Showing posts with label
First Saturday Growing Up in America.
Show all posts
Showing posts with label
First Saturday Growing Up in America.
Show all posts
Trouble in Cleveland
By Rolf Dumke
[Sequel to “Chippewa on the Lake,” July 28]
The wind whipped over the frozen lake, creating innumerable ripples and swirls with the newly fallen snow. Long, white, fragile strings danced and curved over the dark blue ice, unwinding slowly on their path up to our shore, or, with a sudden jerk, disappeared and piled into the snow banks at the edge.
Chippewa on the Lake
By Rolf Dumke
[Sequel to “Into America's interior,” July 28]
It felt as if a magic wand had whisked us to this beautiful place, a small white New England cottage with a porch on its right side, surrounded by a white picket fence, and with a curving walk through a lawn up to the front door. The house was located in a small resort town placed on the slopes of a woody hill, gently rising from the lake. A small road and a strip of grass with trees separated us from the lake and its few piers that jutted into the lake. It was very quiet. Often the only sound came from a breeze from across the lake whistling through the trees and from the murmuring water and splash of waves landing on our beach. (See Wikipedia: “Chippewa Lake, Ohio.”)
Into America’s interior
By Rolf Dumke
[Sequel to “Arrival in New York Harbor,” March 17]
Through the Susquehanna wilderness. The growling diesel engines in the front of our passenger train could be heard during every second long bend of the majestic river, which I only recently identified as the Susquehanna.
Arrival in New York Harbor
By Rolf Dumke
The sky and waters were calm on Saturday, June 7th, 1952, when the Liberty ship made a slow right-turn into the panoramic view of New York Harbor.
Climbing rocks
By Rolf Dumke
Reading the NY Times article of the spectacular recent climb of Yosemite's El Capitan – “Pursuing the Impossible, and Coming Out on Top,” by John Branch, January 14, 2015 – I felt certain college memories resurfacing.
Two years at Shaw High
By Rolf Dumke
I often reflect on my first years in the United States after my family immigrated from bombed-out Germany in the early 50s. There were those wonderful first years in a middle-class neighborhood and school, after living in the rough Hugh District of Cleveland until the late 50s. Instead of returning to Germany, my parents used their hard-earned savings to buy a suburban house in East Cleveland, which allowed me two good years at Shaw High School.
