A Beautiful Rose for a Beautiful Lady #Greece #Rose #Wine

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Holiday in Greece

Holiday in Greece

It was just a small airport somewhere along the Greek coast. A bus was waiting to deliver all the guests to their respective hotels. Looking towards the back of the bus I noticed that everybody seemed to come in “twos”: couples, two women or even two men. One glimpse and I was surprised to see the second row wasn’t taken. I sat down by the window. I was used to traveling by myself in Europe after the conclusion of some business I had in Germany. Greece had always intrigued me and the year before I had enjoyed a “Classic Greek Tour.” This time I wanted a sunny holiday.

As more people entered the bus I wondered what kind of neighbor I would get. Could it be “the one”? Tall, dark and handsome? You never know, right? More twosomes pushed by and finally a middle aged woman asked “Is this seat taken?”

Unique driveway

Unique driveway

“Now it is” I smiled at her, pointing to the seat. She had an easy laugh and sat down. It didn’t take long and I knew her life story. She wanted to know at which hotel along the strip I had booked. It happened to be the very last one, two stops after she had to get out. Her hotel looked pretty nice; it had a beautiful driveway up to the main entrance through a gorgeous garden. Small rocks apparently laid by hand formed intricate designs. I was impressed and just hoped my hotel would be this nice. Marianne disembarked with “Bye, I’ll visit you soon.”

Well, my hotel was just as nice as the picture had been in the travel catalogue. The receptionist was incredibly friendly. I loved my room overlooking the Mediterranean. It actually was a five star hotel while Marianne’s had only three stars. The beach was a bit disappointing, – no sand, just millions of pebbles and little rocks washed smooth by the rolling waves. I had to buy a pair of plastic sandals to wear to walk across when I wanted to go swimming. I had been placed at a table with an elderly couple from Hamburg. We were chatting over an afternoon drink (actually coffee and cake) when Marianne turned up. She found us, just took a seat and exclaimed: “This is heaven! I don’t have access to the sea. I think I’ll visit you every day!” Open and outspoken as she was it did not take long and the Hamburgers knew that she was from Kiel in Holstein and was looking for an apartment in Hamburg since she was going to start a new job there after her holiday. It turned out that my Hamburger friends knew of an apartment in their building and after a phone call to the manager Marianne had rented it. Wow! Talk about coincidences and luck!

Pebbly beach

Pebbly beach

After a small lull in our conversation with Marianne being the main contributor she told us about her arrival in her hotel. All had gone well, she had a nice room on the main floor with a double bed and she joked about a recent stay in a clinic to get some help after a really lousy painful divorce. The double bed had reminded her and she fled the room and took a walk through the gardens. She noticed lots of roses in one area. “I went closer to smell the roses”, she told us, “and I was a bit shocked when a deep voice from behind a huge specimen said hello”. A tanned, nice looking man was dead-heading the roses and she took him to be the gardener. “You won’t believe it”, she told us with by now really rosy cheeks, “after finding my voice again I complimented him on the beautiful garden and I told him that I love roses. He took a branch with a gorgeous rose on it, clipped it off and handed it to me with the words

“A beautiful rose for a beautiful lady”.

We were impressed, laughed and talked about the charm of the Greeks. She came back the next day for a swim and we again had our nice little table in the shady corner.

“You won’t believe what I have to tell you today!” She exclaimed. ”Last night after dinner I was writing in my diary when there was a knock on the door. I went to open it and there was a waiter carrying a tray with a bottle of wine in an ice bucket, two glasses and a rose on it. I told him that he must be at the wrong door because I did not order anything. He had a note and was adamant that mine was the right room. He pushed his way in, set down the tray on my small table in front of the window. He left and closed the door behind him. I did not know what to make of it and was afraid to go to bed. I would have loved to drink a glass of wine, I had the suspicion that this was from the gardener but since there were two glasses I didn’t dare to start the bottle. I got tired of waiting as it was close to midnight, got myself ready for bed but still sat there in the dark expecting a knock on the door at any time. But it didn’t happen. Finally I slipped down under the blanket and drifted off to sleep.

“Can you believe this? What would you have done? I never was so unsure, anxious and even a bit afraid in my whole life. I am not sure what I would have done had he turned up. At breakfast I saw a well-dressed man walk through the room, greeting every guest at every table and finally he came to mine. Can you imagine my shock? It was the gardener! He was the manager. I was totally flabbergasted. He asked me if I enjoyed the wine. I told him that I had thought it wasn’t for me and since there were two glasses I didn’t dare drink it but that I had realized it must be from him and I had thought of him all night.

“That was the idea, my lady” he said, “he gave me the biggest smile and bowed moving on to the next table.”

Wow! What an idea! Who else but a charming Greek man can come up with such an idea?

A beautiful rose for a ....

A beautiful rose for a ….

 

 

May Day, May Day – Dance Around The May Pole

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May FestMay Day is a traditional holiday in several European countries but for me the intriguing part is what leads up to it in Bavaria. A few weeks before the first of May the young males of every village go scouting for the straightest and tallest tree in the surrounding forests. Once they find “the one” they have to guard it to avoid it being claimed by the young men from another rival village. Before anybody can cut any tree they need permission from the Forestry to cut it down and bring it home. Once permission is granted the tree is marked. Now the dangerous game of protecting your own tree and trying to steal another marked for another village is in full swing. The young men of every village, and there are many villages every few kilometers, get involved and they are busy every night with the protection of “their tree” because attempts to succeed are made by every single one. Why? If one village or another succeeds in ‘stealing’ a tree the loser has to pay for all the beer they will drink during that year whenever there is a chance or they get together. I wonder how much beer is already consumed during the cold nights protecting their prospective tree!

Marching BandThe tree has to be cut and brought home in the old fashioned way, no machinery allowed. It also has to be erected without any help of modern conveniences. Ropes and muscle power is what’s needed. The bark is removed in a certain way to leave a design according to tradition in the particular village. Once the tree is “up” a wreath, called a “crown”, is hung at the highest possible spot, often they even attach another small tree on top to reach even greater height. Eighty or even hundred meter high May poles are not rare. All the way down from the top carved logo signs from every profession in the village or city are attached. I gather that those professions, be it a tailor, shoemaker, farmer, hotelier or even the church have to pay to have their painted carvings depicting the profession on the May Pole. And they are proud to do so! Most villagers get pretty sightinvolved in the erection of the tree and especially the celebrations during and after they completed the task. Since it is hard work without any mechanical help the men get very thirsty and again lots of beer will find its way into thirsty throats. Usually there is a brewery in the village or close by and they have a fresh brew, the May brew, which surely has to be tested as well. After the May Pole is proudly standing and secured the people hurry home because now they have to prepare for another happening.

April the 30th is ‘Walpurgis Night’. It’s an anxious and frightening night for all the villagers. It is the night when all the witches are loose and they do some crazy things and no one stops them. One year I happened to be in the beautiful Bavarian Health Resort city of Bad Wörishofen and my hosts were taking all their lawn chairs, terrace furniture and garden ornaments into their hallway. They explained to me that these items could end up in a totally different part of the city or even hidden in places you wouldn’t think of looking for them, in some cases overturned or broken. Police? Forget Scan-003.BMPit. After all, the police do not deal with ‘witches’. It’s free rein to do mischief without being punished. Mostly it’s all done in good fun. During breakfast next morning we had a really good laugh because something “new”, never done before, had happened. All the street signs were covered and new names making fun of certain officials or happenings in the village were placed on top. The one most people got a kick out of was “Roter Platz” (Red Square) at the centre surrounding the statue of Father Kneipp, the “Water Doctor”, a priest who had made this city famous during the 19th century. (As a matter of fact, at least 95% of the population still make their living catering to the “Water Kur” guests.) This plaza had recently been tiled with red tiles and the former grass and the flower beds had been removed. The old-timers in the city didn’t like the transition and this joke did not go over too well with the Mayor’s office either. However, the old street names were restored within a few hours.

The first of May is a big holiday! Literally everybody has been praying for sunshine and, with luck, the weatherman has listened. People gather in their old fashioned costumes around the “Kurhaus”, the bands tune their instruments and in good time a parade winds its way throughout the city aiming to end the march at the May Pole. There are lots of stalls with bratwurst, pretzels and beer (of course!), herring buns and home-made torts and cakes hosted by the different women’s groups. There is coffee, ice cream, sugar puffs and drinks for the children and more beer for the ones who 1 - 2 - 3happened to be lucky enough to find a seat for the rest of the day. The bands play their catchy tunes, the folk dancers as young as two years old or ninety congregate around the May Pole and do their infectious dances and lots and lots of cameras click to catch the excitement. When the official part is over the pubs fill up and the new fresh Maybock beer leads to the downfall of many a drinker who overestimated their capacity to “hold their beer”. But May Day is fun, it’s so much fun! If you ever have a chance to experience it, – rather than aiming for a big city, try to find a smaller village and mingle with the ‘natives’. And be sure not to overestimate your capacity for the Maybock!

 

Two Interviews #BookPromotion #SkinCare

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I want to thank Tracy Koga and Shaw TV in Winnipeg for sharing two interviews made during my recent book promotion in Winnipeg. They appear on my YouTube page but you can also see them here:

Interview 1First interview about “We Don’t Talk About That”
https://youtu.be/jh_e43m0xyo

 

and here:

Interview 2

 

Second interview about Giselle’s Skin Care
https://youtu.be/7vk9s6VLyE4

Dog Days Or Other Miserable Days… #Depressed #DogLove

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BuffiQuoting from Wikipedia:

The Romans referred to the dog days as diēs caniculārēs and associated the hot weather with the star Sirius. They considered Sirius to be the “Dog Star” because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog); this linkage first appeared in the Greek poem Phaenomena by Aratus (~310-260 BC) while Sirius’s association with summer heat is found in an earlier Greek poem, Works and Days by Hesiod in ~700 BC. Sirius is also the brightest star in the night sky. The term “Dog Days” was used earlier by the Greeks (see, e.g., Aristotle’s Physics, 199a2)

The Dog Days originally were the time of the year when Sirius rose just before or at the same time as the sun (heliacal rising, in Conjunction (astronomy) with), which is no longer true, owing to precession of the equinoxes.

Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time “the Sea boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other creatures became languid; causing to man, among other diseases, burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies.” according to Brady’s Clavis Calendaria, 1813.

Are those the days when I am not sure what is ailing me? I am sad, weak, down, tired, can’t get going and somehow it seems the whole world is ganging up on me. If someone says something nice I feel they just want to put honey around my mouth. A stubborn donkey is growing and bucking up within myself and wants to kick the kind person… If someone says “come on, cheer up…” or even worse, “you have no reason to feel that way” I know they don’t know what they are talking about. Can’t I just feel bad without a reasonable reason? Just let me be miserable. Leave me alone. Maybe that’s what I need, ‘lone-time’ to find my centre again, to balance my emotions.

Have you ever thought about how tough it is to always pretend everything is all right? We keep smiling, we do what we have to do or think what we have to do, give polite answers or the expected answers. In reality we would like to scream or throw even some of our best china against the wall. Before my back gave me trouble I would grab the vacuum cleaner and give it a real good workout. Just a couple of years ago I would spend hours in the garden, listen to the silence and let myself suffer through sometimes agonizing back pain without being able to stop before the job I had started was done. Mind over matter? What matter? The physical pain or the pain you can’t put a finger on? The pain accumulated during a lifetime without ever having had a chance to clear the air? Because there are things you just don’t talk about. You don’t want to trouble others with your troubles because they have their own troubles.

Okay. The really well-meaning people tell you to have counselling. I tried it. Pay for the pair of ears that will listen to you. Sometimes you get asked intelligent questions but mostly they wallow in your misery, stir it up like pea soup, push it around and explain it from this side and the other and, by acknowledging it, they multiply it. In the end you start to believe life has dealt you some bad cards. In your heart of hearts you know it is not true, that that wasn’t the problem in the first place. Run while you can! But if you keep going back and enjoy listening to these smart people, after all you want your money’s worth, – in the end you start believing it. You like the new truth? It makes you feel ‘poor me’ but it feels good? You don’t realize that by dwelling on it you get worse but the worse is that you start seeing it as the ‘true truth’. Some truth! Brain-washing! And by telling other people about your (new) truth you unwittingly hurt the people that may love you most and you push them away.

No, counselling wasn’t for me. And psycho pills were not either. Why would the first one make me feel so bad that I had to throw up? Oh no, – I never took another. There was no way that I would let anyone, or anything, alter my brain waves. I told myself to take the bull by the horns, face my demons and acknowledge them. Take stock. What was it that made me feel so miserable? Why the loss of energy and getting tired of not being able to defend myself against what, – other people’s truth? Things? Circumstances? Take charge of your life, I told myself.

You know what I just did? I broke a lot of china. I was venting. I talked about all the things that don’t work, did not work for me. I remember part of a joke: A zebra came to God and asked if it was black with white stripes or white with black stripes. God looked at it and said “That depends entirely on how you see yourself.”

Lovely TinaLet’s get back to the very beginning of this outburst. So how do I see myself? Some days are better than others and things seem clearer. But as there is dark and light, bright and dull, up and down, dry and wet, day and night, good and bad, happiness and sadness, so your outlook changes. My way was to keep busy. Did I ever realize that I might have exhausted my store of energy? No. I felt responsible to “keep going” like the rabbit on the battery. I forgot one important thing: Work and play, activity and rest, laughing and crying. There was nothing to laugh about? Too many of those “dog days”?

The antidote: Get a dog. It ties you down? You have to walk it, get up earlier, lose your freedom? You don’t even realize what you would gain: unconditional love and lots of it, an incredibly understanding of your troubles. It looks at you and transmits feelings without words. By owning and being responsible for a dog you may even extend your life.

doggie mediicineSecond best? Go visit a friend who has dogs. These creatures just know how to lift your mood, get your mind off anything that may ail you. They love you, they want you and they play with you and before you know it they have delivered the medicine you didn’t even know existed: “Doggie Medicine”.

An ‘Otherwordly’ Experience #Dreams #Tears #Spiritual

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It was totally dark when I woke up and I had the incredible feeling of floating over my bed. I had heard someone calling “No, don’t go, please no, no, no…” I felt for something solid and was grateful when finally touching my pillow. But it was wet, very wet next to my head. I was flat on my back. I kept lying still and tried to shake the cob webs off my mind. Who had been calling? Why would my pillow be wet? I noticed that my hair on both sides of my face was wet as well and there was moisture in my ears too. I touched my eyes. Yes, – I was crying, the tears just kept running out of my eyes, down my cheeks and it seemed that some flood gate had opened. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t properly wake up, either. Weirdly, I knew I wasn’t really awake and I also knew I wasn’t really asleep. The dark room around me felt cold and empty. Very empty. Almost hollow. I could touch the hollow in the air above me.

The next I heard was my alarm clock going off. It was 6.30 AM. A bit of grey light shone through the curtains. It took me a while to gather my thoughts. The wet pillow was a puzzle. I figured I must have had a bad dream and therefore cried. Walking to the bathroom I felt lightheaded and in a weird way very somber. Not singing or humming as I sometimes did. I had my shower, dried myself, put my house coat on and padded back to the bedroom. I dressed without thinking, choose everything black. Black pantyhose, black dress with a high collar, buttoned half way down the front with small round shiny black buttons, black pumps. When I was back in the bathroom I stared into the mirror: Why did I dress in black? I opened a drawer and pulled out my opera length large white baroque pearls and hung them around my neck. I shook my head to the image I saw in front of me and took them off again. I noticed that I was very pale and had large dark circles under my eyes.

Eventually I set off to drive to my office. For no reason at all I felt thankful that nobody had taken my parking spot. For a while I sat in my car and prayed that my secretary would not notice my eyes, still red from crying. I still had that somber feeling but as I entered through the backdoor I pasted a smile on my face when I called out “Good Morning” and hoped it sounded cheerful enough. June, my secretary was at her desk, gave me a rather serious look and said somewhat timidly “Good Morning, Giselle”. What’s with her, I thought as I walked past her and into my office. I placed my coat on the hook behind my door which was always open. I wanted to be available and approachable for all my “girls”, – I had twelve estheticians working for me. Behind my chair was a one-way window which allowed me to look out into the shop but nobody could look in. I sat down at my Jacobean desk in my Jacobean chair, folded my hands in my lap and did absolutely nothing. I didn’t see anything either. I was numb.

After maybe ten minutes June called “Giselle, telephone for you.” I picked it up and said my name.

“Hi, Giselle, it’s Chris. I am afraid I have bad news for you.”

“Yes, I know, my father died.”

“Oh, you know already”.

“Chris, – no I don’t, – what did you just say? How do you know?”

“We received a telegram this morning before the shop opened since we were the only Roeders in the telephone book close to your shop.”

My two most favorite men

Grandpa Erich and Eric

I was stunned. I hung up the phone and just sat there, my heart racing and my mind reeling. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t make them stop. Now I slowly started to understand my tears during the night, my somber mood, my disconnection with reality. My father had written a letter on February16, complaining that he didn’t feel good, that not even the cigars tasted good anymore. Since then I had not heard from home. Neither my mother nor my youngest sister had written to let me know that he was in a bad way. And today was April 7, 1983, time enough to let me know, to give me a chance to fly home and see him again before it was too late. How good is a funeral of one you love so much when you cannot be there? Oceans were between us. They lived in East Germany, had tried to escape but father had a kidney attack on the way to the train station and ended up in hospital. That was on the 13th of August 1961. Two days later the Berlin Wall was up.

“June, my father died, Chris just told me.” I had left my office and stood in front of her desk.

“I am so very sorry, Giselle, I thought you knew.”

“No, June, I did not know. It just hit me the moment Chris said it.”

“But then, Giselle why did you dress like that?”

“I have no idea, June. I wasn’t really aware of it. I just felt kind of somber this morning. It was as if I was in a trance. I thought I must have had a bad nightmare because I had cried so much my pillow was wet…”

I walked away from her towards the open part of the shop, the elegant waiting room with the manicure tables all around the huge glass windows. I stopped at every table to greet my customers and stood a bit longer at my daughter Ingrid’s table. She lived with Chris. Her head was bent way down – she clearly did not want to face me.

“Ingrid, Grandpa has died.”

She never looked up from her work. “Yes I know. You did too, didn’t you?”

“I had no idea. Chris just phoned me a few minutes ago.”

“But then, why did you dress like that?”

My back prickled, the hair at my neck was standing up as the full force of what happened last night hit me. My father had come to say “Good Bye” and the voice calling “No, don’t go, please, no, no, no…” must have been my own.

#Escape from your country? #BerlinWall #EastGermany

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EscapeCan you think of any good reason to escape from your country? I am not talking about criminal acts causing you to hide from being caught or trying to avoid punishment. No, I am talking about not being able to breathe anymore, not being able to talk openly, always being afraid to say the wrong thing, even to your own family.

About 60.000 people escaped almost monthly from East Germany to the West for many years. A number of them lost their lives when shot by other East Germans, maybe their brothers, cousins, or friends, – boys who had grown up since the war ended in 1945 and became part of the East German Police Force.

The day I escaped, it was October 5th 1955, over 16.000 registered in the West. In my case, it was West Berlin. The two shots fired after me could very easily have hit me but I like to believe the young police man missed on purpose. Maybe he lost his life because of it. Their order was to “shoot to kill.” Maybe he was severely punished. Maybe he could prove that he did NOT do it on purpose. Two Berliner men pulled me into a moving train. Luckily the train was not stopped as a result of my escape.

image2-002-1To stop the exodus the “Berlin Wall” had been built over night August 13th 1961. Nobody, absolutely nobody, knew about it and people wonder to this day how the government could have organized it. The Wall went straight down the middle of streets for some kilometers. Families or friends were cut off from each other. If you had been visiting in either East or West Berlin, maybe just across the street, you were stuck, you could not return. Days later the people living in the houses along the wall on the eastern side were evacuated and all the windows bricked up. The rest of the country was fenced in with miles and miles of barbed wire and a wide strip of mined no-mans-land. In order to see footsteps another wide strip of raked sand was added later. Towers for sharp shooters were built. East Germany became a large prison with life going on as if everything was Berlin Wall-2all right. But nothing was all right. People risked their life by building tunnels, balloons, micro-aircraft, even shooting wires across a street and became escape artists above the search lights. One young police man even stole an armored police truck and made it across the border and, despite being wounded and finding himself in a hospital bed he was happy because he made it! According to reports thousands got shot, many were wounded but they just did not give up trying to reach what is not even fully appreciated by the populace of western countries: Freedom.

Have you ever thought of freedom? What freedom means, to you or your family, your friends? It is something we don’t think about because it is something we take for granted.

Interview with Fiona McVie #BookInterview

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Fiona McvieI was recently interviewed (on-line) by Fiona Mcvie who posts her interviews with authors on her web site. She lives in Scotland and likes to learn more about the authors of books she has read. She poses some interesting questions. Thank you, Fiona, for this great opportunity to describe how my book “We Don’t Talk About That” came to be written.

You can find the full interview here.

My Friend – The Green Turtle #Hawaii #Snorkelling #Swimming

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Aerial view of Anaeho'omalu Bay Beach [Source: Wikipedia]

Aerial view of Anaeho’omalu Bay Beach [Source: Wikipedia]

One should never snorkel alone – but what do you do if you don’t have anybody with whom to snorkel? Give up? That is not in my make-up! So I did it on my own. Usually I didn’t swim too far from the beach but this time I swam straight out towards the horizon. I knew there was a reef across the bay and the sharks were on the other side of it. Looking around I did not see a single colorful fish. I was always looking for the Humu humu nuku nuku apua’a, the Hawaiian Statefish. I loved the coloring, the design as if a young child had painted it. Lots of corals and seaweed were under me here in the Anaeho’omalu Bay and it looked rather dark. I just kept my face down, hoping to see something and kept on swimming.

You know the sixth sense you have when someone watches you? I definitely had that sensation and looked to my left. I remembered that once on Cuba people were waving and screaming from the beach at me and when I looked around a Barracuda, about two thirds of my body length was swimming next to me. The waters on Cuba are very clear and I was not too far from the beach. I kept my cool and did not make any hasty movements and after a few more meters the huge creature turned away. But now, on

[Source: The Encyclopedia of Animals]

[Source: The Encyclopedia of Animals]

the Big Island of Hawaii, with all the darkness beneath me, it was different. When I looked to the right I was so shocked that I let go of my mouth piece and swallowed water. A small head on a long neck sticking out from a plated body was turned directly towards me, observing me with large slanted bulging eyes. It was a rather large “Green Turtle”. The Hawaiians call it ‘hona’. I was treading water and tried to get my breathing under control again while the turtle waited next to me. It then started to swim a few strokes, waited, looked back at me as if to say “come on…” and when I tried to turn around it kind of coaxed me to keep swimming next to it. I knew they were not dangerous, so I did what it seemed to suggest to me. After maybe another fifty meters it veered to the left. There was a great big light spot in the sea, lit up by the sun. Coming closer I was surprised to see a huge circular pit with light sand probably about thirty meters wide and quite deep. With the seaweed earlier I had no idea how deep the ocean under me was, – but this was an incredible sight. The sunlight was filtering down and the movement of the sea caused changing shapes and shadows just like an enormous kaleidoscope.

My turtle stopped a moment beside me as if enjoying my surprise, looked me in the eye and then swiftly descended for just a few seconds, came back up clearly inviting me to come down visiting with its family. I counted thirteen turtles, – five of them very large and the others all of different sizes, even some small ones. Growing children, I thought. They seemed to congregate in groups of three or four. I couldn’t help staring down at all this beauty for a couple of minutes before I felt a shiver and realized I had to get back. But now I knew what my friend had been up to. It had a purpose for accompanying me; it wanted me to see this little wonder in the middle of the dark ocean. I watched it while it joined a group of three its own size and one smaller one. Another shiver went through me and I turned and started to swim back towards the beach.

I hoped to get a bit warmer by swimming with strong strokes but I soon realized I was in trouble. I half expected my turtle friend to come back and help me on my return but that did not happen. A few times I was ready to give up. I was awfully cold and tired. Hypothermia, my brain registered. I knew my friend Elsa was at the beach waiting for me and was probably already worried. The beach was much farther away than I had realized swimming out. I had been too curious about what the turtle next to me wanted from me. I had seen a small paradise but it could have cost me my life. The last few meters walking to the beach with my flippers in my hands were almost too much. I fell onto the sand, Elsa was there with a big towel, she covered me and I immediately went to sleep. She and six other people stood around me when they woke me after two hours. I was lucky the sand and sun had been warm.

It was an incredible experience but I should warn you: Do not, under any circumstances, swim or snorkel too far from shore. Remember you need more strength for the return since your body temperature has gone down. It just makes you so very tired and it would be too easy to just give up. I have a very strong will to live. This was not the first time I just made it.

This Happens When You Talk About It! #Winnipeg #BestSeller

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I was on a book promotion in the prairie city of Winnipeg which owns the reputation of being one of the coldest cities in Canada. Can you believe it was 15°C above on March 13th when I arrived, 18°C two days later and reasonably warm during the whole week I was in “Friendly Manitoba”. No snow in sight but lots of sand used to sprinkle the slippery streets earlier and now the wind blew it around. Everything was muddy and grey and holy. Sorry, I mean to say “pot-hole-y”! The day after I left it snowed again. The snow makes everything look so clean. It makes a beautiful cover-up – at least for a while.

One thing the Winnipeggers still do is read a lot of books: real books, not e-books. Many told me “I like to feel a book, look at a book, leaf through it, put it down and pick it up again. I like to have it on my book shelf or on my night table.” I hardly ever saw one person walking out of one of the three enormous book stores where I was autographing my book with fewer than two, three or more books. The stores where open ‘til 10.00 PM and people walked in as late as two minutes to ten and shopped. Does the climate have something to do with this? Do the prairie people still know how to relax at home with a glass of wine and a good book? You tell me!

I was interviewed on CJOB Radio and had a lively conversation with the charming host, Greg Mackling. An hour long TV interview was taped by the Shaw crew of “go! Winnipeg” and it will soon be available on YouTube. Book readings, autographing and lots of discussions about my memoir “We Don’t Talk About That”, the story of ordinary German families before, during and after WWII filled my time. The members of a Rotary Club where I was the luncheon speaker were very attentive and another Rotary Club wanted me at their meeting as well, but my time was already totally booked.

Best sellerWhen I came home I had lost my voice. But I had lots of fun. In one of the biggest and architecturally most beautiful and largest book stores, McNally Robinson’s my book became a “Bestseller” and I hope it will remain so and be displayed on the bestseller table for a while longer. In both the very large Chapter Book stores, people were already waiting for me despite the fact that I always come half an hour earlier than expected. And they stuck around, wanting to catch every word of every discussion I had with one of them. Amazing! For seventy years I “Didn’t talk about it” and now I can hardly “shut up” with people around me.

Everybody wanted to know more. Did I open a can of worms? Is it based on real interest or is it rather the sensation “Thank God it didn’t happen to me”? After reading my book they write to me. “It reads like a Spielberg movie” said one. Another said “I look at my eleven year old granddaughter and just shiver to think…what, if, when, how can I protect her?” Still another sent me an e-mail “Are you alright? I just need to know…”

And dozens of readers of “We Don’t Talk About That” are telling me their own or their parents’ or grandparents’ stories of their life during WWII – how little they were told and now they can relate and want to hear more. “I wasn’t interested when I was younger and THEY wanted to talk about it, and now they are gone and I have nobody to ask anymore. Your book is a huge eye opener. While reading it I was with you every step of the way.” Still another says “When they talk about the probability of WWIII on the News I switch the TV off. I don’t want to hear or think about it.”

The last comment came from one of those Europeans who had experienced ‘close encounters’. To stick one’s head in the sand like an ostrich will not help to avoid or protect any one. It’s like the few of the leading Germans who knew how futile World War II was likely to be, knew what was happening all around them and still did not believe it. To save their life they did not talk about it. One of their mottos was something like “I know it’s better not to know what I think I know or might not even know.” I found this phrase in one of Lyn Alexander’s books “The Schellendorf Series,” – four books spanning the time from before WWI to the Nueremberg Trials after WWII. For us today it is not healthy to be ignorant or pretend not to know.

A WWIII with sophisticated weaponry will not be happening in just certain areas of the globe, – all continents will be affected. Don’t say “what can we do about it?” – think! You have voting power; but I’m with you. I also think that we, the ordinary people, will be caught in the middle as always, will not be able to stop the politicians if they put their minds to it. After all, we don’t go around shooting the people whom we don’t like or with whom we do not agree. Like the Texan in the bar pointing to three others and saying “I don’t like that guy.” When asked “which one” he shot two and said “See the one sitting there? That’s the one I don’t like”. Sorry. Just a joke I heard. Life isn’t like that.

 

The Amazing All Grey City #Winnipeg #Prairie #Potholes #Bookstores

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CJOB Radio interview with Greg Mackling

Once upon a time I lived in a green flower filled city alongside the sometimes peaceful, sometimes wild Pacific Ocean, deep blue with white crested, crowned waves. I was a woman living and drinking in this beauty wishing to have talent to paint until the day my mate tells me about an exciting opportunity for him to move to a city in the Canadian Prairie. He talked about Winnipeg, a city known as the Canadian Siberia with nine months of winter and the coldest corner in the whole wide world, Portage and Main and three months of hot summers with lots of mosquitos. But, – Winnipeg was also known for its “dry” cold and always blue sunny skies. Supposedly this climate was much healthier than the “wet” rainy coast and the propensity for getting rheumatism and arthritis. You can dress for the “dry” cold but the “wet” cold gets right under your skin.

We were told Winnipeg is a good place to bring up your family within the beautiful residential areas; it had large lakes for summer fun only about ninety miles away. Winnipeg was the birth place of “Winnie-the-Pooh”, the real little bear who became a mascot for the Canadian Army stationed in England before and during WWI, living out his life in the London Zoo. Millions of children still love A.A. Milne’s story about Pooh and name their teddy bears after him. Now his statue greets you at the entrance to the Winnipeg Zoo. This Prairie city of about 270.000 at that time offered lots of cultural and social life, clubs, theatre, concerts and the world renowned Winnipeg Ballet, on a par with the Moscow and the French Ballet troupes. One-hundred-and-four different ethnic groups were living peacefully together with lots of their typical eating places, loved and visited by all. Eat in a different part of the world every day! But the best: Winnipeg was well known for its friendly people! Every vehicle licence plate tells you: “Friendly Manitoba”, the Canadian province where it is located.

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McNally Robinson Booksellers

Life has a way of interrupting your life; channel it into a different direction. I lived there for twenty years, became a corporate citizen, an employer, a Community Television Producer before the winds of change blew me back to my green country at the Pacific Ocean. No, I could not paint paintings but I could paint pictures with words. So I became a writer.

My recently published book “We Don’t Talk About That” is a memoir about my first thirty years of life. I tell the story of my first ten years during the Nazi period, the next ten years under Communist rule, and the next ten years, after my escape before the infamous Berlin Wall, trying to re-configure my life and hurt from being considered a second class citizen in the “Golden West” which was not so golden after all.

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Chapters, St Vital

This book brought me back to Winnipeg recently for a week long book promotion in March with a book launch and book signings in three big book stores: McNally Robinson, the largest bookstore I have ever seen, Chapters St. Vital with surely the friendliest staff and Chapters Polo Park in probably one of the most beautiful book store buildings. Winnipeggers still read and love the real thing: Books, physical books. Many mentioned that they don’t like eBooks. My book reading at a Rotary Club was well received and a CJOB radio interview with Greg Mackling reminded the listeners about my history within their fair city and many old friends, former customers and even former employees came to see me, say Hi and buy my book. And the Shaw TV’s Community Channel taped an hour long interview about my book and my history in Winnipeg when my first name was a household word.

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At Chapters, Polo Park

Let me tell you what startled me most after arrival and the drive from the airport to the midtown hotel: Winnipeggers were driving only grey cars. All the busses were grey as well. One cornflower blue VW Beetle stood out as the only color spot as far as I could see down the road trying to avoid one pothole after another. You could not read any licence plates as they were covered with a thick grey coating. It dawned on me that nobody washed their car during the winter to avoid having their door locks frozen. I remembered! It was thirty-four years since I was living here! I learned that the winters are not Siberian anymore and climate change is taking its toll. That the previous week they still had 24 below Celsius but now for several days double digit degrees up to 18 above Celsius, the snow gone but the sand, used to sprinkle over the ice was coloring everything: Cars and buildings and roads and if you didn’t wear glasses, it got into your eyes, it covered your hair and it was impossible to keep your shoes clean longer than from the house door to your car.

My grandson Jack, born and raised in Winterpeg as the Winnipeggers lovingly call it, told me: At the entrance highway from the west used to have a sign:

Welcome to Winnipeg. I live here – what’s your excuse?

 For my stories from those first 30 years in Germany please read my book “We Don’t Talk About That” available from all major bookstores as well as on-line.