Imago courtesy of geralt
My Dad had no problems. No, really. It’s true. I heard him say so myself.
When Mom attempted to ask for help or discuss problems she was having with us kids or, God forbid, her relationship with him, my father responded predictably.
“Is there a problem? Well, I don’t have any problems. So it must be your problem.”
And that was that.
This is part of Family Rules. For the prior post in the series, click here. For the next post, click here.
Here is my second to last segment about my family culture of Germany Worship.
I had a difficult reentry into suburban America after spending four years of my childhood in the ebb and flow of German city life. Over there I had been too American. On my return to the U.S., I was surprised to find how out of sync and foreign I felt. I clung to my German identity as best I could.
Awesome things about life in Germany included the following. And P. S.: I clearly love food but I swear this is not a food blog.
25. Walking
26. Walking
Photo courtesy of kelseyannvere
27. Did I mention Walking? It is basically a national pastime. I understand things have changed somewhat but when I was a kid, there were just not any overweight people to be found. Really. And along with the walking was the tradition of using a lightweight wooden hiking stick or cane. Each time you hiked at a new location, you had the option of buying a tiny colorful plaque to commemorate your visit. Yes, it is touristy. Yes, I have one. Yes, I still adore walking.
Photo courtesy of Faibel
28. No waste. Or very little. I learned a lot about conservation. I witnessed one classmate saving money and trees by turning used notebook papers sideways and taking notes on top of and at a right angle to the original writing. Another example: Everyone had a single tiny water heater or a few tiny source heaters for their kitchen and bathroom. Some folks turned the water off after wetting themselves in the shower and then turned it back on to rinse off the soap.
I learned the hard way that long American showers were problematic. The first time I stayed at my German friend Hanna’s house, I used up the hot water supply for the entire apartment without realizing it. Oops! Everybody was too polite to correct me. Hanna’s Mom couldn’t stand me for years.
Photo courtesy of sst via wikimedia commons
What else? Public transportation was abundant and efficient. Plenty of folks went without cars, and those who did own them bought tiny ones. I went into culture shock in the late 70s when I returned to the U.S. and the endless swaths of pavement swarming with gas guzzling behemoths. We’ve begun to use tiny cars here too but at the time, the contrast was extreme. And yes, by the way, this is a double standard since we drove a huge station wagon!
In Germany, I also learned that you can wear your clothing more than once before throwing it into the laundry bin for Mom to wash. On the down side, I also learned that deodorant was optional and that it is actually possible to wear your clothes so many times they stand up by themselves…
Photo courtesy of Frank Murmann
29. Füller. Fountain pens. Everybody used them. Even young kids, and even for math! That reminds me that I need to buy another pen, since my last one broke. I enjoy writing with them. I stick to Pelikan out of nostalgia, since that is the brand I used in German school.
30. Making up your own words. Yes, it’s allowed. Think of Fahrvergnügen = driving + pleasure. Schadenfreude = harm + glee. Let’s do one now for fun. I think I’ll invent Schokoladentherapie and use it in my counseling practice. Chocolate + therapy = happy clients.
Photo courtesy of Hans
31. Federbetten. Featherbeds. Americans have caught on. But I’m not sure they have the kind that are just one big bag of down without any stitches to hold the feathers in place. Using a Federbett is like sleeping under a giant marshmallow. It’s just a gigantic bag of down. People get really, really anal about the upkeep of their feather beds, so tread lightly. Not to be used in cases of profuse sweating. Must be gently beaten so as to fluff but not break the feathers. Should be aired regularly–you may see them hanging out of windows on nice days. And speaking of conservation—it is these featherbeds that allow the Germans to sleep with open windows in cool weather and keep some bedrooms unheated in the winter.
Photo courtesy of Paul Downey
32. Whipped cream without sugar. Found this one out the hard way but eventually came to like it very much.
I remember the day my sister Gwen and I discovered it. We had begged my father to buy us ice cream. Uncharacteristically, he hesitated, and we figured we had a foot in the door. We then begged my father not only to buy us ice cream, but to pay the extra money for a big dollop of whipped cream on top. He assured us we would hate the whipped cream, and it would go to waste. We thought he was crazy and begged harder. We promised to like it. We promised to eat it. Against the odds, he caved in on both accounts: ice cream and topping. Our lucky day!
After he paid, he started to lope of ahead of us with his long grasshopper legs. He must have noticed we were not huffing and puffing, as usual, to keep up with him. He turned around a split second after the whipped cream had, uh, accidentally slipped off both Gwen’s and my ice cream onto the sidewalk with a puffy splat. We were appropriately mystified at our clumsiness. Mercifully he did not question us further.
Photo courtesy of EME
33. Quark. We don’t have it. It’s a kind of fresh dairy product. We used to eat it with sliced fruit.
Photo courtesy of Gourmandise
34. Vanillesoβe. A ubiquitous Dr. Oetker mix commonly used to make vanilla-flavored sauce for desserts. It is good but I’m not prepared to say it’s legendary. I think it was raised to the status of an exotic delight because my father brought several of the small packets home after work trips to Germany in the years before we went as a family. Also, I think my mother remembered it fondly from her own childhood when she spent time in the home of her best friend Luisa, a German girl.
Photo courtesy of Magnus Manske
35. Pommes Frites. I don’t care if they are supposedly French. If you want to die and go to heaven quickly, spend the day hoofing it around the city, working up an appetite, and then buy a big serving of Pomme Frites with ketchup and a Coke. The best fries ever!
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
36. Italian ice. The real thing is amazing. It is nothing like the stuff you get in the freezer section of American grocery stores. Once you have it, you will wonder why people aren’t jumping up and down in protest. Can you believe my classmates actually used to beg me to buy American ice cream in the commissary and bring it to their birthday parties??
This post is part of Family Rules. For the prior post in this series, click here. For the next post, click here.
Photo courtesy of TMAB2003
I think I was my father’s little boy.
I say this tentatively and with an apology to my younger brother Will. Both because I may have misunderstood–and that makes me sound queasily grandiose–and because it might sound like I am blaming him for not being chosen as heir. Maybe I should apologize to Gwen as well. If one daughter could be his son, why not the other? I believe it had little to do with our individual merits.
Maybe birth order is to blame since both my siblings are loveable and gifted individuals. Looking through my adult vantage point and my therapist goggles, I see that my father was prone to bending logic when it suited him. It is deforming to spoil, provoke, or ignore a child into brazenness, neediness, or despair and then point at that child’s behavior to justify your concerns about his or her goodness or stability.
The fact that I learned to negotiate the shifting shoals is both an achievement and a source of shame and guilt. I rarely ran aground in any obvious way. While I was astute enough to figure out and operate within the rules of engagement, I did not save or defend my siblings when I might have. Instead, I stood quietly by and watched as they were branded with various labels and then punished for bearing them. Older and stronger, I sometimes even threw them under the bus.
I know, I know. I was just a kid. But it still feels bad sometimes. Back and forth, back and forth I go. Was I a victim or an accomplice? This is how I wear my damage. They wear theirs differently.
Allowing myself to contemplate my brokenness brings self loathing. If I claim I am damaged, I selfishly compete for balm at the expense of those who need it more. I have shown I can manage. If I claim I am undamaged, I smell superior and condescending. There is no way out. Thankfully, the reverberations have become dampened over time. I don’t spend a lot of time or tears on this matter. It generally stays in the back of my mind, held comfortably in check by God’s cleansing and my adult logic.
Occasionally old feelings still build and threaten. Writing this–right in this moment–I feel the edges of madness pressing in. That slow sinking. Eyelids falling shut. Bad Jane, bad Jane. Time to take a break…
…The brands I received were different but no less constricting. Though I never struggled with sexual preference or identity, being Junior and being entrusted with my father’s inside views on my mother’s shortcomings caused me to associate my womanly emotional makeup with weakness and disown it as inferior. I was just as uncomfortable with my body.
I got to be the Good Student, the Responsible One, the Dutiful One. Whoop dee do. These labels came with the designations Stoic One and Stick In The Mud. I think in time I also got Sneaky One, and sometimes that one fit.
Gwen got to be the Feminine One, the Cute One, and the Artistic One. Sigh. Sadly, those were padlocked to the brands Dramatic One (never to be taken seriously, even in extremis) and Messy One (“She can’t help herself. It’s because of her artistic temperament.”). How would you like to labor under those prophetic burdens? And what do you think happens when two girls, so differently regarded and so close in age, have to share a single small room? This was not a recipe to cultivate sibling love.
Will had other brands but those escape me now. The comparison between me and Gwen was sharpest given our 18-month age difference.
Dad labeled me because he knew he knew me and what I was about. Looking at me was looking in the mirror. It was a Fun House mirror–wavy and distorted–but only one of us seemed to realize it. I was supposed to be an engineer like him. He knew it was a fit for me. I knew I would never, ever, do it. Even the thought of it made me clammy.
I stood up to him about the engineering major but compromised by giving in to his expectation that I enroll in 21 credits my first semester in college. He had done it. No problem! Never mind that I was participating as a scholarship athlete on a Division I sports team. I lasted a few weeks before quietly adjusting my schedule and doing my own thing. To his credit, he was entirely supportive. This marked the start of a better phase in our relationship. On the cusp of my adulthood, I began to understand him differently. I came to view his behavior as motivated more by a lack of insight than a spoiling for malice. More on that soon.
I ended up studying Bio and German. I said I might try for medical school though I knew I never would.
In retrospect, this may have been the most Jane I was able to be at this time in my life. The finding of Jane has been a molasses-slow and ongoing process. Bio was not my thing. German, I love, but not as a profession. Years later, I ended up in counseling and then in grad school for counseling. It’s a great fit.
As for writing? Too artistic for me to even contemplate.
This post is part of Family Rules. For the prior post in the series, click here. For the next post, click here.
Photo courtesy of PicFreak
Dad coined this rule and actually called it “A Lie is a Spank.”
What he said was: A lie is a spank. If you tell the truth, I may not be happy but I will not punish you. If you lie, you will be punished. Don’t try to lie to me because I can tell if you are lying by looking into your eyes.
I believed Dad might indeed have some special power to detect lies, so I rarely lied outright. Instead I became sneaky and good at diversion and omission. I had to, really, because punishment was erratic and inconsistent. Behavior that got me grounded one day might elicit a good natured admonition and wink the next.
The rule wasn’t a great protector of truth in any case. If you were telling the truth and hadn’t done anything dishonest or unkind but Dad thought you were lying, your goose was still cooked. He was so persuasive in his disbelief that you began to doubt your goodness, if not your sanity. Apparently the corollary to “A Lie is a Spank” was “I Know You Better than You Know Yourself.” But I’ll tell you about that variation another day.
Once when playing in the yard, I did a cartwheel and ended up kicking my little sister Gwen in the nose. Granted, we were not the best of friends, but I had not intended to touch her, let alone harm her. A moment after she ran into the house crying, I knew I was in Big Trouble.
I claimed innocence when questioned by Dad. He responded by giving me a sly, conspiratorial smile: “Come on, Jane, I know it wasn’t an accident. You can tell me.” Again, I protested. But he insisted. And then he punished me.
My brain knew I hadn’t done intentional harm but my heart remained troubled. Was there an evil in me which I couldn’t see? I still have moments when that feeling engulfs me.
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Here she goes again….
Can I help it if my family had a serious crush on Germany??
More of the things we hated to leave behind:
Photo courtesy of wikipedia.de
13. Licorice. I loved Lakritz Schnecken, which are delectable black licorice strings rolled up like snails. Black licorice, in general, was a spiritual experience. In a similar category were Veilchen Pastillen (violet pastilles). They actually tasted like flowers. In addition to being addictive, they were pleasantly aromatic and chewy.
Photo courtesy of Gibe
14. Igel–those cute little hedgehogs that look like prickly chestnuts.
Photo courtesy of Ray eye
15. Red squirrels. Look at his cute, fringed ears! XO
Photo courtesy of Guillaume Brocker
16. Giant orange slugs. Fabulous! Especially to a nerd like me.
17. Mainzelmännchen (tiny little mischievous cartoon guys). We thought the Germans were brilliant. Instead of annoying viewers with a commercial every few minutes, they’d save them up and show them all at one time, interspersed with these clever cartoons. We loved commercials! Hope you enjoy this selection from the 70’s.
Photo courtesy of Asrar Makrani
18. Schlümpfe (Smurfs). We had them waaaaay back when. Pretty much every kid watched them on TV and collected the little plastic figures.
19. Kickers. These were actually Italian shoes. Germans are very serious about their footwear since they do so much walking. They were a fad at my school, and I begged and begged for Kickers until I finally got some. They always looked so cute on my friends. I quickly realized the effect was not so brilliant on a tall skinny girl with ginormous feet. Couldn’t find a photo. Sorry!
Photo courtesy of EME/Pixabay
20. Sleds. Made all of wood with fixed runners covered in a thin strip of metal. We kids used put them on our shoulders like backpacks before squeezing ourselves into the streetcar to head out to the best sledding grounds. IMHO, the lighter weight and wider runners made my German sled superior to my Flexible Flyer. Steering was no problem—you just had to gently drag one foot or arm on the side to which you wished to turn.
Photo courtesy of Clément Dominik
21. Schaumküsse–known as Mohrenköpfe or Negerküsse in my youth. You probably don’t have to be a German speaker to intuit why those names had to go.
A Schaumkuss is hard to describe because we have nothing like it. It is a very large, moist and creamy white marshmallow sitting on a baked wafer (not unlike a large corrugated communion wafer) and dipped in dark chocolate. We used to eat them as dessert, obviously, but there was another method for the starved hordes exiting the XXXXXXX School after class. We’d stampede into Modero (a Mom and Pop store across from school) and order one served on a Brötchen (crispy roll) so we’d have something to eat on the way home. Open roll, insert Schaumkuss, squash, eat. Mmmmm.
Photo courtesy of Washington and Jefferson College
22. Beer. Not being a delinquent (much), I took my parents’ word for it. (Note the cardboard coaster. Every single brand had its own, and there were zillions. We kids collected them and played with them like trading cards or used them to build card houses.)
Photo courtesy of frankieleon
23. Wine. Here are the typical glasses. I have what is left of my parents’ set and use them every weekend.
Photo courtesy of Saxo
24. Johannesbeersaft. Current juice. Ahhhhh, dark, sweet-sour, strong. I could not get enough of the stuff.
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This Family Rule must be understand in a very flexible way. In my family, “German” meant everything related to our years in 1970s Germany. If you lived in my house, you absorbed the fact that living like a German was the best way a person could live. If you were a visitor in our home, you knew you were in the presence of some pretty darn special people!
Here are some things–or ways of doing things–whose Germanness clearly kicked the butt of Americanness. Boy, there were so many things which were better. Germany would have beaten the U.S. in Rock, Paper, Scissors each and every time. And since we understood these things, maybe we were superior beings?
In no particular order, I present the first twelve testaments to German awesomeness. Drumroll, please…
Photo courtesy of A. Kniesel
1. Nutella. O.M.G. We were eating it by the pound before you American dumb-dumbs even knew it existed.
Photo courtesy of MPD01605 on Flickr
2. Drinks in bags. Ditto, American slackers. I was drinking bagged Capri Suns before you were even born.
Photo courtesy of Thomas Rosenau
3. Haribo Gummi Bears. Same story, third verse. Also, gummi colas, gummi worms…you name it!
Photo courtesy of Maddox74
4. Playmobil.
Photo courtesy of Hans
5. Steiff stuffed animals. Yup.
Photo courtesy of EME
6. German bread. From fluffy to crispy to scour-your-anus-good. Just add BUTTER.
Blutwurst photo courtesy of Roberto Verzo
7. Sausage. So. Many. Kinds. Of. Heaven. (I swore never to try Blutwurst but I ate it once by accident. Part of me wanted to stick my finger down my throat. Part of me wanted more.)
Photo courtesy of capl@washjeff.edu
8. Cheese. We only had, what…American, Swiss, and Cheddar back in those dark ages?
Image courtesy of Wikimedia
9. Ikea. Who cares if it isn’t actually German? We used to go to shop at Ikea in Germany, before it came to the US. I would live in Ikea if I could.
Photo courtesy of capl@washjeff.edu
10. Wooden toys. No plastic crap for us. No siree!
Photo courtesy of High Contrast
11. Coffee. My parents were partial to Tchibo, which they drank with a drop of Bärenmarke evaporated milk.
Photo courtesy of Mysid
12. Chocolate. No surprises there, especially in the 70’s. I think Ritter Sport with rum, raisins and hazelnuts was my childhood fave. Also epic: Kinderschokolade eggs with build-it-yourself toys inside. Some of the toys were quite involved. The surprise and the engineering behind them was magic.
Stay tuned for more worship–uh, I mean, sharing. In the meantime, you might want to check out fellow blogger Aaron Schilling, who is writing fun and very authentic bits about the unfolding of his intensive German experience.
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We called my mom “Farm Wife.” She really knew how to cook. Still does. Mom so enjoys our enjoyment of her excellent dishes. She got her name because no matter how much we requested, the portion we received was inevitably trucker sized. Whenever my sister and I eat with her and it comes to serving a cake or pie, we act this out:
“How big a slice would you like?”
“Just a sliver.”
“How’s this?” (Holding the knife in just the right place to deliver the dainty smidgeon.)
“Yes.”
“Ok, dear. Here you go.” (Turning the knife at the last minute to loudly whack off ¼ of the dessert.)
An addendum to this rule should be Butter. Mom is a believer! Butter on beans; butter on carrots; butter on broccoli; butter on corn; butter on potatoes; butter on bread, butter on sandwiches, toast, muffins, bagels, and biscuits. Mom would have loved my college friend Petter Jorstad, who taught me about banana and butter sandwiches. Is this a Norwegian thing or was the guy a genius?
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My dad wasted a fortune trying to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. I started with lessons at 5 or 6 and quit when I was around 17. I have little to show for them.
It wasn’t a total bust though. I got to spend an hour a week with Mrs. Park.
Oh, how I loved her.
Joo Eun “June” Park was a goddess. The daughter of a successful father and the wife of a successful businessman, she lived in a spacious contemporary home with an open design, high ceilings, and streamlined modern furnishings. I had never before experienced a cool leather sectional or a plush white carpet. I had never been in a house anything like this. Her studio was off the kitchen. We slid open the glass door and entered a world of delicious aromas.
Mrs. Park herself was the picture of mod glamour—even when she was dressed for housework. You just knew she was meant to be a jet setter. Sometimes we arrived right after she had returned from the tennis court, and she sported a tiny tennis dress with gigantic sunglasses. She was quite the athlete, swimming countless laps for fitness.
She had a beautiful moon face, perfect skin, and lovely tapering fingers. I loved her clean-smelling kimchi breath, and her musical, girlish laugh. I loved the way she punctuated her speech and gestures with a deep “unh” which I could understand without knowing how.
I loved being loved by Mrs. Park.
Mirrored in Mrs. Park’s eyes, my sister Gwen and I felt special and adorable. Those sunny eyes showed affection, and it was clear that we were more than just a paycheck.
Mrs. Park was no pushover. She could be irritable. My lower lip trembled when she rapped my knuckles with her pencil: “Position! Position!” And the way she corrected her sons hinted at steel and impatience. But when we had the sniffles, Mrs. Park brought us into the kitchen and gave us chewable Vitamin C tablets. If they were gone, she opened the freezer, plunged a big spoon into a frozen cylinder of orange juice, pulled out a glob, and fed it to us like a popsicle. She taught us about kimbap and shared her fascinating food with us.
We had to give her up for 4 years when we went to Germany. We ended up with Frau Ristevski, God help her. Gwen and I were rotten. I mean rotten. She didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t Mrs. Park.
Mrs. Ristevski lived in a teensy apartment under the roof of a tall Altbau (a surviving pre-WW II house, which had been divided into apartments) with her husband and son.
Gwen and I dreaded our lessons
PLUS
Gwen and I were responsible for getting ourselves to our lessons
PLUS
Our parents did little to monitor our progress beyond writing a monthly check
EQUALS
Nothing good
We would hop on our bikes at 4:55 for the 25 minute bike race across the city for our 5:00 lesson; arrive sweaty, breathless, and unprepared; and piss her the hell off. Every week.
You would think I’d have had the sense to rebel and just quit piano lessons upon our return to the U.S. You would think. But Mrs. Park had seen something in me which was good and promising, and it was hard to resist the lure.
Once we returned, I stuck with piano even when I fell so in love with running and my team that the only way I could continue lessons was to run several miles to her house on one of my long-distance days.
Mrs. Park was a good sport. She protected her piano bench with a thick towel to sop up my sweat and stink without ever telling me off. I am sad and ashamed when I think of how long we continued this painful farce—me still hoping to please her by living up to my early potential and both of us knowing it was never going to happen.
My last recital was the last straw. I had not prepared and I was unable to remember the piece despite many (many!) sloppy stops and starts. I quietly got up from the bench, returned to my seat, and called it a day. I refused to meet any eyes, I and left to walk home the second the last player finished. Not long after that, Mrs. Park moved to Korea, and I lost track of her.
My friendship with Mrs. Park was briefly rekindled many years later when my daughters were small. My sister had chanced to run into her. It turned out Mrs. Park had moved back to the area and was very excited to find us. She quickly made plans to get together with us, and we did meet a few times. Sadly, the reunion didn’t stick.
Mrs. Park’s sons were grown and out of the house. She was lonely and looking for a daughter. I felt both her hunger and the weight of her expectations, and I knew I couldn’t be the person she sought. I was unable to reciprocate her lavish gestures financially or emotionally, and I became uncomfortable. We lost touch.
Both of my counseling offices are near Korean markets, and I go often to touch, smell, and buy ingredients for my next culinary adventure. Once, as I scrutinized a bag of Korean pancake mix with a furrowed brow, trying to recall what was in Mrs. Park’s pancakes, a white-haired granny no taller than my shoulder grabbed me and dragged me through the store. Using gestures alone, she explained how to make the pancakes. I still follow her orders: Pancake mix, green onions, long hot peppers, Korean squash, chives, kimchi. Meat or seafood, optional.
I ran into Mrs. Park in the market a few months ago. I was torn. I wanted to run and hug her. I wanted to hide. In the end, I crept around the store behind her, beaming love at her back, terrified she would turn around.
Thinking about her is giving me a stomach ache. I want to cry.
This is post is part of Family Rules. For the prior post, click here. For the next post, click here.
I think you would have enjoyed being a visitor to my childhood home. As a guest, you would have been constitutionally incapable of doing wrong. It wouldn’t have been much of a stretch to proclaim, as in the old days of customer service, “The customer is always right!” Unlike the rest of us, you would not have been expected to be on-call
and maintenance-free.
When Dad was “on,” he was charming, thoughtful, and generous. In his gaiety, he would have spared no effort to make you comfortable in his court. I like that wording. Dad would have spared no effort of ours to make you comfortable.
While he piddled and we played, Mom shopped, cleaned and cooked in preparation. It must have been like shoveling against the tide. Our role in this performance came later when we were expected to portray Three Well-Bred Offspring and entertain you on demand by speaking German phrases, playing the piano, and sometimes–literally–performing a song and dance.
When I was small, I pretty much went with the program. What choice did I have? I delivered as well as I could, given my introverted temperament.
I may have been as old as 14 or 15 the last time my father instructed me to go downstairs and play the piano for our guests. I was to leave the door open so that everyone could enjoy my offerings as they wafted up into the living room.
My mind and body refused to comply. I am not even sure it was a matter of conscious choice. I felt sick. Piano lessons had been his idea. I wasn’t invested, and I hadn’t practiced in ages.
I smiled wanly, opened the door, walked calmly down the stairs, escaped out the back door, and took off running. I spent hours wandering the neighborhood, contemplating the punishment that awaited me once I returned. By some unprecedented stroke of luck, the guests had left, and my father had entirely forgotten my defiance by the time I dared to slink back home.
In another episode, my father became infuriated with me because of a septic backup. This was the summer my friend Hanna first came from Germany to visit.
Famously, our incompetent septic contractor had installed a small, tight bend in an inauspicious location, and this meant a fickle system prone to backups. We all knew about this delicate situation as we had been instructed by Dad ad nauseam on the maximum number of toilet paper squares permissible per job. The flushing of tampons was, of course, strictly verboten. I can’t speak for the rest of us but I wasn’t about to count squares. Still, I did realize that the bend was a formidable foe; and a stoppage meant snaking at best, digging and pipe cutting at worst.
This particular summer, the culprit was found to be a minuscule o.b. tampon lodged in said bend.
My Dad was fussing and fuming, and I was attempting to proclaim my innocence when I noticed Hanna growing more and more agitated. Finally, she burst: “I FLUSHED THE TAMPON!”
Silence. I loved her for saving me.
My Dad turned, gave her a beatific smile, and told her in a reassuring voice not to worry, it wasn’t her fault. He then turned back to me and continued to berate me in front of her for allowing my house guest to flush a tampon.
Ah, yes.
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Act II: The Performance
Dad wasn’t kidding when he laid down the rules. We were even held to rules we didn’t know–but should have. If we transgressed and were lucky, we got “The Look.” If we were unlucky, we got a furtive pinch. I am not talking about a love pinch.
My younger sister Gwen, God bless her, was more spirited and less cautious than I; and she often got the brunt of Dad’s ministrations. My little brother was largely immune due to age, cuteness, and, quite possibly, maleness. He might have been too young to understand we weren’t supposed to say, “Ouch!” when swatted, pinched, or kicked under the table; and that could have been risky.
But Gwen seized the day. Oh, how I envied her! Whether due to intransigent joie de vivre or a failure to learn from the past, my sis lived large. Since visits were miserable anyway; since The Review (Act III) and punishment loomed inexorably; why not enjoy life instead of sitting there like a flat tire? Apparently she had decided that fun now was worth punishment later.
Gwen loved water, and wherever water was to be found, she managed to accidentally fall in. Then she proceeded to have fun. How dare she!
Gwen loved makeup. She found all kinds of interesting cosmetics in Mom’s purse and, even better, in the bathrooms of the homes we visited. After putting on her face, she’d emerge, composed and cool, in a cloud of fragrance, behaving as though she didn’t know she had lipstick all over her face and couldn’t imagine how on earth it could have gotten there.
Gwen loved animals. After being explicitly told not to go anywhere near the puppies at one house, she emerged from the dog pen with the bitch’s tooth marks in her left buttock.
During a period in the 70’s, we lived in Germany. I remember one Sunday visit to friends in Pfungstadt especially well.
It was horrible.
It was wonderful!
In the car, my father prepped us. The lecture went something like this:
Unlike rambunctious American children, German children do not guzzle juice. Furthermore, juice is expensive in Germany, and you should not burden our hosts by asking for more than the one small glass you are sure to receive with your meal. Furtherfurthermore, Germans do not drink tap water, and so a request for any drink is a request for a bottled liquid purchased with their hard-earned money.
After drinking our one tiny glass of Saft at lunch, we kids were high and dry. Unable to stand it any longer, Gwen asked for more juice. Her request was immediately followed by a loud shriek.
Hilde, our concerned and startled hostess, asked my sister what was wrong. Gwen answered evenly, “My father pinched me.” Thinking she had misheard, Hilde asked again. Gwen obligingly clarified, “My father told me I could only have one glass of juice. I asked for more. So he pinched me under the table.”
Dad tried to play dumb but he wasn’t very convincing. Gwen got her juice. We all got our juice. We got all the juice we wanted.
Gwen had just bought us a few hours of power and freedom, and we set out to make the most of them. There was no time to waste since our coup would be repaid with interest once we left the sanctuary of Hilde’s modest home.
Act III: The Review
During the ride home and beyond, we were treated to a blow-by-blow recitation of our misbehaviors and the world-altering consequences thereof.
I probably became a therapist in self defense.
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