BS: A Wonderful Story

Subject: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: alanabit
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 02:11 PM

I don't know if this is going to interest anyone here, but I heard a wonderful story today - or rather just the bones of one. I thought it might interest some Catters because of Kevin McGrath's comments on that thread about the tradition where he said that listeners have to fill in the gaps of the story in their heads.
Of all people to give you a memorable story, it was a fifty odd year old banking executive. He told me that his father had served in the Wehrmacht in the war and had become a prisoner of the Russians at the end. A Russian officer had got him papers which enabled him to leave Russia and then make his way into Poland. He was taken in on a Polish farm. They fed him while he worked there, slowly regaining his strength for six months until he was able to cross the border back into Germany. He got back in 1946 and lived in Wüppertal. He married, had children and is now 94 and well.
To put into proportion just how extraordinary this story is, it is worth mentioning that at Stalingrad alone, 91,000 Germans went into captivity. 6,000 returned. In view of the bitterness and the atrocities committed by both sides, it is incredible to think of a Russian officer risking his life to help one of the hated "Fascists" (as all Germans were referred to at that time).
I can only use my imagination to fill in the gaps of this story, much as I would love to hear the details. Just fancy getting material like that falling into your lap when you are teaching a middle aged German banker!
Where did you hear marvellous stories unexpectedly?

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 02:14 PM

At a hot-dog stand outside of a warehouse store, an old-timer told me what it was like walking ashore at Omaha beach on D-Day. He clesrly had a scarcity of interested listeners, so we both benefited.

A

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: alanabit
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 02:32 PM

If I'd have been there, there would have been another listener. How is it people can watch all sorts of drivel on their televisions and walk past real life when it is playing out before their eyes?

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 02:49 PM

my father was a Western Union lineman...he told of working in the 1930s, when the rails were so slippery with grasshoppers that the little motor cars they used could not get a grip on the rails! A picture we can barely imagine today! (He also went thru WWII unable to get a battery for the truck for months, and having to park on hills to get it started again.)

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 03:02 PM

It's not our fault (mostly) that we miss these stories - the wheel of life "takes us under" and we often don't even recognise such gems when we do hear them...
This is truly a wonderful story Alan - worth a book in anyone's bookcase. It will probably never be written though.
Is it a shame? Well, yes, but then so much gets missed - I'd rather see it as part of life's tapestry. And be glad when we spot a story like this, because it reaffirms our belief in humanity.
Makes me want to meet the old guy (and the officer that saved him)...
I'mm not sure that I can improve on such an example - but let me have a think (pours whisky in the mug)....
Thanks Alan, really thanks!

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 03:02 PM

My uncle was a plain, unpretentious, good humored man who never seemed to deserve any special notice from me as a youngster. Never had any great war stories as did the others. No one told me until he had died that at the age of thirteen he beat up and tied up his drunken father to stop the violence against his Mom, then escaped to ride the rails in Canada though several (four or more) years of the thirties.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 03:07 PM

People WANT to tell their stories, so that neither they nor the things they did will be forgotten. Families may have heard it ("Aw, Dad's going on agin about being at Khe San") too often for it to register. Alternately, it might never be told because the story would be considered unbelievable, too awful, or simply because no one has expressed interest.

For instance:

My father-in-law worked for SHAEF Forward during WW2, and at one point was security officer for a supply depot in Belguim. One day his Belgian counterpart came to him and said that the Belgians wanted to do him a favor for the favors he'd done them: have his sidearm, a Colt .45 revolver, engraved. He demurred, thinking that they would have some guy scratching on it, by noting that there was a war on and he had to carry a sidearm. He was presented with a FN 7.65 mm automatic (1910 Browning model) to use, and having no more quick excuses, surrendered his Colt. Two days later it was returned, engraved by one of the Master Engravers at Fabrique Nationale, a truly great job. He offered to return the automatic, but was told to keep it because "We have a lot them."

A nice story, but I wouldn't have believed it...except BOTH pistols are in the possession of my wife. And this story was finally told one day when we were talking of something else entirely.

On November 10, 1944, the USS Mt. Hood exploded at Manus Harbor, New Guineau, blowing a hole 85 feet deep and 1,000 feet long in the sea floor. The ship itself disappeared when the 13,000+ tons of ammunition went off.

I knew nothing of this until a couple of years ago, when an older man came into my office and asked me if we had info on it. Seems like he was in the USS Mindanao, one of the ships that was damaged, and had helped find and treat many of those wounded or killed by the blast -- including his best friend.

Taking the time to listen is one of the perks of my job.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: mg
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 03:33 PM

I think part of it is a notion on the part of trauma survivors not to impose it on others, out of a respect for the horror of the situation. Some people have been silenced I fear..certainly the WWII generation in Germany. We should seek them out and get their stories, and their view of things, and try to make better sense of all that happenedhow to prevent further situations etc... mg

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 03:34 PM

The thing to do with stories is to listen to them, and then to pass them on in a way that will make people listening to them pass them on once more.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 03:36 PM

People will tell their stories if we make them feel like they are special. It takes a little asking sometimes, but they do get to it. My mom is a story teller. She relates everything that has happened during her day when I call her.

W.E.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: GUEST,Van
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 03:44 PM

I think some of problems with stories come down to the listener. I remember my first wife's grandfather telling me about his time in the trenches in the first world war and about his childhood and early days at work. He was French and had lived in the suburbs of Paris. He had worked for the Lumiere brothers. To me it was fascinating and I could happily listen for hours she on the other hand found it totally boring. The old man was in his nineties and it was history brought to life for me. Listening to other people's experiences give something to you as you will never live through those times again. They should be treasured and shared - if you can find a fellow listener.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: alanabit
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 04:03 PM

Van and Mary I totally agree with you. There are so many good stories out there if we only take the time to listen. I knew some WW1 survivors and listened enthralled even then, as they peacefully lived out their last years in the sixties. That generation slipped away without my even noticing it. The survivors of the second war will all be gone in a very few years time. I am always astonished that people value this eye witness history so little.
I am sure that El Greko and Kevin McGrath will understand that I will inevitably try to turn stories like these into songs. Isn't that a bit more interesting for an audience than telling them about the last girl who broke my heart?

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 04:24 PM

Kevin, you've gone and done it again - told in one line the essense.
I have stories to tell - most of them awful, they teach nothing except man's inhumanity to man.
But I though of one:
In 1940-41 my dad was fighting the Italians on the mountain ranges between Greece and Albania. Well, he never fired a shot, he was the radio man. One day in deep winter, when the troops were already slaughtering their own horses for food, as he was walking along a mountain track he came across this Italian guy, who came to him with raised hands, because he was hungry and wanted to give himself up. After the shock, my dad understood the sign language, and duly "arrested" him and "took him prisoner".
Afterwards, the Italian bloke, to thank my dad, gave him the only personal possession he had: a pair of nail scissors, shaped like a pelican with the cutting edges as the snout.
I still cut my fingernails with these scissors, and think of the two unwilling participants in the war (the Italian guy and my dad) every time.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 04:41 PM

Wonderful thread, Alan... I'll add a story myself when I remember the details a little more...

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Metchosin
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 05:16 PM

Heric, your story reminds me of a simialr tale regarding my grandfather, of which my brother wrote the following poem

Grampa Jack

I watched as you daily unremembered things
sort of like baking a cake in reverse
a little less of this, a little less of that
take away one teaspoon of the past.....
But suddenly fold in one lucid moment!
a sprig of over sweet lilac
one milk cart which left you a hunchback...one donkey engine
a kerosene lantern lantern sent in a drunken rage across the head of
your beloved mother, by your father who you beat unconscious
and left forever....
three lost brothers, or,
were they lost family photographs....?
And then there was the time when that locomotive derailed and
and you were there to pull the engineer from the wreck but the stream
had done its damage, like your years, and when you took his arm
to pullhim to safety, his skin skin slid off his arm as smoothly
as Garbo's evening glove, only....
gone
blank
Eyes like wet, grey sand and a rattle of a voice
through lips as thin as tin...no teeth, you see
saying "who are you"
and you crushed who you loved but no longer knew.....
And I watched quiet....hurt...angry...ashamed, as you slipped
behind that veil of ether to unremember me
for the last time.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Jeanie
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 05:19 PM

A couple of years ago I witnessed a wonderful, spur-of-the-moment, out-of-the blue event - your thread has reminded me of it, Alan, so thank you ! I don't even know how it started, but I got into conversation, over a short bus ride across North London, with an elderly German lady, a holocaust survivor, who told me not only about the material facts of her experiences but also her emotions, now, about having lost so many of her family and friends all that time ago. As we talked, another elderly German voice behind us joined in with *her* story - and I left the bus with the two of them sharing experiences and feelings and, I like to hope, at the start of a new friendship for the two of them, which, without the initial conversation having been struck between me and the old lady, would never have happened.

People are aching to tell their stories. You can sense the relief in them as their tales unfold.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: mack/misophist
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 06:09 PM

I knew a man once named Hank Jones, who had been places and done things. He should have been full of fascinating stories. Alas, he was nothing but a foul mouthed, bigoted, asshole. The only thing that ever impressed him was the way Gen. Blackjack Pershing's horse took to desert warfare. Too bad. Too many of the people who have stories that need to be told either can't tell a tale well or won't talk at all.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 06:18 PM

You learn bits and pieces sometimes, and then you want to learn more and you can't.

My mother said my father was "under fire" when he was in the Phillipines during WW2. My uncle make remarks once about a "secret mission." Neither knew the whole story. And my father died when I was five.

Many times I wish that I could sit down with him and talk, just talk. And with my grandfathers and grandmothers. And my mother.

Get the stories, pass them on.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: GUEST, heric
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 06:35 PM

That's a heck of a poem, Metchosin, and a lot of coincidence.

(Alanabit don't think that the 6,ooo out of 91,ooo hasn't left an impression.)

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 07:01 PM

Sometimes in a family you have people who take on the role of the one who passes on the family stories. My father was like that in his later years, and I wish I'd listened to him better, but I was living a long away and when I visited there always seemed more important things to do.

But the good thing is that sometimes since he's been dead I've been with other members of the family who lived closer and saw him more, and they'll come up with stories they got from him.

Learning how to listen is something that never seems to be given the attention is deserves. It's as important as learning to read, more important in some ways - reading is really a special kind of listening, and until you've learnt how to really listen, books are just full of words.

"In humility I will listen, we're all swimming to the other side" as Pat Humphries says in her song.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: LilyFestre
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 07:28 PM

We were visiting my husband's (actually, we were not married just then) grandfather in Vermont. It was a classic wintery New England kind of day....blustery, snowy and cold. For one reason or another my husband was called to help out a neighbor or something...but I wasn't to go. So...there I was sitting at the kitchen table with Gramp. I didn't really know him very well and was feeling kinda shy and put on the spot. We started talking about WWII and what branch of the service he served in and I talked some about my grandfather's time in the Air Corps. He told me about the battles he saw and how he escaped injury on many occassions. He then went on to tell me about his trip back to the United States. He refused to get on a plane....he'd had enough of those....so he started his travels by ship. On the way across the Atlantic, the ship sank. He couldn't swim. He survived for hours and hours clinging to a piece of wood that had floated by.

I thought that was pretty interesting....he made it through years of war without injury....but nearly was killed on his way home.

My own grandfather was a radio man on a cargo plane that flew over the China Burma India "Hump". He flew over this area many many times. One morning he woke up and was all stuffed up...a bit of a head cold. He was not allowed to go on the plane that day as the planes weren't pressurized and that would cause further problems for him. One of his buddies went in his place. That plane never returned.

My entire family would not be here today if it weren't for one man's cold. That stuffy nose is responsible for allowing 3 generations of people to continue on. Amazing.

Okay..one last story...I love these kinds of stories and could go on for hours. This one is about my Nana.

My Nana was a very proper lady. She probably could teach the Queen of England a thing or two about manners....very prim and proper...or at least that's what I thought..LOL! She used to tell me stories about her youth. One time she hopped on a local train...boxcar style. She and some of her friends rode it through the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon and hopped off about 20 miles from her starting point. Another time she stole her father's car and went for a drive. Trouble was, she didn't know how to back it up! She had to drive it out of town for about 4 miles to the local country club where she knew they had a circular driveway...LOL...cracks me up!   Yep...I love her old stories.........

Excellent Thread!

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 07:36 PM

Well, sniff...

You all got this ol' hillbilly all choked up with these amazing stories. But the underlieing denominator is love and , sniff, I love all of you folks and I love all these stories...

As fir my own, oh geeze, I discovered that there is al least one wonderfull story in every person you meet and that's what makes it tough to pick out huist one.

Having worked as a jail house teacher, a social worker in Adult Services, the poverty program and been a volunteer in som many things I've lost count I have been absolutely blessed in meeting so many folks who others might thing didn't have a wonderful story to tell. But, to my amazement, we all hve that in common.

But I'll chose my grandmother who I lost 3 years ago when she dies at age 101. She lived in a tiny house in Detroit, Mich. almost all of her life and in the 60's during the burning and riots in Detroit, the burning of blocks stopped one block short of her tiny home. Over the next couple of years her neightborhood became a ghetto yet she reamined there. In 1970 I went top visit her and the first night I was there, as it was getting dark, she said, "Come with me."

And so I did. I followed that woman thru alleys, past abandoned cars, thru groups of some rough looking folks, junkies, prositutes. In my grandmothers arm was a basket full of catfood and table scraps. She knew where all the stray cats lived. She knew where a mama cat was nursing her kittens in the back of an abandoned car. She was in her 70's and a white woman living in the ghetto and caring for cats for blocks around. Every night she was out in the alleys feeding them cats...

Sniff....

Heck of a wonderful story...

Just as all of these stories...

Sniff...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: khandu
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 08:42 PM

So many stories worthy of their own miniseries go untold because we are too "busy" to take the time to listen.

The older generation, who will soon be leaving us, have wonderful tales to tell, definitely worthy of our attention. We would be the richer for the listening!

Whenever I hear of an older person dying, I think of the history that has passed with him. What could he have told me that would have enriched my life?

My 90 year old step-father is slowly slipping into senility. Whenever I visit him, he tells me detailed accounts of his WW2 adventures. Not tales of the battles, but of the relationships he developed with fellow soldiers. His stories are sometimes funny, sometimes sad. Often, the apparent delight he gets in telling them supercedes the story.

It is worth every minute I spend listening for the joy he derives in the telling as well as the insights I get from the hearing.

alanabit, thank you for this thread, Buddy! Someday, we will be the ones with wonderful stories to tell! (Perhaps we will tell of our friends we met at Mudcat!) Here's hoping there will be ears to listen!

ken

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 08:51 PM

There are so many- and in so many different eras and in so many different scenarios... Yesterday I had coffee with an acquaintance and she told me about her grandfather.

During the Great Depression he lived with his wife and 12 children on Vashon Island in Puget Sound. They had 16 acres where they grew just about everything imaginable and which supplied most of their needs. He butchered chickens and his wife peddled them to businesses in Seattle; they also sold their excess eggs. This was almost their sole source of income.

He was a schoolteacher by vocation and had started a school on the island, which he kept on teaching even after they no longer had the money to pay him. He taught for more than four years without pay.

There are many similar stories, I know. I also know that if needs be, we - and that includes our young, spoiled children- could and would do it again. The young'uns might make harder work out of it than they did a couple of generations ago, because of having such different expectations of life- but they would do it.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 10:29 PM

I sat with my grandfather (who had been a coal miner in England) and listened to the radio broadcast of the Springhill Mine Disaster (1958). I recall the tears in his eyes as we listened, and his voice broke when he tried to talk. I would have been eleven at the time. He died less than two years later--a terrible concurrence of black lung and cancer--and I regret not having been able to tell him what I learned from those nights we listened to the CBC broadcast: it's OK for men to cry. He took some comfort hugging me, and I take great comfort in that memory. He spoke later of his mining days, and I gained insight into the dignity of labour and the things we call duty and honour. They are sacred words made meaningful by those who have gone before us. A man's a man for 'a that. We we're gleeful when so many of the men were brought out alive. And we were humbled by the death toll.

Alan, I'm in a few tears. Thank you for this thread. Thank you, very much. And thank you, k, for bringing it to my attention. I gotta go blow my nose.

Bruce Murdoch

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 10:56 PM

Grampa passed away last month. Noone was surprised as he had been on the decline from Parkinson's for eight years. Grampa got his wings just as the war was ending and became an air-sea rescue pilot and a lighter-than-air pilot and commanding officer. He flew the last mission of the USN's dirigible force. He came within minutes of losing it all on several occasions, and came through unscathed. The stories his family tells about his adventures and the loyalty he inspired in his men are worth repeating down the generations.

There was a well-documented flight of training jets out of Pensacola that got lost in the "Triangle" and never came back. Only recently were some of the planes found on the sandy bottom. Grampa was scheduled to fly one of those wings, but the night before, a fellow airmen cajoled him to swap engagements with him so he could go on a heavy date; Grampa was always willing to help out. As a result the other guy flew wing in that formation, and became part of the mysterious history of the Triangle.

A

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: LadyJean
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 01:06 AM

Cousin Dorothy Caldwell was one of the first American women in Berlin at the end of WWII. But she has never said anything about it. She's 95 now. She slept through Christmas dinner, so I don't think we'll ever hear her story.
Dad was taken prisoner at Zidibouzid (I probably haven't spelled that right.) after a long, hungry seige. He spent several years in a POW camp. He finally escaped, near the end of the war, and crossed Poland, in wintertime, to the Russian lines.
He used these stories to lecture his daughters, when they complained of just about anything.
I can remember one of those lectures, when I was on my hands and knees crawling around the dining room table. I was doing DelCato therapy, which, among other tortures, involves crawling in a special way for 45 minutes a day.
Dad was a remarkable man.
It's probably for the best that I don't complain much, and I don't expect sympathy.
It's odd, because I don't think dad thought DelCato therapy worked, and of course, it doesn't. But it is a first class way to torture children!

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Metchosin
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 01:45 AM

The thing that struck me Heric was that my grandfather was only 13 or 14 too, when he left home as a result of the similar incident. He was a non-violent, sweet natured, small bird of a man. I love my brother's poetry, but I'm not always able to judge it dispassionately. I never know if his stuff will have a similar impact on others, or if the feelings it stirs in me, are only a result of my brother's and my shared history. Glad you liked it.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 09:34 AM

I guess it should come as no suprprise that some of my very fvorite Catters have contributed to this thread. I was going to contribute a story, but am having trouble digging up the details from my memory. I put the story into a song, as Alan is considering, but I'll be darned if I can find a tape of it. I'll keep looking. The story is a family story of a friend of mine that occurred early in the last century. The details, and names aren't in the song but the essence of the story is there.

Story-telling is a gift, like music. Two people could tell the same story with the same facts. One could totally mesmerize you and one could put you sound asleep. The difference is capturing the "message" within the story, in whatever way you can. Unfortunately, in most people's eyes, storytelling is something you "perform." And most performance opportunities are in front of children. There is an endless supply of stories that are fascinating, heart-warming, funny, even challenging that lie a wasting because they wouldn't fit on a CD, or go over at the local library.

When I do songwriting workshops, my first advice is always to shut up and listen to the people around you.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: GUEST,Diva
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 10:36 AM

My grandmother was a wonderful fund of stories about her life,I have a tape somewhere and wish I'd had the sense to make more.I pass them on where I can. As an ethnology student I will say that these pieces of oral history are very important and should be recorded in some way shape or form if at all possible.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 01:06 PM

I worked for 20 years as a social worker, and that means listening to people's stories and reading them - and seeing how different they could seem through different eyes - and becoming part of them.

There's one old man lives in Harlow, and every time he sees me he'll charge over and shake my hand and tell anyone who's with me how I helped him get the home he's living in.

And the thing is, I've no memory whatsoever of what I did - probably just sent a letter to the council, and maybe rang them up a few times to nag them.

It's as if he's taken a vow to thank me whenever he sees me. There's been times I've found myself wishing he wouldn't, maybe when I'm in a hurry or something. But not really - he's a reminder of the way that sometimes something we do in the course of our life can actually make a difference, and most of the time we never even know. And that's a thing we need to remember, because it's just as easy to hurt as to help. (I'm only glad there's noone who makes a practice, every time they see me, of telling me how I really screwed up their life by some mistake.)

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Tinker
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 01:38 PM

Reading this thread has brought back a story I heard at The Jewish Heritage Museum in New York while helping escort 40 twelve and 13 year olds. Our guide was a wonderful older woman who herself had been a Holacost Survivor. After we had toured much of the musuem and viewed photos and letters and much much more she began to talk to the kids about why they needed to remember.

What she pulled from her personal experience with such power was a very simple tale of a eight year old little girl from a comfortable middle class family in a pleasant little village. And then the little girls friends and parents started treating her differently. Until one day, she understood that little Jewish girls no longer went to birthday parties. All of the atrocities experienced over years,but the defining moment was at the hand of friends. She left a very subdued group of 7th graders and adults pondering about themselves.


Kathy

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:18 AM

I have been away for a few days because my computer was down and I needed to get a friend to fix it. Then on Sunday, my four year old son propelled a stone full force into my left eye. So reading has not been easy. Thanks for all the stories and posts.
Tinker, you may know that I live in Germany. I really liked your story, because it is the simple resonant image which can carry across even to a child the way that another child perceived the beginning of that enormous tragedy. "I stopped being invited to parties" is the sort of line you can build a song around and it is the sort of thing you look for when you try to get across someone else's character. Jerry Rasmussen does it it "Old Blue Suit" and George (El Greko) does it in "Old Sailors Don't Know How To Cry". Plenty of food for thought here. I hope some more stories come in. I'm listening.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Gurney
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 05:04 AM

Uncle Den, my mothers brother, was taken prisoner at the fall of Singapore, and was in Changi Camp and then in Japan until the VJ day. He made a full recovery, married, and picked his life up, and was killed about 4 years later in a moterbike accident. Kismet.
He would never talk about his experiences, at least to youngsters like I was then.
There used to be a section in my local library of 'Personal War Narratives." In these PC days I doubt you'll find one in the western world now.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: alanabit
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 09:39 AM

It's worth repeating what someone said earlier in this thread - and that is that these stories need to be told and heard. I don't see why there should be any objection from the most PC of people to these Personal War Narratives. I can hardly think of anything less likely to make people think of going to war glibly.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:21 PM

My mother told me this story a number of years ago.

She grew up on a farm during the depression. Entertainment was self-designed then! They always noted a rather posh looking car that passed by the farm every Sunday. They guessed it was a well to do family that had the money to take a Sunday drive. One day, they hatched out a plan. Being on a farm, they had plow horses. They found an old burlap bag and filled it full of dried manure and put it out by the road. They then hid, waiting for the car to make its' return trip. The car came around the curve and came to a stop after passing the bag. A young boy got out of the car and came up to the bag and inspected it. He said "Ohh dad, its' a bag FULL of dried pipe tobacco! He picked it up, put it in the car and off they went! Mom said they laughed all day.


W.E.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: alanabit
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 06:53 AM

I am going to post the words to the song, which are my attempt to retell the wonderful story, which opens this thread. I will happily MP3 it to anyone, who would like to hear it:

                        As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me

As far as my feet will carry me - I will walk towards my home
Men will try to slow or harry me - every step I'll be alone
They will kill me when they find me – there can be no turning back
I will feel them close behind me – every step along the track

As far as my feet will carry me I will savour every breath
For the only thing I can expect is a certain, painful death
And when the Russians find me – I know I cannot live
For the blood that stains their soil – they never can forgive

As far as my feet will carry me I shall call that man my friend
For the papers that he gave me – he faced a bitter end
In a world gone mad with killing by strangers on his land
There was a man left willing to offer me his hand

As far as my feet will carry me I will quietly slip away
I will follow stars at nighttime – I will hide and sleep by day
And until they catch and kill me I shall seek no company
I shall let the clean air thrill me – I shall spend my last days free

As far as my feet will carry me I will hear the moans and screams
And the faces of my comrades still haunt me through my dreams
If by some miracle I ever get to tell of all their pain
I will tell the world that never must we go through this again

As far as my feet will carry me – my head will itch with lice
My feet are cut and bruised to Hell – I will walk at any price
I will rest in pits and hedges when it's time to lay me down
I shall ghost by at the edges as I pass another town

As far as my feet will carry me… the vision comes once more
A girl's hugged by a stranger, she has never seen before
And he walks into a kitchen, where a woman waits and smiles
Then I think back on my danger and I limp a few more miles

As far as my feet will carry me - I will walk towards my home
Men will try to slow or harry me - every step I'll be alone
They will kill me when they find me – there can be no turning back
I will feel them close behind me – every step along the track

Quite apart from using the excuse to post some of my own lyrics, I am hoping that I can revive this thread, on which I first read so many good stories.
Come on Mudcatters. Tell me a story!

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 07:59 AM

My first wife's late father was involved in one of those "Urban Myths" during WW2.
He was involved with building the extension to the airfield at Gibraltar and was offered a quick flight in an RAF 2 seater plane. Once airbourne the pilot was taken ill and my late father-in-law had to land it himself on his first air trip.
He was later involved with something to do with the escape route through Spain. The only part that I heard was that he was disguised as a "Don" (not quite sure exactly what he meant by that), but the local priest suddenly wished him well in English, so the disguose was not perfect!
He would never visit Spain again after the war because fear of some sort of retribution, real or imagined.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Teribus
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 12:48 AM

There was this old boy in Hawick, he had lost a leg during the First World War. He was single and lived on his pension, in a basement flat, looked after by his sister who looked in on him every now and then.

Now this basement flat was one of those whose only access to the light of day was through an iron grating in the pavement. Now this old guy loved his drink and used to come home well in his cups, get through the front door, fling his crutch to one side and make dive for the bed.

In the early days of the Second World War, when the Germans were going after Clydeside they used to fly over Hawick, this old guy used to carry on as normal, sometimes remembering to put up his 'black out' curtain sometimes not.

One night, he came back from the pub, entered the flat, switched on the light, cast the crutch and dived for the bed. He was woken up by the ARP Warden yelling, "You're showing a light" To which this old guy replied, " What the fuck are they comin' in submarines?"

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: alanabit
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 02:19 AM

I enjoyed that. It reminds me a little of khandu's earlier comment that when a person passes away, so many of these stories are lost.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: LadyJean
Date: 19 Nov 05 - 01:58 AM

My dad wrote about a young lieutenant from Alabama at the Kasserine Pass. He found himself with five tanks facing most of a Panzer division. He took each of those tanks and fought it, facing the Panzers with one tank. He had five tanks shot out from under him, and didn't suffer a scratch.
Following his capture, he would tell his fellow P.O.W.s "Well we saw the Germans comin' and the sergeant asked me, should we take the co covers off the guns. And I said, don't do it sergeant 'cause they might get mad." He'd tell this story over and over, until his fellow POWs were ready to have him court martialed.
I think this was the same fellow who wound up in the chess game. A young man from Virginia used to lord it over a kid from Alabama, because he was a "gentleman" who could play chess. The "gentleman" wasn't that good at chess, and it was just too easy to teach the kid from Alabama how to beat him and then set up a match.

One More! The first time Dad tried to go under the wire was in Italy. He was recaptured almost immediately, spent the night in an Italian jail eating black bread and black olives. The next day, the Germans went looking for Martin Bruce. They never found him. Dad's name was Bruce Martin.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Helen
Date: 19 Nov 05 - 06:54 AM

When I was about 18 and just left home I caught a late night bus home from Uni. An older man got on the bus, which was empty except for me, and sat down near me. I was worried because I was on my own and he had a look about him which was a bit alarming.

He didn't tell me his story, but the words he said are still with me: "It wasn't only the Japanese who tortured people in the war".

He was like the Ancient Mariner, who had a tale to tell which no-one wanted to listen to. I often wonder, if I hadn't been the only other passenger on a late night bus, would I have listened and helped him to relieve his psychological burden, but a lone, young female at night doesn't encourage conversation with a strange old man.

I don't know what response I gave except to nod my head to say, yes, I understand what you are saying. Yes, I can see the burden you are living under.

I wonder if he rode those buses late at night hoping to find someone who would listen to his story.


Also, Amos, you may be interested in Nevil Shute's autobiography, called Slide Rule. He worked on the design of one of the airships built in England. It's one of my favourite books.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: freda underhill
Date: 19 Nov 05 - 07:02 AM

The Boat trip

Waves lapped quietly against the sand, while Ali and Ibrahim waited, taut, nervous, watching the horizon for the signs of the luxury cruiser that would be taking them to a new world. Over three hundred travellers from Iraq and Turkey sat huddled in darkness on the sand. They had been waiting since midnight. There was no talk, except occasional whispers. The silhouettes of five men could be seen by the shore, whispering, watching the sea. Two were Indonesian fishermen, the other three were "snakeheads", people smugglers, who were bargaining with each other to see which of their clients would get to make the final trip.

After four years of trying for asylum, and getting no response, Ali and Ibrahim had paid several thousand for the trip to Australia. They had come to Indonesia on the advice of people smugglers who hawked outside the various Western embassies in the Middle East. They flew to Malaysia, travelled by boat to Indonesia, where, as instructed by the people smugglers, they waited for several weeks before their next and final boat trip.

When the dark shape of a boat finally appeared on the horizon, people muttered and whispered, some sobbed. They had been told they would be given a place on a luxury cruise liner, which would bring them to Australia in comfort within six hours. The shadowy form of a boat came closer, and the three snakeheads moved through the crowds, touching people on the shoulder.

Following those in front of them, Ali and his brother Ibrahim walked along the sandy shore, up the shaky gangplank onto the boat. Ali's knees were aching, his arthritic feet tender and sore at each step. Ali lugged his suitcase, his coat, and a duffel bag, full of his memories. Voices were talking, someone was shouting, an argument, but it was too late. Ali had paid his money and there was no going back.

Ali and Ibrahim limped onto a wooden deck, and down a ladder into a wooden hull crammed with people. People sat like sardines, their knees close to their chests, to make more room so that everyone could fit in. At the back sat some families, with children, nursing sleeping children laid across various laps. Ali and Ibrahim had joined a couple of hundred Turkish and Iraqi asylum seekers in the smelly hold of the tiny boat. By the time they walked up the ladder, it became clear that this was no luxury liner, but it was too late. They had given all their money to the smugglers, and this was now their only chance. And so they set sail in the darkest hours of night in a tiny, smelly, leaky Indonesian fishing boat, tossed to and fro on the wild and open ocean.

Ali's stomach was empty, he had contracted "Bali belly" three weeks ago and had been living with severe stomach problems ever since. White faced, skeletal, and now with hollows under his eyes, he sat quietly through the night, drifting in and out of consciousness as the boat titled, rolled and heaved from side to side. Water gushed down from holes in the clapped out old vessel, an old fishing boat that like Ali had seen better days.

Ali's head rested on Ibrahim's shoulder, a tendon in the left side of his neck rigid like concrete, carrying a sharp deep pain from his shoulder to the back of his head. His shoes were sodden, feet wrinkly, sitting in smelly water that washed around the floor of the boat, up to the top of his ankles. Morning came and with it some relief in the thought that, as promised by the people smugglers, they would get to Australia soon. However on the first morning the boat's engine broke down. They were becalmed, left to be buffeted by the currents and waves of the sea, as the boat slowly filled with water. For many long hours and then days they were packed into the hull of the boat, sitting in rows with their knees to their chests, to help make room for everyone. Below deck, the hull was thick with the odour of oily petrol fumes and vomit. Each day became a nightmare of fear, recriminations and mounting despair as those on board frantically bucketed out the stinking water from the hull. Full of holes, the water washed in and out, and the salt water mixed in with the stinking petrol slick and body wastes. The waves were so fearsome that the boat continually lurched onto its side and back, people were thrown about like dolls, gripping onto the deck, floors and walls of the boats, and to each other.

The engine was dead and the boat was slowly filling with sea water. There were only two buckets and one was being used as a toilet. The other was used to continually bucket out the rising water in the hull of the boat. Most had never seen the sea before, few remained on the rocking deck for more than a few minutes. Most were too frightened of being washed out to sea and stayed below deck, keeping to themselves, waiting and hoping that something or someone would save them all from sinking into the vast, ferocious ocean.

Tensions on the boat were pushed to the limit. For days people prayed, cried, and wailed to the open skies. Those who could no longer stand the stench downstairs went up on deck for fresh air. There, they could smell fresh salty air, but clung to the boards at the sight of enormous waves tossing the boat like a toy and washing across the puny deck. The travellers were now up to their waists in water. Children were being cradled in arms by weary parents. Tense exchanges, prayers, crying children, and diminishing food supplies. What saved them was an Iraqi car mechanic. Without any plans or proper tools, he slowly pulled the boat's engine apart and examined its rusting parts. By the ninth day, he had it back together again, and there were cheers and sobs when the engine heaved, choked and started up again. It became clear that the Indonesians had no idea where the boat was. One of the Kurds took command of the boat, using the position of the sun and a rough hand drawn map, took charge of the wheel and set the boat in the direction of Ashmore Reef, a tiny outcrop of rocks and sand in the Pacific.

By the time they arrived, twelve days from when they first left Indonesia, the hull of the boat was three quarters full of water, and everyone's belongings, including clothes, passports, papers, letters, and photographs of family members back home had dissolved into the wet, stinking water in the hull. The asylum seekers walked, crawled or were carried from the boat to the rocky outcrop, Ashmore Reef. They gripped the land like they had gripped the heaving boat, and walked or lay disorientated and swaying on the solid, unmoving ground.

They were there for four days, hungry, thirsty, and without shelter. The boat was so dilapidated that it looked like an ancient wreck on the shore. On mass they lay or sat, burning, sweating and steaming under the hot sun. Some still had food, which they shared with their family. Others watched hungrily, parched, starving and aching with exhaustion and bitterness at their fate.   On the fourth day they heard a distant buzzing, and stood waving their arms, jumping and shouting to a tiny airplane which circled the reef a couple of times and then flew on. A few hours later their saviour arrived, an Australia navy ship, complete with water, food, blankets, toilets and showers.

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Allan C.
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 03:57 PM

I couldn't help but be reminded of this song:

Rubenstein Remembers
By Ewen Carruthers

There's an old man in the park, sometimes sits till after dark
Old men often don't say much, Rubenstein is just one such
But if you sit with him awhile he will talk and sometimes smile
Rubenstein remembers long ago Septembers, long ago

He was born in Germany, poor but loving family
Jewish tailors don't get rich but they sew a close, close stitch
Married 1929, wife two children doing fine
Until 1939, took them down that railway line.

Rubenstein remembers but he will not say
Where he was or what he did all those years he went away
Rubenstein remembers but his voice is still
He pulls his coat around him as he feels a sudden chill
And walks away

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 04:10 PM

No urban myth... At least 9 relatives of Adolf Hitler now reside in the USA.

I can't discuss their whereabouts in detail but let me ask the open minded people here...Would you want your child marrying into their family?

Subject: RE: BS: A Wonderful Story
From: Charmion
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 05:53 PM

I am one of those people other people tell stories to.

When I was a student, aged about 27 (early '80s), an old man told me about being a "home child" shipped from Scotland to Canada as farm labour. For reasons that I cannot guess, he talked steadily through the 10 minutes it took to ride the bus from Kingston Penitentiary to the Douglas Library, and his chilling story tallied perfectly with the accounts published years later in scholarly works on the subject.

In 1976, when I was in Halifax, a woman at church told me about the beginning of her career in nursing: she was a probationer at the Infirmary on December 6, 1917 (the day of the Halifax harbour explosion), and she couldn't go home for days because of all the wounded and burned people flooding into the hospital. When she found a boy to take a message to her father, she got a note back saying her family was on the brink of giving her up for dead.

Also in Halifax, the old petty officer who ran one of the surgery wards at Stadacona Hospital (where I worked) told me about taking a deathbed confession: a Navy sailor dying of cancer admitted to "getting rid" of a messmate who was known as a sexual predator -- "not safe with young fellas". With the help of a friend, the victim was pushed overboard in a North Atlantic gale.

But I also remember a man who must have had excellent reasons for not telling his story. In 1979, on a train from Ottawa to Trenton, I sat down next to a middle-aged man with a distinctive tattoo that my dear old sergeant had told me about -- three little linked circles on the wrist, signifying a soldier captured at Dieppe (Operation Jubilee, August 19, 1942. Nearly 2,000 prisoners were taken, and many were held in chains for months. Canadian Army oral tradition has it that this was done in reprisal for using Fort Henry in Kingston as a POW cage.) Gormlessly, I pointed at the tattoo and blurted, "Were you at Dieppe?" He turned and stared out the window and said, very flatly, "What the fuck do *you* know about that?" He never so much as looked at me for the rest of the trip.