Family: The Bayers

Growing up as a military brat helped make me strong in some ways, but the other side of that coin was a touch of a lack of roots.  What made up for this was largely the Bayers.  They were my Mom's step brother and his family, and lived in Wernau am Neckar, a small town about 25 km west of Stuttgart on the Neckar river.  Some of my earliest memories include being told that some people were coming to visit who were Mom's family, and then being introduced to Oncle Georg, Tante Leni and their three son's Rheinhart, Herbert, and Georg.  Thus started a wonderful relationship that, for this survivor of the intervening 50 or so years meant so much more than I can convey with our written word.  I never found out how my Dad first met Leni and Georg, but I gather that they, like Mom, were all from the Banaat and had been friends since childhood.  In any event, there was never a time that I knew when Georg and Dad were not the best of friends, with Dad and him walking, or sitting talking in a mix of English-German, drinking their beers, eating a meal, while Leni and Mom bustled around preparing the next meal or sat and shared in the discussion, or talked between themselves in German.  It was an idyllic time, with these most wonderful people in my, and our family's life.

The two older sons were nice, and often played the small kid games that I and Sis would play being much younger, but of course had other things to do.  During the early years they were often out doing, I presume, what older kids did back in 1960's southern Germany.  I remember once visiting the Bayers from Ramstein, or perhaps it was while we lived in Wernau, and going to see Reinhart play on the town team at the local soccer field.  I do not recall the game's outcome or much about it, just that, as was often the case, the weather was gray, damp and dreary and I do have a few snippets of action memories that may be from that game, but I do remember the sense of family as I always did when spending time with them.  Oncle Georg and Tante Leni were always nice to us, and were of course adults who were to be respected as were my parents.  But young Georg, about three years older than me, and I became friends.  So many memories of him.  He had a lifelong collection of model trucks, probably hundreds, but in the early days I remember a cool sports car with a passenger ejection seat.  While they were visiting us  (I recall that because I recall the carpet that we were playing on) he told me it was a James Bond car, which is the first I recall hearing anything about that character.  Once when we were playing in the fields around his house (now since built over), we started breaking off the tall grass' and throwing them like spears.  It was all fun until one of his throws hit me in the eye.  Luckily, the damage was limited to some pain, but we rushed in so the grown-ups could take care of it and of course give us a lecture about not playing like that.  Another favorite memory was when Georg and I were sent to the basement to bring up a couple of beer's for the Dads.  Memory fails as to how I got the idea to shake it up, but I think young Georg may have had something to do with that, and I do recall the very impressive fountain that erupted when Dad opened it up.  Those were the days when the cap of the bottle was a rubber gasket around a hard plug, held onto the bottle with a heavy wire that was designed to be pushed out and instantly released by the thumbs, so when Dad opened it there was no delay to alert him that the near ceiling high burst of beer goodness was about to happen - the opener was pushed and the fountain released.  At first I stared in wonder, as I had never seen anything like that before.  Up until than, beer had stayed in the bottle waiting to be poured, but this time it was in a rush to get out of the bottle.  Needless to say Dad was not pleased, but thankfully Oncle Georg said something about they are kids and I was let go with a warning.  If I recall, Oncle Georg did not open the bottle that Cousin Georg had brought him, perhaps knowing that a second waste of good German beer would have been the result.  German houses often had door locks that used keys, and once I managed to lock the door from the inside and could not get the door unlocked.  I still do not recall how they did it, but Dad and Oncle Georg were able to unlock the door, and again Oncle Georg saved me from the wrath of Dad, noting that as a young boy I was doomed to do silly things, although I doubt he said it in quite those words.

After Dad retired we moved to Wernau.  A quiet, small town back then.  Some may find it strange that my parents chose to retire in Germany, but I think there were and are many good qualities about the country and her people that made this choice a possibility, and the fact that Mom had a lot of family in the Stuttgart area sealed the deal.  Dad's family was not as close as Mom's was, and so that must not have been much of a draw to go back to the US, but when you toss in the chance to avoid some of the issues that the US had back in those days while adding the Bayers to the equation it came up pretty strong for staying in country.

We were one of very few foreign families living in Wernau.  Dad had bought a VW Beetle while we lived in Ramstein, and that was our car until we left Germany.  So many fond memories of the things we did with that car.  Most weekends we would take a trip, visiting castles, forests, towns.  Some of our favorite places:  The castle in Ramstein, home of the famous knight Franz von Sickingen, which I liked so much that it became my castle (years later, when I was visiting while on TDY I went back, awakening long dormant memories of the good times I spent there.  The old man selling tickets looked somehow familiar, and I mentioned that as a child I had been there, asking if he had been there too.  He smiled and said that his father had been there back in those days.).  In the winter, I would throw snowballs at the invaders coming up the path, though I never hit anyone the defense of Burg Sickingen was always a success.  Other castles, especially the well preserved ones with museums (Goetz von Berlichingen's castle, Burg von Hohenzollern, so many others).  The Black Forest held a certain call on my Dad, I think, and we spent many pleasant times there.  A little Gasthouse called Johanneskreuz was a great favorite to stop off, have a drink, and go exploring.  Dad kept a map on which he marked a lot of the roads we travelled, always seeking new ones.  We had a nice tent and often went camping, once the big news was that if the sky was clear that we could see a spaceship pass overhead.  I do not remember if it was a Mercury or a Gemini capsule, but I do remember the sense of awe as dozens of campers all looked up and saw that small dot of light move over the sky.  Camping was also where I had my one and only up close and personal meeting with a cigarette.  Mom smoked, a nasty habit she had picked up during the war, and once she handed me her cigarette when Dad asked her to hold part of the tent while he put it up.  Of course I took a couple of puffs.  She came back as I felt that my chest was about to explode and that the coughing fit was about to send out my lungs, calmly asked if I had taken a puff, and after getting the obvious answer asked if I would ever smoke again.  The correct and only answer that made sense was given, and I have never wanted to experience that again.  By the time we left Germany that Beetle had about 200,000 kilometers on it.

So every once in a while we would pile into the car and head out to visit the Bayers or the Steyers or other members of the family who lived in the area.  This was not a rare occurrence; the trip to Reutlingen was one we took several times a year, and they had a nice attic that Sis and I played in, with sacks of dried vegetables and some basic toys to keep us out of the grown-ups hair for a few hours.  There was once a great gathering of the family, with people from all over visiting.  I am pretty sure that my aunt from Vienna was there, and several people from Argentina who had emigrated after the war, and almost all the relatives from the Stuttgart area.  I do not remember if the Bayers were there, which means they probably were not, and if I recall I overheard Mom mention that there was some disagreement between them and the Reutlingen family.  That was not a small number, probably more than thirty, and of course I cannot remember them all.  But we had a good number of less close family in that area, and the house was packed.  I remember one particularly pretty girl from Argentina, whose name was - I think - Hilde, and who was noteworthy because she was nice to the smaller kids.  I remember little else except a few flashbacks about a packed house, Mom and Dad being busy, and generally feeling good about being a part of the wonderful group of people but not having a lot of interaction with really close family.  Of course, it has been about 50 years since that meeting, and I do not remember most of the people.  But the sense of pride that we had so many family stayed with me for a long time, despite my never having met most of them again, and having lost touch when my Mom died.

All good things come to an end, and eventually, out of the blue, my parents decided to return to the US.  It was many years later, while visiting Georg in his home at Koengen, that he told me that the reason my parents decided to move was the resurgence of Nazi sympathies.  My parents had already fought that war once, and being a mixed race American couple did not want to put Sis and me at risk, and decided to leave before there was trouble.  I do not recall if I was wise enough to know that we were leaving everything that I held dear - family, friends, school, town, castles, drives in the countryside, etc. - but so it was.  I remember being a little sad, and selling the great mass of Legos that had been my favorite toy, to my best non-Georg friend.  It was not for some time after settling in Albuquerque that little twinges of regret started.  Yes, I had new friends, a lot of them, and I had no trouble adapting to my new culture, and school was not hard after surviving four years at the Schlossgarten Schule in Wernau, but I did miss the more laid back, more mellow, German way of life.  And I did miss the Bayers.

The next time I saw them face to face was in 1980, as I was a year from starting my life on my own.  My Dad had died, and Mom decided to take me and go visit Germany, for the last time as it turned out.  We visited Frankfurt, seeing her old friends, and then spent a week or so in Wernau with the Bayers and Steyers and others.  It was a good time.  I met my cousin Silke for the first time, she was a little girl who I carried around up and down the long stairs to the community swimming pool to visit Tante Leni.  Years later I would carry my own daughter in much the same way.  We caught up with all, going to visit Reinhart and his family near Ulm, playing tourist, and overall starting up like there had not been an interval of over 10 years.  I found out that a great stamp collection had been mailed to me, but it had never arrived, and so I believe to this day that a scum thief working for either the German or the US postal services stole it.  May they rot for that.  I met an Uncle who had been a soldier in WW II, had posed in an SS uniform, but told us that indeed he had been in the regular Army.  All nice people, warm hearted, family.  It was great seeing Georg again.  Two stories come to mind as I write this.  First, while taking a train back by myself from visiting ... someone (I think the people in Reutlingen) ... I learned how the right cloths can make a lot of difference in how you are treated.  I had bought the 2nd class fare, but was dressed in suit and tie (Mom wanted me to impress and I did) and not knowing the designation of 2nd vs. 1st class compartments sat in a 1st class cabin.  The Ticket Checker came by, looked at me, greeted me, and went on.  It was a while later when I realized I was in the wrong type of cabin.  Second, I learned how apparently most Germans are very friendly even to strangers.  Georg took me to a club, a club where local youth hung out.  It was reached by walking through an insanely narrow alley to a non-descript door.  Georg knocked, and the old speakeasy window slid open.  He spoke a moment and the door opened.  The room was dimly lit, with dark furniture, a bar, music but not to the deafening volume that kept me from enjoying any of the typical bars here in the US when I was still foolish enough to go into them, and a lot of nice people most of who seemed to know Georg.  There followed hours of meeting and talking to a whole host of young people, most of whom welcomed "Georg's American cousin" very warmly.  Much good beer was consumed, which may have been a bit of a downer since the next morning I woke up thinking that at least two of the young ladies had asked me out, but sadly after I was a bit far gone to realize it.

We left after that fine trip, and it would be several years before I was able to go back.  For six or seven years I spent about six months in Germany TDY, and I am glad that several times I was able to visit "the German relatives".  But I will write more of this later, or will at least plan to.

And so it was.

I write this with deep sadness.  Over the last two years Uncle Georg and Tante Leni have both died, and my cousin Georg went before them a year before.  Sad, sad.  I had had this wish, to spend time with Sharon visiting with and hosting the younger Georg and Angelika as our parents had done 40 years ago.  Those memories show the parents as happy, comfortable, at ease with the world, and enjoying being in each other's presence.  I so wanted to see if our generation could have that as well.

On the year of 2012, and the year of 2013. 

2012 was a fairly good year, with the exception of so many in this country showing themselves to be either gullible and naïve fools, or racists, or single issue / selfish enough to vote for the continuing disaster in DC. But, not everyone can be smart enough to understand the fundamental truth in Einstein's famous saying that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I guess four years of failed socialist policy was not enough to convince people to look beyond the charisma, the sound bites, and the lies.

But the US is still fairly strong, can still recover and improve.

The world continues.  Things change, some for the better, some not so much.

Here we are, about half done with 2013.  We continue to stagnate economically, with more and more proof that the administration's policies are the policies of failure.  No noteworthy job growth, with ever more giving up even looking for a job.  The illegals continue to be welcome to helping themselves to stealing our goods, our hard won gains.  The housing situation is still having ups and downs rather than steady growth, the country continues to be divided as the mass of useless people continue to think they are owed more from those who actually work.  Justice continues to take a back seat to political correctness, and truth takes hits on a daily basis from the lies that are used to keep the country from rising up and demanding impeachment. 

And yet, the core strength and good that is the American spirit will not be stopped, will not give up.  With every defeat of the socialist agenda, with every voice that will not be stilled in calling out for truth, and justice, and right, we hold on, we return a bit of power to the people.