The amount and level of communication and sharing of thought that "Joe Average" now has via the internet is remarkable. Some of us think that Mudcat adds to that with an even closer tie of friendship even in this new, strange, cyber way. That is what has made discussions and statements such as are happening here in this thread now seem commonplace when in all fact they are not.

"So what the hell are you leading up to Spaw?"

I really don't know but I think it's this................

The good, the bad, and the ugly, that has happened during each of our tenures on this planet is now brought to us in copious and entirely unbelievable quantities. Although we could surely have had these thoughts before, most of us didn't. The life experiences of another are brought home to us and our own lives are reanalyzed with that added input many times over what we would have done before the net.

I'm sitting here, a 57 year old man in a tiny village in rural Ohio, learning about what another very similar but slightly different man from the other side of the world did and thought while growing up in the aftermath of perhaps the largest event of the 20th century. Although this was possible before if we all went to the right places, I can now experience and contemplate all of this in my own home and whenever I wish to do it.

Wolfie, as others have said, it was/is a great post. What fascinates me is the timeline and the comparison to my own childhood happening at the same time. I lived in a small town then too where, when I was 9 or 10 as Wolfgang was and playing in Germany, I was playing here. World War II was not so far away in say, 1958. This country was filled with ex-soldiers and Rosie's like my own parents whose lives were forever changed. My town was mainly of Italian and German (along with English) settling but it was mainly second or third generation who fought the war and never really considered themselves anything but "American" first. And as kids, we played Cowboys and Indians but we also played War. We kids weren't fighting the Russians yet.......No, we were playing Japs and Krauts and the plastic soldiers were made to look like American or German or Japanese soldiers!

I don't know how, but I'd forgotten that. I've thought about this all for a few days now and I don't have any memories of teachers or others having many kind words about Germany or Japan. We had a Fizzie in an aluminum tumbler and went out again on those hot summer days to fight the war of our fathers with bags of Tojos and Huns and little Audie Murphys....all cheaply available to us by that wonder of the 50's, plastic.

.........Sweet Jesus, how did I get here from there?

Wolfgang, I have enjoyed our cyber friendship and I want to thank you for yet another post that made me think......or whatever little I do that passes for it nowadays. I'm always fascinated by parallel lifetimes and now I can share with others from all over the world, even to old Bugsy in Western Oz.

Thanks Wolfie......and don't do it again.(:<))

Spaw