The good ol' days

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Hi all,
a thread about good memories of people and/or events or whatever you remember still so well since it felt so good at the time. Share with us in telling and making us smile for you.
Short or long story, just a thought or a massive missive... just personal and happy is the requirement.
Kind regards, page (in a sentimental mood I guess…)

Maybe a few of you might remember my story about a school trip. it still makes me happy thinking about it. It involves music.

One year at what you’d call highschool I changed schools. It wasn’t really like I felt I did belong at my present school, a really big one. It felt like students were numbers instead of people, a factory we’d call those around here. I was a very shy girl. At home I wasn’t the easiest one, a rebel sometimes but never like that at school, I was so eager to learn!
It was really an impulsive feeling that I had to follow up to. I went to a very small school in our capital city. I knew someone who used to go there and always had liked his stories about it.

The kids in my new class were all different, there were all kinds and that was just great. They came from all kinds of environments. They had different looks but all got along, and that made me feel at home right away.
After a month my class went on a camp. It was a trip to what then still was East-Germany. I didn’t really have the money to pay for the trip, but the school did find it important that every student went, so they payed half for mine so I could go.

As we crossed the border, soldiers with heavy arms got on our bus to check and looked at each of us individually. It was really scary. One girl with punky hair had to move her hair out of her face so the soldier could see if it was her on her passport. They asked if we had anything to declare, of course we didn’t tell about the books we smuggled in for some of our teacher’s friends in the country. We didn’t get caught.
We stayed at Weimar and Berlin that week. We visited the house of Goethe, went to a play of Bertolt Brecht, talked to a student group, played soccer, that kind of thing.

We also visited the place where the concentration-camp Buchenwald was in the war. There was this boy in my class which opened up to me as we went to this last place. His family didn’t really want him to visit the concentration-camp because part of their family was killed there. I don’t know why he told me at that moment. Maybe it was because I was just there, a new face with no knowledge of anything of that. Sometimes it is just easier to talk to a stranger, I guess. I walked through the camp and stayed with him the whole time. I didn’t want him to see all of this by himself. We were allowed to just walk through the exhibition by ourselves. I guess he much appreciated that because we talked a lot for the rest of the week. Not just about that visit and his family but about all sort of things. He just seemed to look at me different from then.

The last couple of days we visited Berlin and stayed at a hotel on the west side. We arrived there really late at the hotel but him and me, we went walking to look at the city. That was probably a dumb thing to do, but we didn’t realize that at that time. I remember West Berlin looked so enormous commercial to me, I liked the east better as it was more simple. That may sound strange, but it was really an enormous difference.
The last evening we stayed up very late just doing things kids like to do, having fun, talking and fooling around with our classmates.

The next morning the bus left at 7, it was a 12 hour drive to our school. I slept a bit on the bus. I don’t know why it was but there weren’t many of us in class who had brought some music on the trip. But there was 1 tape which was on the whole week, while we were driving.
On it was a song by Spandau Ballet called True. I remember we were driving to Amsterdam on the highway and he asked me to dance. So we slow danced on the bus. I don’t know if that’s the right word but think you’ll understand. He didn’t get to be my boyfriend, we didn’t even kiss but there was some sort of mutual respect. Which was really nice.

So when I hear that song, usually when played at the end of the year there are lots of old songs on the radio, I remember that dance, the trip and my great year there at that school.

[xybert]

Lovely story page, thanks for sharing.

I can't think of a particular story or moment right now, but you got me thinking. When we were kids, pretty much every year around Christmas time (which is summer time for us), my cousins from Australia would come over and spend a couple of weeks in NZ. The three kids were a little bit younger than me, but we were all into the same stuff: cartoons, video games, music etc and we got on like a house on fire. I just have such fond memories of playing together on those hot summer days, going to the dairy and getting lollies, ice blocks and comics, walking/making the trek on the hot concrete to the video shop to rent a game, playing epic games of 'spotlight' at night, going to the beach etc.

And when inevitably they had to go back to Australia i would just cry and cry for a few days after. It just left such a hole, ya know? It was like, for a couple of weeks my life had been filled with light and now it was just so lonely. I just missed them so much, and i wasn't going to get to see them for another year at least. Even though i had my brother and other friends etc, there was just something special about my cousins from Australia. Having them here kind of elevated everyone, the adults included. Everything was special while they were here, with them gone life returned to normality.

As we all got older, grew up and got jobs and had other responsibilities, my cousins started coming over less and less, and if they did come over it wasn't like when we were kids and had the whole summer off to hang out. By then email was a thing and it was easier to keep in touch. In my early to mid twenties i got myself in to a particularly negative space, and one time i responded to one of my cousins emails in a pretty insulting way, kind of lashed out at him. It would have been a real slap in the face, out of nowhere and unwarranted. He took it hard and i apologised, explained that i was a weak, insecure piece of shiz. I had such low self esteem, and i never thought that, i guess, he kind of looked up to me. And here's me hurting him. I'm not big on regrets, and I know that we're cool but that was ten odd years ago and i still profoundly regret insulting him like i did. Again, i know that we're cool, but i always just feel like something was broken, regardless.

Sorry it got a bit sad at the end, but man, i just have such fond memories of spending time with my cousins for a brief time once a year growing up. 

 

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Thanks for yours, xybert. It paints a picture vividly for me. Lovely.  I have cousins in Australia, they only came to visit once when I was a child, but I remember they wanted ice cream in the middle of winter since they had their summer holiday. I understand about there is a part of regret to your story. I do remember you now have your own child, maybe you can take him or her to your cousin's some time in future to play with his kids. Children have a gift of charme and can change things even for adults.

It needn't be a story btw, can be just a thought of something. I can give another example when needed.

Edited July 9, 2015 by page

[xybert]

Cheers page. Yeah kids are awesome that way. My son has been massively healing for my dad, i feel. My cousin doesn't have kids of his own yet, but it's cool. We're cool, i just get a bit maudlin every now and again.

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Yes, I understand, that happens to me too occasionally. Loosing my parents at relatively young age I sometimes have that "what if" feeling since they weren't there on some important events in my life, and still even now I sometimes just wish I still could talk to them. On the other hand it changed me for the better since I got to be more open to people, while being rather timid and 'waiting on the fence' before. I tell how I feel and became a bit more direct. Still haven't lost every bit of reserve, but I began to realize life is too short to not tell people what they mean to me when I feel I want them to know.

Edited July 12, 2015 by page

[Niko]

Have you been to that area again? I have travelled that part of Germany (Weimar, Jena, Erfurt, Eisenach...) quite a bit recently and it's amazing how prosperous and posh it has become, even compared to 2001, and most certainly compared to the 1980s... (the big thing there at the moment is Sushi, a relatively recent invention in these parts, with several restaurants in each city)

Edited July 12, 2015 by Niko

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Hi Niko,
no I'm afraid I haven't. Ah yes, I remember I was so sick in Erfurt since I don't travel well on busses. It must have changed very much, I can't imagine how much. I've seen the sight of Berlin in a few movies and that showed me already it has. I plan to go again, at least to Berlin, I always have wanted to do the trip again, but never got to it so far. After 26 years, yes. I felt quite emotional when the wall was taken down. Being young of course that trip made a huge impression on me and I'll never forget it, but I'm sure as an adult it would have too. Just the situation there, and the tension you could feel.  I remember I did very well on the paper we had to write in German class with the subject and since I already had a great interest for politics, human rights and history, this trip made me go deeper into those after that.
Can I ask which part of Germany you are from?