Tag Archives: WWII

Morning sky drawn in sidewalk chalk

Posted on February 6, 2016 by

Passage from Dover to Dunkirk, via Reims, to southern Germany Past the old vicarage down the hill in time for the last of the owls, bending at the bottom through a valley to the lake for disabled anglers — No … Continue reading →

Posted in travel, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

‘Strangeways, here we come’

Posted on October 20, 2015 by

When I lent Benny’s dad Christoph a book on German history and explained the author’s premise, that too much focus had been placed on the Hitler years, he said that’s because no one told them what happened, no one talked … Continue reading →

Posted in travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 38 Comments

Meet me at the cemetry gates

Posted on September 30, 2015 by

We dropped the kids off for their first day of German school, their first class French — French taught in German — and I walked to the cemetery by the Realschule, where we’ve started our third week of German classes, … Continue reading →

| Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

Once there was a way to get back homewards

Posted on August 9, 2015 by

My dad told my 91-year-old grandmother, his mom, we’ve moved to Germany for nine months and she seems OK with it, she says. They live about 20 minutes from each other in Pennsylvania — my dad, his sister Sue and … Continue reading →

Posted in writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Dangerous Heat to Build Across Germany, Poland

Posted on August 8, 2015 by

A week without my cell phone now, breaking the habit of checking, responding like a lab rat to artificial chimes and chirps, the desire to be recognized. Benny comes at 5 and spends the night, gets right into the story … Continue reading →

Posted in travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

The coin of the realm

Posted on July 16, 2015 by

It twists and shifts with the pace of a Rube Goldberg machine, drops men from boats to dangle in the sky, forest green figurines crouching, aiming, leaping — heroes in the minds of boys, heroes in living form some call sacrifice. A plastic American … Continue reading →

Posted in poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments