Who taught time to fly?

I’ve been rather remiss with my blog entries, I fear…mainly because I’m so busy REALLY writing! Yes…I have begun…and it’s about time! While I’m only about five single-spaced pages into my project (not counting the photos I’ve embedded) I am completely engrossed in the process. I find that my creative energies resemble a vessel that’s full until I slowly drain it…then I must wait until it magically refills again. Because I’m not merely making up my story (but rather seeking to remain as faithful as possible to the facts), I spend quite a bit of time reviewing the four hundred plus pages of transcriptions from the interviews I’ve conducted over the past thirty-five years. That then gets me proofing those pages for the ubiquitous typos, crafting spreadsheets of dates/names/places…all time-consuming distractions that effectively keep me from more original writing!

In between spurts of productivity, I ride my bike all over the beautiful Bavarian hinterlands or take walks down to the Lech River. The weather is typical for this region. In any given day we’ll have bright sunshine with the accompanying Bavarian blue skies, wind, rain and even hail…and of course, the famous thunder and lightening storms that are all part of living in the shadow of the Alps.

I make it a point to visit a bit with my German neighbors – um mein Deutsch zu üben! Interestingly enough, even though I’m mainly speaking with myself on any given day, I find that I tend to think in German as I putz about. (yet another German word...from the verb “putzen” – to clean, though I haven’t done much of that!!) My neighbors – the two Annies, Hubert and Meta, Frau Reid and the rest of them – allow me much leeway and never interrupt me, yet are always very friendly and inviting when I venture out.

In the evenings I’ve been watching segments of Ken Burn’s series, “The War” on my Mac computer…and I would HIGHLY recommend it (both the series AND my MacBook Pro!) He has created a six DVD documentary that truly personalizes this dramatic era. His recreation of the 8th Air Force’s campaign against Nazi Germany has the ability to make me feel some of the claustrophobia and panic that surely accompanied those missions. I marvel at my young B-17 copilot father – only twenty years old in 1944 (as evidenced in the photo above) – and his crew’s ability to stay calm under the relentless pressure of anti-aircraft flak exploding on all sides of them as well as the persistent pursuit of Folke-Wulfs and Messerschmitts (German fighters), which sought to knock them out of the sky…and eventually did!

So yeh…I’ve been busy! Speaking of which, I’d better get back to it…Auf Wiedersehen bis später!