20200826 WRITING - DAY 20
"Then I started hearing about other bloggers who were considered experts in their fields. I found out many of them didn't start out as experts either. Instead, they just started asking questions. They started poking and probing and finding answers to their burning questions. They shared the questions they were asking and the answers they found. They took their readers along on their journey of discovery."
- Jeff Goins, YOU ARE A WRITER, page 61
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Here's my list of subjects:
- 👌RIGHT WRITE (rather, WRITE RIGHT) (or, WRITING RIGHT)
- 👌Why didn't I ever have a dream?
- 👌Dr. Pruitt
- 👌Travels with Ancel
- 👌Why are there ants on my arms and legs, and in my bed???????
- 👌How I became a Democrat
- 👌When did I give up my identity?
9. Life is a series of mysteries - large and small.
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DIE BARBARA
Now you might think that I mean "die" in the sense of "stop living," but it's actually German. German speaking people often put an article in front of a name when referring to a specific person. We say "Barbara came back from her vacation," and German speakers say "THE Barbara came back from her vacation."
So, "Die Barbara" does not mean "Die, Barbara!" "Die" is pronounced "Dee," and Germans pronounce Barbara as "Bah-Bah-Dah." So it's "Dee Bah-Bah-Dah"
In fact, I'm wondering today if Barbara could still be alive, living in Vienna somewhere, or perhaps in an old folks home out in the country where she came from. When I met her, she was 28 (I was 11), and that was in 1961. So today, if she's still alive, she'd be 87 years old. It's hard for me to imagine her at that age.
My sense of age and my memory are all distorted by the fact that what I remember about the 4 years I knew Barbara has faded in the intervening 55 years.
Still, Die Barbara is a significant other in my life. She slept just on the other side of a wall between our bedrooms. And that was when I went through puberty. I wonder how much she knew about puberty & young boys.
She was often my companion when the family were gone for whatever reason. She and I sat out on the Winter Garden terrace and ate cookies and drank 7-UP, and told funny stories about people with strange names.
But it wasn't always happy times. When we first arrived, she thought she was in charge, and she began to tell me what to do. I wasn't having it. Things got worse, and then Mom & Dad and Die Barbara and I had a meeting in the kitchen. Dad explained that she needed to be less restrictive. She was not happy, but sat silently, taking my Dad's gentle advice to her like an employee should.
Later, Dad reminded me that she had previously been a governess of sorts for a mentally challenged young boy, and she HAD to be strict with him. Dad reminded HER that I was not that boy, and that I was several years older than he, and that she should be more understanding and less strict.
Wow! My Dad was really cool in some ways. He wasn't such a strict dad after all. I suppose that now piecing together these memories, my perceptions of him (and others) could change a bit. He was defensive of me with Die Barbara. But he was otherwise a strict/absent father in so many other ways. And that's more of how I remember him.
This is about Die Barbara, and not Dad. A male worker once called her "Frau Barbara" which means "Mrs. Barbara." I couldn't believe him, since he didn't know her, and he assumed she was married. But she was single. Why didn't he compliment her and say "Miss Barbara?" When I brought this up to Die Barbara, she brushed it off, saying she didn't care. But I'll bet she was pleased to know I was looking after her, too.
Die Barbara was a plain, unpretentious girl with a large nose, brown eyes, and brown hair almost always rolled up in a bun. She wore a light blue uniform (a dress) with a white full body apron, every day she was working.
(Soooooo many memories are flooding back right now! This could be my first focused subject for writing - I have a lot to say about Die Barbara)
Some of the memories I have:
Blueberry picking in Aspang (countryside area near Vienna)
Locking the keys to my mother's car (a 1961 Chevrolet Corvair) in the trunk while we were in Linz, and Die Barbara had to come to Linz on the train with the spare set of keys.
Seeing Die Barbara in a black uniform dress with a crisply startched white apron, and a tiarra, her outfit for formal Embassy-type events. All who saw her wanted her to come work for them.
Sitting on the terrace eating her homemade cookies & drinking 7-UP and telling funny stories. Later, she remarked that "We have fun dis day!"
Asking me, one day if "You like me to wash you back?" I do believe that she asked me that when she and I were the only ones home. I'm pretty sure I gave her a "no" response just by my look. But I also remember that I was so surprised and embarrassed. When she saw that I was saying "no," she smiled and left it at that. I'm not sure what was going through her mind, but I know she was quite aware of the need for her to respect proper lines of behavior.
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OK, I'm done with writing for the this session. I'll report to work again at 9 or 10 AM.
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Rather than write more about Die Barbara, I'm going to read Ron Thornton's list of good things/promises kept he thinks Trump has done during his presidency.
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