I will regale you with stories till I leave....

Y'know, if you spend nearly forty years with someone, you tell each other EVERYTHING. If the relationship is good. You share the absurd, the important things of all the people in your lives. It isn't gossip, it is your past, and who formed you to be who you are.

So today, we begin with Peter's grandparents. Yeah, that sounds far-fetched... But they were interesting, in that they more or less raised him. And I don't know how they ever got along together, but there was this 'thing' called World War II, you see, and Hitler, and so on.

They had five children, four girls, one boy. The little boy died, because there weren't any antibiotics back then. Peter lost his father before he was ever born. The Germans were pushing into Poland, and he was a concert pianist, and he died in a car crash.

So he never knew him. And his mother did her utmost to do everything right, and worked her ass off.

Which brings us back to the grandparents. From all accounts... his grandfather was sort of amazing. He would listen secretly to the BBC where no one could hear, and keep up on the news. I suspect I would have liked him. The Russians came into his home first back then, and they could be so brutal. His grandfather did a 'number'. Ripped down a photo of Hitler, stomped on it, and screamed and yelled.

He was basically Socialist. The photo was 'cover'. Thanks to one of his daughters.


He was interested in FKK, which was nudist culture. And mostly tolerant.

His gradmother was 'delicate'. She had heart asthma, and it was very bad. But she loved Hollywood musicals. And she did something so daring, it still takes my breath away.... There was a bomb raid, the English, I believe. And Peter had pneumonia. They fled to the basement, and his grandmother took the grammophone with her. Which was weird...

Just to keep him calm, hey.

You know what? It did. But the number she had was way off the charts. Fred Astaire singing 'Cheek to cheek` Remember how it begins? 'Heaven, I'm in heaven.' And the bombs falling????

Not to mention it was crazy dangerous, because the Blockwart was there, the Nazi guy who controlled everyone in that block. She didn't care. She was pissed off as it was.....

He remembers being up on a hill with them for Easter, 1945. And they were having a picnick, and the Americans came to bomb the city. His grandfather was outraged. 'What the hell are they DOING? The BOMBS are supposed to be falling on the industrial section, not the Opera! How the fuck do they expect to win the WAR, hey????'

His grandmother was more into musicals, and American stuff. But that is for the next post.

Yup, you can learn a lot over many years, you share, there is history there, and it can be funny, in retrospect, even if a lot is tragic.