THE SHOELACE MISTERY

What is it with me, or most men? I would say our hangup is we always need to know how things work.

After all, how can we fix it if we don't figure out how it works in the first place.

I've been trying to deal with a problem for at least a half a decade. Don't snicker. It has nothing to do with a part of my anatomy.

The problem I've been dealing with is more of an aggravation. An aggravation that causes me to waste time and energy, and not always in a suitable environment.

I've been irritated by my left shoe's laces coming untied soon after I put the shoe on. Now you say, "What's the big deal?" I tell you the big deal. Once you step on your loose lace, and your kisser hits the ground, you'll know fast that untied shoelaces do not aid to the composure and dapperness of a cool dude. (Which I am by the way; stretch socks and all.)

Like I said, I've been trying to figure out why only the left shoe's lace unties itself. I do the exact same knot in both shoes. I've tied knots the same way since I was old enough to eat my own soup.

I figured since I was right handed I tied my right shoe tighter. No, that wasn't it.

I figured I shoved my foot further into the shoe, leaving space behind at the heel. No, adjusting that didn't work either.

I looked at myself in a full body mirror and figured my left leg was shorter. I bought a Dr. Scholls insert, tried it out for a week––didn't work.

I decided my stride is not the same with both legs. For several days I did the George Jefferson bop. You know, the cool move where your hip dips a bit at every step. Cool you know! No worky either.

I took notice if I walked pigeon toed. Maybe my left foot sticks further out, or in, than the right one? Not that bad, I noticed. Surely not enough to cause the dilemma.

I tried wearing suspenders and even parted my hair on the other side of my head. No change!

Years I squatted to tie my left shoe. I bent over, blocking other people's way, tying my shoe. I quit going to the Y because I was getting plenty of exercise bending down and bobbing up. I constantly had to make sure my shirt didn't come up and reveal my collectable inscriptions on my souvenir drawers.

Well they thought the earth was flat at one time. They didn't give up. And, wow they actually discovered it was round.

Do you think I, a man with my drive, my stick-to-a-tive-ness, and my nit-picking brain would give up?

I found out, by shear dumb revelation, that had I ever been a Boy Scout, I would have solved my predicament long ago.

I tied my right shoelace doing the first half knot over and under. Did the same on my left shoe for years. However, when I finally figured to tie the problem shoe, doing the half knot under and over, all my problems were solved.

Now I can grin and hoof along with the best of them.

Just Saggin

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Franz's Symbol of Wisdom

He goes by the name of “Slam," a wide shouldered fellow, accustomed of getting his way. In high school he proved his manhood on the wrestling mat. From his neck down a tattoo of an eagle sprawls across his back. The bird appears alive when flexing muscles dominate his opponents. The girls swooned.

After high school, Slam, happy with his status in life, doesn’t find the need of a marketable skill important. His high school fame however, gradually diminishes. The challenge shifts to be cool in his neighborhood. Cool now is the very object of his existence. A black spider tattooed on his neck, reaching for Slam's adorned left ear, is cool. A pierced tongue sporting a silver stud is cool. His shirt, silver and black satin, open to his belt line, showing off his glistening oiled chest, is cool. A gold plated chain with a large, black iron cross makes him a dominating, hard cool. 

Slam does not sit at home, but saunters down toward the main drag where he is apt to get the recognition he desires. Earplugs supply rap music adding an imperceptive beat to accompany his slow walk. With every other beat his left foot sags to the sidewalk ever so slightly, while his right shoulder compliments the bop. The dude has swag!

Slam hits the big time, the main drag. The sidewalk widens. Friends in cars, sub-woofers blaring, slow down to make eye contact with one of their kind. Slam the man holds his baggy, sagging jeans with his left hand while the other hand gives an approving signal; finger pointing forward. His stroll has now slowed to the rhythm of every fourth beat. 

Hanging suspenders decorate his hips having been demoted from doing their job. All is cool. Across his lower back his underwear begins to seek freedom. The skivvies pop in the sun like a liberated grader belt. A dog bone print on the fabric becomes obvious. The bones alluding to his masculine prowess.

Pooled at the bottom, his britches drag the ground as frayed strands of strings follow like dried worms. Slam is careful not to obscure his highly prized, over-sized sneakers. He also makes sure the touted brand is visible on the side of his brogans, the status symbol of his overall flare. The loose laces are opposite of black. Laced only through four loops, and gathered in the front. They add to being cool and casually drag the sidewalk, giving an air to the in thing.

Slam hears a long blast from a car horn. He partially turns to acknowledge the supposed recognition by a compadre. Instead he sees a long-legged shepherd pup weaving his way through traffic. The hound finds the neighborhood dude irresistible. He sniffs and playfully jumps on Slam. Slam now, being upstaged by this goofy four-legged pain, smacks at the dog. Not deterred, the playful pup nips at the sagging britches and finds the unravelling result exciting. The dog grabs the suspenders and pulls hard to detach them. At this point Slam is urged to forego the rhythm of his earplugs and begins to free himself from the new attraction on the main drag.

To ward off the playful critter, Slam forgets his styling and realizes his underwear is now in full bloom. When he attempts to make a run for it, he steps on his loose laces causing the shoe to come off. With his pants around his ankles, he loses balance and stumbles to the sidewalk. Frantically he reaches for his prized shoe before the hound finds the smell irresistible. 

The dog however, lets go of the stretched suspenders smacking poor Mr. Cool in the butt.

Slam raises his voice and whops the dog with his sneaker. The lively pup still thinks this is a great game and is convinced the cute bones on the skivvies are for him. Mine, mine! Yum, yum, exclaims the dog as he yanks the underwear into shreds and exposes Mr. Cool’s muscular, untanned full moon. 

Bent over, trying to pull up some cover, Slam notices a school bus stopped at the light. The bright yellow rig, full of the neighborhood’s kids, is not in the hurry. It hangs a while at the light as all its passengers crowd to the windows. Across the street, two people are raising their cell phones to capture the excitement to be shared with the local evening's newscast.

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New Novel: Red Solstice

After six years, I think the Novel is ready to be published. An author friend told me, "It's time to lay the baby down." The first draft was nearly 130,000 words. I have sharpened it to 94,000 words.

I self-published my first work, A TIME AND PLACE, The Making of an Immigrant, and sold over 3,000 copies.

This novel, RED SOLSTICE, I plan to publish electronically, as well as a hard cover version.

The subject is a WWII soldier missing in action. Declared dead by the German government, but survived eleven years of captivity.

I wrote the novel in the first person. Following is the intro page to the novel.

We immigrated to America when I was fifteen.

All was new––the vastness, the people, the language.

The old however, was etched deep in me.

I never knew my father.

He left before I was four years old.

He went to war and never returned.

Missing in action, they say.

For more than sixty years

I’ve wondered what might have been.

I had to write this book,

To cross the troubled waters,

To feel his struggles, as they may have been,

To rest my mind.

How could I find his words?

How could I portray his pain?

How could I calm my own nagging heart?

I myself needed to put on his shoes;

Step into a time that I never knew.

Yes, it is he I needed to become––

To at last get to know him.

A Time and Place, last chapter

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The sea could not shake us, neither could the challenges of the New World.

This portion of the book sets in motion the energies that epitomize the American spirit. The small, colorful tiles of life keep emerging as they continue to put together the mosaic that is called the immigrant. Though this segment of the book only spans a little more than two years, the pieces shall continue to reveal themselves until the Lord requires the soul.

The book ends with this story:

ONLY IN AMERICA

Given the opportunity, there is hardly a person in the world today who would not come to America. Why is that so? It may be that, world-wide, there is a deep down feeling that in America no one will squelch the drive and determination of its people. America is known to elevate not the lazy, but the honest man, a man striving toward a goal with a dogged zeal. People coming to America do not look for handouts. Most are on a mission to prove to themselves, and their new countrymen, that a goal set was not a goal set in vain.

A lot of good things had come to fruition during the first two years in our new homeland. About a year and one-half earlier, we were shown some disrespect for only having three hundred and sixty-two dollars toward the purchase of a new house. The sting from that experience was the impetus to keep us pushing. Mom consistently found ways to put a few dollars away. She always had been very aware that pennies make dollars. Ever since the war, she’d sewn and mended. In many other ways, she figured out not to waste. She saved the grease from roasts and gravies to use again in frying potatoes and baking cakes and cookies. I remember casually mentioning once that a cake she had baked tasted a bit too much like bacon. Every piece of soap that had gotten too small to use was saved. When a cup full of small chunks were collected, they were shredded on the hand-held vegetable grater, and then used to do a load of wash in Mom’s wringer washer.

All Dad did was work, then work some more. For many months, he worked two full time jobs. For eight hours, he loaded trucks, then jumped into his car to go to work at a bakery, making doughnuts for another eight hours. Mom cleaned houses six days a week. I worked full time and all the extra hours I could get at Van Vechten Press, including all day Saturdays. During the various harvest times, Mom and Dad went to a local farm to pick vegetables with the migrant workers, during the few hours they had left in the week.

This had nothing to do with being cheap or greedy. It had all to do with goals. You have heard me talk about whining and complaining. Well, you do not do that when something is achievable. Complaining is not part of getting there.

While taking a shortcut through a residential community, Dad spotted a new house under construction. The style of the house was called a front to back split level. It was constructed on a fifty-foot wide lot, between two larger homes. As it turned out, the owner of the new home was also the builder. We set a date to meet with him and talk about the possibility of buying the house. The finances, we knew, had to be worked out. After looking over the house, we all fell in love with it. It had three bedrooms and a bath upstairs. The elevated front of the house provided the living room, with cathedral ceiling, and a full kitchen with an eat-in area. The ground level in the rear had a recreation room, a sewing room, and a washroom with toilet. A cellar was under half of the house, with more usable space. The lot extended in the back for one hundred feet or more, enough for a good garden, flowers, and fruit trees. It was a dream home in a convenient location. We were ready to buy; but could we borrow enough money, that was the worry. With no credit and not much established work history, Mom and Dad found out that they could not borrow enough. All the pooling of our monies did not add up to enough to make the difference between the purchase price and what the bank would loan us. We needed almost four thousand dollars.

We took the sad news to the builder and his brother, who kept on working daily on the house to bring it to completion. Dad negotiated with the contractor for a two thousand dollar discount. For this we would have to paint the house, inside and out, as well as do the backfill of the excavated soil around the foundation. This was normally done by a bulldozer, but we had a shovel and were ready. It took a little longer, but it got done.

My parents also approached a German friend for a loan. The friend, who came to this country about the same time we did, offered to lend us one thousand dollars at ten percent interest. We took him up on it. I took the responsibility of paying back that loan with interest. In addition, the builder was kind enough to prolong the closing date until we had saved, or rounded up, enough to meet the bank’s required down payment.

We were so convinced that this house was going to be ours that we started to clean up and do other things to help the builder.

One day Dad and I were shoveling dirt to fill the gaping hole around the house, when a man, in his thirties, stopped his car in the front of the house. He climbed up on the dirt pile and introduced himself. He inquired if we were the owners. Mr. Davis said he was a storm-window salesman and asked if we would like him to measure for combination storm and screen windows for our new house. Dad explained that we were working toward becoming the owners. In his ever present naivete, he told Mr. Davis that we still lacked three hundred dollars before we could buy the house. Graciously acknowledging that we were probably not ready for storm windows, Mr. Davis got back in his car and drove off.

Within the hour, Mr. Davis reappeared at the construction site, walked up to Dad and me, and handed us three hundred dollars. He simply said, “My address is on that slip of paper, pay me back when you can.” With that he turned and got back in his car.

I saw an angel when I was six years old. I believe I also saw an angel that day in flesh and blood. –– He was an American. PRAISE GOD!

A Time and Place, first chapter

AUTHOR’S NOTE

A flash and a big bang, a cold cellar floor, and a fear of falling from a window– these are the only things I distinctly remember as a three-year-old.

The air raid sirens, the approach and roar of bomber planes, those memories came alive only, when after 30 years I visited the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. Upon entering a wing of the museum that was dedicated to World War II, sounds of bombers and sirens were being played as a background to the exhibit. Such dreadful emotions were aroused in me that I had to leave. I simply could not cope with it.

A picture of me playing in a sand box and one showing soldiers boarding a train completed the time and place that provided me the recall of the events recorded in the first pages of this book.

1943

Südbahnhof, one of several train stations of Munich, was always busy in 1943. The four-story row house we lived in was facing the railyard and also the south and western sun. The rhythmic sounds of the rail cars and steam locomotives became a soothing accompaniment to everyday life. It also evokes a blue and piercing memory, a feeling of sadness, to think my father shipped out to war from that same station.

The window sills were wide, extending outward, overhanging the building’s exterior wall. They were surrounded by a wrought iron basket like a cage that enveloped the lower half of the window from side to side. Mom used the sill to grow flowers as well as parsley and chives. You could close the window from the inside and have the miniature garden left to be exposed to rain and sun. I was given my first trembling memories of that time and that place when Mom decided that I needed some fresh air and sun and had me, three years old, sit out on that ledge looking three stories down to the sidewalk below. Seems like sister Dagmar, then just an infant, got to enjoy some sun as well.

The air raids of that time made a dreaded imprint in this little fellow’s mind. Often the peace of the moment was shaken by that ever more frequent piercing scream of the siren. It seemed to come through the windows, the walls, the curtains, the ears, the head–straight to the soul. This death blast would come, never respecting whether you were sleeping or just swallowing your first bite of hot cereal. Instantly, Mom, carrying baby sister, and I would, in a state of highest mental and physical agitation, holding on to each other, race down the long flights of stairs to the basement of the tenement. I do not know why, but once down there, I always was looking at that window...one small window up high, probably level with the sidewalk outside, that window that made me tremble so. Mom and us children would be sitting on the damp floor, leaning against a cold wall, looking at that window. There were many other people huddled around the outer walls of that cellar, all mesmerized by one source of light, that window. That light of the moment was not from the sun, since most bombing attacks were at night, nor was it from the street lights, since power was cut off, but from the fires burning. One burning so close it had singed the window curtains in the apartment.

The bursts of orange flashes, accompanied by earth trembling sounds, were a gauge in every one’s mind as to how close every bomb was. They were all close, because no railyard was spared. There were never any tears or screams, because fright is not accompanied by tears and cannot be consoled by one’s own emotions.

The last etching in my child’s soul of that time and place was when the expectation of the worst became reality. A tremendous burst of white light–an earth shattering shock from a hit–the little window exploded amid an enormously hellish flash and was no more. The disintegration of that window formed the final blanket that would put to rest the hell of a three-year old.

Soon after that, the government evacuated most women and children still living in the city. We were allowed to live in a small town in lower Bavaria called Griesbach.

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