The Visible Woman...August 22, 2003

Day before yesterday I helped my dad pick some books to read from our library. We came across one we'd both already read by Gerog Gaertner with Arnold Krammer. It started me wondering and sent me to the Internet. It will be a year next week since Mom died and I've been sorting her things again.

I started collecting first person accounts from World War II over twenty years ago. I picked up a book (Howard K. Smith's Last Train from Berlin) at my in-laws' house and read it. It was fascinating to read about events just before I was born through the eyes of a person in the vortex of history. The story had such individual urgency and yet the events were sweeping the whole world along. I went to the secondhand book stores and searched out similar books. A lot of them were like this copy of Smith's book: printed during the war or just after and now old and musty, especially since the best quality paper couldn't be used. There were stories by refugees and journalists, foot soldiers and pilots, resistance fighters and civilians in the way of war. There were harrowing accounts of concentration camps, POW camps, fox holes and war rooms. There were touching accounts of lives touching and spinning away from each other forever. Sometimes I felt that a big patchwork quilt of a story was being told to me, adding up to something like the truth. If truth is chaos and confusion. Sometimes the the stories collided, recounting the same event from two sides or sometimes the people actually met.

About ten years ago I picked up a more recent book that still fit the genre. I bought it at Half Price Books for $2.98. It was published in 1985. The book was Hitler's Last Soldier in America by Georg Gaertner with Arnold Krammer. Georg was a member of Rommel's Afrika Corps and was captured and sent to New Mexico. He escaped from the POW camp in 1945 when the war was over. He was afraid of being repatriated into Russian hands. He lived without detection until 1985 when he published a book. The book implied that he would turn himself in, in conjunction with the publication.

As Dad and I talked about the book, I told him that I'd never found out what happened to the guy when he turned himself in. It had been a while since I'd tried to search and I'd never been that serious about it. I had tried the Internet once, I think, a few years ago. I gave it another shot and found the resume of Georg's co-author, a professor at Texas A&M. I clicked on his e-mail and told him about buying the book and wondering about the man's fate.. He wrote back in short order. I printed his e-mail and put it in the book.

Georg's story is so improbable. You live in Germany, there is a war, you are imprisoned in the U.S, and you end up in the U.S. living a life. Your hometown is now in Soviet hands. Life goes on for forty years and then you admit that you are not just a ski instructor, tennis player and amateur painter, but the last unaccounted German POW escapee in America.

But everyone's history is interesting when you dig into it and see what happened and how and when. How some things seemed to be choice and some events just steamrolled the person. And how the generatons come and go with children and grandchildren losing interest in the past.

At Mom's house today I found a box of clippings and letters and school certificates and such. I found a marriage license. For my mother's parents. The year was 1916. Of course, Forrest's grandparents were married with several children by then.

I also found a picture of my mom. Around the time it was taken, POWs we'd brought from Europe were being repatriated. My sister is a blur in this photo, turning her head, wanting to toddle off and play with her baby doll. She is two or three. It is 1946 probably, maybe 1945. The toddler won't get a baby sister for a couple of years. She will be the only child until then.. And my mother is young and strong. Less than half as old as I am now.

Time races away from us. The pages in our diaries add up. Whether they add up to anything important is a question. One of the things a life can add up to is the changes in lives left behind. Our mothers and fathers and grandfathers leave themselves here with our genes and deeds. Tonight I told some young people that what we tried to do was bridge cultures, introduce people to people. They said they felt that we did that. And they are full of their own ideas about how to touch lives while living theirs.

Friday, August 22, 2003

A Journal from Austin, Texas. A Project of LBFFP Stealth Publishing.
food	reading	writing	time	exercise	health and mood

Mom and my sister (blurry) around 1946	thinking about Georg, my mom and the passing of time Day before yesterday I helped my dad pick some books to read from our library. We came across one we'd both already read by Gerog Gaertner with Arnold Krammer. It started me wondering and sent me to the Internet. It will be a year next week since Mom died and I've been sorting her things again. I started collecting first person accounts from World War II over twenty years ago. I picked up a book (Howard K. Smith's Last Train from Berlin) at my in-laws' house and read it. It was fascinating to read about events just before I was born through the eyes of a person in the vortex of history. The story had such individual urgency and yet the events were sweeping the whole world along. I went to the secondhand book stores and searched out similar books. A lot of them were like this copy of Smith's book: printed during the war or just after and now old and musty, especially since the best quality paper couldn't be used. There were stories by refugees and journalists, foot soldiers and pilots, resistance fighters and civilians in the way of war. There were harrowing accounts of concentration camps, POW camps, fox holes and war rooms. There were touching accounts of lives touching and spinning away from each other forever. Sometimes I felt that a big patchwork quilt of a story was being told to me, adding up to something like the truth. If truth is chaos and confusion. Sometimes the the stories collided, recounting the same event from two sides or sometimes the people actually met. About ten years ago I picked up a more recent book that still fit the genre. I bought it at Half Price Books for $2.98. It was published in 1985. The book was Hitler's Last Soldier in America by Georg Gaertner with Arnold Krammer. Georg was a member of Rommel's Afrika Corps and was captured and sent to New Mexico. He escaped from the POW camp in 1945 when the war was over. He was afraid of being repatriated into Russian hands. He lived without detection until 1985 when he published a book. The book implied that he would turn himself in, in conjunction with the publication. As Dad and I talked about the book, I told him that I'd never found out what happened to the guy when he turned himself in. It had been a while since I'd tried to search and I'd never been that serious about it. I had tried the Internet once, I think, a few years ago. I gave it another shot and found the resume of Georg's co-author, a professor at Texas A&M. I clicked on his e-mail and told him about buying the book and wondering about the man's fate.. He wrote back in short order. I printed his e-mail and put it in the book. Georg's story is so improbable. You live in Germany, there is a war, you are imprisoned in the U.S, and you end up in the U.S. living a life. Your hometown is now in Soviet hands. Life goes on for forty years and then you admit that you are not just a ski instructor, tennis player and amateur painter, but the last unaccounted German POW escapee in America. But everyone's history is interesting when you dig into it and see what happened and how and when. How some things seemed to be choice and some events just steamrolled the person. And how the generatons come and go with children and grandchildren losing interest in the past. At Mom's house today I found a box of clippings and letters and school certificates and such. I found a marriage license. For my mother's parents. The year was 1916. Of course, Forrest's grandparents were married with several children by then. I also found a picture of my mom. Around the time it was taken, POWs we'd brought from Europe were being repatriated. My sister is a blur in this photo, turning her head, wanting to toddle off and play with her baby doll. She is two or three. It is 1946 probably, maybe 1945. The toddler won't get a baby sister for a couple of years. She will be the only child until then.. And my mother is young and strong. Less than half as old as I am now. Time races away from us. The pages in our diaries add up. Whether they add up to anything important is a question. One of the things a life can add up to is the changes in lives left behind. Our mothers and fathers and grandfathers leave themselves here with our genes and deeds. Tonight I told some young people that what we tried to do was bridge cultures, introduce people to people. They said they felt that we did that. And they are full of their own ideas about how to touch lives while living theirs.
JUST TYPING History is a weaving. Or a patchwork quilt. The collection of many lives. Creating a pattern. Up close. One man at a time. Far away. A culture.
		Food Diary. About 11:45pm [Star of India] some masalas and rice and fried spinach and a piece of Nan and some salad stuff with that yogurty dressing About 9pm [Four Seasons Restaurant] Vodka tonic. 1/4 bottle Sauvignon Blanc small corn muffin, some crispy things, butter Caesar salad with toast and cheese crisp. Stuffed tomato, carrot risotto, mushrooms. (Vegetarian plate. Yum.) Bite of chocolate souffle and bite of fruit in Grand Marnier. Hey! I went to the movies. I could have had popcorn and a coke.
		Time flies.... Big social outing...going to an AGLIFF movie then drinks and dinner and then talking to people in a bar. Spent a couple of hours going through some of Mom's stuff. It's pretty painful at the moment.

		Reading. From the Journals of M.F.K. Fisher. The last part of this book is rather lyrical and odd. It is mostly memoir.
		Here is another problem I have when I try to write fiction: I think up the backstory for a character and then I try to write that entire backstory when the reader first meets the character. Of course, you should meet characters the way you do in real life and learn their story one conversation, one gesture, one deed at a time.
		Exercise One hour recumbent bike. Ab and lower back exercises.
		Kind of groggy this morning but got up and faced the day with a certain amount of grace and a feeling of physical strength. No signs of illness, of course. 116/71 79