Germany

Germany was a bit different than France, in almost all regards.  For instance, our forced removal from France was in December - we arrived at Kaiserslautern on a Sunday I believe.  Monday morning my sister and I were arrested for not being in school!  Yeah.  Just playing on the swing set at the hotel and boom! off to police holding.  As Germany was to prove, it was not the friendliest of places to live, unless you appreciate complete control freaks.

It was also the place where father changed radically.  In Portland, following the Cuban Missile Crisis, father was rarely to be found.  In France he was around the home a great deal of the time.  But, in Germany, he was gone for most of the time on Temporary Duty Assignments.  Yes the world was a crazy place in 1967 and 1968.  We knew where he was to be, we usually knew what was going on from the news, but his absences to those places often ran weeks longer than the actual news event.  It was mystifying to this young man.

On the plus side, mother suffered no more almost fatal "accidents".  But she did become the family control freak - attempting to micro-manage a teen male and that did not go very well - especially since she was barely twice my age as it was!  Of course, when father was home I would catch hell and he became increasingly physically abusive.

There had been times in Portland when I can remember he would come home and just beat the tar out of me, whip me until I bled, for some ill thought out prank.  But, there was once I could agree that I had that level of punishment coming.  That was the time I pulled a knife on him to protect myself from phase II of his abuse.  Bad idea, when you do not really know how to use a knife for defense.  In Germany, it became worse.  I swear if I opened my mouth, it was going to be filled with his fist.  That little arrest incident over playing on the hotel swings, brought on one of the most unjust of all beatings - especially since my sister received no punishment at all.  Somehow, I was to have known better than to play in a playground on a Monday morning.....  So I tried to stay away from him and the family as much as possible.  Oh yeah, I was beaten for that as well.

And honestly, I have no idea what our being in Germany had to do with his escalating violence towards me in particular.  But, even Germany itself was not exactly a great place back then either - as I will discuss later.