Past Perfect Participles, part 2

When we lived in Germany, my parents were real social butterflies. They were involved with everyone and everything. No “barracks rats,” they travelled and partied and had a really great time, and they always took my older brother and me with them. Life was a cabaret back then, or at least a gasthaus. And speaking of a gasthaus, we went to them quite often. 

A typical gasthaus.

“What is a gasthaus?” you ask. Well, that’s not easy to explain, because we really don’t have an equivalent to it in this country. It’s closer to a traditional English pub, than to anything in the USofA. Every town has at least one, but they can also be found out in the country along highways. You can get a drink there, so it’s a bar, but you can also get a meal, so it’s a restaurant too. In many of them, you can even get a room for the night, so it’s also a motel. Looking back, it seems like we went to them fairly regularly. Usually, there was a large party – guys my dad worked with and their families too – if they had any – maybe some Germans that worked on the kasserne. Food would be eaten, beer would flow, jokes would be told, laughter would roar from the table. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in a gasthaus at night, neon lights glowing in the windows, eating weiner schnitzel with spicy German mustard, while the grownups talked about grownup stuff. I also got my first taste of beer there.

Weiner-Schnitzel with spicy mustard.

One night, while we were out at a gasthaus, my mom was admiring a large copper frying pan that was hanging on the wall. Much later that night, there was a knock at our door. My mom climbed out of bed, staggered to the door and found two of my dad’s buddies standing there, a little worse for wear. One of them handed her the copper frying pan. “Here, Lady (they always called her “Lady”), we got this for you.” She took the frying pan, mumbled thanks, closed the door, set down the frying pan and staggered back to bed. A little while later (it’s about 3 AM by now) there was another knock at the door. This time my mom found only one person standing there. “Sorry, Lady, but I need the frying pan back. The polizei have Skip, and they won’t let him go until I return the pan.” She handed him the pan, shut the door and staggered back to bed. Yup! Life was one big party then.

There were lots of friends back then, married and single. Our best friends were Chuck and Joan Killian. Chuck was at the end of his military career then, while my dad was in the middle of his. Chuck was from Coeur d’Alene, ID, and had been in WWII. While stationed in England, he met and married Joan, a nice English girl. After the war, they went back to the States. When they flew into Spokane, WA, the entire Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe came out in full war regalia to greet the returning soldiers. Of course, the only thing Joan knew about the American West was what she had seen in American cowboy movies. It took all Chuck could do to get her off that plane. When the Korean War began, Chuck was called back up. After that, he decided to stay in the military. Darmstadt was his last deployment. By that time, they had about six kids – the oldest, Charlie, was in high school; the youngest, Karen, was my age. Our two families spent a lot of time together. There were others too, like Bob and Pat Finch, and someone named Ricky. Then there were the GIs. My dad’s single friends were always referred to collectively as “the GIs”. Oh, they had names, like Skip and Pat and Smitty, but they were the GIs. Our apartment was a second home for them, a place for home cooked meals. A refuge of sorts.

Present-day Square Dancers in Darmstadt

My folks were also square dancers! Yes, indeed! They belonged to the Darmstompers Square Dance Club. Every week, they would get all dressed up – my mom with lots of petty coats, my dad in cowboy boots and string ties – and they’d head down to the rec center on Cambrai-Fritsche Kasserne to swing the night away. The rec center was in the same building that housed the post day-care facility, so we kids would hang out there playing while they all danced and – I’m sure – drank copious amounts of beer. My parents were pretty good at it too – uh, dancing that is, not drinking beer. They even won some prizes…for the dancing. I have old photos of them promenading and allemanding and do-si-do-ing, skirts and hair whirling around, having the time of their lives. I’ll try to get them scanned in at some point. Don’t see the thrill of square dancing? Well, as I’ve said before, it was another time. But apparently, square dancing is still quite popular in Germany, as the picture shows.

My mom also played bingo at the NCO club, where she once won a Minolta 16 mm camera. It was like something a spy would use. It was tiny, and you slid it open to take a picture, then slid it shut to wind the film. I inherited it when I was 15 and had it for many years. Lost it somewhere along the way. Too bad. Oh yeah, my mom bowled on a league too. She used to take me to the bowling alley, and I’d suck on a soda while she would bowl. The sound of a heavy polyester ball skimming down a polished maple floor and crashing into pins is still one of my favorite things in the world, even though I myself rarely ever bowl.

Spy camera? Seems like a fitting prize, all things considered.

We didn’t just go out to places. We had parties at our house all of the time. It seems, looking back, like we always had people at our house. We had a large German-made console stereo that was playing most of the time, and a TV that we rarely ever watched - it pretty much just got shows in German. Most of the time, people either sat around talking or playing cards. My parents were big card players. Mainly Pinochle, Canasta, and Cribbage. They would play for hours! Of course, this was back in the day when women still had Gin parties in the afternoon. I don’t know of anyone who plays these games anymore. As for me, the only card game I know is Cribbage, and I rarely ever play that. I do, however still have my mom’s original Cribbage board. But back then, it was the thing to do and a reason to get together. Monopoly was also a big one. We had a deluxe version of the game, and there would be all night Monopoly parties. Many a night I fell asleep to the sound of dice clattering across a board while ice clinked in glasses.

Sometimes, my brother and I didn’t get to go with my parent. On these occasions, some of my dad’s single friends would sometimes babysit us. (Y’all are gonna love this one!) My mom would pay them with a chocolate cake, which we always got a piece of before bedtime. After the GIs put us boys to bed, they would sit in the living room playing cards, while they smoked cigars, drank bourbon and ate chocolate cake. And these were considered responsible guys! Truly. My parents trusted them 100%. They were much better than the teenage girl they paid to watch us one time – she brought her boyfriend over and tore the place apart partying! They never hired a babysitter again after that. From then on, either we went with them, or the GIs watched us. Either way, we were in safe hands.