Greatest Memories

I can’t wait to talk about my good memories, yes.. I have those.They are not just about my freckles which I had lots of.. but about some human kindness that made them special.. language differences and difficulties had to do with my freckles becoming a very beautiful thing. How come? Because that’s what “Boo-Boo ” called me ! Who is Boo Boo? One day, I think it was an April day, dad dared and stick not only his nose.. but his whole body..out, outside, leaving the relative safety of our basement and went outside to check on things. We knew the war was over.. but not officially. They still were fighting over our village and we heard little crackles of gunfire. Dad walks outside and he sees a soldier. Thinking it was a German one, he said to him:” How are things going.. bro?” The “bro” frantically waved his hands and said.. “no no no, go in!” Dad realized then he was talking to an American soldier. Oh boy.. he quickly came back inside telling us that American soldiers were in the village. Terror stricken we double locked everything, I remember grandma saying:” This just isn’t the way I planned on dying…” then my memory deserts me, because I don’t remember what happened next.

But sometime later.. the world had gone crazy. The neighbor’s big farmhouse had been emptied of all occupants, and American soldiers had taken it over.

The 2nd story of the big house overlooked our yard. I was the first to take a serious peek, and saw that out of almost every window.. there was an American soldier looking out. Scared the living daylights out of me.

Then one of those guys must have seen me. They were equally scared , just like us.. because they didn’t know what was around the next corner.. like maybe some german soldier with guns? No one knew anything for sure, so everyone was scared. This sorta ” standoff” situation lasted for days, until one morning a really scary thing happened. Leaning on this big barn next to our house, was a huge… smooth, I guess 1/2 ton rock that we kids climbed on and played on. Well that morning when I peeked outside, there’s a small box sitting on that rock.

My curiosity almost killed me.. and it finally got the best of me. I sneaked clear to that rock, I’d say, oh…20 feet or so from my front gate to that rock. I inched closer to it.. finally could not contain myself.. I went all the way to that rock and the little box. Guess what? That little box had cookies in it.. real cookies. I wanted them so bad.. I grabbed that box. I ran inside to show everybody.

I don’t remember who said it, but someone said:” don’t touch.. it could be poisoned…”

But it smelled and looked so good.. I finally no longer cared, grabbed a cookie, and yes ! I ate it ! Everyone stared at me.. waiting if I would now keel over and die from that poisoned cookie. Nothing happened, nothing.. except me wanting another one. I took another one.. put it into my mouth and ate it.

Now I had eaten 2 cookies and I was still alive.. what the heck? Who put that box there, and why?

Finally the box was empty.. all of us, parents, grandma, Thea, Schnippe and Mut and I.. ate the whole thing.. yes we did and no one even got sick.. what the heck??