I did not know I had a German family until a few years ago…well, as a present and ongoing fact, I mean. I was adopted as a baby and raised ‘Murican, and supposed there were family members back in my native land but that was there and I was here and it was mostly academic…until my previously unknown sister contacted me out of the blue in 2011. Since then, I’ve been to see them three times, and we are in weekly contact and it is…wonderful. Because I can see a lot of who I am over there.
This is Rita, the previously unknown sister:
She is an unmitigated hoot. Even on Skype, we get to giggling over silly stuff and I have no doubt that, t’were we raised together, mayhem would have ensued. At least another invasion of Poland.
These are her chickens:
I raised chickens as a kid. We have an affinity for chicken-raising. Genetic.
This is her husband, Knute:
He speaks no English. The only German I know is: Wo ist der Post? So we go to the Post Office together a lot.
Her kids:
Kai, Lea, and Steffan. That Kai is a wildman.
My brother, Glenn, in his cabinet shop :
Look at this place. Look at what he can do:
Man. He’s like my other brother Darrel…er, Ralph,
who can build water systems and houses with a bent paper clip and a discarded pigeon feather. Me? I do not get the relationship between hammers and nails. Genetics, again, in that the mechanical ones bypassed me completely.
Mother (with some mother):
sundry other relatives, you know, nephews, in-laws, etc., etc., present…:
and past:
Aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents, and the Wehrmacht.