Thüringen, 1976. A little boy goes to his grandmother a bumpy cobblestone street. They were just in the "back", the local dialectical description of the local small bakery, to buy the boy a warm yet crisp bread, fresh from the oven blackened. Soon after, the old baker will acknowledge his service, and a new start to his. The old bakery, the villagers still had dragged their own, fresh layer cake plates, to make them (in the absence of their own powerful oven) from him bake. The new bakery, we do not do this any more.
The boy, He is at this time 4 years old, and his grandmother are on the way to the "pub", the only restaurant of the village. There, the woman deserves a portion of their livelihood as a cleaning woman. Today we would glorify their job well as a "Facility Management", 1976 no one would come to such a hare-brained idea. Also, since the woman her tasks so diligently and with dignity pursues her own resolute that no one even comes up with the idea to see it as something inferior.
The boy is so huge on the stage of him appearing dance hall sitting, devoted to a "double-Caramel", the DDR-malt beer-variant, suck, and the grandmother here , Watch how they dealt with the ancient, creaking wooden floor. The unpleasant smell of cold smoke, which hangs like lead in the high space is replaced by the distinctive, slightly intoxicating smell of the beans grow. The boy is happy because he does not have to like other peers in the afternoon to spend in the kindergarten. The grandmother has not made him obsolete before the usually quite rich and hearty lunch, as every day. Not that his grandma's food always tastes good, the boy is quite picky, others call it fussy. Sometimes he can soften her heart with his whining, and it is him as the scrape with cracklings and onion pieces spiced tomato sauce through a sieve. Years later he will cook his tomato sauce recipe for her, but in 1976 he suspects it yet.
Sometimes, however, they remain hard, and the boy will sit as a small eternity before a plate of barley growing cold, until a skin forms on it, not necessarily contributing to the appetite of the boy.
Nevertheless, he is glad not to have to be in kindergarten. It does not taste the food there, the children of it are sometimes too wild, and it is the woman shepherd. Mrs Shepherd, a crotchety old maid slips, sometimes "out of hand," which brings them more than once in serious conflict with parents. Since it is also agreed in 1976 on the village: to be beaten Kinder, wenn überhaupt, nur zuhause.
Zurück zu dem Jungen, dessen kindlicher Kosmos im Wesentlichen aus dem Haus seiner Oma besteht. Vor dem Haus fließt die Hachel, ein lauschiges Bächlein, das einmal zur Schneeschmelze zu einem reißenden Fluß anschwoll und deswegen Jahre später in ein übergroßes, häßliches Betonbett gesperrt wurde. Der Bach ergießt sich in die Wipper, ein träges kleines Flüßchen, das dem Jungen stets einen Heidenrespekt einflößt, wann immer er in seine Nähe kommt. Nicht nur wegen des kleinen Stauwehres an einer ehemaligen Mühle, wo Treibholz und Abfall auf den schmutzig braunen Schaumkronen des aufgewühlten Wassers tanzen. Sondern auch, because, according to the grandmother in the river water witch lives, draws the unwary children from the thick, dark green arms of the slow meandering algae. Soon the fear the boy will become even worse when he hears the adults talk about that "Trude", a little crazy, but harmless neighbor, "went into the water" was. The ideas that trigger these words the boy to be put to him in the nights following some violent nightmares.
Behind the house there is a large garden. Here is a sour cherry tree, whose bitter fruits are only suitable for direct human consumption, from which the grandma but a Cake is able to conjure, is second to none and is one of the absolute favorites of the pastry-boy. The most beautiful season in this garden is the fall. can then ripe apples and grapes, and the dry Erbsstroh is burned in the hot ashes to bake perfect potatoes. From every pore of smoke smelling the boy is then displayed on the small kitchen sink and scrub with cold water the soot from his hands. Meanwhile, Grandma is baking on the hot stove of the kitchen stove wafer-thin slices of raw potato to 'Schiwwerchen, crispy, salty potato chips.
at all in 1976, the sanitary facilities at the House of Granny noch recht rudimentär. Dusche oder Badewanne mit fließend Wasser gibt es nicht, für kleine und große „Geschäfte“ steht im Hof ein solide gemauertes Plumsklo bereit. Hier hat allerdings schon der Fortschritt Einzug gehalten. Statt des ortsüblichen Brettes mit Loch gibt es eine weiße Kloschüssel mit schwarzer Bakelit-Klobrille, aber ohne Spülung. Im Winter macht der eiskalte Kunststoff jeden Toilettengang zu einer Prüfung der Selbstüberwindung. Zu anderen Zeiten allerdings sitzt der Junge oft ausdauernd auf der Toilette und studiert die Witzeseite der "Bauern-Zeitung", etwas, was sich zu einem echten Hobby auswachsen wird, sobald der Junge lesen gelernt hat.
Doch nicht nur Garten, Scheune and chicken along with dog foxel, a washing time, good-hearted mongrel, provide for a four-year-old plenty of opportunities for diversion, although the boy is a rather quiet, sometimes solitary child who withdraws often just with a book in a quiet corner. Apart from this, but has the crooked half-timbered house of the grandmother have enough hiding places and rooms in order to distribute any boredom.
among the building include:
- a kitchen in which the grandmother in the weeks before Christmas in dim light the most delicious ginger bread and real Thuringian "Schittchen", ie Christmas cake, bake, though the boy was still keine Rosinen mag. Einer der Stollen findet jedes Jahr seinen Weg zur Tante Frieda in Neuwied im "Westen", einer freundlichen älteren Dame und Schwester der Oma, die dem Jungen bei ihren seltenen Besuchen mit ihrem rheinländischen Singsang immer übertrieben vornehm erscheint, ein bißchen wie Fräulein Rottenmeier aus den Heidi-Filmen, nur freundlicher.
- ein Wohnzimmer, in dem der Junge entweder mit seiner Oma ein „Quarksack“ genanntes und vermutlich frei erfundenes Kartenspiel spielt oder sein ebenfalls im Hause lebender, damals noch im Teenager-Alter befindlicher Onkel G. seine kleine Modelleisenbahn aufbaut. Der schlaksige, blonde Junge läßtß sich nur selten dazu überreden, meistens ist ohnehin the decrepit transformer defective. G., the only all in the village called "Hopper" and with his glasses somehow reminiscent of the young John Lennon, otherwise mostly sits in his little room and listen to Smokie, Uriah Heep and Udo Lindenberg. Above his bed hangs a brown poster that any long-haired rock band is, with the boy (still) can not handle. The three other main memories of G. comprise from that time, "muscle strikes" called torture, frozen milk from the HO, which has long enriched with vanilla sugar until it run out and went to grandma began to curse, and a memorable appearance as a fair guy, where G is drunk brawling in the hallway and tossed the grandmother allowed himself to one of the few swear words ("pig").
- a pantry, is stored in all sorts of things, such as stored there each year to the Schittchenteig that must before baking rest for three days,
- a dark corner under the stairs, where shoes and cleaning materials are available and before the young ones scared, has
- a low, dark cellar, which essentially coal, potatoes, and thick glass jars containing spiders and stands on the narrow stairs always a clay pot with pickled cucumbers themselves.
The upper floor includes the retreat of the uncle and the joint Grandma and the boy's bedroom. In winter, the boy nestled in the somewhat antiquated-looking, red-hot aluminum water bottle and throws out from under the giant duvet chilling look at the eisglitzernden walls.
And then there's the dusty attic, a space that is allowed to enter the boy very often. can old records and books, rags, from which the grandmother sew the most practical things, and the aforementioned model railway store here in boxes and old cardboard suitcase, the most wonderful treasures.
In the years to allow the boy to kindergarten behind and go to school, first in the neighboring village, and later in his home village. Is always the grandmother at his side, will cook for him and his mother do with him homework. She will be there when he - by chance - his first word write ("Rooster") and if in the local forest pool, where she sits in the cool moist ticket booth and sold tickets and Hansa cookies, his first swimming stage stores. It will upset later about his fashion and they can repair the ripped jeans to his no small terror. She will make skeptical comments about his first girlfriend, also on the second and third.
The boy will molt at this time to the class leader and heartthrob. The onset of puberty, he hated his blonde Locken rauben und durch dunkles, glattes Haar (gut) und Pickel (nicht so gut) ersetzen. Er wird sich Ohrlöcher stechen lassen und seinen Ekel vor Zwiebeln und Speck nachhaltig überwinden. Er wird immer noch täglich bei seiner Oma Mittag essen und deren deftige Hausmannskost mehr und mehr zu schätzen lernen, froh, nicht an der äußerst gewöhnungsbedürftigen Schulspeisung teilnehmen zu müssen. Er wird immer seltener und später gar nicht mehr bei der Oma übernachten, denn die Eltern haben gebaut, und er hat nun sein eigenes Zimmer, dessen Wände bald Depeche Mode- und Samantha Fox-Poster zieren werden.
Von all dem ahnen aber weder der Junge, noch die Oma etwas, als sie im Jahr 1976 Brötchen chewing, walking down the street, everybody happy in the presence of the other.
The boy I am. The woman died this morning.
