My Story
The short and long of it.
By Joseph Buchmann
And So It Began…..
Ingenbohl,
Schwyz, Post Office, 23rd of November, 1941, 8:20 in the
morning. The air was still; a few light
snowflakes twirled aimlessly in the cold morning sky. The low clouds covered the hovering
“Immediately come
home regarding birth. Greetings.
Wife and Midwife Muff.”
The
postal clerk graciously squeezed in the word ‘Please’ in the left margin as he
transcribed text; no extra charge for the telegram, even though the text now
would have exceeded the number of allowed for the 25 centimes basic fee, were
it not by an act of goodness of the clerk to count ‘ im
Felde’ in the address as just one word.
Thus,
with this short message, my birth on November 22 was first documented. Swiss people are known to display their
feelings sparingly. The telegram was
addressed to my father, stationed at the army camp near Ingenbohl-Brunnen in
the
My
father must have been waiting for some news from home. I can imagine that he ripped open the
envelope and was thrilled and relieved by the message. He hurriedly showed the telegram to his
corporal, who then contacted the lieutenant.
My father was granted leave of absence, and he immediately prepared to
leave for home.
What
were my father’s thoughts as he traveled home by train and bus? Was the labor and birth painful, how is the
mother, is the newborn baby healthy, is the baby a girl or a boy? Mother wanted a girl. The first child, Franz, born three years
earlier, a boy, and he will grow up to help on the farm; the new baby ideally
should be a girl to help Mother in the house.
As
it turned out, I was a boy and my name would be Josef, or Seppi, a traditional
name of the Buchmann family of Hochdorf.
At birth, my skin was somewhat dark, so I was affectionately called
Negus, after Haile Selassie, the king (negus) of Abessynia (
When
father returned to his military station at Ingenbohl, the Captain of the
Company arranged for a collection for the benefit of the newborn Seppi. After the fund was topped up by the Captain
himself, the twenty francs were deposited into a savings account with the local
Kantonalbank. I left the account
untouched until recently when the bank wanted it closed; despite all the years’
accrued interest the balance was not high enough for the bank. I keep the savings booklet, mutilated with
punched cancellation holes, as a priceless memento.
During
the war, while in military service, Vati had regular home leave. Muetti was pregnant again four and a half
month after my birth. When Isidor was
born, a collection was again organized at the army camp, but everybody said ‘we
already gave’. Just kidding, Isidor, I
made this up.
So far, so good. Among the millions of
competing sperms, I was first at the finishing line. Will my life offer the same good odds?
My Acorn Tree
Little chance that I be born,
Of untold many,
I am the luckiest of acorn.
Dropped by mighty an oak tree,
Left to rot or left to Be.
I was saved from squirrels’ claw,
That tasty food for them to gnaw.
Nor by horses' hooves be
crushed,
Or by iron carts be mashed.
Beetles, rats, I would survive,
Mother Fate has granted me a life.
Blown by wind and drained
by rain
Soon I land on fertile soil.
Growing taller day by day,
Hale and hearty as can be,
I became a strong oak tree.
The
omens appeared propitious: born into a
loving family, living in a free, peaceful country, and having twenty francs in
the bank.
The Ascent of Man
The
Seetal valley, my ancestral homeland, was populated by the alemanic tribe
(Alemannen) after the
The
Alemannen are a tribe of Germanic race that in the post-Roman era slowly
settled the forested and mountainous area of
It
is intriguing to think and muse that I might be the first person in my direct
line of ancestry to see the ocean since Man emerged and ascended from the sea,
or maybe since my ancient Germanic ancestors migrated from the
The
truth is that I am a typical Allemann, except that, sadly, I lack the last
attribute. Far from attached to the soil
of my home land, as a young boy, I could hardly wait to leave.
Life is a Beech
The
Buchmanns have their roots in Hochdorf, a locally important village in the
Valley of the Lakes (Seetal), just over one hour’s walk from our home in the
Forefather Joseph Buchmann, born in 1723, was Amtsweibel
(also called Untervogt, a relatively high political and administrative
position, like a sheriff). In 1758,
Joseph was honored to lay the first stone of the new St. Martin church, a
beautiful church that that still dominates and adorns the small town of
The family name Buchmann can
be traced back many centuries. The
earliest documented name Buchmann is 1386.
In the battle at Sempach, a Peter Buchmann fought with the Swiss against
the tyrannical Habsburgs and was killed in the battle. His name, together with many other killed
compatriots, and enemy fighters, is written on the walls of the commemorative
chapel at Sempach. Peter Buchmann was
from the close area where I was brought up, so he may have been a distant ancestor
or relative.
Then, there was a branch of
Buchmann’s in the Eastern part of
There are also many Buchmanns
in
Trees, Fleas and the Wise
Chinese
The
Swiss have a profound respect for the landscape; they work it, love it and
treasure it. The Swiss know that Man is
subservient to the land, unlike other countries where land is exploited and
ruined to enrich a few. We are given the
land for our lifetime as caretakers and custodians. We must nurture and cherish the land and when
our lease ends, hand it over unharmed to the next generation. Over time, the land and terrain forms the
character of the people. I like the
Chinese adage ‘Mountains Make Great Trees’.
Mountainous land builds people of great characters.
I
also like the early Chinese vision of the creation of the world. It correctly places the land and nature ahead
of Man and gives Man an insignificant and diminutive role in the overall
scheme. First, there was as an egg. The egg split into two parts: the upper part became the firmament, and the
lower part became the earth. P’an-ku
emerged from the broken egg and grew three feet each day. The sky and the earth grew with him. After eighteen thousand years, ‘Pan-ku died
and his body split into many parts. His
head transformed into the sun and the moon, his blood filled the rivers, lakes
and oceans; his hair turned into the forest, his sweat became rain and his
breath the wind, his voice the thunder.
Lastly, his fleas morphed into humans, the ancestors of mankind.
The Buchmann Family
Our
family was small: my father and mother, my brother Franz (1939), my brother
Isidor (1943), my brother Adolf (born later in 1948), and grandmother Gotte,
the mother of my mother. Also living
with us were Rösi, a young lady who helped my mother and helped on the farm,
and Hans and Jakob Burkhart, two brothers who helped on the farm. Gotte lost her husband Niklaus as a result of
a farm equipment accident when my mother, the only child, was a teenager, and
she brought up the child alone, enduring a lot of hardship. Rösi was a poor orphan and suffered terrible
hardship and abuse before she came to us, and we treated her as part of the
family. Hans and Jakob were the sons of
Gotte’s sister Anna who also lost her husband.
The
grandparents on my father’s side lived in Hochdorf, the ancestral home. We visited their home several times a year. I am sure that grandfather loved his grand
children dearly, although he did not show his feelings much. He was retired and lived with our dear
grandmother on the third floor of their large family farmhouse. Grandmother was always so pleased to see us,
and she served us delicious cookies, which we gulped down noisily with
unbridled delight. Grandfather Josef
used to sit on the warm stone oven, happily smoking his pipe, saying, “don’t
these children have enough to eat at home?”
Grandfather married well: a girl from a more upscale Gelfingen
family. It is said that a distantly
related ancestor on grandmother’s family side was the right-hand man of Fürst
von Metternich, the Austria-Hungarian statesman and diplomat, but I cannot be
sure of the story. Is it fiction or is
it fact. But hey, related to a
right-hand man of a prince, the most powerful man in the early 19th
century! Grandfather died when I was
about 5 years old. We continued to be
very close to Grandmother. She died at
an old age when I was living in
My
father was the youngest child in his family.
He was born in the year 1911 in Baldegg, a short distance North of
Hochdorf. When he was young, the family
moved to the Buchmann ancestral farm in Hochdorf. The owner of the farm, the uncle of my
grandfather, Martin Johann Buchmann (born 1865), had no sons to take over the
farm and the farm was thus offered to my grandfather Josef.
My
father had two brothers and two sisters.
The oldest brother, Josef, was the privileged son in the family. My father told us the sad story how Josef was
happily horseback riding on Sundays in his best suits while my father was told
to take care of the messy chores in the barn.
When my father dared to complain, he was curtly told ‘if you don’t like
it here, you can leave’. Still, my
father got along with brother Josef really well. Uncle Josef was my Godfather.
Every
New Years Day, I received a shiny new silver Five-Frank coin from my Godfather
Josef. The coin was so new, so precious,
that I immediately dropped it in my locked piggy bank so that it would keep its
beautiful shine. Little did I know that
the piggy bank would then be deposited at the bank. And what would the bank do with my
money? It would lend it to other
people. And I could not understand why
people would ever want to borrow money?
The
second brother of my father, Isidor, worked for Josef as a farmhand. Traveling back from a visit to taverns in
Luzern, the unfortunate uncle Isidor stepped off the train before it came to a
full stop, and he was badly injured.
Uncle Isidor was the nicest person; he was so happy when we visited him
in Hochdorf. He never fully recovered
from the train accident and he died long before his time. The older sister Marie was married to Adolf,
a farmer in Römerswil. She died young
from an undiagnosed illness. Adolf’s
farmhouse burned down to the ground after Marie emptied a pot full of hot ashes
too close to the house. This mistake
must have nagged her mind incessantly and the self-blame no doubt lead to her
early grave. Our family later moved to
Adolf’s farm. The youngest sister Elise
married a farmer called Bert Winiger of Abtwil.
Aunt Elise was incredibly talented in writing poems for all family
occasions. Bert and Elise had a
daughter, my dear cousin Elisabeth.
Rain
The
family lived near the
I
have many memories of my early years in Rain.
The earliest memory is of an evening at the end of the Second World War
when hundreds of returning military internees marched down the road next to our
house singing military songs. I also
remember a boy and girl from war torn
For toddlers, time passes at a snail’s pace, very slowly; time almost stands still. As one grows older, time inexorably speeds up and eventually goes into overdrive. When very young, about three years old, my brother and I slept in Grandmother Gotte’s bedroom. Every night at bedtime, Gotte recited bedtime prayers with us. The everyday prayer was a combo of ‘Our Father’ and ‘Hail Mary’, not once, but three times in succession. I remember pleading with Gotte to stop the prayer after the first ‘Our Father’. I was sleepy and the prayer was so long. But that was nothing; during lent, we had to pray the rosary, and on Good Friday a triplet of the rosary!
Rub-a-Dub-Dub, Splash, Splash…
Our home in Rain was a large wooden farmhouse. I seem to recollect that it was painted in a blue-green color, but since all photos of that time are monochrome, I cannot attest to that, and the house probably was repainted since then. The house had the basic amenities: large kitchen, two living rooms, many bedrooms. The washroom was on the upstairs level of the attached woodshed.
In summer, a weekly bath was prepared in the south garden behind the house. Mother filled the bathtub with cold water in the morning and let it warm up in the hot summer sun. By later afternoon, we all had our bath in the idyllic sun drenched garden (children only, of course). It was a grand production. First my older bother Franz step into the tub and thoroughly wash himself in the sparkling warm water, then it was my turn, then finally Isidor. In summer, we children never wore shoes and we enjoyed walking on fields and roads barefoot. By the end of the season, the sole of our feet was thick and tough like leather. And our feet were dirty. By the time my bath was finished and Isidor jumped in, the water had a distinctive earthy color. No wonder, Isidor built up enough immunity to protect him from germs for the rest of his life.
Later
in Römerswil, we had our own bathroom.
The traditional bath in the sunny backyard became the routine Saturday
evening bath. I remember how amused and
stunned we were by the incredible allegation that an American Hollywood
celebrity, Frank Sinatra, showered three times a day. Three times a day!
The Last Supper
Homeless,
penniless drunkards wandered the country roads.
These poor men were alcoholics in a permanent state of drunkenness. They staggered from farm to farm hoping that
someone would offer them a carafe of cider, perhaps, if lucky, some meat and
bread. At the end of the day, their
tired body longed for a place in a warm barn so they lie down on straw and
spend the night. We called them
Mösterler. Some Mösterler visited our
house regularly. We saw them from afar
slowly stumble up the hill towards our house.
We asked them to sit on the bench just outside the main entrance. They were too dirty and smelly to come
inside, reeking from alcohol and clothing that had not been washed for months,
pants so dirty they looked like leather.
We felt sorry for these poor people and always offered them drink and
food, and for the night a place in the barn.
We
made them feel comfortable and talked to them.
They lived in a world of their own.
A regular Mösteler once confided to us that he would like to take up
work, if only he had the time. He was a
professional Mösterler.
One
day, I was about four years old, we had to slaughter a calf; the animal
probably died during birth. My mother
prepared the meat for dinner, a delicious stew of tender calf meat. A Mösteler happened to be visiting that
evening and we asked him to join us for dinner.
During dinner, we had a lively conversation about the weather, the crop,
hopes and ambitions, the philosophy of life.
The conversation stalled when the Mösteler told us that he would die
that night. He was convinced that this
was his last day on earth. The meal that
evening had a special and a grave meaning to me, after all, this was going to
be the man’s last meal. Dying. Poor man. Mother and Father took the foretelling with
adult skepticism. Father offered the man
a place at the barn for the night, and he checked his pockets and removed the
matches. After a couple more glasses of
cider, the Mösteler stumbled to the barn to retired on a straw bag. I watched through the window as the poor man
ambulated his unsteady body into the darkness towards the barn. A sad sight. Dead man walking.
Next
morning, I hastily got up. My first
thought was the fate of the Mösterler. I
saw my father working in the field. I
ran to him and anxiously asked, ‘Did he die, did the Mösterler die, is he
dead’? No, apparently he left early
that morning and walked straight to the next farm for a refill of alcoholic
cider. No rest for the weary.
The Little Black Chimney Door
I
am a war baby. I was born while the
Second World War was raging in
I
was three years old when the war ended.
I vividly remember when columns of foreign refugee soldiers marched down
our road, singing military songs, returning to their home countries. My father returned home from military service
and life slowly returned to a resemblance of normalcy. But normal it was not, not for a long
time.
A
sense of austerity prevailed throughout the land. Food stuff was rationed. The farmers, for a change, had it relatively
good. The fields provided plenty of
vegetables, grain and fruits; the cows supplied milk, butter and cheese, and
the pigpen royally purveyed the occasional fat pig for bacon and sausage, and
the chicken laid fresh eggs daily. City
folks were jealous at the apparent abundance of good, healthy food on the farms
while they had to go to their local store, ration coupon in hand, like beggars,
buying from limited availability.
Visitors to our house were always warmly received and richly fed. Thinly sliced air-cured smoked bacon, crusty
bread and cider were the staple fare for visiting friends. But the government watched. Food production was tightly monitored and
controlled. The farmers had to declare
slaughtered pigs and cows so that the meat could be fairly allocated among the
population. One late evening, my mother was alarmed and
worried when she heard some commotion and the shrieking scream of a pig coming
from the basement. What were the men
doing in the basement; if an inspector heard the scream he could think that we
are slaughtering a pig. If we ever
slaughtered a little pig, off the books, so to speak, it had to be done hush-hush. I am not saying that we ever did, but surely
some farmers, perhaps the neighbors, were tempted to do it. On many Friday’s an official appeared
unannounced to check if we had forbidden meat on the table. Government inspectors were not
unreasonable. They knew how hard the
farmers work for a living, then, and during the war. Innocent and unintentional errors in
record-keeping surely occurred, and the inspector would turn a blind eye on
such minor discrepancies and indiscretions.
The odd piece of meat may have escaped the official’s scrutiny. Not to
forget eggs, and milk, and chickens.
Now, every city dweller wanted a farmer as a friend; they no longer
turned up their noses at them.
We
lived in a large farmhouse. From the
upper floor, thru a locked door, a narrow stair along the chimney brick wall
led up to the attic. In the chimney wall
was a small door in cast iron, about two feet in diameter. Open that little black door and a wave of
warm smoke would envelop our faces.
Hanging on heavy racks, a few junks of bacon rubbed in salt, were slowly
curing in the smoke from the wood fire in the kitchen below. Somehow we knew that this soot- covered space
behind the small rusty door was special to our family, something we should not
talk about. We were not told to keep it
a secret. Perhaps someone told us once,
maybe a few times, and imprinted it in the embryonic baby mind. “Psst, don’t tell anyone. Bad things will happen if you tell someone,”
someone may have told me jokingly. Small
children take jokes seriously. What bad
things will happen? The smoky hole in
the chimney was a mysterious place, a secretive place. Now, I have only the faintest memory of that
time in the distant past, like a blur, a dream.
A man used to come to our house, I guess he was
a family friend. For some reason, deeply
planted in my psyche, I fled in fright and went hiding whenever I saw him. Sometimes he went up to the attic. I was scarred of the man. I did not want to be hung on hooks with the
bacon in the chimney.
Food
rationing came to an end, and an overall good feeling of hope returned. The
city folks put back their pounds and no longer recognized their friends on the
farm. Unknown were the consequences of
clogged arteries; a gentleman’s belly was a sign of prosperity. The government inspector no longer came to
review the records. Food and goods were
plentiful and everyone lived happily.
A
few city dwellers stayed in contact with the farmers. Where else could they buy Kirsch brandy of
the highest quality, almost ninety percent pure alcohol. Every year, a horse-drawn mobile distillery
arrived at our farm, and for a few days it turned our barrels full of fermented
pulp of cherries and crushed apples into flasks full of high-spirit Kirsch and
Schnaps. Following an old Byzantine law
and a complex formula, the farmers were allowed to keep some of the precious
liquid for home consumption. An
allowance of a precise quantity of alcohol was granted for every adult in the
household and for every cow in the barn.
That accounted for a lot of free Kirsch and other spirits, especially
since the cows did not partake in its consumption; better medication for the
cows was available from the vet. The
remainder of the alcohol had to be sold to the Government at a low fixed
price. The government then diluted the
alcohol with water and sold it to the public at exorbitant prices.
A
Herr Fritz Leber paid us regular visits.
Herr Leber owned a fabrics store in the big city of
Banana Split
I
was about four or five years old when food rationing ended. Exotic foods and fruits grown in far-away
countries were still rare and expensive.
We received one or two juicy oranges when we were sick, and found some tangerines in the
Christmas basket. Grapefruits were
unknown and unpronounceable. Pineapples,
sculptured artwork to our eyes, were found only in fancy magazine ads. And golden bananas were a thing of dreams, a
taste only to imagine and yearn for.
My
birthday most years coincided with the annual St. Martin Market Day in
Hochdorf, a traditional annual fair. My
father would never miss the ‘Hochdorfer Märt’; Hochdorf, or ‘Hofdere’, was his
home town, the home of his parents, sisters, brothers, school mates and many
friends. The main street of Hochdorf,
from the brewery leading up to the church, was lined up with stands and
displays. Traveling and local merchants
were eager to sell all kind of ware:
cakes and bread, fineries for the ladies, cloth for the seamstresses,
working cloths, hats, farming tools.
There was a sense of good feeling, happy faces, the wonderful smell of
burned chestnuts and freshly baked hazelnut cakes. I can easily image my father as he walked
down the main street stopping at various stands admiring the variety of goods
that were offered.
One
of the stands was covered chock-o-block with fruits. On the side pole there was hanging a bunch of
bananas. Father has not seen bananas for
years. The war had just ended a few
years and few fancy fruits were imported during the time of austerity. These yellow rarities must have arrived on
the first banana boat from the tropical South.
“These bananas , are they ready to eat?” my
father asked the merchant. “Yes, they
are Chikita bananas, imported from
On
this late November evening, my father came back from the Märt with a special
birthday present for me. Vati had an
ear-to-ear smile and could hardly hide his excitement; the anticipation of
seeing my reaction to the surprise was too much to bear. We all went to the warm kitchen. Then, Vati grandly announced: “Seppi, I got something really special for
you; Seppi I
brought you a banana”. “A banana?” I screamed and jumped with joy. I had seen pictures of bananas and always
wondered what they would taste like. Of
course, we knew bananas were only for rich people. Vati bought the banana earlier that day at
the fair and stored it safely in his warm side pocket. Slowly, with an air of suspense, like a
magician showman, father pulled the precious banana from his pocket. Horror, oh no, the banana had turned all
brown. I cried in despair, ‘I don’t want
that banana, I will not eat this banana’. It went all quiet in the kitchen. Vati felt bad and disappointed. Since no one moved, Rösi, the young lady
that stayed with us, took the initiative and carefully peeled the banana. Surprisingly, the inside of the banana was of
a beautiful light yellow. I still cried
and would not have any of it. I would
not retract from my taken position.
After a while, Rösi cut the banana into three equal parts, one part for
each child, my older brother Franzi, my younger brother Isidor, and an equal
share for me. Franzi and Isidor ate
their share. Yum, yum.
I stomped my feet on the floor and steadfastly refused to eat my
piece. So, after a while, Rösi took my
share and divided it into three smaller parts.
She handed Franzi one slice, Isidor another slice and she took one
herself. “It is so good’, everyone said.
A
few years later, Grandmother Gotte brought home some dried bananas from a trip
to Luzern. Dried bananas were okay,
somewhat disappointing, but I still wanted to know how real bananas
tasted. It was not until several years
later, after we moved to Römerswil, when I saw a rich boy throw the peel of a
banana onto the street. I picked up the
peel and scraped off the soft inside and tasted it. It had a bitter taste; surely a real banana
would taste a lot better.
Promised
Land
In
1948, my father’s brother-in-law Adolf offered his farm in Römerswil to my
father. Römerswil is the next village up
the
Some people would consider uncle Adolf the most charming person, but his behavior at times was baffling and strange. He would be at his best when telling stories, long stories, in company of patient listeners. But he had a dark side, and I realized it only later in my life. He did not like kids very much, and he particularly did not like my little brother Isidor. He seems to have felt a perverted pleasure when Isidor got into trouble and was punished by my father. Poor Isidor. My father was very careful not to upset Adolf and wanted to keep him happy, but he would never have hurt little Isidor just to satisfy Adolf. Father was hoping to buy the farmstead from Adolf soon, as promised. My mother was very upset about Adolf living in our house and nearly had a breakdown over it. I remember once, when I overheard Mother confiding in a friend about the awful situation, crying. I was too young to understand. Mother, however, never criticized Adolf in front of us children. Not long after, my mother prevailed and Adolf moved out of the house. It took well over 20 years before Adolf finally agreed to sell the farm, and a much higher price.
Our
new home was in hamlet of Ludiswil, in the
On
the left side of the path leading to our new home was a bee house with two
dozen bee units, each unit painted in a different color. The bee house was artfully built and it was
proudly maintained and managed by Onkel Adolf.
He probably liked his bees more than he liked us. Adolf was a knowledgeable and dedicated
bee-keeper. He spent innumerable hours
working in the bee house. At the end of
the season, he removed the flats of honeycombs, removed the top layer of wax
with a special electric cutting tool and placed the fat honeycombs, oozing with
honey, in a centrifuge extractor. Then,
he turned the handle, spinning the tub of the honey extractor faster and
faster. Soon, the honey was pouring out
of the extractor into the large jar placed at the end of the spout. Sometimes, we were allowed to help turn the
handle, and for a reward we were allowed to dip our finger into the honey
pot. The bee house was so close to our
house that we got stung by the bees daily.
At Mothers urging and insistence, Adolf removed the bee house after a
few years.
Moving
from Rain to Römerswil was a courageous decision by my parents. It is very rare that a Swiss farmer
moves. In fact, I don’t know of only one
instance of a farmer family moving.
Farms have been owned by the same family for centuries and are passed
down from generation to generation.
Moving to a new community, with entrenched inhabitants, takes a lot of
guts. Newcomers are often shunned. We were lucky; our family was warmly received
and accepted by the local people of Römerswil.
The
hamlet Ludiswil is near the top of Erlosen mountain
and enjoys an incredible view of the
Erlosen
got its name from the old German words ‘Eren Losen’. ‘Eren’ is derived from an old German word
‘Aran’, ‘Erren’, ‘Eren’ or the Gothic word ‘Arjan’ (also Latin ‘Arare’),
meaning ‘ to plough’. ‘Losen’ has the
meaning of ‘…less’. So, Erlosen is a
mountain that was covered in forest, not cultivated, un-ploughed. On top of the Erlosenberg is the small
hamlet Herlisberg, now part of Römerswil.
Herlisberg is presumably derivation of the name Erlisberg,
Erlosenberg. And not to be ignored, the
hamlet of Ehrenbolgen on the east slope below Römerswil, perhaps reminding of
some ‘Bolgen’ (like bulge) in the Erlosen landscape. Now I need to stop rambling on this subject
that may perhaps not amount to a hill of beans.
In
the middle ages, during feudal times, Ludiswil, our home hamlet, was a Dinghof,
a large operating farm, an estate with a manor-house, that
was also a local focal point and a minor administrative and economic
center. The owner or tenant,
representing an absent overlord, was empowered to act as a local judge over the
subject farms in the vicinity.
Römerswil, the nearest village, has a history that goes back to the
beginning of the millennium. The name is
derived from an early alemanic settler called Remer or Reimer; the name has no
connection with Römer (Romans). Ludiswil
probably was named after an early settler called Ludi (Ludwig).
I
started school soon after we moved to Römerswil. The schoolhouse was in the
Good Neighbors
We
had five neighbors, and we enjoyed the most friendly
and warm relationship with four of them.
Down a short path was the home of the Roth family. They owned a small farm like us. The Roths were our closest neighbor, both in
distance and relationship. We helped
each other in times of need, shared farming tools, and were just good friends. The daughter Rösi married Max Spielhofer, who
later took over the farm. Next to the
Roth farm was the home of the Schürmann family.
Anton Schürmann operated a successful carpentry and cabinet making
business. Isidor and I often went to see
Frau Schürmann and spent hours in her cozy living room watching her weaving
straw hats.
To
the West of us, uphill, were the farms and homes of the great families Jund and
Elmiger. The Elmigers had boys of our
age, and we were good school friends.
The Junds were a loving family with many children. My brother Adolf married a daughter, Alice,
and started a happy family.
As
I said, we had five neighbors, and four of them were close friends. To the South of us across a creek was the
home of our fifth neighbor, the Scherer family.
We hardly knew them. They were remote, both physically and
relationally. Although their home was
just across the brook, we would have to walk a fair distance to reach them,
unless we cut thru the fields across the brook, a deep divide, both physically
and figuratively. I don’t recall ever
visiting them. They had no children of
our age, and they were not very social and outgoing, at least not towards us. They may have been very kind people, but we
just did not know them. If we passed
them in the village on Sundays after mass, we would respectfully nod our head
and say ‘Grüetzi’. There was no
animosity, but there was no friendship either.
The
brook formed the border between our land and the land of the Scherers. There was some mutual mistrust. We suspected that the Scherers dumped earth
on their side of the brook to redirect the stream a few inches in order to
encroach upon our land. They probably thought
the same of us. It never came to open
warfare.
One day, a son of the Scherers married. My parents figured that this was a unique opportunity for ‘rapprochement’ between our families, and the Buchmanns would take the initiative. Perhaps we could start a good rapport with the young couple, or at least bring a thaw to the frosty relationship. My mother hastily fashioned a large banner with the message in large letters ‘Willkommen Daheim’ (Welcome Home). Mother ordered Isidor and me to carry and present the banner to the Scherers. ‘Go quickly before the newlywed couple arrives home from the wedding celebration’, she said. Isidor and I rolled up the banner, marched across the field, crossed the brook, and walked towards the Scherer’s home. From afar, we could see their barn and house. We never saw these buildings before. This was unfamiliar and foreign territory. I was a bit apprehensive. A housekeeper should be home, we hoped, and she would hang up the banner. As we approached the barn, a bus packed with frolicking people bounced down the narrow gravel road towards the Scherer house, leaving a cloud of dust behind it. The people in the bus were singing and yodeling. Some happy folks waved at us through open windows. It was the wedding party. The formally dressed couple sat at the back of the bus with big smiles. What a revelation: the Scherers were real humans that actually could feel joy and happiness like us, they were not solitary silent people that never smile or talk. But we were too late with the banner. We panicked and ran back home as fast as we could. At home, we told mother that we could not deliver the ‘Wir Kommen Daheim’ banner. We were too late and too shy to knock at their door and offer the banner. Mother suppressed a smile at the thought of my misunderstood meaning of the banner. But my parents were angry at our failed mission, and I was sent to bed without supper. Isidor told me recently that he fared a lot worse. Even though it was my idea and decision to abort the job and go home, the task unfinished out of shyness, he would bear the brunt of the punishment and receive the wrath of father’s anger. He got spanked and sent to bed hungry.
The
parents kept the banner for another occasion.
When I returned home from
Blackballed
The
warm and friendly neighborly atmosphere turned decidedly cool during political
elections. You see, my father belonged to the Liberal party; he was a devout and
proud Liberal following a long tradition that went back for many
generations. Politics was taken very
seriously; the Buchmanns were always in the liberal camp. In
Almost
all men in the village were serious Conservatives (women then were not allowed
to vote…). In fact, for centuries,
Luzern was a Conservative stronghold, a protectorate by semi-aristocratic
Luzern burghers, and the Jesuit establishment.
We were the only local family that received the liberal newspaper
‘Luzerner Tagblatt’; everyone else subscribed to the conservative newspaper
‘Vaterland’. Our liberal leaning was
hard to hide.
At
times of elections, Vati, and by extension our family, were political
outcasts. We felt like living on a small
island of political righteousness, in the sea of fallacy. Once, a mad village Conservative secretly
intruded onto our property and painted one of our pigs all black. You know, black was the color of the
Liberals; red was for Conservatives.
Other than the pig painting by the Reds, there was never any
violence. All bad feelings dissipated
soon after the elections and neighbors lived together in colorblind harmony.
Weggli, Zwiback and Oranges
During the cold season, when we were ill with high fever, we stayed home and kept warm under a thick bed cover. Mother checked our temperature, and if dangerously high, she would call the doctor. Dr. Müller of Hochdorf arrived promptly, parked his elegant automobile outside our house, grabbed his worn leather pouch and rushed upstairs to our bedroom. In serious cases of flu, a quick shot of penicillin in the butt was required. Ouch. Of course, there was a bright side to being sick: the loving care, sympathy from Mom and Dad, no school, no work. But above all, it was the freshly baked ‘weggli’, the fine white bread rolls that Mom bought from the baker, but only if the timing was right and the baker was on his bi-weekly round. On other days, we were content munching crispy zwiback and savoring the fresh oranges from the local store. Poor Seppi. How sick I felt, but I was spoiled. The weggli and the big juicy oranges made me the envy of my brothers. Of course, it worked both ways. When my brothers were ill and were the beneficiaries of all the attention, with weggli and oranges, how would I have liked to be in their place.
Fahrenheit Minus 40
Winter
days were very cold. The wood stove and
baking furnace in the kitchen provided the only heat in the house. The furnace also heated up the large tiled
oven in the adjoining family room, a beautiful ‘kachelofen’ decorated with light-brown
glazed ceramic tiles. This tiled stove
was the main feature of the room, taking up a whole corner. The two levels of thick polished stone slabs
were irresistibly inviting benches; they warmed up our cold butts and enlivened
our souls. The warm oven stone slabs
were also a good place for drying wet mittens and scarves. In summer, the slabs were covered with
chamomile flowers, filling the room with a calming scent, slowly drying for a
healthy cup of tea in the following winter. In the fall, the seats were covered
with a crop of fresh walnuts, shedding their green peel and giving out a bitter
aroma. Freshly dried walnuts with crusty
farmers bread, a taste to behold! This beautiful oven kept the family room warm
and cozy during the frosty winter months.
There
was no heating in the bedrooms upstairs.
The temperature in the bedroom often stayed below freezing day and
night; any water left in the room would freeze to solid ice. We had thick bed covers. After we curled up in our cold bed, it took
just a few minutes for our little feet to warm up. Each bedroom had a small, artfully decorated
ceramic vessel of holy water on the wall near the bedroom door. We would never go to sleep without wetting
our finger with holy water and making a sign of the cross on our forehead. Of course, on cold winter days, the holy
water was frozen solid. We had to rub
our warm fingers on the ice to melt a trace of that sacred substance. By next morning, the bed was warm like a
stove, and it took a lot of courage to get up and face the freezing temperature
in the room. The coldest day I remember
was when the temperature dropped to minus 40 degrees. You ask if this is Fahrenheit or Centigrade? Thank you
for asking; the answer is ‘yes, both’.
During these cold days, we still had to walk to school or church. I can still see myself with short pants,
woolen stockings pulled up to the short pants with elastic strings, a woolen
hat and mittens, a scarf wrapped around the mouth, all iced up from breathing.
During the cold winters, we had often symptoms of mild frostnips, swollen, red, itchy toes. We did not make much of it, but I heard about a wonderful treatment to heal the itches. Apparently, walking barefoot in the snow would cure the ailment. I decided to put the theory to the test. On a Sunday afternoon, I removed my shoes and socks and walked towards the village in knee-deep snow. After less than ten minutes, I was forced to retreat and abandon the experiment; my feet were unbearably cold. I decided to run home. On the way back, I car past me. I am not sure if the driver saw my bare feet. I hope not; they were buried deep in snow. What would the driver have thought.
My
brothers and I were altar boys. We had
to get up especially early to be at church on time. I remember one very cold morning,
I walked thru new knee-high snow to arrive at church right on time. The Kaplan was impressed and did not expect
me to show up. Of course, there was
hardly a soul attending mass that morning.
I am not sure why all of us served as alter boys. It was not piety and it was not the money,
the five francs we received at each New Years Day, or and the rare privilege to
climb up the clock tower once a year.
We knew that it was a noble thing to do.
I was told that all altar boys were reserved a place in heaven,
guaranteed. I am
counting on it.
Ihr die am Altar Gottes für drei Jahre
Diener seit
im Himmel ein Platz gesichert für die
Ewigkeit.
Joe Anonymous
Antarctica , a Feathery Tale
It was a particularly cold morning,
by my reckoning at least twenty degrees below zero. My Mother woke me up at a very early hour,
earlier than usual. It had snowed all
night. It would take me extra time to
walk to church thru un-ploughed knee-deep snow.
I hated to leave my warm bed; the temperature in my bedroom was
freezing, but there was no choice. My
chin shivering, my knees shaking, I quickly dressed and walked downstairs to
the kitchen. Mother had already added
firewood to the stove, and I could feel the warmth radiating from it. The windowpanes were covered with a crust of
ice. With my warm breath and my
fingernails, I managed to scratch open a small peep hole. It was still dark outside. I could see that the snowstorm had
ended. The sight was spectacular,
eerie. The brilliant white snow
brightened the wintry scene. The trees were buried in the fresh snow half way
up to their trunk. I spread some butter and home-made jam on a slice of country
brown bread, hastily ate it, dressed for the cold outdoors, said good-by to my
Mother, and I was on my way to the village.
I had Altar Boy duty that week.
Nor rain or snow would make me fail in that important duty.
The
bitterly cold North wind was blowing as I left the house, but I was dressed up
for it. I wore my new winter shoes that
I received for Christmas, my feet layered in two pairs of socks. The heavy trousers and coat, the woolen hat
and the thick mittens knitted by grandmother Gotte kept me warm and protected
me from the freezing weather. Around my
neck and face I wrapped a long scarf.
The
path to the village followed a hedgerow of hazelnut and nondescript bushes,
then thru an opening in the hedgerow continued up a gentle hill thru the fields
of our neighbor Elmiger’s farmland. I
knew this path very well; I walked it twice a day to school, in the morning and
again after lunch. The footpath was
always in wonderful condition, raked, weeded and groomed with great care by the
loveable old Kirchmeyer. Of course, now
I could not see the path, it was covered knee-deep in snow. I slowly made my way up the hill to the
gravel road that led to the
I
reached the small village after a strenuous half-hour walk. My feet were wet, my ears were freezing, and
the woolen scarf was encrusted with ice from my breath. It began to snow again; the wind was
howling. Snowflakes drifted into my face
and eyes. I kept my head low and pressed
on. As I walked passed my schoolhouse
with its lit entrance and the large play yards, I could see the full effect of
the massive snowstorm that raged the night before. I peeked up the lone village light post and
watched the turbulent snowflakes whirling and twirling around the dangling
light. The view and feel was
ethereal. Up the street, I could not see
farther than thirty yards, so intense was the snow storm. Thru the hurling snow, I noticed something
very unusual. I lifted my head and
looked again. To my surprise and utter
amazement, I saw two penguins a short distance in front of me, near the old
post office, wobbling up the road near the village church. Was I hallucinating? No, the temperature was
arctic, the snow was piled high, and it felt every bit like the
As an altar boy, I had the treasured privilege to
enter the church thru the sacristy door in front of the church. The Sigrist, painstakingly devoted to his
duties as church caretaker, had arrived earlier and had already placed the wine
and water on the small heater, ready for
I
was swept back into reality. I felt relieved, a little disappointed, but still could hardly wipe
the smile off my face. My mind rolled
back in time with thoughts of nuns that I knew in my earlier life. I had a lot of respect nuns. They represented something holy, mysterious,
they were God-chosen people. My third
grade teacher was a nun. In our family,
a sister of Gotte was a nun at the cloister of Baldegg. A visit from Sister Marcelina was a State affair;
a visit by the Pope could not have been more formal. Private dining was held in our formal
reception room, with white table cloth, the best china and silver. Sister Marcelina was kind and saintly and her
visits were rare; I saw her only two or three times and never got to know her
well.
I was ready for
The Band Plays on
One
Sunday, there was a lot excitement in the air in the
First Communion
At
age ten or eleven, we were ready for the first communion. Intensive religious classes at school and
church prepared us for this special day of White Sunday. The boys and girls chose their First
Communion Companions (Kommuniongespanen), a bond of friendship that would last for
many years. The First Communion Day was
again observed and celebrated on White Sundays each year. Only in rare cases would communion companions
break up, for example, if a family moved away.
It was a sad thing, if a boy or girl was left without a companion for
this special day. My Kommuniongespanen
was Heiri of Gosperdingen.
The
ceremony of the First Communion started with a stately procession down the
aisle of the church, the boys dressed in their best outfits, the girls in
brilliant white gowns, holding their First Communion candle. The church organist played a loud ceremonial
tune that would send a shiver down our spine. In the pews, the proud parents
watched the nervous children line up and take their seats in the front
benches. The organ paused and a friendly
welcome address by the village priest calmed the congregation.
After
the festive mass, the children were driven to the companion’s home. On my first communion day, I was invited to
Heiri house and was treated with a most delicious lunch, cooked and served by
Heiri’s mother in a specially decorated dining room, bedecked with the best
china and silver flatware. After lunch,
we went to play in the fields. To
protect my new Sunday outfit, on the urging of my mother, I put on
over-pants. Heiri was allowed to play in
his Sunday suit. That was okay, but it
was a bit embarrassing; I would do anything to save my new suit. Henri’s family was financially well-off, and
soiling a new suit would not be a big deal.
One could say I was mingling with the local upper class. The following year,
my mother hosted the lunch with just as much style and flair. On one of the White Sundays, Heiri’s family
took us for a ride in their beautiful car, a new
As
we grew up, Heiri and I lost contact.
Heiri went to private schools. I
saw him again once when I worked in
Confirmation Day
In Catholic families, babies
are baptized a few days after birth, willing or not, screaming and
kicking. At the baptism, the family and
friends promise to bring up the baby as a Roman Catholic Christian. This promise must be confirmed by the young
Christian personally when he or she has reached a rational thinking age. Thru the Confirmation the young person becomes
a full member of the church community; the person leaves childhood behind.
The preparations for the
Confirmation were extensive: special
religious classes, mental preparation, and not least the rehearsals of the
church ceremonies. Confirmation is an important
and festive occasion. Isidor and I were
confirmed at the same time. Only every
few years did the Bishop of Basel visit our remote village for the Confirmation
ceremony. On Sunday morning of the
Confirmation, Isidor and I we walked up to the crossroad, hoping to catch a
glance of the eminent Bishop and perhaps wave to him as his motorcade turned
into the road towards Römerswil. Sadly,
we missed his arrival. Perhaps, we
simply did not recognize the car as it passed because the Bishop was probably
dressed casual, not wearing the bishop’s regalia with mitre, and not holding
the crozier. He probably traveled in a
simple black car, read the brevier and was not paying any attention to two
little boys standing on the roadside.
Disappointed, we walked home and dressed in our best cloths for the
ceremony.
The brothers Jakob and Hans
Burkhard were chosen to become our Firmgötti.
Jakob and Hans lived on our farm in Rain when we were small children in
Rain and we looked up to them as our big brothers. Jakob was my Götti, and Hans became Isidor’s
Götti. Jakob and Hans gave us both the
traditional Confirmation gift: shiny new Onsa men’s watches bought at the
clockmaker’s shop in Rain.
We had been anxiously awaiting this big day.
We remembered paintings showing the apostles standing in awe, their eyes
lifted to heaven, as the Holy Spirit descended upon them. Over the head of each apostle was a floating
tong of fire, symbolizing the spirit that took possession of their mind. This would soon happen to us on Confirmation
Day. The blinds that darkened our mind
will open up. The light will brighten
the deepest guts of our brain, sharpen our senses and clear our focus. With the enlightenment, questions will become
answers, doubts will become beliefs, the unknown
obvious. We will walk out of the church
on Sunday as men with unbounded wisdom.
The church was ornately
decorated for the Confirmation ceremony.
After the special sermon, the boys and girls, one by one, approached the
Bishop and kneeled down in front of him. The Bishop laid his hands on each of
us. The hands are a symbol of the power and strength that will come to us
through the Holy Spirit. He then drew
the sign of the cross on our forehead with oil. The oil is an ancient sign of
being chosen by God, and oil can be used to heal and give strength. This was a moment in life that we eagerly
awaited: that expected burst of light, the floodlight of a hundred thousand
lumens that would light up deepest recesses of our brain and lift the fog of
ambiguity, the blast of eardrum piercing trumpets, the alleluia of the choir of
archangels, the thrust of power that would instantly give us clarity and
lucidity.…. It did not happen.
After the ceremony we were
allowed, just for this special day, to leave the church with the adults through
the main gate at the back of the church. The ceremony was long, we were tired, our mind
felt numb, the stomach empty. There was
no immediate sign of the mental augmentation.
Perhaps it will take some time.
We made our way home.
Muetti served us a very
special lunch. In the early afternoon,
Jakob and Hans, our firmgötti, took us on a ride on their fast motorbikes along
the shores of
Gobbling up the Giblets
We owned a lot of chicken. The hen house was located in a fenced lot behind the barn with its little stream along a hedge of twig trees. Late every afternoon, basket in hand, I walked over to the chicken house to collect the eggs of the day. The way to the henhouse led through the barn. Our lonely dog Prinz, tied on long a chain, was always happy to see someone. At the barn I filled the rusty can with wheat grains from a woodbin, always mindful of rats that found a way into the bin and got stuck. The chickens were crowding at the fence gate waiting for the treat I was about to deliver. I spread the grains on the ground and watched the hungry chicks fall over themselves picking up the little bits. But they had to fetch their own beverage from the quiet stream that ran along the fence….
Like business today, egg production fluctuated a lot. Sometimes, I collected a whole dozen of eggs, other days I returned nearly empty-bucket. I always reported the daily production to Mueti. Some of the eggs were used for cooking; the excess was sold to a lady in the neighboring village Rain, who sold them to city folks. Once a week, Isidor and I bicycled to Rain to deliver a stack of egg trays.
Pickety,
Peckety, my black chick,
You
lay eggs for me to pick.
Little
Seppi with a basket
comes
to see you every day
picks
the eggs the black chicks lay
Sometimes
five and sometimes six,
Hickety,
pickety, my dear chicks.
Chicken don’t live forever. Old working hens no longer lay eggs and must
make the ultimate sacrifice; they were killed for a delicious family meal. The old chicks tasted much better than the
bland chicken force-fed in
Mom and dad were marketing geniuses. They told the kids that the giblets, the heart, liver and gizzard, were the tastiest and most desirable parts of the chicken, and we believed every bit of it. Isidor, Franzi and I were fighting over the delicacies. Mueti judiciously cut and divided these funny shaped morsels into three equal parts. Franzi, the oldest of us, had the first pick and grabbed the best on the plate, much to the chagrin of Isidor and I. We gobbled up the giblets, our eyes closed to savor them to the fullest. It tasted so good! And the texture! Sometimes, we saved a piece for the next day; it was just as good reheated, perhaps a bit tougher. The grown ups did not seem to mind being deprived of these gourmet parts and only being served chicken breasts, legs and wings.
High Office?
I and my brother Isidor were
not participating much in the social life of the village. The village had a plethora of clubs and
societies. We were free to join the
brass band, or the Gymnastic Club, the Military Preparatory Club, or even the
Club Cecilia, the church choir. We opted
out and did not feel like we belonged to any of these clubs. Our less-than-social attitude can perhaps be
traced back to the early years when the parents decided against sending us to
kindergarten. Even in our farming
community, all children went to the free community kindergarten, where the
children experienced their first social interaction among peers. Perhaps we dismissed kindergarten because our
family had newly arrived in the community and not yet at ease. Whatever the reason, with hindsight,
kindergarten would have served us well and done us a lot of good.
There was one exception. All young men, after leaving school, were
automatically enrolled in the Jungmannschaft, the Catholic Men’s Club. We became a member whether we wanted or
not. There was no way to opt out. We attended quarterly assemblies, not much of
excitement. In the third year of membership,
I was elected Secretary of the club. I
don’t remember how it happened, it just did.
In a way, I was proud of that ‘high office’. I happily told my parents. They were not impressed: “You just were too
shy to say no,” my Father said. To say
the least, my feelings were hurt.
In my capacity as Secretary
of the Jungmannschaft, I attended monthly board meetings. The chaplain of our church was the head of
the board. The meetings were not much more
than a monolog given by the chaplain, followed by a theological discussion,
where the chaplain discussed and we listened and affirmatively nodded our
heads. As secretary, my duty was to take
the minutes. I arrived at the meetings
with a clean sheet of paper and a sharp pencil. My earthy mind was inapt to comprehend the
depth of such spiritual matters, and even less so writing the thoughts down on
paper. I often left the meeting with my
sheet left virgin, except for some artful doodles. I wrote the minutes a few weeks later in the
official Minutes book. Many times, the
entry was a one-liner and to the point, saying “Nichts Besonderes - Nothing
particular”.
A year later, my farther was
elected President of the local Brass Band.
We were all very proud. I never
forgot my father’s reaction to my election a couple of years earlier. The temptation was irresistible; it was my
time to reciprocate. Father was not
pleased.
Mea Culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
We
were subjected to a very strict religious upbringing. Looking back and reflecting on it now with an
open mind, I think that we were almost victims of mental torture. We were always afraid of accidentally committing
a deadly sin. How easy it was to giggle
at a dirty joke, or let some unchaste thought pop up in our mind. If such an
uninvited thought did flare up, we hastily and forcefully suppressed it,
shaking our head, pressing our eyes shut so hard that we almost sucked our
brains out thru the eye sockets, mentally screaming ‘Nein, Nein, Nein’, and
banning the wicked day-dreams forever.
Occasionally, I let the harmless thoughts accidentally drift and develop
into a theme, until I suddenly realized that it materialized into a sin. I committed a sin. Such thoughts were deadly sins; our heart
would be marred with tar, and we would go to hell if we died before being
cleansed by confession and penitence. I
vividly remember when a school friend once told a dirty joke. I still remember the joke, word for word, but
cannot tell it here; young people might be reading my story. I laughed, and laughed, it was so funny, it was a loud belly-laugh joke. Then suddenly, panic set in when I realized
that my mind hosted an impure thought.
The blood drained from my head, and I nearly fainted. How unhealthy can thoughts and imaginations
of a twelve-year old boy be? How bad is it to pursue the threads of an
inquiring mind? How harmful is the
fire-and-brimstone scare-mongering to a young mind, a mind that is always
harboring a feeling of guilt? How cruel
is it to be held on a thread dangling over the fire of hell?
Fortunately,
there was the confession!
By tradition or habit, we felt a need and an obligation to confess our sins at least once a month. This would cleans our tarred soul of the sins we committed during the past four weeks and we could then go to communion with a spotless clean heart. Older, mature people, who committed fewer sins went to confession less often, if at all. Confession hours at the church were scheduled every Saturday late afternoon.
The sinners lined up in the pews next to the confessional, the men and boys on the right side of the nave, the woman on the left side. It was deadly quiet, one could have heard a church mouse. The silence was eased by the squeaking sound as we shifted our aching knees on the hard wooden pews, or an occasional stomach murmur and other bodily noises. Sometimes, we would hear the whispering prayer of a pious penitent. While we waited, other people entered the church, letting the heavy oak gate slam shut behind them with a loud bang that resonated thru the empty space, followed by the squishing of rubber shoes or the clacking of heels as they walked down the polished marble floor, genuflexed and joined our queue. After we all had turned our heads to recognize the new arrival and satisfy our curiosity, total silence again. On rare occasions, our teacher Zender would practice on the church organ for the Sunday service. Even the old nuns from our local convent must confess once a month, if not more often. What sins could they have committed? They looked so kind and saintly; one could almost see their halo. Surely, they were held and judged to a very high standard. Yearning for meat on a Friday, aching for chocolate during lent, lying to Mother Superior, or using God’s name in vain when a spider crawled up their veil, or something really egregious, God forbid. Naah. My thoughts drifted, but I had to concentrate on the important matters at hand: matters of heaven and hell.
Every few minutes, the little light on top of the confessional door changed from red to green. The green light signaled the conclusion of a confession. The door of the confessional opened, a confessed man stepped out and another person entered. The creaking of the un-oiled door hinges and the clicking of the door latch of the confessional echoed through the empty church. The line of sinners noisily slipped a notch closer to the confessional.
There were still five people are ahead of me. Progress was slow,
it took forever for my turn. My mind
drifted. That last person had taken
twice as long. What can take so long? Who is he and will he show a red face when he
exits the confessional? I tried to
appear casual, unworried, not let the others think that I might be a heavy
sinner, which, of course, I was not.
Waiting for my turn in the slow-moving lineup, I prepared for the
confession. I picked up the prayer book
and leaved to the Beichtspiegel, a long, detailed checklist of all possible
sins. The Beichspiegle was always
helpful and ensured that I would explore all sin zones. Mentally, and with the help of the
Beichtspiegel, I painstakingly iterated thru the Ten Commandments; eight
commandments really, I never understood number 9 and number 10. We were told not to worry about the last two.
When grown up we would understand them.
There are so many options possibilities and traps for sins, so the
Beichtspiegel checklist came in handy.
Fortunately, there were some sin-less pleasures and pursuits left in
life. Is it true that Moses dropped and
broke a third tablet into a thousand pieces as he walked down from
To render the confession effective, we had to feel genuine remorse for our sins, a complex state of mind that required intense concentration and self-conviction, almost self-hynosis. Looking at the suffering Jesus on the crucifix on top of the altar helped to create a deep sense of repentance and contrition. The loving and kindhearted face of the Madonna gave me comfort that the sins will be forgiven and the flock of happy, chubby cherubim painted on the church wall reassured me that everything will be good and wonderful. After a short but intense concentration and focused meditation, my consciousness entered a fleeting moment genuine remorse. Hold it there! Then, someone dropped a prayer book, and the loud noise disrupted my mental trance. I was unable to return to that hypnotic state of sorrow. I already had briefly attained a state of remorse, so surely I was now eligible for absolution. Even though I had done it dozens of times, I mentally rehearsed the confessional monolog. The confession was not straightforward because it was scripted and formal to strict protocol, taught to us at Sunday school, and it was conducted in High German, virtually a foreign language, not in the more familiar and easier Swiss dialect. Well, at least it was not in Latin.
My
turn finally arrived when the green light lit up over the confessionals
door. My heart pounding, my eyes lowered
in piety and humility, self-conscious and careful not to stumble, I entered the
confessional. I knelt down. Thru the thick screen in faint light I cold
see the priest confessor. Following the
script, I made a sign of the cross and, without a pause, in a low monotone
voice, faithfully enumerated my sins committed during the month. “It has been four weeks since my last
confession, and I have sinned…..”. Careful not to miss
anything. How boring it must have
been for the confessor. More than once,
I noticed a long-drawn yawn, but he was attentive most of the times. “And how long, my son, did you say since your
last confession…”? Sometimes, the priest
would ask a question for clarification, and I cleared it up to his nodding
satisfaction. The priest
assessed the situation and pronounced an appropriately measured penitence,
typically ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Mary’s.
Then,
Et ego te
absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.
Amen.
Cleansed of the sins, I left the
confessional, without making eye contact left the door open for the next
person, and knelt down in one of the empty pews. I diligently said the ten prayers, and one
extra just to be sure in case I miscounted; I did not want the absolution to be
forfeited for a mere technicality. The
monthly confession happily concluded, we made our way
home. I must say, we felt relieved and
wonderful after the confessions; a cleansed and purified soul and heart. All that black tar removed from sold and
heart. We were spiritually in high
heaven, content and liberated of all tensions and guilt, swept up between
heaven and earth into the realm of bliss, weightlessly floating on air. But we knew that we were susceptible and
vulnerable to committing a sin anytime by a mere accident of a thought
unwanted. The
confession was always followed by Holy Communion the next morning. We were especially careful not allow sinful
lapses just before Communion, lest taking Communion with a deadly sin would
condemn us to eternal damnation in hell.
The name of the last two Commandments? Bonus points! The answer is: the Ninth and Tenth Commandments are “Thou shall not
covet thy neighbor’s wife” and “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s goods”.
Beichtspiegel
[1836 Tag des Christen 52]
Das Sechste und Neunte Gebot
Du sollst nicht ehebrechen,
begehren deines
Nächsten Weib.
Ich have eine sündhafte Leidenschaft getragen.
(Setze dazu wie lang.)
Ich habe mich beI bösen Gesellschaften aufgehalten.
Ich bin zu Nacht bei andern Geschlechts-Personen
gewesen.
Ich habe unkeusche Reden geführt, oder unkeusche
Lieder gesungen, oder gern
geört.
Ich habe unkeusche Bücher gelesen, oder zu lesen
gegeben.
Ich habe andere zure Unkeuschheit gereitzt, curch
Worte, Geberden und freche
Kleidung.
Ich habe unkeusche Gemälde oder sonst ungebührliche
Sachen angeschauet.
Ich habe mich freiwillig in unkeuschen Gedanken
aufgehalten, und Freude daran
gehabt.
Ich habe unkeusche Gedanken zu nachlässig
ausgeschlagen.
Ich habe unkeusche Begierden gehabt.
Ich habe Anlass zu unkeuschen Träumen gegeben.
Ich habe unkeusch mit mir selber gesündiget.
Ich habe mit Andern meines Geschlechts Geilheit
getrieben.
Ich habe mich durch unkeusche Werke mit andern
Geschlechts-Personen
versündiget.
Ich habe andere Menschen die Sünde der
Unkeuschheit gelehrt.
Ich habe Ärgerniss gegeben.
Ich habe mich freiwillig an hofärtigen
Gedanken aufgehalten.
Ich habe aus Hoffart mich selbst geärtigen
Gedanken aufgehalten.
Ich habe aus Hoffart mich selbst gerühmt.
Ich habe mich betrunken.
Ich habe Andern die Unmässigkeit zugesprochen.
Ich habe in meinem Wirtshause Andern zu viel
zu trinken gegeben.
Ich habe mich an gebotenen Fasttagen zweimal
satt gegessen, ohne Noth.
Ich habe mich an gebotenen Fasttagen ohne Erlaubniss
Fleisch gespeist, oder mit
Schweinschmalz
gekocht.
A Teenager’s Lament
In fear for years
troubled and near tears,
a sinful thought might sprout;
young I was and so devout.
Priestly men in black cassock
spy on the wayward flock.
From their pulpit they preach fear,
their tongue a spear,
a message loud and clear:
‘On thoughts impure you dwell
and cast you are to scorching hell.
Fiery brimstone, human groan,
deadly sins you must atone.
Scream and weep with tears all dry,
cry out till your eyeballs fry.
Gnashing teeth without relent
in devils’ chamber of torment.
Keep your thoughts in pure domain
may your life be not in vain.’
We have heard your strong lament,
no harm to anyone we meant.
Give our troubled souls a rest,
we have lived and done our best.
To all dictates we have bowed
and lived in fear and woe.
And as Moses cried out loud:
‘Let us people go.’
The Lord has given Man a brain,
He wants us to keep it sane.
Let thoughts travel the wide expanse
for human mankind to advance.
I was a teen, I had enough
my inner mind imprisoned.
Give the preachers my rebuff,
let wicked thoughts be visioned.
The hell with consequences;
give my restless brain free reign.
Down the old engrained defenses,
my mind released of shackles and chain.
Candid and unrestrained,
I wanted all if it explained.
What could be, and how,
I craved to know it now.
All revealed, naught concealed,
the honest truth unpeeled.
My shyness now unchecked
on wicket thoughts I could reflect.
My starving mind free to ponder
roaming the forbidden yonder,
bethinking each nook and cranny
from the navel to the fanny.
I defied the preachers’ preaching
so unrelenting and beseeching.
I feared Zeus’ fire bolt will hit,
I dared, not cared one bit.
[Pause]
From the daydream I awoke,
crushed under a heavy yoke.
All the evil thoughts expended,
the grimy mind must now be mended.
Achy soul and pain in heart,
I was ready for new start.
That same day, without delay
to church I made my way,
humbly saying my confession,
to cleanse my soul of the transgression.
Spring Cleaning
On
Saturdays, I worked through a list of routine chores. The bathroom upstairs had to be thoroughly cleaned
and tidied up, the taps polished to a sparkle and the bath tub rubbed and
rinsed; on the main floor, all wooden thresholds were sanded with fine steel
wool and polished; outside, the stairs had to be broomed clean, the long
pebble-stone foot path raked and weeded.
Every couple of weeks, I polished father’s brass baritone horn. For special holidays, the living room floor
needed to be polished. There was not a
minute to spare, not a minute to waste.
We
had no vacuum cleaner;
Muetti said, vacuum cleaners were for lazy city people. In the evening, Muetti inspected the work and
always complemented on a job well done.
Everything had to be nice and tidy for Sunday. When I visit my parental home once a year, I
am always amazed and pleased how clean and well-kept it is. The weekly steel-wool treatment has been kept
up; the thresholds are worn down by the weekly sanding and will surely need to
be replaced in a generation or two.
Muetti still does not own a vacuum cleaner, at
least I don’t think so, unless she is hiding it in a cupboard.
One
sunny day each spring was reserved for the traditional spring cleaning. All the mattresses were carried outside and
placed on platforms fashioned of wooden boxes and ladders and left in the hot
bacteria-killing sun. Throughout the
day, every hour, the mattresses were beaten with a carpet beater until the last
trace of dust was beaten out of them.
Inside the house, we helped Muetti scrub the walls and floors of all the
rooms. Father removed the double windows
that were installed for the cold winter months. The mood was happy, like puppies in
spring. In the evening, the mattresses
were beautifully puffed up from the strong beating, the fresh air and the warm
sunshine. After one final vigorous
beating, Father carried the mattresses back into their respective
bedrooms. Ah, how comfortably our beaten
and tired bodies slept in these sun-drenched and bulging mattresses!
Making the Grade
The
school house was located in the center of the village. We occupied only three class rooms: one
shared room for grades 1 to 3, one room for grades 4 to 6 and the third room
was for Sekundarschule (grades 7 and 8).
Three grades sharing one class room offered a valuable and interesting
experience. The teacher split his or her
time between the classes. As the teacher
taught one grade, the other grades were kept busy with written exercises. While working on the exercises, we absorbed
the lessons taught to the other grades, whether new lessons taught to the
higher grades or repeats of subjects taught to the lower grades.
Mid-morning
and mid-afternoon, we enjoyed a fifteen minute break. The bell rang and announced the beginning of
the break. We all ran outside to the
playground: the boys on the left side of
the school, the girls on the right side.
We played ball, climbed up a steel pole, or just simply horsed around,
while the teachers walked up and down the road in deep conversation, their
hands locked behind their back, casting an occasional look of authority at the pupils. Boys were not allowed to go near the girls’
area, and the girls did not dare to enter the boys’ territory. Once for fun, my friend threw the ball into
the girls’ playground. We were sternly
told by the school’s power to be, the parish priest, that such behavior was
verboten, not allowed under any circumstance, that the girls had to be
respected, after all, they are images of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God.
In
the basement of the school house, on the left of the entrance to the large
gymnasium, there was a small dungeon.
The scary cell was in the form of a small cubicle of about 5 feet, dark
without any light fixtures. The floor
was covered with sharp rocks to prevent any occupant from sitting down in
comfort. The cell was mainly for
symbolic purposes. However, I know of one
instance, when my close friend Heiri of Gosperdingen was locked up for several
hours. Corporal punishment was permitted
in those days, the most common procedure was hitting
the extended palm of a hand with a flexible rod. I don’t know what bad deed Heiri committed to
be sent to the cell. It must have been a
very serious offence. Did he perhaps
throw the football into the girls’ playground again?
One
last day of the school year, some of us boys out of sheer excitement, climbed
up the wall of the school building to the second floor, holding on to the
lightening rod. As punishment, the
teacher Lehrer Zehnder locked us in the classroom after hours. I was angry.
After an hour of waiting, I grabbed a handful of the glass ink wells
from the desks and threw them out of the window trying to hit the wandering
chicken in the field. One day, some
archeologist may find these ink vessels and surely place them in an
archeological museum mounted on plexiglass stands. The
stand-off came to an end when the teacher consulted with the Gemeindeschreiber,
the town clerk, whose office was on the top floor of the school house, and was
told to ‘let the boys go’. My hats off
to the Gemeindeschreiber! Not only did
he have excellent judgment, but also was he the most efficient, hard-working
man. Alone, without secretarial and
clerical help, he managed the affairs of the whole municipality. No word processor and spreadsheet software in
those days. Today, although the
population of the municipality has hardly increased, a new municipality
building now stands in the village, filled to the hilt with paper shuffling
bureaucracy.
Classes
were held from Monday to Saturday.
Thursdays were days off, except for short religious classes in the morning. We enjoyed a summer holiday of four or five
weeks. In addition to the core summer
holiday, we were sent home from school on warm, sunny summer days so that we
could help on the farm with hay making and crop gathering. On these sunny summer days, we arrived at
school full of anticipation and hope that we would be sent home. The teachers would consult each other,
perhaps ‘succumb to the pressure of the farmers lobby’ and then told the kids
to take the day off. We ran down the
stairs and out of the school house screaming and cheering. Why all this outcry of happiness if we had to
trade in a quit day at school for hard work on the farm? But that will be a story for another
day.
Once
a year a dentist from Hochdorf visited our school and checked the teeth of all
the children. Cavities were noted and a
report was sent to the parents. Then we
were asked to make an appointment with the dentist to drill and fill the cavities. How painful.
Our dentist, Dr. Voilà did his best to keep the pain down. I call him Dr. Voilà because he always said
voilà when he wanted us to rinse and spit.
My upper teeth were overcrowding and some corrective action was needed. We had no orthodontists or they were too
expensive, so the Dr. Voilà recommended pulling two teeth to make space. This was the most painful dentist’s visit in
my life.
Our
school had three dedicated and hard-working teachers and a part-time
caretaker. There was no principal, no
administrator, counselor; there was no guidance
director, music director, athletics director, development director, technology
director, dean of students. Everything
ran smoothly, and we all got a wholesome and complete education. We learned to read and write, mastered the
math, and above all learned to think by ourselves. Many of the esoteric subjects could later be
learned on our own, without a teacher, without government subsidies. Instead of memorizing formulae, we were
taught the underlying logic, principle and purpose. It is a lot easier to remember the Pythagorean
theorem in later life if we knew their meaning and
logic. We never heard of multiple-answer
questions. Today’s schools could learn a lot by studying how schools were
managed in earlier, simpler times.
Clean Slate
Our
school year began in Spring. The start of a new grade was always very
exciting for us. We carefully wrapped
the covers of our schoolbooks with colorful protective paper,
we labeled and decorated our notebooks, and sharpened the newly bought
pencils. I remember the first day in
grade 2. The kind nun teacher handed out
wrapping paper she graciously received from a chicory company. The paper was
beautiful and advertised the virtues of their chicory product. The nun, true to the promise she must have
made to the chicory company, told us that our mothers should buy the good
chicory from that nice and generous company.
Advertising works on impressionable kids. The first few exercises written in the
notebooks were done with special care.
After all, at the end of the school year, these notebooks would be bound
into an annual book, preserved for posterity.
One
spring, at the beginning of the school year, the school board had a special
surprise for our teacher. We sat in the
class room awaiting the arrival of our teacher.
The board representative told us to keep the secret, to behave normally,
not to spoil the surprise; hush-hush was the word. Then, Herr Lehrer arrived punctually as
always. He entered the room with his old
worn leather case. He greeted us, then glanced at the front wall. He immediately noticed the brand new
blackboard. It was the blackboard he
always wanted: two pivotal plates, not
the old stark standard black, but eye-easing green. His eyes lit up with excitement, he displayed
a full, uninhibited smile, and expressed the deepest thanks to the board. Then, the class began. The teacher opened the new box of chalk,
supplied free with the new blackboard, picked a white chalk and started to write
the day’s schedule on the blackboard.
The teacher could not hide his excitement. The letters were bolder, the curves curvier
and the punctuation dots louder, chalk-crushing, all with élan and
ebullience. He was on cloud nine, life was good, thank-you school board. He could have jumped with joy, but that would
have been undignified in front of the class.
Some teachers now get satisfaction when their union successfully
negotiates a salary increase; our teacher experienced happiness with a new
blackboard.
I had very good class mates. I regret now that I did not keep in contact with them; I never made it to a class reunion. The longer I lived abroad, the less fluent my native language became. This disability gave me a complex and held me back from seeing my old school mates. Almost half of my class colleges have already died, far too young, some died in accidents. I probably would not recognize them now, and they would not recognize or remember me. Few years ago, I visited my mother and we sat in the living room talking. A lady friend of my mother came to the house on some errant and mother served coffee. My mother had to leave and take care of some urgent work in her vegetable garden. She asked me to keep the lady company until she returned. We kept talking, about the weather, and the crop, and the weather, and how bad the rain was for the crop. The conversation was stagnating. We then touched on the subject of our early lives, the school at Römerswil. As it turned out, the lady was my class mate. She did not remember me, and I did not remember her. So much for making great impressions.
Ruffian Boys
Children
can be incredibly cruel. At times they
can be ruthless ruffians, thoughtless thugs.
At elementary school, among my twelve classmates, there was a boy called
Sepp. For a reason that still baffles me
and haunts my conscience today, everyone shunned him. Sepp had two older sisters, and everybody
avoided them as well, like the pest.
Prejudice against Sepp’s family was implicit; I don’t know why it
started, but it bred on itself, and it was pitiless. Sepp and his sisters were lonely; nobody
wanted to befriend them and be associated with them. They were treated as castoffs; they were
always alone, walking to school alone, playing alone. Wherever they went, they received the cold
shoulder. Sepp’s family was very
close-knit and kept to themselves, no wonder, in the face of such deplorable
adversity.
The
parents of Sepp rented a small house in Chriesbühl. The father worked as milkman on a farm in
Gosperdingen. The mother was from the
French part of
There
is nothing wrong speaking with a foreign accent. Some people even think that it adds a touch
of class. Well, perhaps if it is the
Queen’s English or Français de Paris.
Most of my life, I spoke with a foreign accent. It used to bother me a lot, but not now. Once, I was in a shop, and the sales
assistant exclaimed “Wow, you have a strong accent. You should be in commercials.” Yes, I could be the official spokesman for
Ricola. I have thus far not appointed an
artistic agent. But
back to the story.
Today,
I feel ashamed of our meanness to Sepp and his sisters. They were boys and girls like us, with the
same aspirations and feelings, and they deserved better. And we also treated their mother with
disdain. She was short and mostly
clothed in a drag dark dress that exuded an air of mystery about her. We felt strangely uncomfortable at her sight,
and I don’t know why. She was different,
she was French, she moved to our village from far away
and spoke our language with a different intonation. She may not have been the best looking woman
in our village and not the best dresser, but she did not hurt a soul and she
worked hard to bring up her family.
There was no reason on earth to treat her with unkindness.
And
to top off the incredible nastiness, I once insulted Sepp’s mother and called
her by a rude name. I don’t remember
exactly what I called her, but it was in the sense of ‘witch’. It was unforgivable. She promptly came to our house, distraught,
and complained to my Mother. Mother took
me to task. As punishment, she ordered
me to fill a basket full of apples and bring them to the insulted lady’s house,
and to apologize to her for my bad-mannered behavior. I vividly remember how I stood timidly at the
door of the lady’s house. I almost
freaked out, my heart stopped and I nearly dropped the basket full of apples
when I saw a broomstick leaning against the doorframe. Scarred, and with a trembling hand, I knocked
and waited to come face-to-face with the lady that I so badly hurt.
I
was very young then, about ten years old, and the bad behavior can perhaps be
forgiven. I will probably never meet
Sepp again, but if I do, I would profoundly apologize for the bad behavior
towards him and his family by me and my classmates.
Days on the Farm
On
off-days we helped on the farm, shaking, raking and loading hay and grain
crops, picking fruits, collecting potatoes and carrots, raking grass, clearing
fields of leaves, twigs and stones, fertilizing the fields with dung (ugh),
preparing the cows for milking, feeding the cows and pigs, cleaning the barn,
threshing the wheat. We had a complete
and comprehensive apprenticeship as a farmhand.
We did not mind the work, sometimes we even enjoyed it.
The
least liked work on the farm was helping father with the spraying of cow dung,
a dirty and smelly job. It was an
important task, necessary to keep the fields well nourished and grow healthy
grass for the cows. First, we moved the
cart loaded with pipes to the outlying field. We helped laying out the pipes
and connected them one by one to the pump up at the farm. At the end of the pipeline we place a
flexible hose which father used to spray the liquid dung. Halfway along the pipeline, within shouting
distance of the line’s spout, a stop valve was inserted that allow us to pause the flow of the smelly liquid while father re-directed
the pipes to the next area. Isidor’s and
my job was to man the valve, a job that we tried to avoid as much as
possible. We sometimes were hiding when
expecting the dreaded call for duty. But
one of us was called. Back at the barn,
we removed a couple of wooden planks that covered the manure pool pit. Over two or three weeks, the pool had filled
up to the rim with liquid ordure, an aged mix of the cows’ muck and water. With a long-handled brush, worn smooth over
the years, we stirred up the muck that settled at the bottom and mixed it well
into an even liquid. Then we primed the rotary pump, an engineering marvel made
in cast iron, so simple, so efficient.
Width a ladle, we scooped up liquid manure into the pump. We knew that the pump had to be filled up to
the rim and the cover shut tight quickly before the priming liquid would drain
back to the pool and we quickly ran to the switch and turned on the motor. The sound of the pump told us if the priming
was successful or whether we had to start over.
Half-filled or slow action would never prime the pump. The priming successfully done and the pump
running, we ran to the valve station.
Crouched at the valve station we waited for a signal from father to turn
off the valve when he finished an area and the pipes had to be
reconfigured. Pitty on
him who missed the signal because of a moment of inattention. When the call came, we quickly turned the
knob of the valve. The valve was old and
the joints were leaky and we often got a spritz right on our faces. We just spitted, squeezed our eyes tight and
wiped the muck from our faces with our shirt sleeve. While writing this I can almost taste it when
I lick my lips. Then, we waited for the
sign to reopen the valve.
Good
farming is an art. It requires
foresight, diligence, skill and love of hard work. There are a hundred tasks that need to be
learned and mastered. My father was an excellent
farmer. He applied the skills that were
passed down from previous generations, enforced by practical farming theory
that he learned in farming school. That
valuable knowledge and the good work ethics he then passed on to my older
brother Franz.
When
I and my brothers were very young and still of little use on the farm, my
father employed a Knecht, a farmhand. He
lived with us and was treated almost like a member of the family. Most hired farmhands worked very hard for
heir wages, with few exceptions. I
remember a Knecht who always complained when doing physical work. We would hear his loud sighs from far
away. He complained constantly about his
Herzerweiterung, a medical condition known as ‘dilatation of the heart’. He looked healthy; he was healthy; the
doctor had him checked out. I don’t know
what happened to him after he left us. From all evidence, he still alive, now nearly 100 years old.
While
working in the fields, Isidor and I fantasized about our future travels, and we
took turns telling improvised stories of adventures in foreign lands and
odysseys into outer space. A few small
kernels of atomic matter in the rocket’s afterburner would blast the spacecraft
to the moon, planets and far away stars beyond the solar system, even beyond
the Milky Way. Other times we were
beamed to stars millions of light years away.
There, we would meet and befriend aliens, tell them about our home
planet Earth and, naturally, convert them to Christianity. Sometimes, perhaps often, we were spellbound
by a space adventure and got distracted from the work at hand, and we found
ourselves relaxing under a shady apple tree, in a trance, on a visit to a
far-away galaxy. Our work suffered, and
father was watching from the barn or from a high ladder where he was picking
apples. Reality set in and we were
whisked back to earth in a flash of light when we heard his stern voice
calling.
On
hot summer days, when we were busy with hay harvesting, our tired bodies were
refreshed with cool drinks. Often, I was
in charge of preparing the lemonade and other cool drinks, a welcome relief and
a short pause from work. I filled the
pitchers with cool water from the ancient well outside the house, then added
the Perli orange and lemon granules to make a sparkling lemonade drink. In a separate pitcher, I mixed sugar and
whipped egg yokes, added cool water and some Kirsch for flavor. Whatever the yellow drink was called, it was
delicious, and it was our favored drink.
Then, I placed the pitchers and the glasses in a basket and carried it
to the field, where we all sat in the shade and savored the cool drinks.
There
were many fruit trees in the meadows: apples, pears, cherries, plums. In fall, we picked the apples and sorted them
by size and appearance. The best looking
apples were sold to the cooperative.
Good apples that had some blemishes from hail storms and would not meet
the high standards of the city folks were saved for our family and placed in
the cool cellar. Lower quality applies
were collected and carried in bags to our old cider press. The applies were
crushed and pressed to extract the precious juices. Half of the apple juice was left to ferment
in large wooden barrels and turned into alcoholic cider for the men, the other half was pasteurized as sweet apple juice for
the children and women. We always had
four or five large oak barrels of cider in the cool basement. It was my or Isidor’s duty before each meal
to go to the cellar and fill the flasks with cider, one flask with alcoholic
cider and flask with sweet cider.
Making good cider is an art and my father was an expert in this
craft. The pressed remnants of the
apples were removed from the cider press and thrown into a cask to ferment for
several months. Other fermenting casks
contained cherries or plums. In winter,
a mobile distillery processed the fermented stuff and produced high-grade
spirits, like schnapps and kirsch.
Finally, after distilling, the left-over pulp was formed into round
briquettes. The briquettes were placed
on wooden shelves and left to dry; they would a year later be used to heat our
house. Some of the ashes later
fertilized the garden. The energy that
nature so freely, generously and mysteriously deposited in the fruits was thus
gradually released to nourish the hungry, quench our thirst, uplift the spirit,
and warm our bodies. Everything was
recycled. I don’t remember ever having
seen a trash can, and there was no trash collection in Römerswil. Even the old phone books and newspapers
served a purpose. Newspapers helped with
starting the wood stove fire.
The harvested wheat was
stored in the barn loft until the grains were dry and hard. In winter, my father rented a large threshing
machine for a couple of days. Everyone
in the family helped, even the neighbor and sometimes the uncle Josef came to
help. It was hard work, working in the dust from dawn to dusk, lifting the
bound bundles of wheat up to the top of the threshing machine, one by one. Often, disturbed mice jumped from their cozy
nests, as the bundles were lifted with the forks. The threshing machine separated the grains
and the straw. The grains were poured
into canvas bags and readied for the flour mill in Hochdorf. The straw was stacked up in the barn for use
as bedding for the cattle throughout year.
The straw would eventually end up in cow dung, shredded and scattered in
the fields, providing the needed nourishment for healthy grass to growth. And the cycle returns.
Work
was interrupted by frequent meals. My father
rose very early to tend to the cows.
Between six and seven o’clock he would come to the house for
breakfast. My mother would already have
prepared Rösti and coffee. We children
generally were still asleep at that early hour.
Then, at nine o-clock we all ate Znüni (zu
Neun, ‘to Nine’) a good breakfast with crusty bread, cheese, butter, marmalade
and coffee. For twelve o’clock, my
Mother prepared a hot meal with meat, potatoes or pasta, except on Fridays when
we generally had an egg dish, or fish if Giacomo, the fishmonger from Hochdorf,
happened to have made his round on his bike.
We loved fish, although it was not always very fresh. After lunch and after listening to the 12:30
news on radio, my Father would always take a thirty minute nap in the living
room. At three o’clock we gathered for
Zobig (zu Abend, ‘to Evening’) for a meal of bread,
cold sausage meat, cheese, coffee and a small glass of snaps for the
workers. The calories lasted until seven
o’clock, when we enjoyed a hot dinner meal.
Deserts only on Sunday. Malnourished ?
Never! And, I forgot, before going to
bed we drank a cup of milk with Ovomaltine or Heliomalt.
Muetti
was an excellent cook; she could have put many a French chef to shame. She was chef, baker, patissier, chocolatier,
saucier all wrapped in one. She always
prepared her own soup. She called the
store bought soup mixes in envelopes ‘lazy housewife soup’. On rare occasions, she would succumb to the
temptation and try a commercial soup mix, and we loved it, especially the
mushroom soup. It was, of course, the
Maggi brand, Muetti would never be caught disloyal to that brand and, God
forbid, fall for the Knorr brand of soups.
My
father liked cooked mushrooms very much.
Sometimes we found and harvested white mushrooms in our fields. The mushrooms were huge, the size of big
heads. We chopped the massive, fleshy
mushrooms into small pieces and filled a large cooking pan. Once cooked, to our disappointment, the
mushrooms shrunk to a petty size that would hardly feed the family. Father always invited our friendly neighbor
Schürmann for the mushroom feast; he too was a mushroom aficionado. Muetti asked us children to take very small
portions to make sure that Vati and Schürmann would have enough of the
delight.
Sundays were special. We could sleep in; Sunday Mass was only late in the morning. We enjoyed a good breakfast of white bread with butter and jam. White bread was served only on Sundays. The atmosphere was calm and relaxed. Father enjoyed the classical music that always played on radio every Sunday morning. After Mass and a delicious Sunday lunch of soup, the best cuts of meat with spaghetti in tomato sauce, and desert, we enjoyed an undisturbed afternoon. No fear of being commanded to work in the fields or in the barn. All day, we enjoyed unadulterated freedom. We played, we read, we fantasized, until six o’clock when we had to carry the milk to the cheese factory.
Eat Your Vegetables
Muetti’s
cooking was always healthy and delicious.
There were, however, two cooked foods that I could not eat, however hard
I tried. And I was not the only one;
Isidor could not bear the two foods either.
My stomach was unable to tolerate Muetti’s tomato soup and I was barely
able to eat the rice spiced with saffron.
Our older brother Franzi loved the tomato soup. Isidor and I, several times, when forced to
eat the soup, had to run away from the table to throw up behind a tree. Days ware especially tough,
when, rarely, both tomato soup and saffron rice were on the menu together. At more than at one occasion we left the
table hungry; once or twice we were spanked because we did not eat the tomato
soup. Today, I love
Our Animal Farm:
Bella, Fritz, Prinz, Mitzi and Oink
Our father ran a mixed farm: dairy, cereal, fruits, vegetables,
and pigs. We kept a lot of animals on
the farm. The cow shed, the mainstay of
the farm, accommodated a herd of ten cows.
Each cow was given a name. The
name was prominently displayed on a black wooden plate hanging in front of the
cow’s assigned stall. There always was a
cow named Bella. We did not keep a
resident bull, so the young fertile cows were driven to nearby farms to see a
healthy and strong bull. The calves were
sold to a cattle dealer, if lucky, or to a butcher, if unlucky. Some promising calves were raised to
rejuvenate the aging herd. To think
about now, one cow in the herd surely was a descendant of Matriarch Bella that
grazed our land dozens of generations ago.
In mild weather, the cows spent much of the day in the lush grassy
fields, attired with beautiful, polished cowbells. We were careful that the cows did not
over-eat. Like some humans, cows do not
know when they have eaten enough. Bloat
in cattle is serious and can be deadly.
At the first sign of a bloat we called the veterinarian. In an emergency, we used a special sharp
instrument and resorted to a rumen puncture operation that would release the
foam and gas pressure. In summer, adolescent
cows enjoyed ‘summer camp’ in the
Sometimes, Father asked Isidor and me to help him milk the cows. We did not like it but had no choice. We sat down on the right-hand side of the cow. Cows like a routine and would never allow us to sit on their left side. Sitting comfortably on a special one-legged milkman’s stool that was loosely attached to our body with a leather belt, we washed the four teats of the cow, softened them and prepared them for milking. Father would then take over and milk the cow, and we moved to the next cow and prepared her. Oftentimes we also were told to clean the cowshed, a messy job.
In the small shed at the other end of the barn, we had a horse, of course. His name was Fritz, and he was a hard worker, pulling the plough and hay wagon. The horse shed was large enough for two horses, and in the early days, two horses were needed. But father bought a tractor, and one of the horses had to go. Now, it was only Fritz; it must have been a lonely existence. As Fritz aged and found it difficult to pull heavy loads, he was retired. The tractor now did all the heavy pulling. I guess one cannot stand in the way of progress.
At the back of hour house was a large hog pen housing a dozen or more pigs. The pigs had their own play ground, a fenced-in garden where they were free to maraud and pillage in the mud and frolic in a dirty puddle of water. I did not like pigs. They smelled and they were dirty. Baby pigs may be cuddling and endearing, but big fat pigs are difficult to befriend. Isidor and I often had to clean the hog pens, and we held our noses. But hogs were important to the farm, so we tolerated them.
We had cats everywhere. There were two tribes of cats. One tribe made their home in the barn on the other side of the road; the other tribe lived in our house. They kept apart, except for the occasional secret encounter. We liked them both and got very attached to them. The barn cats lived on mice aplenty caught in the stack of corn and hay; the home cats were fed leftover meals served in chinaware. Talk about class. Too often, a cat died from decease, birthing, or was killed by a passing car. When our favored cat Mitzi died, we were very sad. I remember when Isidor and I placed the dead Mitzi in a shoebox, covered her with marguerites daisies and carried her in a slow funeral procession to a quiet place in the field for a ceremonial burial.
Our friend Prinz, the dog, lived a quiet life in the doghouse at the barn. We always had a dog at the barn, a loyal, dependable guardian. I have a vague recollection that Prinz’s predecessor was called Barry, after the legendary Bernhard. Prinz was tied up on a moving leash and had free reign of the immediate area outside the cowshed, next to the stack of cow dung, on the covered pool of liquid menure . In the morning and evening, Prinz pulled the milk cart to the cheese factory. Prinz slept a lot; he was rarely disturbed. He sprang to action and barked only if a stranger appeared or if the cats dared to intrude into his territory.
Hay Day
The day was sunny and it was
already hot and sweltering mid-morning.
The weather forecast predicted rain for the next days. Father knocked on the face of the barometer
on the wall in the living room. Yes, a
low pressure in the weather was certain.
The large grass field behind our barn was cut the day before
yesterday. The grass should now be dry
and ready for harvesting this afternoon if we gave it one more turning or a
good shaking this morning. The school
gave the children some days off to help on the farm.
After lunch, Father walked
down to the field and assessed the condition of the dried grass. It was perfectly dry and we would harvest the
hay without delay. Hay must be
completely dry before it is stored in the barn.
Wet hay ferments, heats up and can cause a disastrous fire. I remember two barns in the village that
burned down to the ground because of overheated hay.
Everybody
in the family gathered together. We
collected forks and rakes, while father prepared the hay cart and harnessed
Fritz, our old faithful horse. We sat
down on the cart’s platform and bumped our way down the narrow gravel road to
the hay field. With the old hand rakes,
we gathered the hay into long parallel rows, easy for loading. Then, father would guide Fritz and the cart
along the first row of hay. One of us
would be assigned the job of hay stacker, a post of prestige and great
responsibility. The men used a fork to
gather the hay into big piles, and with their foot pitchforked the piles of hay up to the top of the
cart. The hay stacker worked on the cart
and arranged and weighed down the piles of hay on each side of the cart, evenly
distributed, nice and neat. More than
once did I get cut by the sharp prongs of a fork. The woman cleaned up behind the men with wide
field rakes. Fritz patiently waited
between the stops, vigorously slapping his tail and jerking his neck and mane
in a vain effort to chase away the unrelenting flies. When the cart was fully loaded, the men
placed a generous layer of hay in the middle between the two stacks. Father, with his experienced eyes, checked
the balance of the load. A badly
balanced cart could easily overturn. A
heavy log beam was then placed on top of the hay extending the full length of
the cart. A rope was placed at the end
of the beam and tied around a cylinder at the base of the cart. Two men then cranked and turned the cylinder
with strong rods inserted in the cylinder’s slots and pulled the beam down on
the hay load almost to the cracking point.
We were told never to sit on top of the beam. If the rope ever snapped we would have been
catapulted half way up to the moon. As
a final touch, father brushed off any loose hay on both sides. The sight of a beautifully loaded hay card
was something to behold. We could
proudly drive it up to our barn. Rod
dowel
We stopped the hay cart
outside the barn at the bottom of the short and steep path that led to the
hayloft. We prepared for the tricky and
dangerous ascent to the hayloft. Facing
us was a steep ascent, a man-made mound of earth leading to the entrance to the
hayloft. This uphill path allowed us to
draw the heavy carts straight into the barn’s high loft. I fetched the stopper that was always resting
against the walnut tree trunk. The
stopper was a triangular block of wood attached to a long handle that would
stop the cart, should it roll back.
Farther, in his left hand held the old whip with its old frazzled
whipcord. With the right hand, he took
control of the cart’s brake handle. We
were ready to go. Father unscrewed the
brakes and cracked the whip. Fritz jumped and with all his might pulled the
heavy hay-cart up the steep ascent, prompted by occasional light whipping and
shouting. Behind the cart, I or Isidor
was closely following with the wooden stopper.
We skillfully held the stopper behind the wiggling steel-rimmed wheel,
close to the ground, nearly touching the wheel.
If Fritz should fail to move the heavy cart, the stopper would prevent
the load from ramming down the hill, hopefully.
I held my body to the side of the cart, so, should the stopper fail, my little body would not be crushed. We rushed thru the huge weathered gate into
the large hayloft. The hayloft had eight
deep square pits that reached down to the second floor. Some pits will be packed with wheat and rye
crops for threshing later in winter; other pits will be filled with hay,
nourishment for the herd of cows for the long winter months. By the end of summer all pits will be
chock-full up to the roof.
We stopped the cart next to a
hay pit that was half full from earlier loads.
I placed the stopper firmly behind the wheel to prevent the cart from
rolling back. Relieved and proud of a
job well done, Isidor and I climbed or jumped down into the soft haystack. Father removed the heavy beam that held the
hay in position, mounted on top of the hay cart and unloaded the hay in big
junks throwing them into the haystack below.
Isidor and I quickly leveled the hay with our forks. The smell of the hay was sweet, the dust was
thick.
The cart was unloaded, but
there was no time to rest. We brushed
off the dust from our hair and from behind our collar and wiped the sweat from
the forehead. Work was not finished, not
by a long shot. We had at least three
more carts to load. Father carefully
backed out the cart and the horse, and we all drove back to the field for a new
load.
Towards evening, dark clouds
began to build up at the Northwestern horizon.
The field had been cleared; all hay was safely in the barn. We were ready for dinner. The sky darkened, the wind began to blow and
we could hear the rolling sound of thunder.
I saw Mother rush down to the field.
She collected two rake-full of hay and formed a cross in the middle of
the field. It was a tradition. With this cross, the Lord would protect our
house and farm from the storms.
After dinner, my tired body
was ready for a good night’s sleep. I
brushed off that itchy hay that got stuck inside my shirt and jumped to
bed. A bath had to wait until Saturday.
Rapid Ascent
Life on the farm was not
always that easy. I remember when I was
bout five or six years old,
how my father and the farmhand cut the grass with scythe
blades. Using a scythe is much harder
than one might think. It is a skill that
takes years to perfect. The movement is
not with the arms, but with the torso and the scythe must be aligned just right
so that the grass is cut close to the ground.
The blades were always kept sharp and each man carried a whetstone in a
water-filled cow-horn holster hanging on a worn leather belt. I can
still hear the tsh-tsh-tsh of the blade sharpening sounding afar from the
fields.
Then, a new age of technology
entered our life. Life became
easier. Father purchased a new
gas-powered grass mower from a dealer in Hochdorf. Father was always very careful selecting a
product. For our mower he finally
decided on the ‘Rapid’ brand. Father
took us to the Herr Frey the Rapid dealer near the schoolhouse in Hochdorf
where he shook hands on the deal. We
impatiently waited for the delivery of the Rapid. The day finally arrived. Early evening, the dealer pulled up with his
small pickup truck. Isidor and I rushed
outside to get the first look at the Rapid.
The dealer unloaded the mower and explained the mechanical parts. For reasons I still don’t understand today,
he did not go into the technical details; he just pointed to the various parts
and referred to their color. This is
red, this is blue, this is green. Father just nodded; he probably already
studied and understood the technicalities of this advanced piece of
machinery.
The dealer left and we were
called for dinner. We had this
unbelievable feeling of elation running through our mind and body. We were the owners of this beautiful, shiny
new Rapid. The future had arrived; the
past we left behind. The feeling was
indescribable.
After dinner, Grandmother
Gotte took us upstairs for bedtime prayers.
We could not concentrate. We said
our prayers, not thinking of God but of the Rapid. Suddenly, half asleep, we heard the sound of
the Rapid engine starting up. Father
must have been just as thrilled and he had to try it out. We ran out of our bed and looked out the
window. It was dark ,
we could not see anything, but then our bedroom was at the back of the
house. We ran downstairs. “Go back to bed’, Muetti said sternly.
Basket Case
Every few years, we hired a basket maker. In our henhouse yard, along a small brook, that normally ran dry, grew a line of twig trees. The trees provided us with an abundance of field twigs. As the twigs reached a certain size, we cut them, piled them into a heap and saved them for basket weaving. The roving basket maker, a master craftsman, showed up every couple of years. He installed himself in the loft and weaved the twigs into beautiful baskets of all shapes and sizes. First, he soaked the twigs in a bucket of cold water to render them soft and flexible. Then, they were peeled and cleaned of their slimy sap, and cut to equal length. We were fascinated by the craft and with the apparent ease the basket maker turned simple twigs into artful baskets. To start a new basket, the master artisan selected six twigs of equal length and divided them into two groups of three twigs in each. With his sharp knife, he pierced thru the center of the first three twigs, creating a clean slit in the middle of each. He then slid the other three twigs thru the opening of the first three, creating the form of a cross. The cross was the foundation of each basket. Then, the twigs of the cross were pulled apart and now appeared like rays emanating from the center. New twigs were meticulously weaved around the center. In no time, a finished basket with handles and decorative borders was created.
I will never forget one basket maker. He was sitting in our loft busy on a old turned-over wooden harrassli, weaving his beautiful baskets. On the wall, facing the basket maker, hang an old poster of Circus Knie. Perhaps it is still there. The poster was huge, but badly torn. The poster depicted a scantily dressed ringmaster lady, her beautiful right leg sensually exposed, whipping the ground next to a roaring lion. Wrrrrrrr. The basket maker did not like the picture, not one bit. It was too suggestive; the dress of the lady lion tamer was too revealing. The next day, he turned his seat away from the poster. But he felt that the lady with the whip was still there, lustfully eying him. After a while, the prudish basket maker could no longer bear the presence of the picture. He covered up the poster with burlap bags, so that he could concentrate on his work, and … save his soul.
Thunderstorms
On
hot summer evenings, we often experienced severe thunderstorms. We feared hailstorms the most because they
ravaged our fruit crops. As the
threatening clouds gathered, and the wind whipped across the fields, lightening
bolts lit up the dark sky and eardrum-shattering thunder cracks filled the room
like an explosion above our heads. Our
grandmother Gotte assembled us frightened children in the hallway. As we huddled together, she lit up a blessed
candle, and from an old tattered sheet of paper, she recited an ancient
prayer. The prayer implored the Almighty
God to prevail and triumph over the Devil, Satan, Lucifer, the ‘Teufel’, the
demons of hell, and the powers of Thunder and Lightening, to free mankind from
their evil forces, and to save and protect us poor sinners. The prayer was so masterfully composed that
the mere sound of its spoken words scared and frightened us more than the
passing storm, sending shivers down our spines.
Gotte paused when a lightening flash lit up the dark space; we held our breath
until a moment later a loud booming thunder exploded and shook our house. Gotte would break a small branch of dried
boxwood from a wreath that was hanging outside the front door. The wreath was blessed during the mass at our
church on Palm Sunday the previous year and protected our house and family
throughout the year from dangerous storms.
While reading the prayer, Gotte sprinkled some holy water on the dry
boxwood and lit it with the burning candle, letting some light smoke scent the
room. The smoldering branch was then
placed in a plate on the bench outside the house; the smoke would rise to the
heavens and pacify the Gods. The storms
always passed.
My Guardian Angel
In
1953, I was 12 years old, mid-afternoon, when I arrived home from school, an
eerie feeling came over me when I approached our house. I had a premonition and a hunch that
something was wrong. As I got closer to the
house, a cat nervously jumped from the wooden stair rails outside the front
door and broke a vase. The premonition
got stronger. The anxiety got stronger. Someone tried to warn me of bad news. Nobody was home. Later that afternoon, my mother arrived,
teary eyed, and told me in a cracked voice that Grandmother Gotte had to be
rushed to hospital for major surgery.
Grandmother Gotte died the next day from complications of a terribly
bungled hernia operation. Gotte was only
71 years old. We were very close to our
Grandmother “Gotte” and we missed her terribly.
I
believe we have a fifth sense, or some higher force is watching, guiding,
advising and guarding us. I believe we
have a Guardian Angel. I also believe in
the power of prayer. I know that my
Mother prays for us every night. Her
favored patron saint is Saint Anthony of
Our Dear Gotte
Our
grandmother Gotte, the mother of my mother, was born in 1881. She was the kindest, most loving person the
world has known. Grandmother was the
Godmother of Franzi, my older brother; so we all called her ‘Gotte’.
Her
maiden name was Barbara Lang. She comes from a large families of nine children, six sisters and two
brothers. We were only close to one of
her sisters, Tante Anna of Eschenbach, the mother of Hans and Jakob. Both Hans and Jakob in their late youth lived
with us in Rain for a few years and helped on the farm. They were like older brothers to us. Another sister of Gotte become
Sister Marcelina, a religious nun at the cloister in Baldegg. We would see her very infrequently; her rare
visits amounted to State affairs; a visit by the Pope could not have been more
formal. Elisabeth, a favored aunt of my
Mother, but whom we hardly knew, was the mother of Miggi, a young sophisticated
lady that we dearly loved and admired.
In summer, Miggi sometimes stayed with us for a few days, and her visits
were the most unforgettable days. Gotte
married a Nicklaus Häfliger. She was 34
years old when she bore the first and only baby, my Mother. My mother was a young child when her father
Nicklaus died, probably as a result of a head injury suffered a few years
earlier in a farm accident.
Sadly,
I know very little about my grandfather Nicklaus.
After
grandfather Nicklaus died, Gotte brought up my mother alone. Life must have been very hard. Gotte was trained as a home nurse and worked
exhaustingly long days and nights to make ends meet. She would help families after childbirth,
cooking, cleaning and washing. She was
the best cook and an excellent seamstress.
She brought joyfulness wherever she worked and she had a keen sense for
humor. Everybody loved Gotte. When my mother finished grade school, Gotte
was able to send my mother to a convent in
Soon
after my mother got engaged to be married to my father, an opportunity to lease
a farm in Rain presented itself. My
father had to decide to sign the lease immediately or let the opportunity pass
by. Father signed the lease. Mother and Gotte immediately made their home
on the farm and together helped run it until the wedding day, when my father
joined them.
Gotte
was always stayed with us, and she was part of our family. Isidor and I, when very
young children, slept in her bedroom.
Gotte was very religious. We
never went to bed without prayers. Long, long prayers, seemingly never-ending prayers. I have the most precious memories of
Gotte. Once a year, she took us on a
trip to a place of pilgrimage. The trips
were either to Sachseln and Sarnen, the place of the saint Bruder Klaus, or to
the monastery of Einsiedeln. At least
once, we stayed at a hotel and made it into a special two-day trip. The trip to Sachseln was by bus to Luzern,
then by train, Third-Class carriage, first along the
I
remember Gotte as if it was yesterday.
Every late afternoon, she would take a rest from the heavy work and sit
down to a glass of
Our
Gotte was the kindest person that I ever knew.
She was a saint, never a harsh word, only kindness. She worked hard from early morning to late at
night. She never spoke badly of any person, she gave everything and help everyone. She was very religious and she surely is in a
very special place in heaven. On her
last day in hospital, Gotte was delirious from high fever. True to her character of true hospitality
and generosity, she asked us if we had offered coffee and cake to the
nurses. Gotte died the next
morning. We miss her.
Fashion Freaks?
Our
Grandmother Gotte worked very hard. She
knitted all our sweaters, scarves, hats and socks. She tailored all our cloths. In our living room, a cupboard drawer was
chock’ a full of tailor’s patterns.
Gotte bought the cloth from retail stores in the town of
I
remember, in my early years, knickerbockers pants became fashionable, surely
popularized by the golfing Duke of Windsor or inspired by pictures of the
grouse hunting English gentry, … just kidding.
Knickerbockers are men’s pants with full breeches gathered and banded
just below the knees. Gotte thought it
would be nice for me and Isidor to enjoy knickerbockers, and she sewed two
pairs for us, using the best English cloth.
First, we enjoyed them and proudly paraded them in the
neighborhood. Father laughed and said we
were fashion freaks. Then, we got tired
of them. We were the only boys in all of
Römerswil that wore knickers, almost every day, and we became rather conscious
of it, painfully so at times. Our cloths were always cut a bit oversized,
allowing us to grow into them, and so were our knickerbockers, giving them a
slightly off-stylish look. And they had
the tendency of sliding down our skinny legs.
Simply said, the look just was not us.
We could hardly be mistaken for English schoolboys. The cloths used for the pants was so strong and
the craftsmanship so good that the pants lasted years after the fad ended.
Indeed,
the quality of Gotte’s work was unmatched.
A few years ago, I visited the house of my older brother Franz. With amazement I noticed that the woolen hat
that I wore as a child is still being used by the grand-children of Franz, and
the hats are as good as new, and in good style.
The fate of our knickers is unknown.
Sweet Moments
There
were many happy days and joyous events to look forward to. Once a year, we enjoyed a family outing,
normally a trip across an alpine pass or up a mountain. Then, there was the annual school outing, an
event anticipated with great joy. Each
July, we went to see the parade and festivities to commemorate the battle of
Sempach in the year 1386. A highlight at
these festivities was ice cream and lemonade.
And
I must not forget the pleasures enjoyed at the occasion of our Names Days and
Birthdays. Names Days were more
important than Birthdays. My Names Day
was March 19th,
Names
Days and Birthdays normally meant presents of chocolate and sweets. The favorite gift was a box of raisins. These delicious bits could be savored
individually, one small raisin at a time, like candies and could be shared
easily among us brothers. As the box of
raisins dwindled towards depletion, nothing would stop me from gulping up the
rest in sinful abandon. The absolute and
undisputed supreme gift would be a box of dates, beautifully packed, the sticky
dates arranged in a stacked chevron pattern in an elongated round box, probably
imported from faraway
The
village had two small shops. It was
customary for the shopkeeper to give the kids a sugar candy when leaving the
shop. During lent, we placed all the
candies in a glass jar. We would not
imagine eating candies during the forty days of lent. Then, on Easter, we would empty the jar and
eat all stored candies in one big abandon.
Several
times a year, we joined in the church’s early morning prayer
processions to the neighboring villages of Rain and Hildisrieden. When we reached the villages, we attended the
special mass. After the mass, we stormed to the village bakery and bought sweet
baked buns with the few coins given to us by our parents. What a treat and well worth the long walk,
prayers and mass.
Our
Mother always cooked good and healthy meals, and we had an abundance of fruits
and vegetables. On meatless Fridays, Mother would bake delicious apple pies for
dinner. The cellar was full of delicious
apples from our farm. In July we ate
fresh cherries directly from one of our dozen cherry trees. How delicious the cherries tasted straight
from the tree cooled by rain after a thunderstorm. We were told that city folks only eat
cherries with a stem, and would spit out the cherry pit. We boys ate the cherries stem-less and
swallowed the pit. This must have
tempered our stomach for life.
Apples
were my favored fruit, and they still are.
Once as young boys, Isidor and I decided to run an apple eating
contest. We each picked the largest
apples for the opposing party. We sat on
the stairs behind the kitchen and started to eat. I ate twenty large apples, and Isidor was not
far behind. However, Isidor became sick
and started to vomit. I declared myself
the winner. When father saw the result,
both the statistics and the mess on the floor, he (understandably) screamed at
us for the stupidity of the contest and the waste of good apples. Today, I still eat a lot of apples, and
Isidor tries to avoid them.
As young children, buying sweets for self-consumption was frowned upon. We called it ‘chrömle’. It was bad, sinful and addictive, we were told. My good friend Heiri often ‘chrömled’, and he was hiding the purchased sweets under rocks in a stream on his way home. I was about sixteen years old at summer camp in Estavayer, when I proudly confided to a friend that I never ever in my life spent one penny buying sweets for myself. The friend squinted his eyes and looked at me with an expression of puzzlement, paused for a moment, then said ‘good for you’. I can imagine what went thru his mind: ‘What planet are you coming from? Get a life, Sepp!’
Branded
Buchmann
Family demonstrated a lot of brand loyalty.
We would have been the marketers’ delight. Muetti was a steadfast devotee of
Maggi. Cooking with Knorr products would
have been blasphemy. Who knows what
Knorr cold have done do our
digestive system. Muetti
would never betray the good people at Maggi.
We had our deep-rooted believes and convictions, and nothing would tempt
us to stray from our unyielding devotion to a brand. Vati was an enthusiastic and loyal supporter
of the ‘Rapid’ grass-cutter and the ‘Wahl’ tractor. I remember how long and carefully he pondered
overt the selection of the tractor. He
concluded that Wahl offered the best quality; never mind that we were the only
farm with a Wahl tractor for miles. With
hindsight, the Wahl tractor was an excellent product and a good choice. The tractor was finally retired two years ago
when spare parts were no longer available.
The Wahl served the farm for over 40 years.
Jingle Bells
Christmas was the loveliest time of our childhood. The Christmas season always began with a visit from Saint Nicholas on his patron’s day early December. The visit from Samichlaus was a bitter-sweet occasion. Saint Nicholas is known to children in the world under many names: Santa, Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Holy Man, Klaus, or just Nick. We knew him as Samichlaus. He was not the cheerful ,cuddly man from the North Pole with a big belly and long white beard, sliding down the chimney. Our Samichlaus was stern and serious, but fair and just. No Ho-Ho-Ho, and no sitting on his lap. The good Samichlaus was escorted by two or three devil-like ‘Schmutzlis’, who would scare and frighten the children. We had not always been good boys, and we were afraid of a harsh admonition by the holy Klaus and the mean pestering by the schmutzlis. Santa Claus visited the houses of children dressed like a bishop in a silky cope and a golden mitre, holding a richly decorated crosier.
Father knew in advance on which evening Samichlaus would
visit our house. That evening, we were
tense and had little appetite at dinner.
Without talking much, we dressed up and retreated to the living room and
nervously waited for Samichlaus to arrive.
Our living room had a built-in corner bench opposite the beautiful
kachelofen. It was a beautiful room,
wooden walls and ceiling, simple décor, nothing fanciful, but designed for
living. No modern day interior designer
could have done better. The children sat
behind the round table on the bench, safely flanked on each side by an
adult. Soon we heard the sound of a
truck. That must be Santa. Yes, he did arrive by truck. Our hearts started to pump hard and we nudged
closer together. Father was on the
stairway outside the house. We heard him
talk to Santa in a low voice. Why? Then, Santa and his party ceremoniously
entered the living room. The holy man
with a long white beard faced us with a stern but paternal look. Santa looked dignified and kind, but the two
schmutzlis terrified us. Their scary
faces were blackened in soot; they rattled the bells tied around their belly,
growled and danced the devils dance, each holding a rag bag. Here we saw the good and the bad side by
side. We sat close together on the bench behind the round table, tense, our shaking knees pressed together, our heart
pounding. We had reason to be
scarred. Bad boys would be stuffed in
the schmutzli’s bags and carried away; where we did not know. Santa Claus told us that we were generally
good boys, but reminded us of times when we failed, and he cited some
examples. He knew the detail of all our
faults, failings and transgressions over the past year. How did he find out? Yet, he would overlook the transgressions
this time. Then, he grabbed a canvas bag
and poured the contents on the large table in front of us: walnuts, tangerines, peanuts, chestnuts, dried
figs and ginger cakes. The cakes were
shaped like a Santa, decorated with frosted sugar and a paper picture of a
cheerful Santa, a Santa that looked different, a Santa with a big belly and red
Santa suite (printed in the
On December first, Mother hung up an Advent calendar in the living room. Each day, we took turns opening a window of the Advent calendar, and impatiently counted the remaining days leading up to Christmas Day. The Advent calendar was from a previous year, so oftentimes we could guess what image was inside the little doors, yet it was always a surprise: pictures of angles, cakes, fruits, stars. But we were really waiting to open the large door reserved for Christmas Eve on the 24th. Proud and blessed was the boy to whom befell the honor to open the door on Christmas Eve. We were all there when one of us opened the large door and we admired the image inside. Uhhhs and ahhhs, never mind that the image was always the same: a beautiful scene of the nativity.
We also crafted an Advent wreath with fresh pine branches tied around an old straw
ring, wrapped in a red ribbon and topped by four new candles. Each Sunday after dinner, we lit up the
correct number of candles: one candle on the first Advent Sunday, two candles
on the second Sunday, and so on. On the
Early December, the postman delivered the highly anticipated Christmas catalog from the auLouvre department store in Hochdorf. We were fighting to be the first to explore the catalog and we treasured it for days. Most of the toys in the catalog were just for dreaming about. Muetti was busy baking a multiplicity of cookies to fill many large tin cans to the rim and that would last for weeks for us and many visitors. Basler Leckerli, Mailänderli, Zimtsterne, Walnut Puffs. The last door of the Advent calendar was opened. Christmas had finally arrived.
On Christmas Eve, after dinner and after washing up the dishes, we dressed in our best cloths and anxiously waited in the upstairs hallway and bedrooms for Christkindle to come to our house. Then, Father would check the locked door of the Stübeli and announced that, yes, Christkindle had just come by. We stormed downstairs and in awe admired the beautiful Christmas tree with the burning candles, Christmas balls and glittering silver tinsels. The table was covered with wrapped presents for everyone. And cookies, chocolate, oranges… What a joyous time. We played with the toys, sang (mumbled) Christmas songs, played music, and were so happy that we forgot about some expected toys that were not there. At about eleven o’clock, we put on our winter cloths and went to church for the midnight mass.
After Christmas, every few evenings, we lit the candles again and spent a few relaxing minutes next to the tree, admiring the little flames and enjoying the subtle smell of burning candle wax, and smoking pine needles. Sometimes, Father would bring his horn and play a Christmas tune. Before we left the room, everybody was allowed to pick a chocolate candy still hanging on the tree, beautifully wrapped in colored foil, each one with a different shape, design and flavor.
Muetti’s Christmas cookies lasted for weeks into the new year and reminded us of the happy Christmas past.
The Easter Bunny
Spring
was in the air. The path behind the
house along the brook was adorned with daffodils. I could hear a thousand golden bells ring in
the new season. I cannot imagine a more beautiful flower for this time of year:
the brightness and purity, the sparkle and liveliness, gleaming like golden
nuggets in the warm sunshine. We
prepared for Easter, a happy day after the never-ending Lent, with sad faces,
want of sweets, long prayers, and self-denial.
In the kitchen, Mother boiled a stack of fresh eggs. After the hardboiled eggs had cooled, we
decorated the eggs with improvised and impulsive artwork.
On
Easter Sunday, after Mass and after the special Easter lunch, we rushed into
the fields and collected a basket full of grass, daisies, dandelions and other
spring flowers. We emptied the basket on
the bench in front or our house and artfully fashioned the flowers and grass
into round nests. The nests were
arranged with great care and taste to please and impress the Easter bunny. The Easter bunny would come, we hoped, and if
he liked the nests, he would generously fill them with a lot of goodies. He never let us down. Easter bunny probably watched us from afar;
within minutes after we made the final touch-up left the nests, the Easter
bunny must have hopped by. The nests
were filled to overflow with candies and beautifully decorated hardboiled eggs. And he left behind a large wrapped chocolate
bunny, hollow, but surely sculptured to his own likeness. After the long lent,
what a pleasure for our sugar-deprived palates.
Early
afternoon on Easter Day, father rolled out the old horse-drawn carriage from the
barn, removed the spider webs and gave it a good dusting. Father felt an urge to take the family for a
ride thru the neighborhoods. He hitched
up the horse, and we all mounted on the carriage, sat on the narrow benches and
made ourselves as comfortable as possible.
The horse felt unaccustomed and did not obey father’s commands at first;
the ride began somewhat unscripted.
Things improved, and soon we were riding along the roads at a good
pace. We did not feel quite so happy
with the situation; we felt a bit self-conscious. On winding roads, motorcars ached to pass our
slow moving carriage and the passengers in the cars stared at us. Still, it was a lot of fun. When we returned home, our butts aching,
father returned the carriage to its resting place in the barn, ready for next
year’s Easter outing.
Crushed
Chocolate
and cookies for birthdays presents could readily be
bought in our small village store. For
more exquisite gifts we had to walk to Hochdorf, a larger village down in the
valley. One year, my older brother
Franzi hinted that he would be thrilled to receive a ball point pen for his
birthday present. Ball point pens were a
novelty, a technological wonder, the writing system of the future. Never mind that the teachers frowned upon
this device because it ruined the pupils
handwriting. Isidor and I walked to
Hochdorf to find out what was available in the latest line of ball point
pens. We could reach Hochdorf on foot in
about 45 minutes, down an old footpath that cut across the winding main
road. The footpath was almost certainly
an ancient road laid out by the allemanic settlers, or the Romans before them,
or even the Celtic people that dwelled in the area before the Romans. The trail was carved into the lush pastures,
with ruts shaped by the wheels of heavy carts furrowing thru the mud for two
thousand years, and diligently cared for by our hardworking forefathers.
In
Hochdorf, Isidor and I entered the elegant, hushed Papeterie store. Kling-kling, a jingle of the door bell announced
our entrance. We waited obediently,
nervously; soon a lady with a welcoming smile appeared behind the counter. After I explained our requirements, the
saleslady showed us the available assortment of pens, neatly laid out on a felt
covered tray. We did not have much money
with us, so the choice was limited and rather difficult to make. And it was time-consuming. The sales lady appeared patient, still
smiling. If she rolled her eyes at our
questions and indecisiveness, we did not see it. We eventually settled on a model that had an
attractive gold-colored cap. It looked
rather expensive, but it was affordable, and Franzi would be pleased.
Isidor
and I, pleased with our purchase, walked back home, up
the hill along the ancient footpath. At
home, we were eager to show the acquisition to Muetti. But we could not find the ball point
pen. We turned out all our pockets. No pen.
We sadly concluded that the beautiful pen must have dropped out of my
pocket during the walk home. Perhaps we
could find it if we retraced our walk down to Hochdorf. Isidor and I left immediately so that we
would reach Hochdorf before darkness.
Our eyes scanned the grounds looking out for a shiny golden object. Nothing. We eventually reached Hochdorf. It was five o’clock and the main road was
busy with trucks from the brick factory and the local brewery. As we made our way towards the Papeterie, at
the main intersection, we found the pen.
There is was. Our
pen. It was lying in the middle
of the street, crushed from passing trucks, the plastic pen split into a
thousand pieces and the brass cap flattened.
Our mind went numb, the stomach sick; we were totally stunned, shocked,
crushed. It made no sense picking up the
pieces. We walked back the steep ancient
footpath, not saying a word.
This
is not the only time that I lost items of value. Once, Isidor and I were told to go the Co-op
shop in Hochdorf to buy some groceries.
We discovered a new and faster way to walk to Hochdorf. The way led us thru the woods on a narrow
pine-needle covered footpath along a quiet brook. We could reach Hochdorf in about half an
hour. Back home, after this short
shopping trip, Muetti asked me where the wallet was. It was not in my pocket, so it must be in the
shopping bag. But it was not there. Muetti was angry. There was some money left in the wallet, and
the wallet itself was of some value; it was in leather, and although worn-out,
and had many years of service left.
Later that evening, the village music band was to give the rehearsal
concert and an amateur theater play, and all schoolchildren were invited. The concert always took place in the old back
hall at the ‘Sonne’ restaurant The tickets for the rehearsal concert
were only a few pennies, and a single bottle of Orangina sold and served by the
restaurant staff would last throughout the concert. We looked forward to the play. It was an annual event. “Quickly”, mother said, “go back to Hochdorf
and find the lost wallet”. If we
hurried, we would be back in time for the concert. Isidor and I left immediately. We could not find the wallet. It must have fallen out of the bag, when we
sat down a few times to rest; we had to rest sometimes, the hill was very
steep. We arrived home with the bad
news. Muetti was not pleased. “You lost all the money, and the wallet. We are not spending any money for the
concert. You are not going to the
concert.” Sadly, we accepted.
Self-sufficiency
Reflecting
back on my childhood, I find it amazing how self-sufficient our family
was. Virtually all food was produced on
the farm or in our garden. The dozen
cows in our barn produced the milk.
Every morning, when he came for breakfast, father brought a bucket full
of fresh milk to the house. The high-fat
milk was poured into a wide shallow metal pan and let stand overnight. The fat of the milk would rise to the top and
was creamed off and churned into butter.
Butter-making
was a chore often delegated to Isidor or me.
We filled the jar of the old butter churn with finger licking heavy
cream, dipped the churner’s gear assembly with the wooden dasher into the jar
and fastened it tight. Then, firmly
holding to the metal grip, we continuously turned the handle for a quarter
hour, and it felt longer. Sometimes, we
had to straighten and stretch our arm and rest for a minute. ‘Did you know, Seppi”, Isidor asked, “in
The
milk production was delivered to the local cheese factory, a cooperative of the
local farmers, in the morning and evening on a dog cart. The cooperative had a strict rule that each
farmer should buy a certain amount of cheese from the factory for home
consumption. Generally, the cheese
factory sold the best cheese as ‘Export’ quality; the lesser quality cheese was
sold to the farmers. There is no
surprise that we always had a lot of cheese in the house. Cheese for breakfast,
cheese for the mid-morning Z’nüni, cheese for the mid-afternoon Z’obig, cheeses
all the time.
All
our vegetables were grown in Muetti’s proud garden. Lettuce, onions, beans, peas, cabbage,
tomatoes, you name it. Muetti spent a
lot of time working hard to keep the vegetable garden clean and
productive. Fertilizing,
weeding, watering, airing. There
was hardly a day when Mother would not do some work in her vegetable
garden. The vegetables were cooked and
preserved in special cans. The shelves
in the larder were chockablock with neatly aligned cans, clearly labeled with
the contents and the date. Before
winter, the cabbage was dug into the earth and would stay fresh throughout the
cold winter.
Eggs and poultry meat came from our hennery behind the barn. It was my duty, after homework, to fetch the hens’ egg production of the day. The excess eggs were sold to a lady in Rain. Chicken respond to daylight and lay more eggs in summer, and virtually none in winter, when the days are short dark. In fall, Muetti would place a large supply of eggs in ceramic jars and immerse them in a solution of liquid sodium silicate. Kept in the cool cellar, these eggs would stay fresh until spring.
In
summer, we ate a lot of cherries. Cherry
soup was one of my favored meals. In a hot
iron pan, we would mix and heat white flour, butter and sugar to a light tan
color. After the flour mix had cooled,
we spooned the mix into a large bowl and filled it up with cold milk and fresh
cherries. Yum. Sometimes, we substituted the milk and flour
mix with runny quark from the cheese factory.
Mother also used cherries and plums for pies, and for jam to last the
whole year.
Once
a year, we slaughtered one of our pigs.
It provided us with meat for months.
Bacon and ham was placed in a smoke furnace and was preserved for
months. Some meat was cooked and
conserved in cans; other pieces were placed in a community deep freezer. When a farmer had the misfortune of loosing a
cow due to an accident or illness, the farming community stood together and
helped to ease the financial loss. The
unlucky farmer called a butcher who would cut up the meat, and the farmer
families in the community would come and buy some of the meat. It was a reciprocal deed that was of big
comfort to the distressed farmer.
We
had a lot of apple and pear trees. The
apples were gathered in fall. The best
brand of apples and pears were sold, the rest was stored in our cellar for
family consumption or made into cider.
Our cellar had several large casks of cider, both sweet cider for the
children and ladies and fermented cider for the men. The pulp left by the cider press was
fermented and later distilled into alcohol.
After, the pulp was formed into briquettes, placed and dried on outside
shelves and used for heating the following year.
The
farm had fields of wheat, barley, potatoes and carrots. The potatoes were grown mainly for home
consumption, and to feed our pigs all year.
The wheat and barley was dried in the barn and threshed during
winter. Most of the grains were
sold. Some of the supply was ground into
flour for our baking needs, and the lesser quality flower was used to feed the
pigs.
The
only food we had to purchase were alimentary products like sugar, salt, coffee,
spices, some meat, like sausages, and bread.
Michael the Shoemaker
The small
We also had Michael the
shoemaker. Michael was an older man who
lived alone and ran a small leather repair shop upstairs in a wooden shed on
road down from the church below the cemetery.
For a few Batzen he replaced the soles on boots, fixed torn belts and
straps of our school backpacks. Repairs
were done to last with thick heavy leather, stitched twice and tight for heavy
duty, never to run. The workmanship was
perfect for country folks, but no one would have called on him to mend fine
Italian shoes or Louis Vuitton luxury lady leather bags. But this was Römerswil in the 1950s.
When we brought him shoes and
boots for repairs or picked them up later, together with schoolmates we climbed
up dark stairways to his brightly lit workshop.
We always stayed for a while and with great interest watched him work on
the old stitching machine, cut pieces of leather and use the many
stencils. He did not mind us watching
and he seems to have enjoyed company during his long working hours.
Michael the shoemaker was a
real professional. He enjoyed working
with leather. He did not work for the
money but for the love of his work. All
the work was done right and to his pride.
Small jobs, like punching a new hole in a belt were done for free. Who would do that today?
At a time and place where we
live now, pitifully much work is done by untrained hands as quickly and for as
much money as possible. Mistakes are
glossed over and jobs are left half finished.
Leaky roofs and draughty doors. But wait, there is more. Some workers are masquerading as
professionals moving from one trade to another, wherever the money is fast and
customers are aplenty. Here today, gone
tomorrow. Roofer
today, home decorator tomorrow.
Corinthian columns and faux Rococo chairs in your home. Fortunately, even today there are still a few
true professionals around. One just has
to find them. Buyer
beware, lessons learned.
Oink, Oink were her last words
Once a year, in winter, we slaughtered a big fat pig. Early in the morning, the traveling butcher arrived in his old red truck and transformed our large laundry room in the basement into a makeshift slaughter house. Enough water was boiled to fill large pots and barrels, the table was scrubbed clean, the knives were sharpened and arranged neatly on the table in size order. The cats were nervous and went into hiding. Everybody rushed about; this was an important day for the family. And the appointed day for the pig!
By the time the children were allowed to laundry room, the poor pig was already hanging on hooks, the skin shaved, the belly cut open and cleaned out. On the pig’s pale and smooth head was a small hole, washed clean, that marked the entry of the bullet that killed the pig, instantly and painlessly. During the next few hours, the butcher expertly cut the carcass into pieces. The bacon and ham cuts were salted and placed in the smoke chamber, the ribs were carefully cut into slices for cutlets. The prime pieces were prepared for pork roast and packed for the community freezer in Hochdorf; some pieces were cooked and conserved in cans. The small pieces were ground, spiced and formed into sausages. The tripe was thoroughly washed, tabbed dry with a cloth, cut into thin strips and stored away for family meals. The pig feet, gristle and pieces of odds and ends were saved for jellied headcheese. Every little piece of the pig served a purpose. By nightfall, the area was cleaned up, the butcher had left in his old red truck, and Muetti already had a pan full of delicious sausages and fried onions ready for dinner.
Winner
Takes the Top Cake
Les jeux sont faits; rien ne va plus.
A casino in Römerswil ? Not quite, but almost.
Every village has an annual Kilbi
(Kirchweihe, kermesse). The Kilbi in
Romerswil was always an anticipated highlight of the village life, a village
celebration. A baker from Hochdorf set
up an open-air ‘cake casino’ at a table just outside the village tavern ‘zur
Sonne”, next to the jolly merry-go-round with beautifully painted flying
horses.
For a few Rappen we bought a
ticket for a carousel ride. What a
joy. Sitting on the flying horses,
pushed out by centrifugal forces of the rotating platform, our eye sight was blurred
by the speed, and our senses soaked in the loud, festive carousel music. We stretched our hands to catch and grab the
brass ring. He who caught the brass ring
would get a free ride. I caught that
golden ring just once and felt like the king of the domain.
A crowd, young and old, swarms
around the baker’s casino table, all excited and eager to try their luck. For
twenty centimes, they buy one or more cards with a large random numbers printed
on them. Before the start of the game,
the untiring baker hastily piles half a dozen of nondescript dry pieces of
cakes of different sizes on a metal platter, and ceremoniously tops it with a
large flat round winner’s cake. There is
no time to waste, there are a lot of games to play; the table is loaded with
cakes. Holding and balancing the tray
with his left hand, the baker spins the number dial; the crowd holds their
breath, hoping to win the first price, the Big Cake. Number Eighteen! Eighteen? The lucky first winner raises his
hands and jubilantly reaches out and picks the large flat cake and proudly
showed it around. More numbers are drawn
until the last piece on the platter is picked.
The baker brushes off the crumbs from the platter and prepares for the
next round.
Sadly, I never won the big price,
but my brother Franz won it once and showed it off all day. We were given a piece of the cake. The cake was dry like pressed sawdust. Almost. But I ate a second piece. Did I hear someone say ‘sore looser’?
At
home, Mueti was busy preparing and frying a large supply of delicious Schenkeli
cookies, a tradition for Kilbi time.
One
summer, my brother Franz organized a Kilbi Casino at home. A good way to make a few
francs. Placards were placed
along the road outside the barn. Muetti
and Franz were busy baking tasty cookies and cakes for the drawing prices. Hopes for a large turnout were high. We kept our fingers crossed. On the day of the fest, a large table was
placed along the road, covered with a white table cloth, and the cookies and
cakes were piled high on it. A few
friends and neighbors arrived and played and walked home with wonderful prices
of cookies and cakes. One
‘Spielverderber’ nosed around the table for awhile then stopped and in an
annoyed voice asked if we had obtained a gaming license from the police
department. N-n-n-no, Franz said. Somehow, this put an end to the thrill and
enthusiasm of the day. The next day, we
noticed the policeman from Hochdorf pushing his bicycle up the road past our
house. I was worried and went hiding; I
thought he was here to see us. But no,
he walked right past our house on his way to the village.
Fireworks
On
August First, the village celebrated the Swiss national day. On or around that day in the year 1291, on a
field at Rütli, overlooking the Lake Lucerne, the leaders of three mountain
cantons solemnly raised their hands to heaven and made an oath to mutually
support each other in their resistance against the ruling Habsburgs who
increasingly encroached on Swiss’s treasured freedom, and the men formed a
loose confederation.
To
celebrate this important event in Swiss history, in the evening, our community
gathered in the village for great entertainment. After a Mass at the church we walked over to
the main village plaza outside the tavern ‘zur Sonne’. A simple wooden stage had already been
erected the day before and we excitedly waited for the sun to set and the
festivities to start. The old blue 7:30 bus from Luzern on its last run of the
day slowly cranked itself thru the crowd, turning at the tavern on its way to
Beromünster; it was time and dark enough for the entertainment to begin.
After
a short musical introduction by the village brass band, we eagerly awaited the
well-rehearsed show by the Men’s Athletic Club of Römerswil. Dressed in white spandex tights, in the total
darkness, the athletes quietly built a human pyramid, the men standing on each
others’ shoulders, four levels high.
Then, the stage was lit up for a short moment with a flash and burn of a
lime compound and we admired the amazing display in the bright limelight. Uhhs and Ahhs. Then, darkness again and a string of bangs as
the athletes jumped from the construct down on the wooden planks. We listened to the brass band playing some
more popular umpahs. Not to be outdone,
the Cecilia choir group took the stage and sang a song or two under the
engaging baton of Herr School Teacher Zender, a sound so faint in the open
space that we could still hear leaves rustling in the old oak tree that covered
the stage. The children carried red
lampoons and waved little Swiss flags, waiting for the end of the show, anxious
to light up the firecrackers and sparklers.
And we waited, and waited, fireworks in one hand and matches in the
other. We stood and listened to a
patriotic speech by a village personality, perhaps a teacher, or a local son
who ascended to the awe-inspiring position of lieutenant or even captain in the
Swiss Army.
The Little Engine that could
One
summer, Jakob Elmiger, the neighbor of our previous home in Rain, and still a
good family friend, offered to take our family on an all-day automobile
trip. This was an exiting family outing,
a traditional summer event, anxiously looked-for with great anticipation. On the appointed day, we all helped amassing
the necessary provisions and loaded it in the trunk of Jakob’s old automobile
and cheerfully squeezed ourselves at the back seat of the car. Farther sat down in front
helping Jakob to navigate. We drove
along the beautiful coastline of the Vierwandstattersee towards the Gotthard mountain. Near the
Gotthard, we stopped at a hydro power plant for a tasty picnic lunch; hot Maggi
soup cooked by Muetti on a small portable stove, ham, sausages and crusty bread. Muetti was always a loyal Maggi devotee; God
forbid, cooking with Knorr would have been blasphemous. After lunch, we washed the dishes and the
cooker, cleaned up the picnic area and resumed our trip, zig-zaging up to the
high Susten pass. The tiny Renault car
struggled up the steep winding road.
Twice we stopped to let the smoking motor cool down. We eventually made it to the top of the pass. After a short rest, late in the afternoon, we
descended the mountain and soon approached the small town of
He
pressed the gas pedal to the floor and the automobile responded, picking up
speed: 60, 70, 80, 85…
kilometers an hour. We boys were sitting
on the edge of our seats, leaning forward, rhythmically moving our bodies back
and forth, like a jockey at a horserace, urging the roaring engine to push for
that last bit of speed. Our eyes were
fixed on the speedometer. The needle
hovered now over 95 kilometers and seemed to have stalled at that lofty
level. Could we reach the extreme speed
of 100 kilometer an hour? With our
intense mental force and sheer willpower, and with the supreme effort of the
Renault’s roaring engine, the speedometer slowly reached 100. One Hundred!
We all cheered and Jakob Elmiger, basking in the glory, proudly
acknowledged our jubilation. That was
cool, kids, hey, was it not? Outside the
Milky
Way
Every day at 6:000 in the afternoon, immediately after
listening to the thirty minute children’s program on radio, Isidor and I took
turns and brought the milk from our barn to the cheese factory in
Traselingen. We loaded the two large
milk cans, each weighting up to a hundred pounds, on the two-wheeled dog
cart. Our dog “Prinz” pulled the cart up
the hill to the cheese factory in Traselingen, a short ten minute walk. Prinz was kept on a leash all day and the
daily exercise, although strenuous, was a welcome release for his stored
energy. The dog was very excited at the
mere prospect of running loose. He
jumped and frisked and shook his body so much that it was nearly impossible to
fasten his harness. Our cheese factory,
nondescript, had the architecture and look of all cheese factories in
We carefully lifted the heavy can of milk from the cart, slightly tilted it towards us and rolled it to the receiving area inside the building, managing the obstacle of the worn doorstep. Herr Emmenegger, master cheese maker, or an assistant poured the milk into a large tin container that was attached to a scale, weighed it and logged it in the Milchbüchlein (milk booklet). At random, infrequently, a sample of the milk was taken and tested. The cheese factory had to be certain that farmers did not dilute the milk with water. For the return trip, we filled the milk cans with hot whey, a residue product from cheese making, and staple food for our pigs.
Only once did I accidentally drop the full can of milk while rolling it into the cheese factory. The can just slipped out of my hands. What a mess, what a nightmarish sight; the factory floor was bright white awash with milk. What a disaster, what a financial loss, and what would father say. After the trip to the cheese factory, we diligently washed the milk cans with hot water and put them upside on a wooden stand to drip and dry. Every few months, Mister Emmenegger would make an un-announced visit to the farm to check that the cans were properly cleaned.
Sophisticated
Our
most loved family friend was Miggi Küng.
Miggi was a cousin of my mother.
We admired her and looked up to Miggi.
Her occasional visits to our house filled us with great joy. In our simple but happy life, Miggi gave us a
glimpse of the world of sophistication.
Imagine, she could speak some English, and she even traveled in an
airplane over the Alps to Nice and to
The Sound of Music
Pop
music also reached our remote home in Römerswil. We were in love with the pop singer Connie
Francis. Our
favored song was „Die Liebe is ein Seltsames Spiel”. Translated from German it
means ‘Love is a Strange Play’. We were
not allowed to sing the lyrics or even to mention the name of the title; it was
deemed to be too sexually explicit. So,
we could hum it, whistle it, secretly sang it.
I also liked a musical piece called ‘Moscow Nights’. That number did not thrill my father either;
it smacked of communism and political subversion. I was not fond of jazz, but I made an effort
to appreciate the sound and hoped in time to acquire a taste for it, and to
become worldly and sophisticated. Father
liked brass band and classical music. He
disliked the sound of Jazz. During
relaxed breakfasts on Sunday, father always listened to a classical concert
broadcast on radio.
My
brother Isidor was musically more talented than I. He learned to play piano on his own. When he told his teacher and the village church
organist about his love for piano, he was reminded that piano playing was
intended for boys of a rather higher social echelon, that it was not his
calling; he should instead learn to play a brass instrument, so that later in
life, he could join the village brass band.
Fortunately, Isidor did not pay any heed to the teacher’s advice and he
became quite an accomplished piano player.
My
father was quite musical. He belonged to
the village brass band, the Harmonie Römerswil.
On occasions, the band played under his baton. Father always encouraged us children to learn
musical instruments. First, I tried my
hand at the accordion. I never mastered
the technique of coordinating my fingers on the two keyboards. Later, I took lessons in clarinet playing,
but despite hard work, I never become a natural.
Sometimes,
on beautiful summer evenings, my father and my older brother Franz
, when the mood was right, played their brass instruments on the bench
outside our home’s covered front door.
My father played horn and Franz played the bugle; the sound of music
could probably be heard a mile away, across the fields down towards the Seetal
valley. Our neighbors told us how much
they appreciated these Soirées Musicales.
Hum.
When
we received visitors at home, we were always ordered to give ‘concerts’, but
the von Trapp family we were not. We did
not like these exhibitions; we did not like them, not one bit.
Good
Night Vati
Good
Night Mueti
Good
Night Franzi
Good
Night Isidor
Good
Night Adolf
Good Night …..
Today, music still plays an important part in my
life. While I don’t play an instrument,
I enjoy listening to good music, almost any classical composer, although I have
a penchant for Russian composers. I
recently noticed, to my surprise, that, when I walk alone, I always hum or
whistle a melody. I buzz some cheerful
classical tune from my mental repertoire, or some made-up sound. It appears that deep inside me, contrary to
what some folks might perceive, I am a very happy person. I do admit, however, that I catch myself
humming Shostakovich’s gloomy
E rüüdig schöni Fasnacht
Fasnacht
was always a happy time. The carnival
lasted three days. The festivities
started on Thursday (Schmutziger Donnerstag) and resumed the following week on
Monday and reached a crescendo on Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. We put on masks and dresses and visited the
families in the neighborhood, and received cookies or a few coins for our piggy
bank. There was dancing and frolicking
everywhere. On Monday, we went to see
the parade in Hildisrieden.
For
a few years in my mid youth, we hosted a yearly masquerade party at our
house. Family friends were invited. Everyone arrived in masks and costumes. The beautiful Baumli girls were always the
favored guests, and it would not have been the same without them. There was dancing to the music of our old
gramophone player. We even took dancing
lessons so that we could show off the hottest steps. Foxtrot, Viennese waltz,
charlston, polka, samba…. Late into the night, the
grown-ups would smoke, drink cider and beer and play cards, while we children
would continue dancing. I don’t remember
who organized these memorable events, which I shall never forget. Either Isidor or Franz were
in charge of our social calendar.
Mating Call
We
always had a telephone in our house, as far back in time as I can
remember. Not every family was so
privileged; many did not possess such marvel of technology and device of communication. Our good neighbors down the road, the Roth
family, did not have a telephone, and they often came to our house to make
important calls, and they would reimburse us for the actual toll charges. We were, so to speak, an early communication
hub, and we could say that with pride.
As
a child, I did not like the telephone, calling or answering. I did not like it, not one bit. I was painfully shy and felt very
uncomfortable to speak over a copper wire to a person that I could not
see. In a state so dense and flustered,
I rarely found the words that were right for the moment, that is, if my voice
did not choke up. Rather than
embarrassing myself, I stayed away from that strange, intimidating device of
communication. That black box on the
wall in our damp and cold back room was a thing for grown-ups, not for me, not
now, not yet.
I
must have been thirteen or fourteen years old when my Mother said ‘enough of
that’, and she told me to make a ‘business call’. On our farm we had a lot of cows and some of
their needs had to be catered for. One
young cow, Bella was her name, I remember, was in heat
and was due for mating. Mother told me
to call the Baumli’s to make an appointment for Bella to see their bull. Baumli’s had a healthy and strong bull that
would pass good genes to our livestock.
The Baumli family lived on a large farm on the road towards the
From the tone of my Mother’s voice, she was serious, no buts or ifs, I had to make that call. Now! I was not pleased, but grudgingly accepted. I went to the cool, unheated room at the back of the house. The black telephone hung on the wall next to the door and next to an old calendar with a pocket stuffed with envelopes and notes. That stupid telephone! On the calendar were scribbled many telephone numbers and annotations. Baumli’s telephone number was right there on top with dates of previous appointments with the bull, in my father’s handwriting. Father would normally make these phone calls. Why could he not make this call? I mentally practiced and memorized the greeting and purpose of call, then pulled myself together, took a deep breath, cleared my throat, picked up the phone and dialed the number.
I
was hoping the line would be busy. I was
standing; there was no chair to sit down.
My knees were trembling and my heart pounded as I heard the first
ring. What if one of the beautiful
daughters answered the phone? What if
Dorli answered? How would I explain
it? Oh God. Never mind that I was old enough to know
about the birds and the bees, this was a difficult and potentially awkward
situation. Dorli, the most beautiful and
charming girl; I, a shy and nervous farm boy on this uneasy mission, with dirt
under my fingernails, unruly hair sticking up despite the ‘little dab'll do
ya’ Brylcreem. One good thing, over the phone, Dorli would
not see me blush. Second ring…, third ring.
“Baumli, Grüetzi”, answered a friendly voice at the other end of the
wire. Fortunately, it was Frau Baumli,
the mother of the girls. In a
business-like, yet somewhat cracked voice, I went straight to the point and
made the appointment. Frau Baumli
checked the schedule; ‘Muni’ the bull would see our Bella the following
morning, rain or shine. Relieved, the
task masterfully accomplished, I went back to the kitchen. Lucky Bella, lucky Muni. If only everything in life was that easy.
“Did
you make the call?”, my Mother asked as I left through
then front door. “Yeah,
yeah”. To think about, perhaps
Mother wanted me to make the call, because she felt uncomfortable doing it
herself.
High Tech
Our
family lived simply, and we were happy.
Only three or four families in Römerswil owned cars, no zero-interest
leasing or cash-back in those days. It
was always a great excitement for us children, if one of these privileged
families bought a new model car. We
stood around the new car and admired the style and color. We were especially thrilled and impressed at
a model introduced in the mid fifties.
We thought this model reached the peak of beauty in car design; the
front and a back of the car were virtually identical, and the wheels were
nicely tucked in. How progressive, how advanced, how
stunningly beautiful. On some
Sundays, for a special treat, we could travel to church by bus with Grandmother
Gotte. Isidor and I made sure we would
sit on the left side of the bus so that we could look at the new car, freshly
washed for Sunday, parked outside of family Kündig’s house. We knew that we would never own a car but had
no sense of jealousy; we were just so happy that we could actually admire these
new cars in our village. It is somewhat
analogous to viewing an aircraft; it is a pleasure and a great experience to
look at it but no-one ever dreams of owning one.
I
was still very young when father and mother decided to buy a refrigerator. Nobody in the neighborhood had
refrigerators. Refrigerators were for
rich city folks; they were an unnecessary and expensive luxury. We had an old wooden cabinet with screened
doors; it would keep meat fresh for a few days and keep the flies out. Keeping meat fresh in summer was of course a
big challenge.
We
saw advertisement of small Sibir refrigerators, but did not think much of
it. Our family friends Baumli, the
family with the beautiful girls, had a large fridge. Sometimes in summer, we were invited to their
house, and Frau Baumli offered us home-made vanilla ice cream. Frau Baumli poured custard sauce into ice
trays and placed them in the freezer compartment for a few hours. We could hardly wait for the delicious treat. Each of us received two or three small blocks
from the ice tray.
A
year later, our family purchased a refrigerator. The shiny new refrigerator was delivered
under cover of darkness and installed in the larder, a small room directly
behind the kitchen. Father and mother
did not want anyone to know that we had a refrigerator. So that the news about our refrigerator would
not accidentally leak out, we were not allowed ever to use the word
‘refrigerator’, we were told to refer to the newly acquired device as the
‘cooler’. Nobody would ever find out
about our refrigerator, after all, a cooler could just be a cooling fan.
My
brother Isidor was always interested in electronics. He started an apprenticeship as a television
technician in Hochdorf. One day, he had
an opportunity to purchase an inexpensive television set. Father was not very pleased when Isidor
arrived home in his small Citroen ‘Deux Chevaux’ car with the TV set, but
Isidor was allowed to keep it as long as the antenna was installed in the loft,
not on the roof. We did not want the
neighborhood to know that we had TV.
My
father owned three or four horse-drawn carts used mainly for crop and hay
transport. The carts were pulled by the
old faithful Fritz, our farm horse. The
wooden carts had steel-rimmed wheels, they were old,
noisy and hard on our bums. We moved
into the advanced technological era when one day farther bought a brand new
cart with pneumatic tires. Unlike the
‘cooler’, we proudly showed off the new cart.
Life had changed, we were riding on air.
Rewind
to 1386 A.D.
The
battle field of Sempach is a short 40 minute walk from our home. Across the street of the battle field is a
beautiful chapel. On its walls are listed
the names of all the men that died in that fierce battle that took place in the
year 1386. The fight was between the
Swiss inhabitants and the Austrian (Habsburg) overlords. Listed among the
casualties is a Peter Buchmann of Rothenburg.
Since 1290, Rothenburg was the seat of the Habsburg Reeve (Vogt), who
ruled a large territory including Römerswil, Hochdorf, Rain, so it is possible
that the Peter Buchmann that died at the battle of Sempach was from a nearby
village and may have been an ancestor.
When
I look at the list of killed men on the walls of the chapel in Sempach, I am
saddened and always wonder why the names of the Habsburg knights, the enemy at
the battle of Sempach, are written in large bold embellished letters complete
with the family coat of arms, whereas the names of the Swiss men killed by
these Habsburg knights are listed plainly in small letters. The Swiss have always been modest and
self-effacing, but some more respect for the dead Swiss soldiers is in
order.
Whatever happened to Gosbert?
The
small Ludiswil hamlet consists of two farmsteads and lies between the old
alemanic settlements of Traselingen to the west and Gosperdingen to the East,
and is not far from the historic Gundoldingen.
My best school friend Heiri Muff lived in Gosperdingen. There are many
Swiss villages ending in ‘ingen’.
Historic research tells us that ‘ingen’ villages are the earliest
settlements of alemanic clans that arrived soon after the end of the roman
occupation. The settlers led a simple life and prayed to the feared God Wodan.
The settlements were generally always named after the patriarch of the
clan. So, it is quite possible that the
small Gosperdingen hamlet, just down the road from our Ludiswil, was settled by
the aleman Gosbert (meaning Shining Goth) and his
clan. The clan’s settlement would have
been called ‘zu Gosbertingun’, meaning ‘at the Gosbert’s place’. Gospert most likely sought out his wooded
land coming up the hill from
As
the clans grew organically, more and larger houses were built, homesteads were
enlarged and became estates or courts, and the suffix ‘
Helvetii, De Bello Gallico
Archeological research and findings indicate that in
pre-historic times wide fluctuations in the climate of the European continent
caused important population shifts.
During periods of warm and dry weather, large forest areas were cleared
for intense land use, and during periods of cool and wet climates these lands
were abandoned again. Warm and dry
weather in 1450 BC and 1250 BC was followed by a long period of cool and wet
temperatures, then the cycle slowly swung back. The period of 650 BC to 450 BC again enjoyed
warm and dry weather. The temperature in
the Baltic Sear area was warm enough to grow vine. Grains, originally cultivated in the dry
In
the first century BC, the area of what is now
The
ambitious Roman proconsul Caius Julius Caesar referred to the Helvetii people
in his written commentary, De Bello Gallico, generally in flattering terms, in
stark contrast to the unbelievable cruelty that he was to perpetrate against
them during the Gallic wars. Under the
leadership and incitement of their Helvetian leader, the powerful and rich duke
Orgetorix, plans were made by the Helvetii to leave their homeland and to
migrate to the warmer climate and rich lands of South West France, the
Saintonge region, North of the river Garonne on the Atlantic Ocean (North of
today’s Bordeaux). The Boii tribe of
Orgetorix’s
motives are not clear, but he may have harbored selfish designs for personal
riches and power and to install himself as king of an enlarged nation. There was a lot of intrigue at high
places. There is speculation that
Orgetorix and the tribe leaders or the Sequanian and Aeduan tribes concluded a
pact to unite their forces and to seize control of Gaul (now
In early spring of the year 58 BC, the Helvetii burned and
destroyed their twelve towns, four hundred villages and innumerable farmsteads,
and they assembled on the
It is assumed that the Helvetii marched South along the right river bank as far as Culoz, then West into the Aeduan territory to the Arar river (now called Saone river), or they may have crossed directly over the mountainous Jura. Once in the homeland of the Aedui, the Helvetii resorted to pillaging, and the Aedui asked Caesar for help. This was exactly what Caesar was hoping for. The Arar river was so tranquil that one could not see in what direction the water flowed. In twenty-one days they assembled a bridge of boats and rafts fastened together, and three quarters of the 386,000 Helvetii men, woman and children crossed the river and set up camp, waiting for the trailing Tigurini tribe to catch up. When Julius Caesar heard that so many already crossed the river, his regiments attacked the unsuspecting Helvetii that had not yet crossed the river and ruthlessly hacked most of them to pieces, about ninety-two thousand, while they slept. Some were captured and sold as slaves; a few escaped the massacre and fled into the nearby forest. The poor people had not expected an attack, and were not prepared for a fight, after all, they thought that they were in a friendly Celtic land, not in Roman territory. Julius and his army then hastily build a bridge across the Arar in one single day in an attempt to kill the remaining Helvetii.
The Helvetii continued on the way West
to their intended destination Saintonge.
Despite the help given by Caesar, the Aedui were unwilling to provision
the Roman army with food and supplies, and this angered Caesar, but he was
willing to overlook this ingratitude.
Short of provisions, Caesar took his army to the large Bibracte, the capital
of the Aedui. The Helvetii wrongly
assumed that the Romans were retreating and attacked them. This led to the
fierce battle at Biberacte where 114,000 more Helvetii were killed, and six
thousand more were killed or enslaved at the later battle of Verbigenus. The Helvetii,
devastated and short of food, sought help from the close Ligones tribe. The Romans threatened to attack and destroy
the Ligones, if they offered help to the Helvetii, and the Ligones thus refused
to help the Helvetii. The Helvetii had
no choice but to surrender to the Romans.
14,000 Helvetii were taken as slaves and hostages. Of the original 368,000 Helvetii only 110,000
returned home on Caesar’s order. The
Boii tribe was ordered to move and settle in the Po valley in
This
event is probably one of the worst case of genocide in
history and shows the ruthless, deceitful and brutal character of Julius
Caesar. Twelve years later, in year 44
BC, Julius, was stabbed and killed by Marcus Brutus, his trusted friend (and
widely assumed love child).
A
few years later the Romans easily conquered the Helvetian homeland. The surviving Helvetii tolerated the Roman
occupiers, they supplied young men as fighting soldiers for
We, the Barbarians
The ancient people that lived
in
The Celts were skilled
craftsmen, warriors, adventurers; only a few knew to read and write. Thus, most history about the Celtics was
written by Greek and Roman historians, as seen thru their biased prejudice
against the Celts. The Celts were called
barbarians (from the Greek word barbaros = foreign). The word ‘barbarian’ is now associated with ‘ uncultured’. The
Celts were far from uncultured. They may
have had the reputation of cruel adventurers and warmongers, the habit of
crying loud in battle, collecting cranes from killed enemies, and drinking wine
undiluted, not like the Romans who diluted the wine with water. The Celts invented soap. The Celts stiffened and lightened the hair
with chalked water and their appearance surely was formidable and
frightening. But the Celts practiced
highly developed ethical standards.
Unlike the deceitful and devious Romans, the Celts honored the treaties
with enemies, did not capture diplomats who came to negotiate in good faith, or
let gladiators and prisoners fight wild animals in amphitheatres to the delight
of the spectators.
Hans Buchmann, 1572
The hamlet of Chriesbüehl lies a short distance from
our house in Ludiswil, a walk of about 10 minutes. On November 15 in the year 1572, Hans
Buchmann, 50 years old, who lived in Chriesbüehl, left home and walked to Sempach
to pay a creditor sixteen guilders. The
man to whom he owned the money was not at home, so Hans Buchmann decided to
take care of some other business in the town of
Later that evening after sunset, on his way back up
the hill towards the hamlet of Hildisrieden, he passed by the woods next to the
field of the Battle of Sempach (1386).
Suddenly he was surrounded by a strange swishing, buzzing sound. Was he attacked by a swarm of bees? The noise grew stronger and developed into a
roaring, deafening sound. Fear and
horror overcame Hans. He grabbed his
heart, then his weapon and swung it around him, to no avail. Hans felt being
lifted upwards and he lost consciousness.
When he regained consciousness, he
found himself in a strange city where people spoke a language that Hans could
not understand. His face was swollen and
all his hair was lost. He met a
German-speaking guard or soldier, probably a Swiss mercenary. He was south of Alps in the city of
The guard was kind enough to help Hans return to his
home. At home, the police in Rothenburg,
the seat of the reeve (Vogt) responsible for Chriesbüehl, the home of Hans Buchmann,
investigated the mysterious event and concluded that the depositions of Hans
Buchmann were truthful.
This story is well documented and was originally
chronicled by the well- known Lucerne town-clerk, chronicler, humanist and
historian Renward Cysat
(1515-1614) in Collectanea chronica und denkwürdige Sachen pro chronica Lucernensi et
Helvetiae (edited by Josef Schmid, 1969).
What throws some doubt on the story is another chronicled event by Renward Cysat. This
event happened four years prior to Hans Buchmann’s magical transportation. One day, approximately 1568, Lienhard Murer, a baker who
lived in Geiss, traveled by horse to market in Entlebuch, loaded with
bread. In the evening, after a drinking
some wine, he started his trip back home.
On the way home, he was overcome by growing sleepiness; he tied the
horse to a tree and took a nap. As he slept, a ghost lifted him into the air
and transported him across the
Everything, Including the Kitchen Sink
I had
reasonably good grades, so after I completed Grade 8 in Römerswil, my parents
decided that I should continue with ‘higher education’, at least thru Grade
9. Römerswil did not cater for Grade 9,
so I had to enroll at the school in Emmenbrücke, a town near the city of
I
clearly remember the very first day at school in Emmenbrücke. I arrived at school by the early-morning
bus. From the Sonnenplatz bus station in
Emmenbrücke, I walked downhill to and soon found the Rüegissingerstrasse and
the large
My grades at Emmenbrücke were rather mediocre. I did well in the basic subjects, but had
some trouble grasping the liberal arts subjects, such as poetry, as these finer
subjects had been somewhat neglected at school in Römerswil. To help with the French language, my parents
were generous and sent me to a six-week summer course in Estavayer, in the
French-speaking part of
The
year at the Ninth Grade at Emmenbrücke was hard but very beneficial
pedagogically. My least favored subject
was botanic. We had to memorize the
Latin names of a vast number of plants that I never saw and probably would
never see in my life. Math was basic, no
algebra yet, but basic math to the extreme.
During every math class we practices chain calculations, mainly
calculations with fractions. The teacher
read the calculations rapidly in succession, so fast that our brains could
hardly process them before the next calculation was read. More often than not, I lost the thread of the
chain calculation half way through it. A
most amazing thing happened frequently.
After I lost the thread and the teacher happily continued, I was able to
pick up again and arrive at the correct result.
I figure this is a simple case of reading the brain waves of the
schoolmates.
By
far, our favored subjects were English and Religion. Did I say Religion? Yes, the priest in charge was humorous, and
he knew how to teach a difficult subject.
Rather than teach the Bible, we received some education on the ‘birds
and the bees’, knowledge that at our age was eagerly sought after, and
questions that our parents avoided. When
I asked my Mother “how do babies come to earth?”, my
Mother paused then solemnly pronounced that it was a “very sacred thing.”, Subject closed. Now, at age 15, we were educated in that
subject matter. The priest was very
open-minded. A few years later, I
learned that the catholic priest decided to leave the priesthood. He got married and became a dentist.
Our
other loved subject was English. Twice a
week we attended English classes, my first exposure to that language, after I
learned a few words from Miggi. I always
was enamored with the English sound. And
the fact that our English teacher was an attractive young lady, Fräulein von Moos, did not escape the attention of our young class of
boys either.
Reflecting
back to my year at Emmenbrücke, I feel rather sad. While I caught up a bit academically, I felt
isolated and unwanted in the class. My
poor performance in sports did not help.
The local boys stuck together and hardly mingled with the four
out-of-town boys. I am looking at a
class photograph and I recognize the character of each and every boy. It brings back a lot of good memories. Most of the boys were good colleges and
friends. But three or four boys on the
photo represented the elite, and I don’t recall that one of them ever spoke to
me during the whole year.
Estavayer
The
summer of 1957 was special. I was in
Grade 9 at Emmenbrücke. Three months
into the school year, we were released for an extended summer holiday. The town
of
My
Mother was always concerned about our education, including proficiency in the
French language. As a young girl, my
Mother spent a year in the far-away city of
Our
French lessons in Römerswil were very elementary, but then our teachers did not
have the benefit of studying French in
As
the day for my departure neared, Mother worried about my traveling alone to
Estavayer, a train trip of about three hours and two changes of trains. She inquired with the school about other boys
from the area that would attend the summer program. She arranged that I could travel with a boy
from
We settled in at the school in Estavayer, and the classes started the next morning. It became apparent soon that my French was not up to standard. The written tests came back and looked like a bloodbath, marked all over in red by the teacher. I was not a happy puppy. I felt sad and depressed and cried at nights. I was not homesickness; I never knew what homesickness was, or experienced it, although now in my older days, I feel the magnet of my home country pulling harder. I was just terribly upset that I failed so miserably in French. I felt that I wasted so much of my parents’ hard-earned money. They sent me to the expensive summer school to perfect my French, and I was totally under-performing. As time went by, the dreaded red in the marked papers diminished and after a few weeks my French improved dramatically.
Routine
set it. Often, I was assigned the duties
of serving the meals in the dinning room, and I enjoyed it. To please my mates at the table, I always
made a special effort to be out first with the food platters. At mid afternoon we were served hot tea and
crusty bread. It sounds like a Spartan
meal, but delicious it was. At dinner
time, the academia was seated at the head table. At the end of the meal, the headmaster would
ask the holder of the copper medaille to step forward and pay the fine, one
Franc. The dreaded medal was the curse
of all students. I was lucky, I only caught
it once.
At
camp we were not allowed to speak in our native language, only French was
allowed. We had to be very careful not
to be caught speaking our own language, whether that be German, Italian or
Spanish. Predators lurked around
everywhere. Circumspection and alertness
was advised at all times. You see,
anyone holding the medaille could pass it on to a person found speaking his
native language. The unlucky person that
was left holding the medaille at dinner time was called to the head table to
pay the fine and suffer the embarrassment.
Once, a trusted friend engaged me in casual conversation is Swiss
German. As soon as I spoke a word, he
laughed and handed me the medaille. I
was unable to offload the horrible medal before dinner. I had enough moral fiber not to pass it to an
unsuspecting good friend. The next
morning, I found my victim among a group of unsociable students from
The
time at Estavayer came to an end. I was
looking forward to show off my impeccable French to my schoolmates at
Emmenbrücke. When I entered the
classroom, everyone stared at me with a strange smile. So did the Lehrer Wanner, my teacher. What was up?
Something was not right. I looked
at each schoolmate in turn. I just got a
grin back, a smirk. What? The teacher then stood up and walked over to
my desk. How did I have the temerity,
without approval, just take an extra week of holidays. “Do you think you are special?” As it turned out, the
summer holiday ended a week earlier and unknowingly I overstayed by a few days. At the next French lesson, the teacher asked
me to read a section from the book. He
was very pleased and the serious infraction was soon forgotten.
Last Man Standing
The
school was active in sports, exactly my weak point, and I was the worst player
in all categories of ball games and an undisputed handicap to any team that had
the misfortune to have me among them.
The teams were constituted afresh for each game. The leaders of each team took turns picking a
player from the pool of players; I was always the leftover last one, the booby
price. With luck, the total of the pool
was an uneven number; that meant that I could wait out the game.
I
have done a lot of self-analysis regarding my lack of interest and talent in
sport activities. I have all known motor
skills, physical strength, excellent reaction, 20/20 vision and perfect
hearing. I had social skills (I think, I
hope), good camaraderie and sense of teamwork.
In regards to running and high-jumping, I could beat everyone in my
class. If it is a consolation, my
brother Isidor was just as bad in sports.
Well, perhaps not quite that bad.
Why do my eyes still glaze over when I must listen to Monday Morning quarterbacking.
Why don’t I care the least if the defense kept the offense out of the
end-zone on six of eight goal-line attempts?
Why was I such a failure in ball games and sports? Why such a lack of prowess in athletics? Why? A deficiency of
steroids? Hardly. It could be the lack of practice. When my friends played ball games, we
generally had to work on the farm and we never acquired the basic skills needed
for playing. The lack of skills eroded
our self-confidence that is so important for playing well, which in turn made
us dislike ball games and sports.
The Time Not Yet.
I
was at that stage in life when I began to notice girls more. Our class was segregated, separate classes
for girls and boys. I remember one girl
in the girl’s class that I found particularly beautiful. I often watched her thru the school window,
when she walked home after class, the satchel clung to
her back covering her brown braids. She
did not know that she had an admirer. I
was of course far to shy to talk to her and lacked the confidence. Another beautiful girl was often riding home
on the same bus.
Once,
a group of boys and a girl were waiting together for the bus at the stop at
outside the Restaurant ‘Sonne’ in Emmenbrücke.
The girl giggled and danced around us boys. We had the time of our lives. The bus was late, we did not care. After a while, the girl asked, “Hey, does any
of you guys know what time is it?”
Always courteous and always anxious to please, with innate motion I
stretched out my arm, looked at my new wristwatch and pronounced: “Five-
o’clock”. The girl replied, “I did not
ask YOU.” My body instantly shrunk about
two inches, and my ego dropped like a lead balloon. I just wanted to vanish.
Reality
set in. I was not exactly hot with
girls; I looked a lot younger than my age and simply did not exude much sex
appeal. How much did I wish to look a
bit older, have some facial hair to shave or show off, have a more rugged look,
be relevant with girls. Isidor, my younger brother, on the other
hand, was very popular with girls. What girl-pleasing qualities did Isidor
possess, and I lacked? I always
wondered. Isidor was more of a
romantic. He organized dance parties and
soirées. The girls flocked around him
like butterflies, hummingbirds and bumblebees swarm around the honeysuckle
trees. He had the most gorgeous
girlfriends, like a beautiful teacher’s daughter when he went to school at
Rothenburg.
The
bus finally arrived. The boys and the
girl sat at the back, giggling and laughing.
I took a seat in front of the bus.
It’s the Real Thing
I
was fifteen or sixteen years old when I was introduced to Coca Cola. Our class traveled to Luzern on a field trip to
visit a Coca Cola bottling plant, the first bottling plant for Coke in the
wider area. I had seen posters and
magazine ads of Coca Cola, but never tasted it.
When thirsty from hard work, we drank home-made lemonade, a fizzy drink
of cool tap water flavored with Perli powder.
On special occasions, we were served a bottle of Orangina. The tour was a promotional exploit by the
bottling plant to introduce us to the Cola world.
The
guide led us thru the efficient and sparkling clean plant. We saw the sterile water being mixed with the
secret syrup, injected with fizz and watched how the moving line of empty
bottles were filled and capped by robot-like machines, untouched by human
hands. The production was
impressive. At the end of the tour, we
entered a small reception room, and each of us received a small sample of the
delicious liquid produced right at the plant.
We were instructed how to drink it:
take a small sip, then swirl it around in your mouth so that the
retained gas in the cold fluid is released and develops bubbles, expands and
fills the entire mouth; then slowly swallow the sweet liquid, while
concentrating on the flavor .
Enjoy. I admit,
the taste was sensational.
Later
that summer, on a family outing, we stopped at a restaurant. I proudly offered a bottle of Coca Cola to
everyone in the family. Let not this
style and taste be missed by Vati and Muetti.
After the waitress poured the Coke and wished ‘en guete’, I told everybody to wait while I explained
again how Coca Cola should be drunk.
Then, we took the first sip. I
excitedly waited for everybody’s reaction.
Mother paused for moment, then told me that she
liked it, although she did not actually feel the explosion of taste in her
mouth. Father was less diplomatic, he was not very enthusiastic about the
drink. Perhaps, I did not explain
clearly how Coca Cola should be drunk.
Father preferred a glass of home-made cider or a bottle of beer brewed
by the Hochdorf Brewing Company. Isidor
later told me that he remembered the day.
He also reminded me that he had to share the bottle of coke.
Meanwhile, Back on the Farm
As
a young person, I fantasized a lot about what I was going to be in my
life. My parents told me that as a very
young child I wanted to become a priest.
Charming.
This elicited either an endearing smile or a belly-laugh, depending on
the disposition of the person present.
Then, I thought about becoming a carpenter, in honor of my name patron
Saint Joseph. Later, like most young
boys, I was going to be an engine driver.
But I really wanted to become a beer truck driver, a most manly
occupation. With time, that ambition
faded as well.
By
the time I reached the ninth grade and attended school in Emmenbrücke, I was
determined to become a teacher; a teacher in any subject, except physical
education, but preferably physics science.
In
The apprenticeship was uneventful. During the first two years, I did a lot of paper filing, and I was the lowly messenger boy. Twice a day, I picked up salami sandwiches for the staff at a local delicatessen shop and made the rounds of the banks and picked up and delivered bank and commercial documents. In the morning and mid-afternoon, I fetched the mail at the Post Office. I learned to use the typewriter and write basic business correspondence. The pay was the equivalent of $20.00 per month. For two half-days every week and on many evenings, I attended the mercantile school, an obligatory part of the apprenticeship program.
I commuted from home to the bank six times a week by bus. The bus stop was up the hill from our house, a five minute walk. There was just one bus service each morning at 7:00 and many times I nearly missed the bus. The lunch break was two hours. Most of the time, I ate a quick lunch at a stand-up restaurant in the old city. A few times, I treated myself to a special meal, like a large bag of sticky dates, or a box of donuts.
Going home in the evening, the bus was generally badly overcrowded. Isidor went to school in Rotheburg and he was often on the same bus. We were very annoyed traveling on an overcrowded bus. At times, there was hardly enough space to squeeze in and shut the door of the bus. Isidor and I decided to make a public statement. We painted a poster with the single word ‘Overcrowded’ in large letters. Before boarding at a transfer stop at Sandblatten, while I kept guard, Isidor sneaked to the back of the bus and attached the poster to the bus’s bicycle rack. I also sent a strongly-worded letter to the bus company. A lawyer from the bus company phoned my parents, and I started to feel the heat. Several times, I walked passed the lawyers office in Luzern, wondering whether I should go in and apologize, but I did not gather the necessary courage.
And so it Came to Pass
Mom was very disappointed
when I failed the exams to gain acceptance to the Teachers Seminary. The exams were cleverly designed to screen
out candidates not suitable for the teacher profession; and I failed. And for good reasons.
A year latter mom was in for
another disappointment. My brother
Isidor finished the last grade offered in our village school system, and he was
ready for the third and final year of Secondary School. Only larger communities offered the Third
Grade. Mom wanted us to attain the lofty
level of
Mom was very upset when she received
a letter from the Hochdorf school board telling her that Isidor was not
accepted. The letter was signed by the
school board’s president, the Pfarrer of Hochdorf, the high priest of St
Martin’s
I was even angrier than my
Mother when I read the letter of rejection. I took the pen and drafted a
response while I was in the right frame of mind. I did not mince words and ignored diplomatic
idioms. I quoted from the gospel of
Matthews: “The last shall be first and the first last.” Mother was reluctant to mail the letter, but
eventually agreed. Surely,
excommunicated we shall not be. Mother’s
years of prayers and candle burning to her favored Saint Anthony of
A couple of years latter I
attended a pre-military conference in Hochdorf, hosted by the church. We were all introduced to the Pfarrer of
Hochdorf. He gave me a
icy-cold look. I wondered why. Upon a short reflection I knew the
reason. The Letter.
As it turned out, the gospel
was right. Isidor was accepted at the
Rothenburg school.
Later in life, through hard work, courage and persistence he became the
most successful man in our family, indeed of Römerwil, building a large
business in
Inquiring Minds Want to Know
Growing
up mentally and physically, our minds were abuzz thinking about the secrets of
life, the wonders and treats that nature would bestow on us. We were only boys in the family, four of us,
no girls. Healthy curiosity occupied our
minds, and we wondered and pondered about the difference between boys and
girls. Studying artwork, like the
painting of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, the beautiful nude Greek goddess of
love that emerged from a shell, revealed precious little. Snooping thru lexicons at the library did not
satisfy our inquiring minds. Discussions
among boys gave some vague hints, but we begged for more.
But a single-track mind I had not. I enjoyed many other interests. The nascent space exploration with sputniks, Gagarin, and the first American space rockets fascinated me. Unlike other imponderables, questions about space technology could be logically deducted. In a ninth grade class, the morning Sputnik was launched, the teacher asked if anyone knew why the satellite stayed in space without falling. Anyone? I quickly raised my hand and proudly told the class that Sputnik was kept at a constant altitude because the force of the earth’s gravity and Sputnik’s centrifugal force were equal. The teacher smiled and said: Nein, nein, nein; it is because Sputnik is between the earth and the moon and held by the two gravities. But what really obsessed me were matters of economics and international trade. At the time of my bank apprenticeship, most countries, still suffering from the devastation of the Second Word War, had strict currency restrictions, and the method of how countries would settle trade imbalances intrigued me to near obsession. I may have spent dozens of hours at the local library trying to find an answer to this question.
First-in-Class
At
the end of the three-year apprenticeship, in order to receive the diploma, we
had to pass an intense written and verbal test.
I studied hard and immensely enjoyed learning about all commercial
subjects. I may have been a failure in
all things sports and physical, but in matters commercial I shined. I was ready to take the feared exam. This time, I succeeded; I came in top rank,
second of 400 apprentices. Slam Dunk.
Now,
I had a diploma as a Commercial Clerk and the world was full of
opportunities. Life would be an odyssey,
the world the oyster. Naturally, I would
not stay in my home country. My life was
mapped and planned on a desk globe. The
drawers in my bedroom were stuffed with brochures and schedules of the world’s
navigation companies. First, I figured,
I would spend a year in
Encounter of the Wrong Kind
First things first. I needed a
vacation abroad. I boarded the train in
Luzern and traveled south to
After
an overnight stay in
I
decided, for the first time in my live, to hitch-hike. Here I was, on the verge on embarking on the
most stupid and dangerous adventure. It
was nighttime, in a foreign country. I
was nineteen years old, but looking more than a sixteen year old teenager. I gingerly raised my arm, with elbow bent and
thumb pointed up. A few cars drove
past. It was almost totally dark now,
but a car soon stopped and offered me a
ride back to Tunis. The driver said he
was a diplomat working at the Czechoslovakian consulate. On the way back, we had a flat tire and I
made myself useful and changed the wheels.
By good fortune or dumb luck, everything went well,
the driver dropped me off at a small hotel in
The
next day I boarded the ship back to
I
arrived in
When I arrived home, my mother did not recognize me at first glance. I must have lost a lot of weight. The next morning, I woke up with a very high fever, high enough that my mother was concerned and called the doctor for an emergency house call.
Wanderschaft
As
far back as the middle ages, young men chose an artisan craft or trade,
completed a three or four year apprenticeship with a master craftsman, then, as
wandering journeymen, they left home for several years on a traditional
‘Wanderschaft’. During these important
years of Wanderschaft, they journeyed on foot to foreign countries, working for
new masters, improving their skills, acquiring new abilities, learning new
methods, languages and cultures. After a
few years, the men would return to their homeland to practice their craft,
often becoming masters of their profession and passing on their knowledge to
the next generation of apprentices.
Around 1750 the brothers
Jakob and Johann-Anton Singer came to
In
the early nineteen hundreds, a young cabinet maker from
As
a young child, I read many stories of these wandering craftsmen, all grabbing
stories, some deeply saddening. In the
middle ages, there was virtually no way for the young men to communicate home
while in far-way countries. Often, these
men would return home and learn that their mother and father had died, and all
they could find was the graves of their loved ones.
In
ancient history, young Swiss men were eagerly sought out as mercenaries by the
kings’ armies, and the Swiss eagerly obliged if the pay was decent. As far back as 200 years before the birth of
Jesus, the Helvetic Celts, ancient ancestors of the Swiss, joined
My
early life was much later than the Middle Ages, of course. In my time, after an apprenticeship, young
people would spend a year in the French part of
Time to Fly
It
was time now to leave home. The plan was
to spend one year in
For
years, I have yearned for that day to come.
That day always felt so far in the future. Early on a fresh May morning, the future
finally arrived. It was time to leave
home. I knew how birds feel when they
leave their nest; they had been practicing their wings and they were fluttering
about with youthful confidence. Then one
day, they decide to jump out of the nest and hope that the wings will carry
them. I had that bird feeling myself. My
yearning thoughts, now wings they had. My appetite at breakfast was
meager and I felt some anxiety and apprehension in my heart. Birds that leave the next get shot at. I brushed my hair, polished my shoes and
pulled up my socks. The angst feeling
made me go for one last pee stop. My new
suite case was neatly packed and waiting for me at the front door. It was a special suite case. I saw it months before in a luggage store
window in Luzern, and I ached to own one.
It was a beautiful case, with tartan patterned textile sides, extra
light, ideal for flying. My parents gave
it me as a Christmas present. I was
anxious to use this beautiful suite case, the pure essence of sophisticated
travel, I thought. Next to the packed
case was the overstuffed plastic Swissair bag.
I
walked across the street to say good-by to my father who was still busy milking
the cows. “Good-by Seppi, take good care
of yourself”, he said and he shook my hand.
His hands were wet from milk and milking grease, but I did not mind. Normally, I would have whipped off the milk
and grease at the back of my pants. I would
not see my father perhaps for a year or longer, and the greasy hands will bring
me luck. As I left the barn, our farm
dog ‘Prinz’ ran towards me, barking and whining. Did Prinz know that I was leaving; do dogs
have feelings? I patted the dog softly
on the head. He looked at me with sad,
drooping eyes. “See ya soon.”
Back
in the house, I said goodbye to my mother.
Muetti asked me if I took some holy water. Yes, I already had, but Muetti dunked her
finger in the holy water vessel and made a cross on my forehead. I needed the protection and it had to last
for a long time. It was time to go, it
was time to fly. I buttoned up my jacket,
grabbed my bag and suitcase, said one more good-by, shut the house door behind
me, and off I was. I felt sad, yet
excited at the same time. As I walked
away, before the house disappeared behind the trees and bushes, I looked back
one more time and waved, just in case someone was at the window watching me. From the barn I could hear Prinz the dog
barking.
Balancing my Swissair bag on my shoulder and carrying the suitcase alternately with my left and right hand, I briskly walked up the hill to the bus stop to catch the sev