Before I jump to September of 1988, when I begin graduate studies in West Berlin, I almost forgot to describe a brief visit I had in West Germany a year before.
I was self-employed in Philadelphia beginning in January 1985. Nothing dramatic. Selling communications equipment that replaced the old teletype, aka telex, machines. I then began offering optical character readers, so-called OCRs. Flatbed scanner devices looking like small copiers. Slap a document on it, press a button, and the content was converted into a file to be entered into a computer. This is 1987. Long time ago.
Todd Kelley, the son of George and Eva Kelley in Bonn, and the older sibling of his sisters Colleen and Ingrid, lived in Philadelphia. He, too, had studied at Georgetown. Todd worked for me for a few months, and suggested that I go to a computer and electronics trade show in Munich.
Frankly, I was not interested in computers or electronics, but was interested in having reason to go to Germany. And, I was curious about what a German trade show was like. I knew of their importance, had an inkling of their history going back into the Middle Ages.
So, I booked a flight from Philadelphia to Frankfurt, including a rental car, and a hotel in Munich. I was off to Germany again after having returned from there five years before.
And, it’s not as if during those five years I had lost connection to Germany. Time and again I found myself grabbing a book in German and slogging through it. I recall reading All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.
Not sure how much I understood, but much of it was dialogue, which perhaps helped me maintain some connection to the German language. The same goes for German classical music. I’m no expert on the stuff, but listened time and again to the German greats.
It was October. I flew over to Germany. This time at the age of twenty-eight, not twenty-two. I remember spending some time at the trade show, but not much. I was more interested in Germany and the Germans than in any technical stuff. I do remember, however, being overwhelmed by the trade show.
Building after building after building. Tons of people. Hundreds of companies and their stands. Equipment. Banners. Screens. Little nooks to sit and talk. Brochure after brochure after brochure. Men in their suits. Women in the pants suits or long skirts. A huge amount of energy. Again, overwhelming. Almost like a spectacle. Far too much for me.
I was interested in Germany and the Germans. So I spent a lot time sightseeing in Munich. I don’t remember much because it has been overlayed by dozens of trips to Munich over the last three decades.
I do remember, however, taking a drive over to Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. Remember, Folks, this is in October 1987. Cold War. Soviet Union. East Block. Warsaw Pact. Why Prague? I cannot remember. Maybe Todd had suggested it. Maybe I thought I would meet Paulina Porizkova’s younger sister.
Back during 1982 I had been in East Berlin for few days. And, to get from West Germany to West Berlin you had to drive through the Zone, the zone, East Germany. Well, heading into Czechoslovakia I had stop at the border, have my rental car checked, passport and such.
Do I remember anything of those few days in Prague? Not much. I recall the highway, though. Much like the highways in East Germany. Surface off-white color, not like in West Germany or in the U.S. And the trees. The land on either side of the road cleared away. The trees set back fifty yards of so. A bit eery.
The Czechs were known for their fine crystal. So, I bought two pieces. One for my mother. The other for my sister. And for some strange reason I thought I had to wrap them up secretly and hide them in the rental car. I think in the back and under the spare tire. Strange. Had a I watched a James Bond movie before the trip? Had I read a John le Carré spy novel? The strange things people do.
I rounded out the trip by visiting Daniela’s family in Oberwinter, just south of Bonn. I recall vividly heading up the Autobahn from the Frankfurt area. As I was in striking distance of Bonn, perhaps an hour to go, the day was coming to an end. I kept looking to the west as I continued north. It was mid- of late-October. The air got cool by five or six p.m. The day transitioned into night quickly. Different than on the East Coast of the U.S. where the transition is less abrupt.
My window was slightly open. The air had a quality to it. Again, suddenly cool. And rich. Difficult to describe. That, combined with the sky in the west turning from light to dark, with heavy clouds masking what was left of the light, struck me, touched me, moved me. There was a rawness to it, a naturalness (is that even a word?), a depth, a realness.
The visit with Daniela’s family was enjoyable. Just a few days. I don’t recall much. I had lived with them for ten months only five years before. For a twenty-eight year old five years is a lot. Looking back almost four decades later it is not a snap of the finger, but it is not a long time.
I suppose that those handful of days in Germany, and in Prague, must have influenced my decision only three, four months later to return to Germany for a Master’s Program.
I suspect that none of you, my readers, are neurologists. I certainly am not. But we all know what an amazing and complex and mysterious thing the mind is. More than an organ. Of immense complexity and mystery. Wondrous. An immeasurably enormous gift of God, our Father in Heaven. Immeasuarble. Far, far, far beyond human comprehension, regardless of what the scientists will discover in a decade, in a century, in a millenia.
As far as I have heard, as far as I have read, the greatest minds at this current time in the history of mankind still do not know what human consciousness is.
I try to remember. You try to remember. So many experiences, impressions, emotions. So many layers, interpretations, re-interpretations. We do our best to remember, to understand. The acts themselves, however, they are wondrous. We can be thankful and grateful and full of praise.
I dropped off the rental car at Frankfurt Airport, checked in, boarded, threw down airplane food, watched a movie, landed in Philadelphia most likely in the late afternoon, took a Septa train back out to Ardmore, a Philadelphia suburb. I had been in Germany again.
In a year I would be heading back.