A Bit About Our Tour In Germany

I realized when a friend asked that I have never blogged about our time in Germany.  I don't know why I haven't before this, because it was a very special time in our lives.
We were there on a farm between Frankfurt and Darmstadt, and more or less adopted by our landlords, who lived upstairs. 

This is the house as seen across one of the fields owned by our landlords, the Knoebel Family.
The road was called Frankfurterstrasse, or L3113.  The farm was really between the smaller towns of Graefenhausen and Moerfelden. 

 

Here's the house from the end of the drive.  We had the back apartment downstairs.  For the first year and a half, an American family lived in the front apartment, and Willi, Elfriede, Silke, and Tanja lived upstairs.  (Willi was the son of the landlord, Peter.  Peter and his wife Irmgard lived in Graefenhausen.) 

 

This is the side of the building, showing our windows and door.  Left downstairs window is our kitchen, next is the dining room, and the small window is in the entry.  Then you see the shelter around the door, and beyond that, where you cannot see it, is the window for the powder room.

That powder room was really half our bathroom.  The other half, containing a larger sink and a huge tub, was through a storage room just off the entry across from the front door.  The powder room was basically right inside the door!  (I didn't make pictures of the bathroom, for some reason.)

 

This is the view from our front porch area on a snowy day.  The venerable Mercedes you see on the left was ours.  It was a retired taxicab.  It had over 227K miles on it when we bought it.  It was fairly reliable, a gasoline engine, not diesel.  

 

This is our first German Christmas tree.  We put it in the entry hall, because all the rooms in the apartment were very small.  See how thick the walls are?  Very old building.  I could touch the ceiling in many rooms.  Because we were downstairs, and the family upstairs kept their apartment so warm, we didn't need to run the radiators very high at all. This one was off while the tree was up.

 

This was looking from the entry hall into the dining room, then the kitchen.  It was VERY cozy. This was our Christmas dinner setting.

This is our Christmas Eve dinner all laid out on the kitchen counter.  I loved the view from my window.  It was warmer that Christmas than it was the next.  In 1990, Matt was deployed for Desert Shield, and got to come home for Christmas by the luck of the draw.  His crew drew the plane coming home for maintenance at that time.  THAT year it snowed, but not while he was home.

Here I am kneading bread dough on our little German kitchen counter.  I baked a lot of bread while we were there.  Shared with the landlady when she had field hands to feed, because I had to keep the sourdough starter going, and all the recipes made more than we could use.

Here is a way to get the scale of our tiny place.  This is me next to the divider between dining room and kitchen.  I'm 5'4", wearing probably 2 inch heels.  I weighed about 130 pounds at that time. This was Thanksgiving in 1991, and we were having friends over.  VERY cozy!

This is our little tiny living room, decorated for Christmas.  Piano is on the right, & there's a bookcase behind the door on the left.  This room is straight across from where Matt was standing when he made the previous picture.  This was really supposed to be a bedroom, but we put our bedroom in what was supposed to be the living room because our bedroom set was so big.

Here's our bed in the bedroom, of course, with Taz holding court.  He let us sleep on it sometimes.  That is a standard double bed.  Taz weighed 20 pounds.  He was a BIG kitty.

Here is my desk, the same one I use now, crammed into a corner of the smallest bedroom that we shared as an office.  There was another desk on the other side that held the computer, and two book cases. The computer was a 286.  A Gateway PC, at that.  The package and stuff with it was a care package I was getting ready to pack up and send to Matt.

 

When Matt came back from Desert Storm, I made banners on the computer and put them up all over the place.  This is the one that was on our little porch, or windbreak, around the front door.

And this is the banner that was on the front of our garage.  We did eventually clean it out and put the car in there, but not until after Matt got back from Desert Storm.


I really enjoyed our time in Germany. I walked a lot with my little dog Dougal, our first Schipperke.  He was not as sweet as Mr. Bear, but he was my baby boy, and spoiled, and I loved him.  He just adored his walks in the country out there.  We saw rabbits, hedgehogs, meadowlarks, woodpeckers, hawks, magpies, and horses, and of course the bulls that Peter kept on our farm.  There were also pigs on the farm, but they were kept in the barns and we never saw them.  There were also geese and ducks, and they would escape now and then.  Peter also had two large dogs Blackie, a Newfoundland/Chow mix who was beautiful, huge, and could walk silently.  He was really a sweetie, but he scared the crap out of anybody who didn't know him.  The other dog, Rex, was an elderly German Shepherd with a VERY grouchy disposition.  I had to rescue many truck drivers making deliveries from the dogs until one of the Knoebels could get downstairs to meet them.  I also had to use my sketchy German to tell those wishing to buy a goose for Christmas that they'd have to contact the family upstairs, as I was just a tenant.  (They'd see me in the kitchen kneading bread, and just assume I was the Hausfrau.  So sorry.  ) 

When Matt was deployed in August of 1990 for Desert Shield, the Knoebels took it upon themselves to keep an eye on me.  They checked on me if they didn't see me out and about, invited me up for coffee, taught me a lot more German, and were just wonderful loving people. 
When Matt came back from Desert Storm, they were watching for the car, and all came tumbling out of the farmhouse to greet him.  Even the Yugoslavian guys that were helping with some ordinance removal and the other crew that was helping pick the asparagus came out to shake his hand.  They gave us a bottle of wine, too.  They were all very proud of him, like he was one of the family, and glad to see him home safe and sound.  I really miss the Knoebels.  Silke got married while we were there, and I got to go to the Polterabend.  That means "noisy night" when traditionally guests bring porcelain items that are broken to ward off evil, and the bride and groom to be traditionally clean up.  Well, the Knoebels had LOTS of friends and family nearby, so they set up a HUGE fest tent, hired a small band, and had the Polterabend out on the large front lawn.  People brought porcelain FIXTURES to break, like old sinks and toilets, and they festooned every tree with toilet paper, shredded paper, and confetti.  We ALL helped Silke and Thomas clean up the next day.  Leftover wurst  and beer were served to the helpers. It was great fun.  I had to lock  my apartment door, but only because Irmgard was afraid somebody'd let my dog out and he'd get lost. (Or that they'd use my bathroom and not be very tidy because they were a little the worse for the drink!) I'm glad I never had to buy German toilet paper.  The streamer of it that they managed to toss up and onto the TV antenna on top of the front part of the house was there for at least two years before it disintegrated.  Tough stuff. 

We have lost touch with the Knoebels.  We've been back here for more than 20 years now, and though we corresponded for a few years, time and busy lives got the best of us.  Silke's little Nina was three when we left, Stefanie about a year old.  Nina used to see me in the kitchen making cookies, and I'd hear her out there playing in her sandbox, singing in German, "Katie's making cookies!  She always gives Nina one!"  Even then I had a reputation as a baker who shared. 

I know that Irmgard passed away a year or two after we moved here.  Silke and Elfriede sent me a letter and a photo of the grave, with mounds of flowers on it. So sad, she was such a dear lady, and so kind.  We talked a lot, and the language barrier wasn't so bad.  She taught me a lot.

Perhaps I'll think of a bit more coherent narrative about our time in Germany someday, but for now, this is what I remember, based on these pictures I found. 

 

 

 

 

 

Veterans I Know and Have Known

So much heard lately about the really rotten treatment many veterans receive in our country.  Made me think about all the veterans I know.
The first veteran I ever knew was my Pop.  He was in the infantry in WWII.  He spent two years slogging around the Pacific.  He never wanted to talk about it much.  He admitted to me once that he had to kill a man with a knife once.  It bothered him a lot.  Never mind that this was war, and the guy he killed had already killed a lot of our guys.  Taking a life that way takes something out of you, wounds you.  It certainly stayed with Pop, though it didn't surface often.  He only told me about it one evening shortly before my wedding, when he was talking to me about what it meant to be married to a military man.  He wanted me to understand that there might be things Matt would never feel able to share with me.
Even so, Pop was proud of his service, and he did enjoy a few benefits of being a veteran.  He got a low interest mortgage, and the house I spent the first part of my life in was built with that money. We had to move when I was 14.  The neighborhood was no longer a safe place.  (Compton, CA.  Need I say more?)
Other vets I have known include a neighbor we met when we first moved here.  Don was a B-17 pilot in WWII.  He said he landed more than one time in an aircraft that shouldn't have still been flying.  He later became an officer in the Air Force and after retiring from the Air Force, he worked as a mail carrier for many years.  He was a good neighbor, and I was very proud to know someone who was able to bring all of his crews home in more or less one piece.  That Air War in Europe was very costly to us in terms of bomber crews.  He died several years ago, and I still miss him.  He used to come in the library all the time and take the free computer courses we offer.  He was so proud of me for getting a job there.  He was one of my references.

Many of my coworkers are veterans.  Julie, she who is our branch's corporate memory, (I call her Julie All-Knowing and All-Wise)  was in both the Air Force and the Navy.  She is the wife of a retired Navy man.  (So in her, I get to claim two vets that I know, herself and Ralph.)  Julie is very conscientious about her job, she is a loyal friend, and one of the funniest people I know.  She and Anne and I can not be in the same room for very long without very noisy hilarity erupting. (Even as old as we all are these days!)

  Anne, who now works at another branch, is a retired Major.  She was in the Air Force at a time when there were few women in the service, and very few female officers.  She was on a high-security air crew as a communications officer, and often had challenges when they had to get quarters on some bases.  There just weren't any visiting officer's quarters or crew rest facilities for females.  She has many interesting stories about her service.  She is a uniquely dedicated and persistent worker.  If Anne is on the job, it will be done, done right, and in a timely manner.  Some think she is a little brusk, but her laugh is often in evidence, her sense of humor one of the better ones I have known.  She came to sit with me in the hospital when Matt had his surgery.  She made me get up and walk around, made me drink something so I wouldn't dehydrate, and stayed much longer than anyone but our good friend Michael.

There is another coworker I must write about.  He works at the Library Service Center, and I mainly work with him through phone calls, notes, or email, as we both work on Inter-Library Loan  materials.  He is a Marine.  He retired as a Gunnery Sergeant.  After he retired, he worked as a corrections officer, and then he came to work for the library system.  Roger is grumbly and gruff, Mr. Tough Marine at first glance, but soon you see the warmth and the humor.   He is a stalwart presence among us, and we are proud to know him.  Another Old Marine I knew, Father Stan Donham, when I asked him to pray for Roger when Roger had surgery, said, "Oh, Gunnery Sergeants aren't born or made.  They are issued directly from the Quartermaster."  Of course he prayed for Roger, Marines stick together.  Father Stan lost his own fight with cancer while Matt was still in the hospital after his surgery. We were unable to go to the funeral.  Father Stan was a fighting Marine who served on Okinawa in WWII.  Father Stan was also the first among the clergy at St. Paul's that we met.  He welcomed us, and spoke with us, and introduced us to people, and we ended up in  the choir and helping with any number of other things.

I have an email friend who is a vet.  She was in the same career field as Matt when she retired.  She stayed in longer, got more rank, but also had to go remote to Korea for a year, and then got sent to Afghanistan.  She retired after she got back stateside.  She suffered an injury over there, and it did lots of damage.  Roxie is tough, though, the fighter pilots she used to work with called her "The Hammer", so you know she's not a marshmallow.  Roxie has gone back to school, gotten her degree, and is now working to help other vets.  She has faced cancer, and won.  She is a tough cookie.  She is also amazingly dedicated and caring in her work with her fellow vets.  She told a story today on Face book about an elderly gentleman who came in to get eyeglasses.  She called his name, using his rank of "Chief", and he didn't realize she was calling him.  He told her no one had called him "Chief" in more than 3o years.  She said that was wrong and a shame, because he worked hard to earn that rank, and that title, and he was entitled to be addressed by it.  He is 86 years old.  From the way she told that story, I don't know who made whose day.  Maybe Roxie made the Chief's day, but just maybe he made hers.  Respect.  It costs so little, but it is worth so much.

I have a cousin who is retired Air Force, my late Uncle Mickey was a retired Navy man, Uncle Wallace was retired from the Army,(he served in Viet Nam) , and my husband's nephew David is a veteran of three tours in Iraq and has a bum leg because he was injured over there.  He is out of the Army now, and was going to school.  We haven't heard a lot from him lately, so I hope he is OK.  He is married and has two little ones.  He was two the year Matt and I got married.  David used to escape from his kindergarten class when I was subbing at the school he went to and come find me when I was out on yard duty.  He doesn't remember doing that, but he sure did.  Secretly tickled me that he would do that just to see Aunt Katie.  I always took him back, and the teacher never seemed to get after him too bad for it.  She knew where he went, after all. I told him he shouldn't come out without asking first, though.
His mother, Matt's sister Carol is also a vet.  She was in the Air Force for awhile before Matt enlisted.  She got out when she was expecting her oldest. (In those days, they'd give you a discharge for being pregnant.  No more.  )

Of course, the vet I know best is my husband.  He served 20 years in the Air Force, most of them as an aircraft loadmaster.  He flew on C-130s and C-141s. He was deployed in 1990 for Desert Shield and stayed through the end of Desert Storm.  He ended his career as an Operations Resource Management Specialist.  He was the NCOIC of the Operations Resource Center for the 966th AWACS Training Squadron when he retired in 1998.  He served with great dedication, really enjoying his job and the many experiences it gave him.  He traveled all over the world, got to see all sorts of amazing things, got to drop some interesting things out of his airplane, and won recognition for the outstanding way he performed his job.  (He has lots of "confetti" on his dress blues.  Never mind that he hasn't had to wear them for about 15 years now.)


I know a number of our library customers are veterans.  A lot of the people who live in this area are.  Tinker is a large base with a nice commissary and a nice Exchange, and a very nice new clinic.  The community is very supportive of the base, it is the largest single location employer in the state.  Many military retirees live here, because the cost of living is pretty low, the quality of life is pretty good, and there is such a nice base here.  The retirees are also an excellent resource for the military because many of them volunteer on base and fill jobs that are needed but not funded.  They work in Morale and Recreation activities, they work in the pharmacy and clinic, all over really.  We are family.  If you are military, you are one of us.  We will care for you, stand by you, because we've worn those boots ourselves, or stood those lonely vigils waiting for a loved one to come back from a deployment.

My own life is made richer by the presence of so many veterans in it.  I bet if you think about it for awhile, you will find that you know a number of veterans yourself.  We owe these men and women our respect for the job they were willing to do so that we would have the life we enjoy now.  I am so proud of my father, my uncles, my cousin, my friends and my husband for difficult things they have done with grace and with valor.  I am, I must admit, a bit proud of myself for staying alone when Matt was away, even in a pretty bad neighborhood in San Bernardino, and for seven months in a foreign country.  My parents couldn't believe it, I've always been such a chicken, but if Matt could go off  and face unknown dangers (many missions were those that we were never sure if it was real or an exercise), then I could keep the home front running smoothly until he got back.
I pray our Congress would remember what we owe the men and women who were willing to give so much of their lives to the service of this country.  They have faced dangers most of us cannot imagine.  They deserve to have decent benefits for their service, and those who stay in long enough to retire should have more security than they do now.  Pensions are small, and the kids today will get even less if they stay in for a whole career, and we pay premiums for our medical benefits.  (Admittedly, they are a LOT less than anybody else would have to pay, but there was at one time the promise of free medical care for retirees.  That went away even before Matt retired.)  Vets and military retirees should not have to fear the loss of the benefits that they quite literally fought for.  That so many are without basic necessities  is shameful.