Following that weekend in Munich, father applied for and received a rotation back to the United States. He never asked any of us our opinions, we would have all voted to stay in Germany! So, knowing my father this meant there was another agenda running and that weekend in Munich was probably all it took for him to decide to run as far as possible away from Germany permanently.
Mother continued to be her weird self, father was away as much as possible, us kids just went to school and tried to avoid them both.
It was my birthday, 1972, when father had divorce papers served on mother. His explanation as to why - was to wake her up that she was destroying her marriage. You see mother had become a Southern Baptist. She and father fought like cats and dogs over everything! Food, religion, all aspects of marriage! And us kids got to hear it all.
It was on my birthday, 1973, when the divorce became final in court. So two birthdays utterly destroyed and neither of them cared - they just wanted their war to continue at all costs.
Of course, father then started dating the older sister of my girl friend and that made things very awkward!
Shortly after this, I became a Christian, having fallen in with a group of Hutterites. Father was outraged that any son of his could be so stupid and did not talk to me for the next 32 years!
And so my tale of father now closes. I know less about his other six marriages or him during this time.
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Monday, March 7, 2011
Monday, November 1, 2010
Spooky Story
Being as we just had Halloween, it is the perfect time to tell something spooky and of course about father.
Now, something had gone terribly wrong with my sister and she was rushed off to California for surgery accompanied by my mother, so that left father and I as bachelors, and yes, we were a bit bored. So we planned to take a Saturday and building something fun with my father's Erector Set.
The day started out normally enough: father made Rosti - a Swiss potato dish he made for us kids on Saturday mornings. We cleaned up and set up to build something with the cool erector Set!
Only, there was this HUGE explosion which rocked the house and we ran outside. All of the neighbors were also coming out as well. The blast was still echoing around the Willamette River valley below us. Dad called the police but there were no explosions they knew of. Next he called the Portland Air Base and reported the sound. They had heard it too and had already identified it as a super-sonic blast. Only problem - there were no aircraft anywhere over the area on radar.....
Everyone went back to their homes scratching their heads over that one.
So, father and I returned to our construction and built an elevator which would lift a marble, drop it onto a rail, where it would run around for a while and then hit the elevator at the bottom just in time for a ride back up. Mesmerizing.
Father took a bathroom break and I went and got some water for us. We both walked back in just about the same time, I just a few feet ahead of him.
In the center of the room, in the corner of my eye I saw something, to this day I have no idea what it was but it went from hanging in the air to a blur of acceleration in a fraction of a second! I yelled at father to duck and threw myself backwards. Father did the same and the what ever it was streaked within inches of his face was he was falling. It then buried itself into the hallway wall.
Father was naturally quite shaken. We both just stood and looked at the hole in the wall and eventually father reached in with a pair of pliers and pulled out a little car build out of Erector Set Parts. We looked at each other and ran to the table where our marble carrier stood. It was still completely assembled - only the marble carrier was missing from the elevator shaft!
A hoist engine and wheel sat directly over the elevator shaft. There was no way the little car could have been removed - and yet IT WAS!
No question something para-normal had occurred, no question there was no natural explanation, no question it had happened, no question it could have killed father, no question about that hole in the wall either.....
On base, the police had a good laugh until they came out to the house and saw the evidence. Of course, everyone thought I had thrown the item, but I had two cups of water and was a might small as it was. The hole in the all looked like a bazooka had hit it. One of the guardsmen even tried to punch a hole in the hallway wall with his gloved fist - but it was a lath-wood wall and all he did was break a bunch of fingers. Literally!
We left the house for a few days and I think went camping. Father was to never mention this again to anyone, even me - aside from one comment one time - "It must have been done with magnets....". And I think we are at the point where what existed of father's religious faith had died ...
Now, something had gone terribly wrong with my sister and she was rushed off to California for surgery accompanied by my mother, so that left father and I as bachelors, and yes, we were a bit bored. So we planned to take a Saturday and building something fun with my father's Erector Set.
The day started out normally enough: father made Rosti - a Swiss potato dish he made for us kids on Saturday mornings. We cleaned up and set up to build something with the cool erector Set!
Only, there was this HUGE explosion which rocked the house and we ran outside. All of the neighbors were also coming out as well. The blast was still echoing around the Willamette River valley below us. Dad called the police but there were no explosions they knew of. Next he called the Portland Air Base and reported the sound. They had heard it too and had already identified it as a super-sonic blast. Only problem - there were no aircraft anywhere over the area on radar.....
Everyone went back to their homes scratching their heads over that one.
So, father and I returned to our construction and built an elevator which would lift a marble, drop it onto a rail, where it would run around for a while and then hit the elevator at the bottom just in time for a ride back up. Mesmerizing.
Father took a bathroom break and I went and got some water for us. We both walked back in just about the same time, I just a few feet ahead of him.
In the center of the room, in the corner of my eye I saw something, to this day I have no idea what it was but it went from hanging in the air to a blur of acceleration in a fraction of a second! I yelled at father to duck and threw myself backwards. Father did the same and the what ever it was streaked within inches of his face was he was falling. It then buried itself into the hallway wall.
Father was naturally quite shaken. We both just stood and looked at the hole in the wall and eventually father reached in with a pair of pliers and pulled out a little car build out of Erector Set Parts. We looked at each other and ran to the table where our marble carrier stood. It was still completely assembled - only the marble carrier was missing from the elevator shaft!
A hoist engine and wheel sat directly over the elevator shaft. There was no way the little car could have been removed - and yet IT WAS!
No question something para-normal had occurred, no question there was no natural explanation, no question it had happened, no question it could have killed father, no question about that hole in the wall either.....
On base, the police had a good laugh until they came out to the house and saw the evidence. Of course, everyone thought I had thrown the item, but I had two cups of water and was a might small as it was. The hole in the all looked like a bazooka had hit it. One of the guardsmen even tried to punch a hole in the hallway wall with his gloved fist - but it was a lath-wood wall and all he did was break a bunch of fingers. Literally!
We left the house for a few days and I think went camping. Father was to never mention this again to anyone, even me - aside from one comment one time - "It must have been done with magnets....". And I think we are at the point where what existed of father's religious faith had died ...
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Subject of Religion
This is the appropriate time to discuss father and his religious beliefs. Why? Because you have to remember earlier I told you about father converting to Judaism before marrying Monika, the young female prisoner he had met while interned at Wöbbelin. So father was circumcised and this knowledge may have lead to a mis-identification of him by the US military.
To the US Military they had a quandary on their hands. Father was known to have escaped from the advancing Russians, placing him on the east side of the Elbe River. He was Jewish, that was obviously apparent from his medical examination. Jewish, eastern Europe, survivor. That pretty limited him to Nordhausen or Mittelbau. But, was it possible to have escaped the SS carnage the US Army had discovered before the Russians had advanced on the Mittelbau complex? This also meant he was a scientist or at the least science labor. He had to have been familiar with the rocket programs. So, his enigmatic past drew attention to him he really did not want. Could it be there was anyone whom could be found whom knew him before his marriage to mother?
Father was really born into a Lutheran family in the small town of Munchstein, in Baslestadt, Switzerland. The year he ran away from home, to join the Nazi cause, was also the year he went through Lutheran confirmation. His family, and the church's pastors, all believed father was destined to join the priesthood.
Those Lutheran beliefs were obviously killed by the war - he saw what Lutherans were capable of - first hand. His conversion to Judaism I am fairly certain was completely based on his sense of national and personal guilt. What happened in the concentration camps was to have quite an impact on all of Germany and all whom I grew up with. (And, yes, I understand that it was not the Lutherans whom were running the Nazi Party, but this was HIS take on the situation! In truth, 7.5 million Christians were sent to the concentration camps for opposing Hitlers agenda.)
Father still held to his Judaism. When I was born he personally brought in a Rabbi from Sacramento, California to see to my circumcision, on the eighth day, as required. I was unable to be taken out the hospital for the first several months of life. Babies of extra young mothers have a great many challenges in just surviving.
As I grew up, father taught me the Law of Moses, how to pray - in Yiddish, God's language of course!, and with a firm understanding that there is God - but you really do not want to know Him since he is not a very good god to his people. I should say that part was beaten into me more than anything.
As I grew older, into teenage hood, father and mother clashed more and more over religion and food, eventually this brought about their divorce. But we can look into that episode much later!
Following his divorce from my mother, father became an outright atheist. Except he knew there was a God, he just did not what any part of him any longer. So, perhaps it would be best to categorize father as a gnostic for the final fifty years of his life. And, my becoming a Christian was about the final straw for him concerning me.....
To the US Military they had a quandary on their hands. Father was known to have escaped from the advancing Russians, placing him on the east side of the Elbe River. He was Jewish, that was obviously apparent from his medical examination. Jewish, eastern Europe, survivor. That pretty limited him to Nordhausen or Mittelbau. But, was it possible to have escaped the SS carnage the US Army had discovered before the Russians had advanced on the Mittelbau complex? This also meant he was a scientist or at the least science labor. He had to have been familiar with the rocket programs. So, his enigmatic past drew attention to him he really did not want. Could it be there was anyone whom could be found whom knew him before his marriage to mother?
Father was really born into a Lutheran family in the small town of Munchstein, in Baslestadt, Switzerland. The year he ran away from home, to join the Nazi cause, was also the year he went through Lutheran confirmation. His family, and the church's pastors, all believed father was destined to join the priesthood.
Those Lutheran beliefs were obviously killed by the war - he saw what Lutherans were capable of - first hand. His conversion to Judaism I am fairly certain was completely based on his sense of national and personal guilt. What happened in the concentration camps was to have quite an impact on all of Germany and all whom I grew up with. (And, yes, I understand that it was not the Lutherans whom were running the Nazi Party, but this was HIS take on the situation! In truth, 7.5 million Christians were sent to the concentration camps for opposing Hitlers agenda.)
Father still held to his Judaism. When I was born he personally brought in a Rabbi from Sacramento, California to see to my circumcision, on the eighth day, as required. I was unable to be taken out the hospital for the first several months of life. Babies of extra young mothers have a great many challenges in just surviving.
As I grew up, father taught me the Law of Moses, how to pray - in Yiddish, God's language of course!, and with a firm understanding that there is God - but you really do not want to know Him since he is not a very good god to his people. I should say that part was beaten into me more than anything.
As I grew older, into teenage hood, father and mother clashed more and more over religion and food, eventually this brought about their divorce. But we can look into that episode much later!
Following his divorce from my mother, father became an outright atheist. Except he knew there was a God, he just did not what any part of him any longer. So, perhaps it would be best to categorize father as a gnostic for the final fifty years of his life. And, my becoming a Christian was about the final straw for him concerning me.....
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