of the Harrod’s Department Store in London. Berlin had its own department store to rival Harrod’s. It was known as the Kaufhaus des Westens, or simply KaDeWe, as it is known to the locals and tourists alike. The translation is rather loose, but assume that it means “the shopping mall of the West”. Its sixth floor food gallery is staggering, with food from all over the world. I have also visited the famous Harrod’s food gallery, and KaDeWe competes admirably with Harrod’s.

Of course, by this time, the wall was becoming a piece of history, but much of it still remained, and I wanted my crack at it. I have mentioned in an earlier post, that my school district had two schools in Berlin that reported to us. Because of the difficulty in getting to West Germany for training, we had made a deal with our staff members there. We would bring the training to them. Otherwise, they would have been required to take the duty train all night from Berlin to Bremerhaven, take the training during the day, and return the following night. It was much more practical for us to go to them. At that time, our agency was implementing a new supply tracking program, and one of the supply clerks from a school in my district had been selected to pilot the program and then provide the training to his counterparts throughout Germany. This young man was in his early 20′s and was a Brit by nationality. His mother lived in the Netherlands, as did he and his wife. He crossed the border every day to work at one of our schools at a NATO air base right on the Dutch-German border. As it happened, his mother had remarried, and her husband was an American soldier stationed in Berlin. This young man and I drove to Berlin in order to provide the training to the school supply clerks, and we used our off-time to explore. This man’s stepfather just happened to be the non-commissioned officer in charge (NCOIC) of the Military Police detachment at Checkpoint Charlie. He was on duty on November 9th, when the gates opened at the “Ossies” (people from East Germany or Ostdeutschland, were frequently called “Ossies” in the West. It was often considered to be a perjorative term, depending on its use. Boy, did he have some stories to tell.

Since my young friend and I wanted our crack at the wall, we made arrangements to meet his stepfather around the dinner hour. We checked out sledge hammers and bolt cutters from the supply room at our Berlin High School and were ready to meet the famous wall. The stepfather’s name was Nate, and he took us to an area of Berlin that was actually more of an appendage to the city than a part of West Berlin. This enclave was known as Steinstuecken, and it was wholly located in East Germany, not abutting against East Berlin. It was administratively a part of West Berlin, so the road connecting it was framed by the Wall on both sides. In short, there was wall everywhere. The link shows a picture of the road leading to the enclave in 1975. Not much had changed in 1990; there was still a lot of wall to pound on. Nate took us to the border and we began our hammering away. We found that the wall on “our side” was covered with graffiti, just as it was in the rest of West Berlin. On the opposite side was the “death zone”, a freshly raked area that I previously referred to as a “warning track”, much like a baseball outfield strip that warns the fielder that he is about to collide with a wall. In this case, the collision might have been with a hail of bullets. We began our destructive efforts with a vengeance. I took part of the pipe that sat atop the wall, as well as the steel flange that held it in place. I cut the reinforcement bars (re-bar) that provided strength to the masonry and removed large sections (well, small enough to still fit in my trunk). I got smaller chunks as well. In all, I had several boxes of the pieces of the wall and its supporting elements. I must have gotten carried away, because at one point, I looked down and saw that I was standing on freshly raked soil. Uh-oh, I thought to myself. I looked up and saw that the wall was a pristine white. I figured that I had just crossed the former border. Now that, in itself, should have been a moot point. There was no border any longer. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I said to the cop that had accompanied us, “Nate, am I in East Germany?” He answered that I indeed was in East Germany. Next question, and most important to me: “Is this area mined?” His answer was, “We think we got them all, but we aren’t certain.”

Was he yanking my chain? I didn’t want to find out the hard way. I carefully retraced my steps, making certain that I stepped only into the footprints that I had left earlier and crossed through the hole in the wall that we had created. Safely back on the West Berlin side of the wall, I breathed a bit easier and wondered if I had a change of underwear in my bag that was in the car. After a few more swipes at the wall, and a few more great stories about duty at Checkpoint Charlie, we returned to our hotel and had a few beers to celebrate our victory over communism that evening.

I can joke about it now, but that was an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. This completes my trilogy of my experiences surrounding the fall of the Berlin wall. My only subsequent visit to the city was with my family a few weeks later during a school vacation. We had a great time touring the sites and seeing what was left of the famous wall. We also got several good looks at the “national bird” of a reunited Germany. That would be the construction crane. They were everywhere. Although my daughter Allison says that she doesn’t remember this, she made a lot of people chuckle on that trip. The Soviets still had their war memorial in West Berlin. Every day, they would march across to change the guard. While it wasn’t as impressive as the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, it was a definite tourist attraction. The Soviet soldiers would goose-step as they marched to their memorial. Allison decided it would be cool to walk along with them. Here is this little girl, who might have been about 7 at the time,  goose-stepping alongside the very serious Soviet soldiers. Some of them even cracked a smile. I wish I had a picture of that, or if I do have one, I wish I could find it.

If you are planning a trip to Berlin, be sure to visit the various museums relating to the division of the city. They will be very moving and educational. I need to go back very soon. It has been way too long.

Retired-Ed

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Berlin! Getting There Was Half the Fun!

Posted on November 11th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in History

In my last post, I recalled my family’s experience during the fall of The Wall. It has now been more than twenty years since that infamous piece of masonry was dismantled. I still have some pieces of it in shoeboxes in my garage. I also have some reinforcement rods and a metal band that held the pipe in place as it sat atop the wall. More on that later.

It was quite a party that they held in Berlin on Monday past. Angela Merkel, the current chancellor who actually grew up in East Germany, hosted the chiefs of state of the European Union countries, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Hillary Clinton who was representing US President Barack Obama. (a side note here: I just noticed that my spell checker in Word Press recognizes the word “Obama”, but not “Barack”…is that weird or what?) But I digress. To chants of “Gorby! Gorby!” from the crowd, Frau Merkel, the daughter of a Protestant pastor (imagine how tough that must have been in communist East Germany!) thanked Mr. Gorbachev for instituting reforms in the Soviet Union which eventually led to the demise of the hated East German government and the fall of the wall. I believe that Hillary Clinton also spoke to the crowd, but I was in the other room writing my previous blog post, so I didn’t hear everything she said. I would hope, but I seriously doubt, that she mentioned Ronald Reagan saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Had Reagan not been a Republican, no doubt she would have given him top billing in her speech. Perhaps she did mention him. I haven’t seen a transcript of her remarks. There are still areas where the wall remains as a reminder of the past. I hope that those monuments remain for a long time.

I visited the wall and absorbed the history of it. It used to give me chills to approach Checkpoint Charlie or what remains of it. In order to tell my story, a little historical background is required. At the end of World War II, Germany was divided. Everyone knows that, right? But it was not divided into two areas; it was divided into four! There was an American zone, a French zone, a British zone, and the Soviet zone. Those four countries made up the Allied Powers that defeated the Nazis and removed them from Europe. The three zones in the western area coalesced into the Federal Republic of Germany. The Soviet sector became the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. Berlin was likewise divided into those four sectors, and the first three became West Berlin. The Soviet zone became East Berlin. The Allied Powers were granted access to Berlin via certain specified corridors. You might recall from history, or maybe personal recollection if you are old enough, that the Soviets blocked access to Berlin in 1948. That led to the famous Berlin Airlift, which provided rations to the beleaguered citizens of West Berlin. Thankfully, Harry Truman did not dither or dawdle about making a decision about what to do, and Berlin was saved. There are two monuments recognizing the service of those who provided relief to Berlin. They represent an air bridge from the West to the East. One half of the monument is near what is now the Frankfurt International Airport. The other half is at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin. Perhaps in a later post, I can comment about the “Candy Bomber” and how I got to see Col. Gail Halvorsen up close and personal about two years ago. It was a treat!

In 1989, I was assigned to the headquarters of the Bremerhaven District of the Department of Defense Dependents  Schools. As you might imagine, the office was in Bremerhaven, way up north close to the North Sea. Our district had more than 20 schools, and it included the two schools in Berlin. I had to travel to Berlin on a somewhat regular basis. For those of us assigned to Allied Forces, there were only three ways to get to Berlin. You could fly; you could take the duty train; you could drive along “the corridor”. That was it. Although I usually flew to Berlin, on occasion I would drive. That was exciting, and I’ll relate my experience below.

To go to Berlin, one had to have special “orders”. If you were going on official business, you had to have two sets of orders. One was your normal “temporary duty” orders (called “TDY” orders); the other was the really important one. These orders were called “flag orders“, and were so named because your country’s flag was prominently displayed at the top of the order. These orders would get you through the maze of checkpoints that you had to pass through in order to get to your destination.

By the way, when I was assigned to Bremerhaven, we lived in the British sector. That was fun, because the Brits would frequently visit our base to shop, and we would visit their bases to do the same thing. You wouldn’t believe how popular Weber grills were with the British soldiers. We liked to buy jams and cookies (although they were called “biscuits” by the Brits). The French also had their version of a PX. They were called “economats” and Americans liked to buy scarves and perfumes. The Brits called their exchanges “NAAFIs”. The only authorized entry point into East Germany was in the British sector near a city called Helmstedt. Almsost everyone has heard of Checkpoint Charlie, but did you know that there was also a Checkpoint Alpha and a Checkpoint Bravo? Yep. ‘There was. Checkpoint Alpha was at Helmstedt, and it was a required stop for anyone wishing to transit “the corridor” which was actually known as Autobahn 2 in West Berlin. I can’t recall the East German designation for the same road, but the difference in road surface was remarkable.

Here in Europe, as in America, we are used to setting our clocks and watches back one hour as we travel westward and cross a time zone boundary. In this case, we were traveling eastward, but we didn’t set our watches forward; we had to set them back about 50 years! OMG! The contrast was almost palpable. The first interruption on your trip was at the Allied Checkpoint Alpha. You had to go inside and go to your country’s desk which was manned by military police. In a silent commentary on the times, the US and British MPs were sitting next to one another and chatting each other up during the infrequent slow periods. The French were down at the far end, all by themselves. After checking in with the MPs, you were given a “briefing book”, which was a binder about an inch thick full of pictures of the various landmarks that you would see on your journey and specific instructions on where to turn, etc. There were also instructions on your speed, where you could stop and where you couldn’t stop, and to whom you could speak. These were critical! Our authorization to transit to Berlin was ONLY on that one highway. If you left that road, you could be presumed to be a spy, and that would not be conducive to good health. The speed was important as well. East Germany had established a speed limit on the corridor. Those of us in West Germany were used to the Autobahn rarely having a speed limit. If I recall correctly, it was 102 miles from Alpha to Bravo, and you could not make the trip in less than 90 minutes. If you were longer than a certain number of hours (5?), they would send someone from the other end to look for you. These were tense times, and nobody wanted a member of Allied Forces to become an international incident. In addition, we were only allowed to talk with other members of Allied Forces or to Soviet officers. We could not converse with East Germans and especially not with their police or military forces. While we could pull off the road to rest at certain “pull over areas”, we could not stop at the large plazas with fuel stations, restaurants and rest rooms. Yep, you’d better pee before you go, because your only option along the way was behind a tree. In the back of your briefing booklet, there were two banners that you could, if needed, hold up to your window. One was for your fellow Allies. It said that your car was broken down and please send a tow truck from the opposite end. (You were required to stop for all Allies who were in distress.) The other banner was to hold up and show to the VoPos (Volkspolizei or “people’s police”) or to the East German military. If you were stopped by them or if you were in distress and they stopped to inquire what was wrong, you were not permitted to speak to them. We were even told not to roll down our window. Instead, we were to hold up this banner which said, “I demand my rights under the Four Party Agreement to speak with a Soviet officer.” They would call a Soviet officer, and I’m glad that I never had to find out just how long that would take.

On your first visit to Checkpoint Alpha, the driver of the vehicle had to watch a video of what to expect and what the procedures would be. And, yes, there were lots of procedures to follow! Because not everyone was on official business, there was a lounge for those accompanying the driver along with a play area for the children. After completing the video and after gathering your briefing book and all of your belongings and after that very important last visit to the latrine, you were on your way….for about 100 yards. You would get into your car, called a POV in military parlance (privately owned vehicle), and drive along this  narrow one-lane path until you came to a barrier. That barrier was always in the down position every time I visited. Depending on the mood of Mr. Gorbachev that day, or the mood of the local commander, it might stay down for quite a while. Eventually, the young Soviet sentinel would do his duty and raise the barrier so you could drive through until the next barrier. The rear barrier would then be lowered and you were stuck until they decided to let you go. It seemed like it was always a 19-year old, pimply-faced Russian soldier in an ill-fitting uniform that would approach the car and salute me. I was required (even though I was a civilian) to return the salute. He would take my flag orders and go inside his little guard shack for a while. Eventually, he would return, having placed various rubber stamps and stickers on my flag orders. He would then point to a nearby building and indicate that I was to go inside. Before I did, however, we had to exchange salutes once more. Upon entering the Soviet Checkpoint Alpha (or whatever they called it), we would go to what appeared to be a bank teller’s window covered by one-way glass. We would surrender our flag orders and (gasp!) our passport, hoping that we’d see them once again. The room was filled with propaganda materials from the USSR. I can’t recall, but there may have been live microphones in that room as well. We’d just stand around and commiserate with one another until our name was called. You can imagine how those names would be mangled by the eastern Europeans trying to pronounce our decidedly non-Russian surnames. Our papers would slide back out of the little slot along with a departing word that sounded a whole lot like “buzz off”. Of course, we couldn’t see the person behind the glass. It was just a disembodied voice. Finally! Well, almost. We returned to our cars and again saluted the sentry. He would raise the barrier (when he was good and ready) and we were good to go along the corridor. For me, the trips were uneventful. Only once did I see another Allied vehicle in any kind of distress, and they were being “helped” by a Soviet soldier. I reported this at the other end, as required.

When you finished the trip along the corridor, you came first to the Soviet Checkpoint Bravo. The procedures were reversed at that end. However, and it was almost comical, you could count on the Soviet guard to motion you to come forward just a little bit more. That way, he was out of view of his superiors in the guard shack. He would then offer to trade uniform items or other memorabilia with you. The first guy wanted my wrist watch. I said no, but we finally decided on a ball point pen for some some Soviet sports medal. All of this was verboten, of course, but I venture that almost everyone took part. Hell, I’m convinced that if I had had enough money, I could have gotten an entire Russian uniform complete with weapon. That would have been just a bit over the line, however.

After exiting the Soviet Checkpoint Bravo, one would drive to the Allied Checkpoint Bravo, where things always went fast. You would turn in your briefing book and report if anything out of the ordinary had happened during your trip. There was also a blessed restroom in the checkpoint building. After that, you were free to travel throughout all of West Berlin and to East Berlin with the proper paperwork. Perhaps I’ll report on my stays in Berlin in a subsequent post.

Until then, tschüss, from a unified Germany.

Retired-Ed

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The Fall of the Wall…Plus Twenty Years

Posted on November 9th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in History

As I write this, there is a huge celebration going on in Berlin. I was watching on German television, but I was surprised that it was only carried on one of the minor channels and not one of the major networks. Oh well; it was exciting nevertheless. Many heads of state were there, as was Hillary Clinton, representing the United States. At first, I wondered why our President was not in attendance, but then I realized that he has a somber duty tomorrow. He will be attending a memorial service at Fort Hood in Texas. He needs to be there in Texas. But this post is about Berlin.

I can’t believe it has been twenty years since the fall of the wall. I remember it well. I had arrived in Germany about a month earlier. My family had only been with me for a few days. They were visiting our family in America and arrived in Germany a couple of weeks after I did. We knew that things were happening in the East. Refugees were escaping from the East through Hungary and other areas. Imagine our surprise, however, when we saw on television that the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) or East German government had collapsed. The television then switched to scenes of jubilant German citizens dancing on top of the infamous Berlin Wall.

I can remember when it was built in 1961. Actually, I was attending summer school that summer. I was between my freshman and sophomore years of high school and was taking a typing class during the summer. My friends and I were walking home from class, and someone had a transistor radio (they were a bit of a novelty back then) with us. We heard a news report that the Soviets had constructed a wall between East and West Berlin, in effect imprisoning the citizens of East Berlin. I had no idea at that time that I would visit the divided city 28 years later.

Back to 1989, the Wall had opened, and people were pouring across. Quite by happenstance, my family and I had made plans for the weekend to visit the Harz mountains. Wendy was about 13 at the time, and Allison was 6 years old. We lived in a hotel, since we had not secured housing yet. Our car had not arrived  from Korea, our previous assignment, so we had rented a car to tour Germany on the weekend. It happens that the Harz mountains are near the border between West and East Germany. It was so exciting! Every overpass had huge signs welcoming the East Germans who were coming across. You can’t believe how much stuff could be packed into a Trabi! A Trabi is the infamous East German Trabant, a car that took years to arrive and was make mostly of fiberglass. Those cars were so tiny, and I think they held whatever the people wanted to bring with them to freedom, along with the entire family. It was exciting, yet sad. It was their first taste of freedom in over forty years. People were waving from the overpasses. Flags were waving. Hugs were exchanged. I get nostalgic just thinking about that weekend.

A few weeks later, I visited Berlin. I even got turned away at Checkpoint Charlie (and Checkpoint Charlie will be in the next post) because I had an official US government stamp in my passport that I had used in Korea and Japan. Interestingly enough, the very next night, Checkpoint Charlie closed for good, and I was able to enter East Berlin. Some friends took me to an opera in the Stadts Oper (City Opera House) to see Die Fledermaus. Very enjoyable. I had purchased some black market Ostmarks (East German Marks) the night before (shh! don’t tell anyone), but I didn’t need to use them, so I still have them as souvenirs.

The next night, I had an opportunity to get some pieces of the Wall. I still have quite few, even though I have given many to friends. The Fall of the Wall changed the course of European history, and I feel that I was there! Quite a thrill for me.

In my next post, I’ll describe my various trips to Berlin on business and one with my family. And daughter Allison, do you remember goose stepping with the Soviet soldiers who were marching to their war memorial? They got a big kick out of that.

Until next time….

Tchüss

Retired-Ed

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Ho Hum

Posted on November 2nd, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Daily Life

Life has been rather ho-hum lately for me. As a retiree, I quickly learned that one must make his own excitement. Instead of the daily periods of “hair on fire” at work, each day is pretty much the same, minus several dozen or even hundreds of emails each day. In fact, I never even hear from my friends at work any more. It’s as if I never existed there. Oh well, they probably don’t miss me. In the past few weeks, I have reconnected with several friends from my school days, mostly high school, but also some from my university days. It is exciting to hook up with people that I haven’t heard from in more than 40 years. I recently found a girl (now a woman my age) that I went to school with from first grade on. Yep. Elementary school, junior high school, high school, and even the same university. I had an inkling that I could find her on Facebook, and I did. We have had some fun catching up.

Well, the weather today is not especially stimulating. I woke up to the patter of rain on the Dachfenster. Don’t know what a Dachfenster is? Well, imagine a peaked roof with a window in the roof. The Dach is the roof, and the Fenster is the window. Get it? Roof window. You may have seen these in pictures from time to time. They are not at all unique here in Germany. Many homes have them, and it’s rather cool to lie in bed and look up at the sky, or in this case, the rain clouds. It has rained all day, with no sign of letting up. The forecast for the next few days is for more rain. It will be a good time for me to catch up with some work around the house.

Over the past few days, I have found a couple of websites that I’d like to share with my readers. A friend (yes, actually the one guy from work who still acknowledges my existence) told me about www.peopleofwalmart.com. I think it’s hilarious. I’m an American, but I have lived overseas for 36 years, so I can look at my countrymen from the perspective of an outsider….or as one of them. I’ve seen some weird things in my life: Elvis impersonators in Harajuku in Tokyo on Sundays, Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park in London (some really strange cases there!), skinheads in Germany, etc. But there’s nothing like seeing what people wear and look like in Wal-Mart. I showed a family friend the website the other day when she and her husband were visiting. She took one look and said, “You’d never see this in Germany.” She’s absolutely right. The sense of decorum here is different. I’m not saying that one is right and the other is wrong, but it is certainly different. Take a look at the site and you’ll see what I mean….maybe. I wonder if they have Wal-Marts in Canada. Sue, how about it?

Another website, if you are a music lover, is really cool. Try www.wolfgangsvault.com for access to free music concerts. You can listen for free, but if you want to download a concert, you’ll pay a small fee. This is no small website. There must be over a thousand different musicians listed, and many of them have multiple concerts to listen to. These go back to the 60s and maybe earlier. I have had a ball listening to them. Try it out, especially if you are a fan of “older music”. I don’t think you’ll find many concerts from yesterday or last week on the site.

Today was bedsheet laundry day, and I felt a little “frisky”. I cut off the label from one of the pillows. You know…the label that says, “Do not remove under penalty of  law!” That one. I figure that there’s no way anyone will ever know and it gives me such a thrill to break the law. Anyway, they’d never find me in Germany. Oh wait, there’s a knock at the door

Retired-Ed

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