My first deed I arrived.
Delivered from my mother’s womb in 1937, I was tossed into a world of turmoil. Adolf Hitler, the most evil being the world has ever known, was amassing power, to this day I cannot understand why he could, and was set on conquering the world, whilst the world sat still in apathy or thinking good would come to them.
My father, Rudolf, he was called Rudi by everyone, would always introduce himself in a fashion everyone would recall for years: “My name is Dinter in summer and in winter.” He was a cheerful man always with a friendly word on his lips and a helping hand at his disposal, so my mother told us. My three siblings and I called her affectionately Mutti.
My father had no higher education. After he finished elementary education he set out to conquer the world, leaving behind a small coal mining town in Silesia to seek a better life in Berlin. His father was a coal miner.
Before I tell you my story, I need to tell you who I am and why I got involved. It is not in my nature to let work stand that shows lack of reaching for perfection. I shall do so when I can again.
That I was taught by my mother — I was deprived of the opportunity to be guided by my father. I learned from my mother to live orderly and respect others (people and things), and how to survive and how to move on.
I was only six when the war’s madness took my father at the age of 36 and left behind a widow with four children. I, the oldest, had just completed the first grade and the youngest was walking now. The day the ever-cheerful postal mistress delivered the news, I saw Mutti cry for the very first time.
We youngsters would be standing in the street watching the flak chase the American bombers heading in broad daylight to Berlin.
It was just a few days after the last German soldiers passed through our tiny village when a neighbor came with a wounded horse left in the woods by those fleeing soldiers in attempts not to be captured by the Russians. We had a stable large enough to border a horse.
The adults considered the find a blessing. Food was scarce, the poor animal was slaughtered, and the meat distributed to the neighbors. We children were scared, huddled in the living room, and hungry. Soon Mutti entered the room, with a smile of satisfaction indicating good news and holding a bowl in her hands. We stilled our hunger with boiled kidneys and other hunger-stilling items, including the poor horse’s heart.
How can I forget the devastating day when I let my friends down
It was about five years after the war had ended, we are now ten to twelve years old, and were itching to play Fussball, also known as soccer.
Everybody knew I had a rich aunt in America because aunt Gertrude, my late father’s oldest sister, who lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, sent us those wonderful packages every month filled with food and clothes.
“Heinz, why don’t you ask your aunt to send us a Fussball?” was the plea from my playmates.
I promptly wrote the letter and everybody waited in great anticipation. It was a long wait because each mail journey from communist East Germany across the Atlantic Ocean to the Imperialistic USA took a month, sometimes more.
And then another package arrived from our beloved aunt in America. The news spread like a flash fire. The boys were lining up in front of our house and the excitement was barely controllable.
Nestled among bars of chocolate, bags of coffee and beans, and shirts and dresses was the ball, seeking inflation.
I grabbed the ball and inflation utensils and dashed outside, so proud of having been able to make my friends happy.
We took turns pumping and pumping. The ball simply did not take on the proper shape. When no more air could possibly be pumped into our Fussball, we resigned ourselves to the fact we did not have in our hands that which would let us enjoy our beloved game.
I hasten to add here, aunt Gertrude meant well. Today I regret never having told her; we could have had a good laugh after all.
Mutti’s voice keeps me going I still hear my mother’s voice (I and my three younger siblings called her affectionately, Mutti) — though it’s been more than half a century ago: “Heinz, time to get up.” It was to awaken me at 5:30 in the morning for my train ride to Lutherstadt Wittenberg where I attended high school, waited for my return ride home under the oak tree planted in Martin Luther’s honor, and bicycled during the summer months past the historic structure where the reformer nailed his 95 theses on the castle church door some 500 years ago.
I am now facing the worst straits of my entire 71-year challenges and entrepreneurship (please visit
http://www.grandlifestyle.com/ and click on “About Us”).
My web design business was hit by a reversal last December, the booklet publishing and selling at my website offers little hope at the moment, and my
http://www.dadelanddoings.com/ venture with a bright future ahead is facing walls of resistance triggered by sabotage.
My book, telling the story of my escapades as a 6-year-old schlepping the Nazi swastika flag behind a column of German soldiers, Mutti had not yet put away the flag after the monster’s birthday on April 20 in 1944 and our father, dressed in uniform and loaded with military gear, had left us for the left time to report to the western front following his convalescence from wounds suffered at Stalingrad; watching a Russian soldier steal my bike, but he didn’t know how to ride it; watching Russian soldiers rape, but I didn’t know at the time what it was all about, tells my story. It tells how I grew up under Communist rule and escaped to West Berlin where I was reunited with a high school mate from East Germany who like I dared to read and share with others Western literature. He, at 19, had just been released from a two-year punishment in a Siberian Gulag.
I realized my dream in 1957 when I arrived in America, found it puzzling to be awakened from my slumber on the last row of the bus because two blacks came aboard. (I had worked all night cleaning the hotel’s kitchen and restaurant where I worked, and was traveling by bus from Fort Lauderdale to Miami looking forward to a wonderful day with a friend I had met in evening class where we learned English.) They were not allowed to sit in front of me because I am white. I was instructed by the bus driver to move forward and make room for the new passengers. My English wasn’t good enough to ask the simple question: Why? I simply did not understand why I was made to move.
I reached the top of the education ladder; was very successful in my business endeavors which had their beginning as a data processing specialist in the United States Air Force; and raised a happy family with twin children. I then crashed; I was burned out.
On my way back, success blessed me again, especially in the world of publishing, including a significant book publishing contract with a major publishing house.
My involvement in condominium life led to major struggles on behalf of my condo neighbors and my writing was extensive.
I also devoted myself to helping a sufferer whose alcoholism led to her far too early death. It was a trying time laden with calls for help, search for solutions, and tears.
Examples of my writing are at my website, including
CONDO SERFS, Apathy
Reigns,
Booze Will Do You In, and
CONDO COMMANDO.
I must complete my book and secure for myself a peace-of-mind lifestyle with my message and my activities.
Will my publishing the truth tie me to the stake engulfed in flames or will my stubborn airing of the facts cause me to plant an oak tree in the spot where the bulls condemning me were turned to ashes?
Martin Luther’s words, “Peace if possible, but truth at any rate,” ring in my ears and the Golden Rule frames my conduct.
Your understanding will save a soul and give credence to all the messages of hope, encouragement and commitment I published as
FridgeTips, including “What shall we live by? The Golden Rule”, at
http://www.grandlifestyle.com/.
My spirits, though presently clouded by severely distracting pain, are high and are geared toward doing good deeds. I am not discouraged by the cynical words bandied about, “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.”
