Karl Heinz's Birthday Party and Luther the Pig Farmer

Beckwitz, Turgau, Pretzsch and "Ostalgia" June 12-13

By Eric

For a time during the cold, wet afternoon we had resolved to find a guest house for the night. We had heard they cost about US$16/person and several along the bike route claimed to be bicycle friendly. But the sky cleared so we went for camping.

We got off the main highway onto a small road that we hoped led in the general direction of a campground shown on our map. That campground was about 10 or 15 km out of the way. Free camping looked difficult because this was all wheat fields and not much forest. But just off the highway we saw a sign, "Camping 2km." Why they didn't have that sign on the highway I don't know.

So we went down the dirt road the sign pointed to. We were a bit dubious but pushed on. Exactly 2 km later we reached an intersection. There was a woods on the right and a building but it didn't look at all like a campground. On one little sign we could see the word, "Disco." That couldn't be it. Some people were ambling by bikes so we asked them. They said this was it. So we went in.

On the right was a big blue water slide pouring into a nice sized pond or small lake. The lake had a swimming platform in the middle and jungle gyms and what not set up on the banks. To the left was a white wooded building and then a row of "bungalows" that had all the charm of modular space station living quarters. Between the bungalows and the lake was about 50 yards of grassy fields containing a few picnic tables.

We heard voices yelling from clear across the field. I think they were telling us something about the disco. Disco and campground. Hmmm. Unlikely combination. A couple of children approached but they weren't walking toward us. Then we saw a man signaling us to come to him so we walked across the field, though Joan was nervous about leaving the bikes. This idea would seem ridiculous later.

We met the man half way and he was extremely jovial. His name was Karl Heinz. He was a big man and so outwardly friendly you could not help but like him right off. He joked with us, asked where we were from and seemed generally uninterested in business. Finally we got around to it. He said it would cost nine marks and we could set up anywhere, but he suggested a particular spot near the end of the field. Nearby was a fire pit and he said they were going to have a big fire there that night.

I was a little nervous. Was the disco going to start later? Why else have a bonfire? We set up the tent and showered and I was just about to light the stove when Karl's wife Sonja came out and invited us to have some wine with them. Like Karl Heinz, she spoke only German, so it took us a few minutes to catch on to what she was saying.

Next thing you know, we were sitting at a table drinking beer to celebrate Karl Heinz's 52nd birthday. There were lots of people there: Karl Heinz, Sonja, their friend Peter the butcher and his wife, Peter's 13-year-old daughter Sandy and his nine-year-old son, and Sandy's 13-year-old friend Nicole. We had barely swallowed any beer when Sonja asked us if we had eaten. Joan said we were going to cook pasta. Peter the butcher made a loud, bah! sound. "Pasta!" he said, like it was the most disgusting thing in the world. He had something else in mind for us. "Beefsteak!" Then Sonja ran inside, brought out a huge plate of steaks, and three huge bowls of cold potato salads. Then Karl Heinz broke out a liquor called JagerGluck (translates to "Hunter Luck"). It was a great meal. I played Scotland the Brave as a birthday gift for Karl Heinz.

It turns out Karl Heinz does have a disco, but it was closed that day. And they did have a bonfire, but just to burn off some garbage. It wasn't that big.

Sandy, Nicole, and Sandy's little brother were great. They were learning English in school but had a long way to go. I asked Sandy her name and she spit out like a parrot, "My name is Sandy Hoffman." But that was all she could say. Her dad, Peter, kept teasing her about not being a better translator.

We had stilted conversations in our bad German. It was pretty slow looking up so many words in the dictionary. But they were patient with us and the time passed quickly. At some point during dinner, Joan gave Peter a bike reflector she had found on a bike lane. Whenever we reached an absolute impasse, Peter would pick it up and slap it against his forehead. Later on during the party, some neighbors showed up, and started asking a lot of questions about our trip. They thought we spoke German. We had to tell them we only spoke a little.

Sonja asked us how long we had been together. We told them we were three days shy of our third wedding anniversary. Karl Heinz and Sonja had been together for way longer. I think it was something like 32 years. Joan asked if she had any advice. "Liebe" (love), Sonja answered.

Peter was a real joker. He brought out a glowing neon stick--the kind that shines when you break it, and then lasts for about six hours--and kept showing us his keychain, which was a miniature pom-pom hiding a plastic phallus and breasts. He was having a really great time.

Karl Heinz had been running the pool/disco/campground for 23 years. Sonja showed us an article cut out of a newspaper about him. It described him as a bademeister, or pool master. Karl Heinz was a bit of a local character no doubt.

We sat at their backyard table for hours. Huge frogs surrounded the pond and we could hear them even over the party noise. The kids came and went. The boy played with a pocket laser. The girls whispered and giggled between themselves.

The next morning I made pancakes which turned out so well we both started losing our American diner fantasies. Before we left Karl and his wife came out to say goodbye and waved until we were out of site.

They were incredibly nice people and--amazingly--fairly typical for this part of Germany.

Turgau was only about 10km from the Heinz's place. We stopped for some pastries then in the Marktplatz we met the tandem team we had met the day before. They said they too had abandon the bike path. They believe Sunday would be light traffic.

Luther the Pig Farmer

They were right. About 25km later, through all flat wheat fields, we stopped in Pretzsch for ice cream at a restaurant with 5 or 6 huge Harley style motorcycles parked in front and 5 or 6 guys in black leather sitting at picnic tables eating chocolate sundays with little umbrellas in them.

We sat down and ordered and soon one of the guys joined us. He spoke excellent English fortunately for us. He was farmer who apparently after the collectives went private, assumed part ownership in an enormous farm near Kropstadt -- 10,000 pigs, 250 dairy cows and I don't remember how many acres. He was in charge of the fields, another guy the pigs and another guy the cows. The three owners had 14 employees.

It was true what I had read about agriculture in east Germany. The big collective farms were more efficient than the family farms of the west and agriculture was therefore the one part of the economy doing better in the east than in the west. He had been to Bangkok and all over Thailand, he owned a big expensive motorcycle, his 20 year old daughter was going to spend a year in Sydney Australia.

Ostalgia

Strangely, he still had a case of "Ostalgia."

"Ostalgia," as described by our (west) German friend Peter back in Portugal, is a pun on the words nostalgia and ost meaning east. It refers to the feelings many east Germans have after 10 years of capitalism and still 20% unemployment. There were some good things about the bad old days of the DDR that they miss now.

"At first we thought capitalism was the best. We thought we could now travel the world, get big motorcycles and do everything," Luther said. But they didn't realized what we would have to pay to do that stuff.

He was only in his early 40s and had a 20-year-old daughter. He thought it a bad thing that people weren't having babies until their 30s and then only having one or maybe two. He said it was hard for him to have his daughter go so far away for so long and it was even harder for the girl's grandmother. He was going to visit her for a few weeks in January.

Ostalgia was curious coming from a man who had done all the things that capitalism permits. I'm sure he did not want the borders closed again or a new Berlin wall nor did he want to give up his motorcycle. He missed some things about the old days particularly the closeness of the families. But he didn't seem to have a lot of angst about it. He seemed quite a happy man in fact. Before he left he paid for our banana split.


Next: Germany Chapter 5 - Celebrating the wedding of a monk to a nun

Germany Main Page World Trip