The Pinning Board

 

Writing helps explore the depths of my thoughts.  

Feelings and memories are flitting around in my head like butterflies.

I chase one down, holding it gently until I can mount it on paper.  

Then, I go after another  and mount it on paper. 

And another. 

And another. 

At last my thoughts are as clear as the summer sky.  

I look at the butterflies of my soul, 

No longer free to fly, but mounted on paper.  

I sadly look at those beautiful memories

Stabbed and still.

no longer flying

photo from Thanksgiving Point

Reinhard

 Before I left home for Germany, Denny McClelland  told us that he’d written his best friend when he’d been the exchange student—-Reinhard.  He’d sent Reinhard my name and address. I’d received a letter very formal and stilted before I left for Germany and I’d replied with my itinerary and where I would stay.  My family and I tried to imagine what he would look like.  We all agreed blond hair and blue eyes, muscular and tall.

I’d been expecting the phone call and was dreading another “set up” that would be TV at his apartment fending off his moves or a drunken night at a disco dance cafe again fending off the moves.  So, I took a deep breath and agreed to a date the following week. I still had my hands full with TV-Peter, Disco Hellmut and Georg who talked down to me like I was his “little woman”.  My “dance card” couldn’t get any fuller and I was not looking for another one to “dance “with..

A week later, in walked a bespectacled tall, dark man with bushy eyebrows, a cleft chin and a friendly smile. We’d already decided to go to a cafe to get acquainted.  I think my mother knew Reinhard would be “trouble” when she read my one page description of our date.

“We went to a cafe and talked for about five hours. . . .We talked about Berlin and divided Germany, Nazism and the last war, communism and Viet Nam, literature, art, music.  Hearing him tell about East Germany and East Berlin (where he was from) is enough to make you realize the threat [of Communism]. Reinhard said that he can’t understand why his parents didn’t realize what was going on in the concentration camps during WWII.”

After that date, we went out to an organ concert in Ottobeuren basilica, went hiking, ball room dancing at a nice ballroom. out for dinner at one of the local inns, played cards with an older couple, a cafe for wine and talk again, and finally on our 8th date. . . . he kissed me.  That was the way to my heart:  hiking, dancing, concerts, wine and talk, playing cards and then after we went walking in the rain window shopping at night, he kissed me.

I soon joined his exercise class called Kneipverein where we also played volleyball and basketball followed by wine and beer at a local pub.  Everyone in the class was older than we were, but I enjoyed the companionship of more mature people.

Kneipverein Group

Well, they might have been more Reinhard’s age since he was 6 years older than I was which means his childhood was during WWII and the harrowing last days of Berlin being bombed.  He went to the university, got his degree in architecture/civil engineering and was working on a large municipal project for an indoor swimming pool in Memmingen.

Several weeks later, we went to our favorite pub for dinner and he confessed he was concerned about our future.  I laughed and said “That’s 8 months off” and thought, “I’ve never had a relationship that lasted more than 3 months”.  He said, “It’s going to get worse not better, “ meaning our parting would be more difficult than if we ended it now.  But we didn’t break up but kept seeing each other several times a week.

We even went on several trips together including several ski trips, a trip to Switzerland and one to his home in Berlin for New Year’s .I stayed at his home and met his widowed mother.  I got along with her pretty well, but there was some friction when she and I shared a room on one of the week long ski trips. I think she was beginning to worry.

Berlin NYE

Reinhard was very kind and gracious even inviting my friends out to dinner when they visited me and served as chauffeur and tour guide for our excursions in Bavaria. A close friend of mine, Carol, visited me about once a month. Our activities usually included Reinhard.  She confessed that she never thought we were that serious about one another.  We certainly didn’t cling to each other in public.  To be honest our size difference made it difficult to walk arm in arm or even to slow dance.  He once said he’d never danced with a Zwerg (dwarf) before.

On an excursion with friends---Boden See

 As the year came to a close, he gave me a ring.  I had to return to St. Louis to finish my degree, and he had another year on his construction project, but he vowed to come to America in July of 1968 after I’d graduated.  We kissed and cried as I got on the train and headed for the long trip home.

Taking Flight

Libby asked me a year ago to tell her about my German boy friend.  All of the “letters” before this were a way of introducing you to my 20 year old me.

Although I dated a lot, I never had a boy friend until Tony Edwards, the English boy that I met when I was 19.  I realized I liked having a boyfriend who wasn’t an American:  someone who was more intelligent than I was, someone who was interesting, someone I could talk with for hours, someone who wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship because I had too much that I wanted to do, that I wanted to learn. 

Following Tony’s example, I applied to be an exchange student in Germany.  Before I was chosen, the other students had been males who had graduated from college.  I was the first female undergraduate. I contacted Dennis McClellan who had been the exchange student before to get information on what to expect.  He was eager to share his experiences and offered to introduce me to his closest friend in Memmingen, Reinhard.

I confidently got on that air plane in St. Louis on August 28, 1966 at 5 PM:  a 20 year old wearing a light weight 3 piece suit, heels, a hat and white gloves with a few small suitcases. (my trunk with most of my clothes had been sent earlier). My first flight was exciting.  I landed in New York City at 8PM, but had to get transportation to JFK Airport for my flight to Europe on Icelandic Air Lines at 1 AM.  I sat alone in a cafe sipping coffee and wondering if this was the cafe Tony had called me from a year ago.

Icelandic was the most inexpensive way so the flight had many students and young people like myself. We had to land in Iceland to refuel before taking off for Luxembourg. We boarded Icelandic but I no sooner closed by eyes than the sun rose and we were over a tree less land.  I thought we were going to crash because without trees, I couldn’t judge our height.  We landed safely in Reykjavik to refuel and were allowed to get off the plane.  Iceland looked no better on the ground than it did in the air.   I went to the hanger that had refreshments (not a real terminal). So, my first foreign country to visit was Iceland.

Landing in Luxembourg, at 8 PM, we boarded a bus that took us to Germany.  That was quite the rollicking bus ride with singing, laughter, jokes which even the bus driver got in on.  One girl shouted to him, “Ich bin heiss”.  He pulled off the road, slammed on the breaks and headed to the back of the bus with an exaggerated lear on his face.  Then, she realized her mistake.  She’d said, “I am hot” which has a more sexual connotation in German.  “Mir ist heiss” is more appropriate for someone who wants the heater turned down.

We arrived in Mannheim at 2 AM and joined several other American passengers for a train  to Munich where we arrived at 7 AM. I was exhausted from sleeplessness and yet I needed to see when a train left for Memmingen and I needed to find my hotel.

Unfortunately I was attracting too much attention. American girl, alone with white gloves and maps…. Men were everywhere offering help (???). I couldn’t understand a word they were saying and I just smiled which encouraged them.  Not wishing to appear unfriendly, I kept nodding and smiling which only made things worse—-one even grabbed my arm and tried to pull me into a building. 

Finally, I found my voice and said, “NEIN” (no).  I could speak only a few phrases fluently:  “Can you tell me where I can wash my hands”, “I don’t know why I’m so sad” and ”a girl without freckles is like the sky without stars.” The first phrase was fairly useful because I could change that last part of the phrase to the hotel I was looking for: “Can you tell me where Hotel Garni is?”  

Once at the hotel, I called my German benefactor who had set up the exchange program, Herr Doktor Maximillian Dietrich.  He was a grandfatherly man who owned the local newspaper. He met me the next day at the train station in Memmingen, introduced me around and filled up my “dance card” with several evenings of activities with some of Memmingen’s bachelors: the head master’s son and two former  exchange students I’d met in Cape when they lived there.  

All Peter wanted to do was go to his parents’ house to watch TV.  All Helmut wanted was to stay out partying until 3AM at the local disco. All Georg wanted was a relationship.  After several weeks of forced joviality and friendliness,  my anxiety level was building. Although I like a good party and I like to watch TV, day after day, week after week was not me. And I wasn't ready for a relationship.

And, then I got a phone call from Dennis’s friend Reinhard… ….

Love, 

Grandma

Near to the Heart of God

This week at McCrite at Briarcliff, where I live, we had a program about hymns presented by Donna and Gary Douglas.  Their singing and piano playing were wonderful:  his beautiful rich baritone and her piano with the embellishments were inspiring.

The first hymn,  Donna said we need to look at through a different lens:  "Joy To The World", a hymn that was never meant to be a Christmas carol but about the Second Coming. She asked us to close our eyes and listen to it as a meditation. 

"Joyful, joyful we adore Thee

God of glory, Lord of love

And hearts unfold like flowers before Thee 

 

Opening to the sun above"

Then they told some stories about some favorite hymns.  It was amazing how many hymns were written after a family tragedy.  One story that surprised me was "Near to the Heart of God" written by Cleland McAfee of Parkville, Missouri only a few miles from where I live.  Cleland was the son of one of the Park University's founders, John A. McAffee. 

His daughter Katharine wrote "One terrible week, just before communion Sunday, the two daughters of my Uncle Howard and Aunt Lucy McAffee died of diphtheria within 24 hours of each other.  The college  family and town (Parkville) were stricken with grief.  My father often told us how he sat long and late thinking of what could be said in word and son on Sunday. So, he wrote "Near To the Heart of God".  The choir learned it at Saturday night rehearsal and afterward went to Howard McAffee's house and sang it as they stood under the sky outside the darkened quarantined home.  It was sung again on Sunday."

Cleland McAfee went on to pastor several Presbyterian congregations, taught at McCormick Seminary and helped direct the Presbyterian foreign mission program.  But, I'll remember him and his family each time I sing this song "There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God". And I'll remember that God's hand is present inspiring us and supporting us even when we are feeling grief.

Jaclyn Morgan

Coming Undone

 Talking to various people whose spouses had to go to a nursing home, prepared me for
when the time came for Dave.  One woman had her daughters take her husband while she stayed home: she knew she’d break down.  Two men said taking their spouses to a nursing home was as heart-breaking as when their spouses died.

Fortunately my daughters are a lot like I am.  Moving Dave to the nursing home could have been the most awful day, but their upbeat humor got us through.  We were going just across the parking lot to another building where the nursing home is.  We put most of his things in tubs, but we were also taking a small wire shelving unit for his closet. Rebecca was pushing the tubs, hanging clothes and shelving on a large cart.  Brett (our grandson) was pushing Grandpa in the wheel chair. Rachel and I had rolling suitcases.

As we made the turn on the sidewalk to the nursing home, we noticed that a truck had backed in so far that he was blocking about half the sidewalk.  We could make it past, but Rebecca with the loaded cart could not.  So, she took off across the uneven parking lot and challenged us to a race.  She got about half way across when the cart tipped dumping everything in the middle of the parking lot with tub lids coming off and items rolling under parked cars.  

We entered the nursing home laughing and giggling as Rebecca came through the door looking like the Beverly Hillbillies with clothes off their hangers, the shelves on a slant followed by two laughing men who'd seen the whole situation unroll and were helping  Rebecca with items they'd rescued under parked cars.

The receptionist said she'd never seen such a happy group on move in day. On the elevator, we giggled at the scene we’d made.

Minutes after that, I saw Dave survey his stark room.  

That’s when my grieving began. ….