My New Hero, Robert L. Watson

The above photo is taken from the North County Times.  This is where I saw the ad to see Bob Watson, WWII Vet, speak at the Escondido Library.  I took (dragged) Kyle with me, explaining the importance of witnessing a first hand account by someone who had actually experienced D-Day.  (Kind of the same speech I gave him about seeing Doris Martin, Holocaust survivor, which you can read about in my blog archives.)  It's one thing to read about it in a book, but how many chances are you ever going to have of an eye witness relating these world changing events?  Mr. Watson sprinkled his emotionally charged story with humor where he could.  He joined the Navy instead of the Army because the Navy seemed more elite and he thought he would get a lot of attention from the girls by wearing his sexy Navy uniform.  He was only 18 when he was sent to Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, after being drafted and spending only one month in boot camp.  All the sailors on his boat were 18 and 19 years old, had never seen combat, and were scared to death.  I was on the edge of my seat as he described how their boat started taking on water as it plowed through high waves and choppy seas, in dismal, foggy conditions.  They were supposed to rush out of the boat and storm the beach but they were struck by land mines planted in the water by the Germans. Bob found himself clinging to a rubber life boat, shaking and trembling in terror.  Once on the beach, he had to scramble over dead bodies to find a fox hole while dodging bullets flying around his head.  He had been wounded by shrapnel from the mines and was surprised when an army medic ran up to him and injected him with one of the many morphine needles dangling from his jacket.  Many in his battalion never made it to the beach, and he had to witness some of his buddies being shot down, right before his eyes.  A friend in a foxhole next to him, raised his head up to look around, only to have it blown off his body. Bob spent 28 hair raising days on Omaha Beach, received several promotions, and was eventually put in charge of herding German POW's down to the beach to be shipped to England.  He chokes up a little remembering the young men who lost their lives there and were never honored for their heroic deeds.  While his emotions are still close to the surface, even after all these years, he also has a quick sense of humor.  One audience member introduced an elderly gentleman who had also been there on D-Day and thought they might possibly know each other.  Bob said, excitedly, "I saw him!  He was wearing a helmet!"  Bob and his lovely wife of over 60 years have been back to France many times and he is always treated with great respect there.  On a recent visit, a group of young German soldiers spent an hour talking to him about his experiences on Omaha Beach.  They shook his hand and thanked him for saving their country! Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg also shook his hand on a recent visit and Mr. Spielberg took him aside and asked if he had done a good job with the movie (Saving Private Ryan).  Bob said he thought he'd done the best he could, but the soldiers in the movie looked like they were in their late 20's when in reality, nobody there was over 19 years old.  He said the bloody scenes depicted in the first part of the movie were 20 times worse in real life.  Kyle and I had the honor of speaking to Bob's son and daughter in law afterwards, who told us he had been so traumatized by his experience, he was unable to speak about it for 50 years.  I am so glad he is speaking about it now because these things should never be forgotten.  Someone who has lived through such horror deserves to have their story heard by everyone.  He also  speaks at high schools and  I'm told he is at the Midway every Saturday to answer any questions.  I felt honored to be in his presence and asked if I could shake his hand.  He took my hand in his and kissed it ever so gallantly, saying with a charming smile, "I'm sorry.  It's the old sailor in me!"  Thank you, Mr. Watson.  You are a true hero and we are honored to have met you.

Uncle Rudolf, Hannah's Cottage and a Duck Story

Ate picked up Uncle Rudolf at the train station and he spent the day with us.  Over the years I've had the pleasure of attending a few of his birthday parties.  He used to throw himself  huge parties with 100+ people, even renting out a room in a local hotel for a birthday buffet.  He is engaging, exuberant and always impeccably dressed. He is 93 years old now, still well groomed, but walks a little crooked and is thin and seems very fragile.  His kids made him give up his driver's license earlier this year which he is not happy about.  But he was still lively and optimistic when he wasn't dozing off in his chair.  We took him with us to

Hannah's vacation house in Denmark.  Christine had told me it was the most beautiful beach house ever and I had to agree.  It is a rose covered cottage with a thatch roof perched right above a beach on the Baltic Sea.  She has a beautiful front lawn with  numerous flowers and shrubs and a little wooden gate in the hedges which leads to the beach.  Inside, the house was cozy with big picture windows looking out onto the sea which was constantly moving from left to right, making me  a little dizzy.  The table in her living room was laden with homemade chocolate cake, fresh rolls with Danish butter and a strawberry torte from a local bakery.  I sat facing the window and couldn't take my eyes off the ocean, this huge body of water in constant motion, left to right, left to right.  I was hypnotized.  And dizzy.  We were served coffee and tea and all the above scrumptious pastries, and then a bottle of champagne was opened and we sat and talked all afternoon.  Hannah told me she had met me a long time ago when I was visiting Ate and Annette in Heidelburg.  We were checking into a hotel and there was Hannah and her husband and their big German Shepherd dog in the lobby.  As soon as she told the story I remembered because I was so astounded at the time that the hotel would allow such a big dog, but that's just how it is in Germany.  I remember Ate being surprised to see her there and them hugging and then introducing me, and they were very nice, and now here I was all these years later sitting in her house.  A Dutch door led out onto a courtyard with a picnic table where Hannah entertains when the weather's nice.  This is where the story of the ducks comes in.  It's cute, a little tragic, but has a happy ending - sort of.  A duck had its babies on top of her straw roof.  She didn’t know they were there until one came sliding down  the roof during a birthday celebration and fell right by and almost into a glass of champagne.  Then the baby ducklings wandered out to swim in the sea and were promptly gobbled up by seagulls.  The neighbors were able to save one injured duckling and kept it for years as a pet.  What do you think?  Does that warm your heart?  Or are you still gasping at that nasty seagull part?  Me too.

Hamburg, Schleswig, Restaurants, and I See Dead People

Tour of Hamburg
 Christine is Ate's middle daughter.  She is about my age and lives right next door with her daughter, Carla.  She is a school teacher and has always been an excellent tour guide for us.  She drove us to Hamburg one day for a boat tour on the Elbe River.  The narrator made jokes along the way and said that if you drink water from the Elbe, you won’t age because you will die.The boat came so close to a huge cargo ship, we had the illusion we were sailing underneath it.  We also floated by the warehouses where traders negotiated with vendors on boats.  Somehow they were able to hand carpets and other goods from the boats up to the shop keepers. For dinner we went to a unique restaurant which had a computer screen for each diner.  You would order your food from the screen and it would come sliding down a roller coaster and end up at your table. It was so amusing to watch wine and beer and hot and cold dishes rocking and rolling down the tracks.  We kept ordering food just to watch it make its journey to us.

In Schleswig we visited a castle which is now a museum and holds an exhibit of corpses from the year 100.  That's right, I said 100!!  So hard to wrap your head around that.  They were discovered in a nearby moor which did a good job of preserving them.  Think I'll go roll in some mud.  There was a young girl and a couple of men, and possible explanations for their deaths - murder, sacrifice, punishment.  There is a depiction of the young girl which shows how she may have looked in life.  I found this same picture in Wikipedia and it appears below.  I think she looks like me.

A short walk across the castle grounds brings you to Globus, the oldest planetarium in the world.  It was built for the Danish king in the 1600s, then Russia stole it, then another replica was built and has been there ever since.  It's in a special tower room built just for it and you have to wait a little because they only let 10 people in at a time. The outside of the globe depicts the world as they knew it back then.  It is surprisingly accurate.  Then you step up inside of the globe and everyone sits on a bench, kind of squished together, and it is a little warm in there too.  The door closes and the ceiling lights up with all the constellations.  It is intended to represent, in a 10 minute period,  how the constellations move around in the night sky in 24 hours.
 After that, we met Ate and her good friend Hannah at  a restaurant which represented the Viking era.  We ate at a long table with a bench seat covered by fluffy sheepskins.  Hannah is originally from Denmark, has a cute Danish accent when she speaks German and I adore her.  Her hair is always pulled back in a pony tail, giving her a youthful appearance and she is always smiling and happy.  She invited us to her vacation house in Denmark and told us an amusing story about ducks on her roof, but I will save that story for another time.

Kyle Learns German

Ate  ordered an English-German dictionary for Kyle from the local book store and had a clerk deliver it to her front door. (!)  It is a very special dictionary with color pictures under the translations.  As she had done with me many years ago, she spoke only in German to Kyle to speed up the learning process.  Sometimes she would revert to English, as in, "Kyle, want you to have some bread?" but as the days went on, Kyle was able to understand more and started answering back in German.
One afternoon, while the rest of us were drinking a glass of sherry in the living room, Kyle watched the movie, "The Naked Gun" on German TV. We could hear him laughing in the next room and, yes, Leslie Nielsen is just as funny in German. Since we know the movie, it was a good way for him to learn some vocabulary.   We had a big dinner party one night with family and friends.  The conversation was lively and I watched Kyle’s eyes darting from one person to the next, trying to take it all in and understand what was being said.  My German sister, Annette, was there that evening and talked to Kyle about Estonia.  She knows some Russian and was telling us that the Russian alphabet is easy to learn.  Okay.  Of course she is an ear, nose and throat surgeon and therefore highly intelligent.  Also she's my age.  I feel insignificant somehow.  She has visited Russia, Latvia and Lithuania, sings in a choir and is an accomplished horseback rider.  She owns three horses which we got to visit later on. 
The dining room and kitchen in Ate's house have views of the ocean and Denmark beyond.  The living room has portraits of relatives from the 1700's.  One portrait in particular has always intrigued me.  The woman has a mischevious smile, as if she's about to reveal a secret.  She looks intriguing, someone I wish I knew.  In Ate's kitchen, Kyle learned how to make homemade strawberry jam.  She stood by giving him instructions and let him do it all himself.  We got to take some jars home with us and are still enjoying Kyle's homemade German jam.