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Solid metal 5-litre Jerry Can, factory-sealed, filled with Premium 98. Clean exterior, tight cap, no dents, no leaks, comes with a detachable pouring spout. All for the low, low price of $499.95.
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Neuer Jungfernstieg 16 along Hamburg's Binnenalster
Lemmings have a better plan than I had when, at the end of 1967 and having completed my two compulsory years as an assisted migrant to Australia, I somehow decided to return to the (c)old "Vaterland" for no better reason than that I could.
I had started a new life in Australia and secured a new career which even a native-born could've been proud of, and yet, to twist a famous phrase, where to be and what to be was still the question. Decades later, when my first-ever girlfriend in Germany — who by that time had found herself a reliable husband and had two teenage sons — sent me a big DHL-package containing all the letters I had ever written her, I found in it a letter in which I had told her, just after a few months in the new country, "I've got a better job than I could've got at home, and I seem to be settled in for the rest of my life. It's all been too easy!"
"It's all been too easy!" has been my constant complaint. Whatever was given to me, I would refuse. Whatever was spread before me, I would turn my back on, the better to hunger for what I had denied myself.
And so it was with my next employers, the German-South American Bank in Hamburg, who offered me a transfer to South America if I did my time in their head office in that brightly-lit building shown in the above photo. It was taken by a friend a few days ago when it was already springtime in Germany, and not in that arctic winter of January 1968.
After only two months I resigned and moved back to my hometown Braunschweig where I found an equally promising welcome in the "Auslandsabteilung" of the Braunschweigische Landesbank, but not with either of my divorced parents who no longer wanted to be part of my restless life. It hurt at the time but, in hindsight, they both did me a favour because it would've been just too easy to return to a comfortable life of homecooked meals and my bed made and my washing done.
And so I moved on again to Frankfurt, where I not only found work as a currency dealer with the First National City Bank but also a girlfriend who seemed more interested in me than I in her. The "It's all been too easy!" warning bells were ringing again and I escaped to South-West Africa where I worked just long enough to save up enough money for my return fares to Australia. The bank in Australia welcomed me back with open arms, for which I repaid them by resigning nine months later to move to New Guinea. It had been a year of living stupidly, but perhaps it had also served its purpose of showing me that I was not cut out for an "Uncle Vanya" life, so aptly lamented by Sonya in its closing scene:
"Uncle Vanya, we must go on. We've no choice! All we can do is go on living ... all through the endless days and evenings, we will get through them, whatever fate brings. We'll work for others until we're old, there'll be no rest for us till we die. And when the time comes, we'll go without complaining and we'll remember that we wept, and that we suffered, and that life was bitter, but God will take pity on us!"
Early Saturday morning at "Riverbend" with a bowl of porridge and a cup of tea on the jetty. And only myself for company. Heaven on earth. Hell is other people, said Jean-Paul Satre.
I seem to remember from last night's television news that there are troubles in the world, that those millions of idiots who voted an idiot into the White House are having second thoughts, and that Bunnings have sold out of jerry cans to store petrol in, but it all seems irrelevant and even unreal as I sit here and watch the ebb and flow of the river.
Two canoists come paddling up the river. A short 'Hello!', then silence again. It's taken me all of thirty-three years to appreciate how special this place is, but I think I've got it now. Time for another cup of tea.
Astrange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sadness. In the past the idea of sadness always appealed to me, now I am almost ashamed of its complete egoism. I have known boredom, regret, and at times remorse, but never sadness. Today something envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft, which isolates me."
Autumn is not my favourite season. And right on cue, autumn has started in Australia, with a sudden drop in temperature and sunshine which could only be described as hesitant. I've just taken in the wheelie bins after this morning's garbage collection, and am debating with myself whether I should make myself another cup of coffee, read a book, go back to bed, or do all three. Bonjour Tristesse indeed!
The latest addition to my collection of Australian movies is Sunstruck, starring England's tallest dwarf, Harry Secombe, and the Australian actor John Meillon. Harry plays the Welsh schoolteacher and choirmaster Stanley Evans who emigrates to Australia to 'teach in the sun' -- but finds reality falls somewhat short of the blissful image on the recruiting poster.
Anticipating a Bondi Beach lifestyle, Stanley arrives in Kookaburra Springs to find a town with two buildings: an old pub and a ramshackle schoolhouse. Despite the fact that the kids do everything in their power to get rid of him – no schoolmaster means no school! – Stanley stays, and eventually finds a way to win them over.
Ich wanderte im Jahre 1965 vom (k)alten Deutschland nach Australien aus. In Erinnerung an das alte Sprichwort "Gott hüte mich vor Sturm und Wind und Deutschen die im Ausland sind" wurde ich in 1971 im Dschungel von Neu-Guinea australischer Staatsbürger. Das kostete mich nur einen Umlaut und das zweite n im Nachnamen - von -mann auf -man.
Australien gab mir eine zweite Sprache und eine zweite Chance und es war auch der Anfang und das Ende: nach fünfzig Arbeiten in fünfzehn Ländern - "Die ganze Welt mein Arbeitsfeld" - lebe ich jetzt im Ruhestand in Australien an der schönen Südküste von Neusüdwales.
Ich verbringe meine Tage mit dem Lesen von Büchern, segle mein Boot den Fluss hinunter, beschäftige mich mit Holzarbeit, oder mache Pläne für eine neue Reise. Falls Du mir schreiben willst, sende mir eine Email an riverbendnelligen [AT] mail.com, und ich schreibe zurück.
Falls Du anrufen möchtest, meine Nummer ist XLIV LXXVIII X LXXXI.
This blog is written in the version of English that is standard here. So recognise is spelled recognise and not recognize etc. I recognise that some North American readers may find this upsetting, and while I sympathise with them, I sympathise even more with my countrymen who taught me how to spell. However, as an apology, here are a bunch of Zs for you to put where needed.
Zzzzzz
Disclaimer
This blog has no particular axe to grind, apart from that of having no particular axe to grind. It is written by a bloke who was born in Germany at the end of the war (that is, for younger readers, the Second World War, the one the Americans think they won single-handedly). He left for Australia when most Germans had not yet visited any foreign countries, except to invade them. He lived and worked all over the world, and even managed a couple of visits back to the (c)old country whose inhabitants he found very efficient, especially when it came to totting up what he had consumed from the hotels' minibars. In retirement, he lives (again) in Australia, but is yet to grow up anywhere.
He reserves the right to revise his views at any time. He might even indulge in the freedom of contradicting himself. He has done so in the past and will most certainly do so in the future. He is not persuading you or anyone else to believe anything that is reported on or linked to from this site, but encourages you to use all available resources to form your own opinions about important things that affect all our lives and to express them in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everything on this website, including any material that third parties may consider to be their copyright, has been used on the basis of “fair dealing” for the purposes of research and study, and criticism and review. Any party who feels that their copyright has been infringed should contact me with details of the copyright material and proof of their ownership and I will remove it.
And finally, don't bother trying to read between the lines. There are no lines - only snapshots, most out of focus.
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