Dads stories

Sent: Saturday, 20 May 2000 9:43 PM
Dear Harald,

That is a long and informative letter! (I mean yours, after all this one here is not yet finished!)

Quoting from Harald’s email:

I had promised you more text for today. That you will get, however, different to what I had intended. Last night I dreamt about a remarkable bird, exactly what, I can’t recall. Just the mere thought of it makes me ponder! And I must say I preferred the dreams I used to have about Jenny (another character in Dad’s book)….

Hence I am asking you for a break, as far as the work on the stories. Otherwise in the end we will loose our connection to the real world! I especially am lately thinking more and more about the fictitious fantasy characters. The break won’t be for too long, because I am intrigued by the characters. In the meantime little Harald can worry about giving his students a good start at life, THE (great) OLD MAN (who) TURNS 70 can prepare himself with his dear Hedwig with a clear head, for the great occasion, “the BIG DAY”. And at the same time we will write each other a few nice things (hopefully) about the trivial things of life.

I hope you can live with this for a while and are not upset with me.

……….

Back to Dad’s email:

Please excuse my big grin, I am not laughing at your expense! Of course we will have a break,  as long as you like! I was always worried that you were drowning in these stories. And I can imagine that the characters are chasing after you. I have the same problem. One of the reasons why I can’t start with the next story is that the previous ones are still running around quite lively in my head and so don’t let me get a foot into the next one! So, a break is the only correct thing. And the big bird, which followed you into your nightmare! The emu is big but a very good natured bird, with a great sense of humour. I had an experience with this and I will tell you my own funny story towards the end of this letter.

“no, no, no! Nothing doing, Cuckoo” Hedwig’s veto. She doesn’t like it. Many reasons, but mainly to do with the money that this would cost, and the distance, and whatever. She would rather everyone comes here. I mean, we have massive amounts of room, the living room alone is 4m by 4m, no worries!  I kept my mouth shut! Of course, if I would say, Cuckoo…that would be the last word. But to be honest, I really don’t care, and they will have to sort it all out themselves! I used to be all for lots of parties. Couldn’t get enough of them. But that was 30 years ago. My philosophy now is “the way of least resistance”. Chinese wisdom. And I really don’t care.

Speaking of the weather. Here it is raining. Not enough. But winter has not yet started so we will most likely get more. The water reserves for Melbourne and surrounds are at the moment down to 47% The prescribed minimum for May is 45%, if it goes below that the water gets rationed. So then you will have to send us some water from Father Rhine. This has happened to us once before, 1966, when we first arrived in Melbourne.

As far as paragraph 4 goes: „there is no bigger pain than what we cause ourselves“!

Next paragraph: bookkeeping....I can’t think of anything worse. Years ago when I had to get my papers sorted out for our Tax Consultant, I was sick for weeks. And that is no exaggeration. I would have preferred to carry shitcans for the entire period (which I did a lot as a young boy. We had a „golden bucket“ as toilet in our village house after the good NSDAP philosopy of waste not want not, we also had pigs, a goat and rabbits, all under my care. And we had 1000 sq m of garden, and the same again on the opposite side of the street. No wonder that I don’t want to have anything to do with gardening).

As far as being frugal, Hedwig and I are the same. Not that I am a scrooge, far from it, at least as far as I am concerned. I am very much opposed to these financial vultures with their loans and credit cards, and from me they get nothing. I wish, in vain, that our kids would feel the same!

Who cares who in the marriage earns the most? I just said this to Hedwig and she said: „you can’t talk! It would have gone right against your principles if I had earned money!“ Well, that is not true at all. I said: „Listen, we both worked to the best of our abilities, for 40 years, we could not have done more if we had tried. So who cares where the money comes from?“.

But I can understand what you are saying. But could it be that you are too worried about what other people think? They probably would have done the same given your situation. Are their families as happy as yours? Probably not, in fact I would bet on it. So what more can one wish for in life?

By the way, now I know where we differ! You hate all form of handyman’s work. On the whole, so do I. The difference is that I have had to master nearly all crafts there are, at least in the home and in the theatre. So if there is anything you wish to know, as long as you don’t expect me to do it for you, ask me! Mind you, once I get started, I always sing. So it can’t have been as bad as all that!

A few weeks (or months) ago you asked me not to write any more about „it“ and I have stuck to it. But please let me say one thing further. Excessive physical activity do not prevent a heart attack, nor do they inprove your fitness. A heart attack is caused only by blockages in narrowed arteries. The narrowing of the arteries is caused by ageing and starts slowly at 40, and as far as I know can’t be avoided. One can of course speed it up with smoking. Excessive or unnatural physical activity speeds up the blood and increases the blood pressure. As a result of this, particles are pushed more often and faster through the arteries, which will then block the blood in a narrowed artery and this leads to a heart attack. If that should happen in the heart itself where the arteries are very thin, an entire branch of the cardic arteries will be stilled and hence die immediately and cause a heart attack. In my opinion, excessive physical activities are those that make you gasp for air, like Tennis. If you don’t have to gasp for air, then the exercise is normal. But I am not an expert nor a doctor. Pardon me but it seems to me that you are not doing yourself any favours with the Tennis. Of course each case is different, maybe you have an extraordinary constitution? Here we have an 80 year old who ran from Sydney to Melbourne and is still alive!

Oh..my specialist. I tried in a roundabout way to let him know that I was swallowing too many pills. He didn’t take the hint. Quite the opposite, now I swallow even more! „How are you?“ he asked. „Apart from sleeping around the clock and feeling lousy the rest of the time, I am very well, thank you“. Didn’t work. He is very good.

..........

The Emu, or better Katherine, seeing you have already heard about it.

We, Hedwig, Peter and I, camped there in 1982. Its a fantastic spot, big lake surrounded by a wall of cliffs. Lots of crocodiles, but not these dammed salties. They are Johnston Crocodiles, up to 4 meters long but not dangerous. Peter and I did a lot of swimming there. 15 years later a young lady had her leg bitten off, but maybe she was unresistably sweet!

Now, Hedwig was busy with her favourite pasttime – fishing (I hate it). You didn’t need any fancy rods. A fishingline on a reel was sufficient. And sure enough, there she had something on the line which was putting up a good fight. She was on her own but she managed to get the fish out of the water. Only it wasn’t a fish. It was a footlong turtle, with the hook in its throat. Hedwig tried to free the hook so that she could free the poor animal and return it to the water. But the line broke. Now what! She couldn’t throw the injured animal back into the water with the hook still in its throat. So she decided it was better to put it out of its misery and stabbed into the soft spot next to its head, using her kitchen knife. Most likely she had had it by then! She threw the dead turtle next to herself onto the grass. And then all she could do was watch how the turtle came back to life and with the knife sticking out of its shoulder like an antenna, proudly waddle to the water and dive headfirst into the waves! She probably still has that knife stuck in her shoulder, as a sign of her high rank. Those animals live to a very great age!

I regularly went for my jog, in the early morning, around 6am. I was only 52 then. I would run to the same place where Hedwig fished, and back again. Nobody else was so stupid to get up that early. One morning on the grass opposite me stood a giant emu. Now there was an emu at the campsite, but only as high as a man. He would run between everyone, very nosy, and always stole whatever was lying around, regardless of who was in the vicinity. They are very trusting. Well, I ran to the end of my stretch, looked behind me, but that strange bird was still standing on the same spot watching me. What to do? Return. I really felt a bit strange. I ran past the emu, tap, tap, tap, tap and he looked at me with an astonished look. And then I heard behind me tap, tap, tap, tap...the beast was right on my heals, swaying from one side to the other. I tried to run faster...ridiculous, impossible to outrun an emu, they can manage 80 kph. He stayed right beside me. I was out of breath and couldn’t go any further. So I walked a while. My new companion also walked, hugging my side and looked down into my eyes. He must have been at least 2.2 m tall. I spoke to him, but that didn’t make any difference. So I panicked a bit and took off again. Pointless, I couldn’t loose him! With further tries of running and walking, him always close to my side, we arrived at a small swamp over which someone had put a few planks. Well, I thought, now I am rid of you. I raced across the planks and just managed to see how my emu, at the end of the swamp, raced around the corner, never letting me out of his sight. When I arrived at the other end, my loyal emu was proudly standing at the exit and welcomed me. This was right next to the camp, and I was no longer afraid. I asked him to wait for me, raced to the camping trailer and let Hedwig give me some bread, raced back again. But to my great dismay, the emu had disappeared.

These are really clever animals. But if they are minding their young, then they don’t show any humor, then they are very dangerous.

Now a personal favour. Like I said above, I agree that you need to take a decent break. But please answer one further question:

You said: „a – as far as I am finding – nice but difficult story. On my first reading the day before yesterday I was very moved by the way that you have expressed yourself. I hope, through my corrections I don’t destroy anything.....“

I acknowledge that it is a difficult story. The question is how difficult? Too difficult? Is my way of writing difficult or too difficult? Should it and can it be simplified? The reason I ask. The first version is already over a hear old. I sent it to my friend, the author. His answer was that he could not understand it, because it dealt with something about which he knew nothing. Ok good, I gave up the story later on, in fact I gave up writing alltogether. But first I translated it into english and gave it to our son Peter. His constant critic was that my english was too formal, which I could understand, I learnt english at the theatre, and had a high ranking englishman as boss. I also gave it up then. I had my doubts, two months ago when I picked Jonah up again. But because I was convinced that my german had improved somewhat I gave it another try.

Like I already said, I am of the opinion, the material is of interest to german readers. But if no bastard can understand it, there is no point! I am not too concerned about it, I know dozens of authors who also don’t write in the style of popular fiction.

....

Well and so we have come to the end of the letter. Thank you for your writing. See...it is also possible to write mile long letters without discussing the stories! And it is quite enjoyable!

Greetings. Peter.