Mardi Gras, Fasching, Carnival

Mardi Gras, Fasching and Carnival

It is called mardi gras in the American south, particularly in New Orleans. It is called fasching in Germany. It is called carnival in Holland and in South America. What is it? It is the partying leading up to Lent, the time of fasting preceding the Easter season that is celebrated around the world by christians and anyone else who likes to enjoy a good party or parade. Photo above taken at Louisiana plantation in 2005

New Orleans 2005: Making Merry By

Eating, Drinking and Collecting Mardi Gras Beads 2005

A New Orleans Mardi Gras Parade 2005

Every Day For Two Weeks Or More A Parade Of Some Group Goes Down This Street.

Fasching Long Ago In Germany

Germany Still Had The Deutsche Mark Currency In 1972.

Germany Still Had In 1972 Willy Brandt as Federal Chancellor of West Germany.

See Figure Of Willy Brandt On Float.

Carnival In Amsterdam, Holland 1972

Aren't These Little Ones Adorable!

Happy Anniversary to Joann and Jack

Jack and Joann

Married 36 Years Ago Today!

April 15, 1974

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

We started celebrating early yesterday with lunch at Coastal Flats

in Fairfax Corners Center.

We told the waitress.

So she decorated a plate for us

and took our photo.

Our Most Unusual Christmas Gift

Our Most Unusual Christmas Gift

Second Daughter Jeanine gave us our most unusual Christmas gift this year. She did a wild and crazy take on Mom's old habit of giving each daughter a "Stocking Stuffer" for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas (plus one=bakers dozen=13).

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I loved doing this. What may have not been thought of as great gift on Christmas Day was downright wonderful on Day 3 when no one else was still opening presents and by Day 10 it was totally awesome when kids were heading back to class and my girls were still finding something in their Christmas stockings.

First Day of Christmas

So First Day We Found A Bottle of Penfolds From Australia.

We Shared This With Jeanine and Bryan.

Second Day of Christmas

German Beer

Side Note: First, Jeanine insisted that we open each numbered present on the correct Day of Christmas. Which had me just a little confused and worried. Worry: Jack and I couldn't possibly drink this much alcohol in two months let alone in 13 days. Confusion: Does Jeanine think we have a rather big time drinking problem? Like we must be the ultimate Big Bad Boozers who are some very notorious AA Dropouts

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Jeanine clarified her intentions. She wants us to open each gift on the designated numbered day but we can save the alcohol to drink later: " Just see what is in your unusual 'stocking' for each of the twelve days." So I am following Jeanine's instructions to the letter.

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First Day of Christmas We Got Penfolds Shiraz Wine From Australia

Second Day of Christmas We Got German Beer aka Hofbrauhaus (More about that later.)

Third Day of Christmas We Got A Barefoot Merlot (one of Jack's favorite varietals of wine)

Fourth Day of Christmas----?????????????

Excuse Me While I Jump Up and Go Open With Jack's Help A Twelve Days of Christmas Stocking Stuffer.

Ahhhhhh!

Fourth Day of Christmas We Got a Coastline Paso Robles 2007 Merlot from Santa Rosa California. Interesting.

Jeanine has each stocking stuffer in a brown paper bag that's decorated with a homemade number tag and a little pom pom or braided rope. This truly is a work of love. Check out the photos below.

Jeanine,

You Are The Cat's Meow!

Love,

Mom and Dad
The End

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Epilogue
Do you folks know that the Hofbrauhaus am Platzl (Hofbrauhaus Label) is a symbol of Munich, Germany's hospitality, convitality and socialableness. That Hofbrau is brewed and bottled by Staaatliches Hofbrauhaus in Munchen, Germany from water, barley malt and hops according to the the famous Reinheitsgebot (Purity Law) of 1516. So that's what makes it soooooo good. The old world brewing methods of 1516.

The Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was erected on August 13, 1961. I was a senior in high school in Ohio. The Berlin Wall fell November 9, 1989. Jack and I were living and working in Virginia and we could hardly believe that the wall had fallen. It was something that we never thought we would witness during our lifetimes. When the wall fell it brought back many memories of a 1974 Memorial Day Weekend trip to Berlin. We had flown with a group of Army Audit friends from the Frankfurt am Main Airport to the airport in West Berlin. We toured West Berlin and marveled at how it had recovered from World War II. Then we went by bus to East Berlin to visit some attractions and a museum. In the photo above is Jim Blakeslee taking a photo of his fiancee Joyce Mattricianno. They were the witnesses to our wedding in April of 1974 and they were busy planning their wedding in Philadelphia for September of 1974.

In spite of the happy looks in the photo above everyone on this bus tour to East Berlin was extremely nervous. Notice all the windows and skylights on this bus. It was easy for the East Berlin border guards to monitor our behavior with all these windows. And I do remember an East Berlin Guard jumping on top of one of the buses near our bus with gun drawn. Scary. We were told by both the bus operator and the tour guide to remain seated at all times and to not talk to the East Berlin border guards who would enter our bus and search it and ourselves. We might be forced to leave the bus and not go to East Berlin if for any reason the guards thought we were not who we were or if they thought we were planning some type of uprising in East Berlin. What I remember most is the long amount of time it took to reenter West Berlin after touring East Berlin. Apparently East Germans who were desperate for freedom would try to sneak across the border holding on the undersides of cars and buses heading to West Berlin. So coming and going through Checkpoint Charlie was a scary scene with East Berlin guards sliding long mirrors on handles under buses to make sure that no escapee was clinging to a bus to gain freedom. I remember asking someone on our bus what the guards would do if they found someone under our bus. They said they might haul them off to a prison or just shoot them dead on the spot. Well, at that point our holiday trip to Berlin did not seem like such a grand holiday but more like a surreal moment experiencing what it would be like to live in a walled city under communism.

The Berlin Wall consisted of many small walls constructed to go around the sides of existing buildings and yards so some of the wall was made of mortar, bricks and concrete and some was extremely tall wire fences with barb wire on the top. Notice the cannon facing out to the street. And notice how drab all the building on the eastern side of the wall look.

Here we are standing by a war memorial statue. The newlyweds: Jack and Joann Shipley. Jack had in his hand his movie camera.

This photo is of one of West Berlin's main thoroughfares: the Kurfurstendamm. In the background is the Kaiser Wilhelm Church that was almost totally destroyed in 1943 during the bombing raids of World War II. The Germans have purposely not rebuilt this church to remind everyone of the horrors of World War II.

This is the famous Brandenburg Gate that was the symbol of Germany. During the time of the Berlin Wall it stood in East Berlin.

This is a communist statue to Lenin in East Berlin. I wonder if it is still there.

This photo shows how existing buildings and monuments were walled up along their sides to create the Berlin Wall. On this 20'th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall I suggest that you go to this site to learn more about the Berlin Wall: http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/index.html

And to learn how both West Berlin and East Berlin looks today click here: http://www.pbase.combmcmorrow/berlinmain

Remember that if we don't remember, history will repeat itself.

Collected Menu - Rhinegau, Germany 1971

Fall in Germany is a wonderful time. So many festivals to enjoy, so many wineries to visit, so many fall landscapes to explore by land and by river (the Rhine Main River). One fall day in 1971 I went with friends to Rhinegau, Germany for a local wine festival. If you look below you will see this statement in German: Ein Tag ohne Wein ist wie ein Tag ohne Sonnenschein!

Which means a day without wine is a day without sunshine!

This menu now hangs in my breakfast room.

Collected Menu - Frankfurt am Main, Germany 1971

I taught and lived in Frankfurt am Main, Germany for four years. On the weekends I loved to go shopping in downtown Frankfurt am Main. I would go by subway. There was a stop on the subway right below this Cafe Haupt Wache. After I had finished my shopping I would enjoy going to this restaurnt for a wonderful German meal before heading back to my BOQ near the 97'th General Army Hospital. This restaurant was in a building that was 400 years old. To build the metro station underneath it they tore the building down after numbering each and every piece of it. After the subway was built they rebuilt this 400 year old building and it became a wonderful restaurant. I would love to go back to Germany and see if it is still in existance after 35 years.

Collected Menu - Munich, Germany 1970

The year I transfered from Okinawa's Sukiran Elementary to Frankfurt am Main's Frankfurt American School #1 I went in the fall to Munich, Germany for Octoberfest. This is the menu that I picked up from that tour. This menu hangs in my kitchen and reminds me of many happy Octoberfest celebrations that Jack and I have attended in both Germany and the United States. We have several of the those large beer steins that everyone including the kids are using for drinking beer. What totally amazed me in Munich is that a waitress at the Octoberfest at the Hofbrauhous am Platz could carry five of those steins in each hand without spilling a drop. Amazing! This menu hangs in my kitchen.

NARFE Convention In D.C.

Last week the NARFE Executive Convention in Washington D.C. wrapped up on Wednesday morning and two NARFE representatives of the state of Georgia stopped by to have lunch with Jack and I before beginning their drive back to Atlanta, Georgia. In the photo above you see Jack posing with Sandy McTheney McKinney and Tom McKinney. Tom is a graduate of Akron University and was an army auditor for his entire federal career. During the Vietnam War Tom went to the battle zones to audit army clubs in Vietman. Sandy is also a retired federal worker. With names like McTheney and McKinney don't you imagine that they do enjoy St. Paddy's Day.

So we sat around the breakfast table discussing both old times in Germany and NARFE endeavors. Tom told us that their local NARFE chapter in Atlanta will hold a garage sale this spring to raise money for Alzheimer's research which is one of the important projects of NARFE.

So we drank a little wine.

We had quiche and salad for the main course.

A Wegman's fruit tart and coffee followed for dessert.

Sandy and Tom, thanks for stopping by to see us. And readers, this is the same man who got married for the very first time last April when he was 65! (You can see photos of Tom and Sandy's wedding day if you look under my labels for Wedding Day.)

The Tenth Day of Christmas Janury 3, 2009

The Tenth Day of Christmas

Saturday

January 3, 2009

Chistmas Stories at Lake Wales, Florida

This was a forest scene in the upstairs hall at Pinewood Estate.

All the forest animals await Santa's arrival in quiet anticipation listening to the tick tock of the grandfather's clock.

Today I will tell you two brief stories that I played a part in long ago in school. Be fair warned that the stories are now inappropriate. Why? Because I would never in a million years do today in a public school what I did back in the sixties and early seventies in school. You ask what I did that was inappropriate? Well, I celebrated the story of Jesus as if every child in my class was a Christian. In today's diverse world that is not the case.

Story Number One

The Setting: Huffman Elementary School on Huffman Avenue

In Dayton, Ohio

Fresh out of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio I landed my first teaching assignment on the east side of Dayton which was all white at the time. (You would go across a bridge to the west side of Dayton and you would be in Dayton's version of Harlem which was all black.) Anyway Huffman Elementary School was at that time in the fall of 1966 the oldest school building still in use in Dayton, Ohio. By the year 1973 I believe Huffman School would be 100 years old and Miss Tetslaff, the sweet little spinster who taught right next door to me would have taught at that very school for 50 years and of those 50 years 49 would be in the very same classroom! Totally amazing. The first time I walked into her classroom I saw these very faded nursery rhyme pictures nailed to the blackboard bulletin board.The little kids in the illustrations looked like wholesome little kids from Campbell soup ads from the thirties. If you got near these pictures and blew on them, they would disintegrate into small particles and land on the floor. How old was Miss Tetslaff? I don't know but I reckon she was fast approaching seventy five. In fact one of the eighth grade teachers at this K-8 school who was in his mid thirties had her at Huffman as his first grade teacher.

Does Miss Tetslaff figure in the story? No, but she was such a character that I just had to put her into the intro to this story. But this side of Dayton had a sizable Polish population and another teacher at my school was Linda Sobieski who lived right in the neighborhood and went to the Catholic University of Dayton before landing a first grade classroom down in the basement of this school. She liked it down there because the principal seldom made it to the classroom by the boiler room so she and her students could be very noisy at times. Meanwhile, I was next door to Miss Tetslaff and just down the way from the Principal's office, so I had to keep a lid on the noise in my classroom. Oh-ooh, here comes the principal now thru the back entrance to the classroom which was the old, old cloakroom! I swear that many times I felt like I was reliving Laura Ingalls in her teaching days because the school was truly an architectural antique.

So in the fall of my first year of teaching Linda Sobieski approached me and asked if I would like to go in with her class to recreate the Christmas story for the December meeting of the Huffman PTA. I said OK and so we selected students to play all the parts from singing angels and talking shepherds to the three wise men. The leads of course went to Mary and Joseph. Jesus was played by some little girl's doll baby wrapped in a blanket and set in a mock manger filled with straw. Everyone learned their part for the play. It was now very close to Christmas and the last day of school before the Christmas Holiday (that's what the vacation was called in 1966) but the big play production for the PTA was on the agenda for that very day when Linda ran into my classroom and announced that she and I had a major play fiasco on our hands. I remember that I asked her what the problem was and I'll never forget her answer: Joseph, Mary's husband had run off to Kentucky with his parents!

Joseph's in Kentucky! Oh, my gosh, how will the play go on I asked Linda. She replied that quick, we must get a brand new Joseph and he better be smart and learn his part and lines in a flash! We found a new Joseph and he did a fine job in our little play and all was well once more. Linda's parting thought after the play was this. Don't ever Joann choose a child whose parents just came up to Dayton, Ohio to work in the '60's very robust GM auto parts factory in Moraine because those Kentucky folks are only here for the money and they miss their families in the hills and hollows of Kentucky and you just know that they will skip school and head down interstate #75 before school vacation actually starts. Ahhhhhh.....those were the good old days in Dayton, Ohio. The auto parts industry was going strong and it was not inappropriate to stage a Christmas play in a public school or to wish folks a Merry Christmas and a happy Christmas vacation.

Story Number Two

Setting: My first year of teaching first grade to the DOD dependent children and the state department children in Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Here's another inappropriate school incident in my classroom. At Frankfurt Elementary School #1 which has since reverted back to being a German school since there are no U.S. military now stationed in the city of Frankfurt which Gen. Eisenhower selected as his Army headquarters in Europe at the famous I.G. Farben Chemical Complex. Now the I.G. Farben Building with its oh, so famous pater noster elevator is a part of Goethe University. My, how the world changes if you live long enough to witness it!

So it is Christmas once again in Germany in 1970 and I have decided to have the students help me decorate my main bulletin board which was located by the door to my classroom so everyone coming down the hall could see this display. I loved having the students create the art work for this bulletin board and we would always come up with something that was both interesting and very attractive. I would line the background of the board with appropriate scenery, create the word heading and assign students to create the figures in front by drawing and cutting out their artistic creations.

Ok, so you guys will create the shepherds, OK, you folks can make the angels, who wants to do one of the three kings?, who wants to draw some cute baby sheep?, we need some shepherds too. So as each child finished his morning seatwork while I conducted three old fashioned reading groups that morning they would place their drawing on my desk for me to later staple on the board. As I was taking the drawings to the board and stapling them into the scene there was one little drawing that I just couldn't quite figure out. Was it a donkey? Was it a sheep? What was it? So I called the child up and asked what his assignment had been. He told me he was supposed to draw a shepherd. But this looks like an animal not a shepherd. Oh, no, Miss Gariety, this does look like a shepherd. A German shepherd!

I learned to my surprise that this little boy had a German shepherd as a pet and yes, he had drawn for me a shepherd. So that is how in 1970 a drawing of a German shepherd was the hit of my Christmas bulletin board display. Word spread quickly thru the teacher grapevine and everyone stopped in to see my German shepherd at the nativity scene. Even the Principal, Mr. Mebane came by to take a look and shake his head, have a little laugh and give me a sly wink.

The twelve days of Christmas plus one are fast coming to a close for yet another year. But remember, it is not over, till is over in the wisdom of Yogi Berra so get out this weekend and do something special for the Christmas holidays.

Monday Morning Memories of Das Maus Meister

Look what was on the ground yesterday morning when we awoke after the Sunday Oktoberfest party. Yes, that is a heavy frost on the grass that you see in the top two photos. That made me think of a phrase my dad used to use on the farm this time of year: "Annie, there's frost on the pumpkins." Back then we probably had some pumpkins growing between the rows of the corn field and there truly was frost on the pumpkin.

Ever take your fingers and brush the frost covered blades of grass?

Here is an authentic Christmas creche made in former East Germany that I have already set up in the dining room for the holidays. Notice the short red candles. There are four candles spaced around this creche and when you light them the heat rising from the burning candles moves the paddles of the wheel up above making it turn round and round. Then the paddles are connected to a mechanism that turns the Christmas creche scene. Jack and I used to see this type of Christmas creche scene in all the shops in Germany. So of course, we had to buy one before we left Germany. You will need to click on this photo to see all this up close. I think this type of creche symbolizes Germany's engineering mindset. They know how to build a Porsche or Mercedes to run well and they know how to make a Christmas creche revolve.

Drum roll please!

Presenting the one fellow who came to our party in a Halloween costume. This is Das Maus Meister playing the part of a German Mickey Mouse. When he made his appearance Grandpa quickly grabbed him and put him on the granite kitchen island so he could show off his "maus moves" with black ears flapping and little black tail trailing behind his behind.

The maus meister spent some time in the hood and some time out of the hood of the costume. Either way he kept Grandma and Grandpa and all our guests enchanted with his antics. In the photo below is when I think he was about to make his great maus escape thru the back door but luckily he just proceeded to mess up my door shade and the oil painting on the wall. Grandma found it hard to scold this charming Mickey impersonator.

Look below now. I took some mums to make flower arrangements around the house. Here I used two Fort Belvoir Oktoberfest beer mugs for floral arrangements. We used to go to Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County for Oktoberfest sponsored by the U.S. Army. Since 9/11 when just getting thru the army gates at Fort Belvoir is a major security nightmare I don't know if they still do an Oktoberfest weekend. I used to cut through Fort Belvoir on a road to go to school librarians' meetings at schools in the Alexandria part of Fairfax County. 9/11 the great divide on how we go about doing anything in America.

Below is my very favorite beer mug that I got while teaching in Germany. This one even has a nickname: Uncle Shorty! The short and stout man with the big grin reminded me when I bought it of my mother's brother, Lawrence "Shorty" Dapore of Willowdell and Fairborn, Ohio. My Uncle Shorty was my very, very favorite uncle because he was always so kind and always so friendly to everyone he ever met. He was a strong supporter of the Fairborn Lions Club and Fairborn High School and one year was the grand marshall of the Fairborn 4'th of July parade. Our family loved to go to Uncle Shorty's 4'th of July barbecue.

You need to lift the head back to reach the head on your beer. Many authentic German beer mugs have this feature. Long ago some German beer bars would let you keep your personal mug by the bar on a shelf and if the lid was down no dust fell in the mug when it was not in use. I think the Germans invented cleanliness and I also think I inherited that trait since I am 1/4 German. The rest of me is French.

We Meet Again - 36 Years Later

Saturday Jack and I drove to the little village of Clifton, VA and I was able to meet again, 36 years later, someone that taught first grade with me at Frankfurt American Elementary School #1 in Frankfurt, Germany. Linda Franklin (now Linda Franklin Carroll) was one of the twelve first grade teachers at Frankfurt #1 that I taught with in the early '70s. At the time Linda was married and had two sons. While at my school I remember that she had her daughter, Kellee, unexpectedly on a vacation trip to London. And I remember going with the other first grade teachers to her home to meet baby Kellee. But most of all I remember having her precocious six year old son, Kirk, in my first grade class the school year of 1971-72. How precocious was Kirk? Well, he showed up in my first grade class already having read Lew Wallaces's novel, Ben Hur. What a thrill it was to meet again yesterday after 36 years! Retirement parties are bitter sweet occasions. I found myself both laughing and crying and rejoicing at the opportunity to reconnect with an old friend and work colleague from long ago. And it was a thrill to meet the now grown man Kirk Franklin and his lovely wife Teena. I learned that Kirk now lives in San Francisco and is working in the web design field. No wonder the retirement party invitation included a website Kirk designed for his mother's retirement. Take a look if you like. I guarantee that even if you don't know Linda, you will be shedding tears at this wonderful Thanks For the Memories tribute that Kirk created for his mother. Here's the address: http://lindafranklin.i2ilabs.com/ Linda is retiring from Laurel Ridge Elementary School in Fairfax County where she has been a kindergarten teacher for the past 34 years. Wow! Current and former principals, teachers and kindergarten students came to the retirement picnic to give Linda a big retirement send off. Happy Retirement, Linda!