Storm, Stress and Compulsion
Returning home from the sea with my tail between my legs, my first obligation was to keep a rather lower profile around the adults in my life. While undoubtedly very happy to see her lost son about the house again, my ever-shrewd mother could not help dishing me up a daily reminder of my career mistake and reiterating, complete with gestures of wisdom, that mothers know best. "I always knew a seaman's life would not sit well with you!" If I heard that pearl once I heard it a thousand times - and there was nothing I could say in retort as there I stood, in the house not on the ocean.
Life for a time was thus largely a matter of keeping my head down and going with the flow. Resistance was unhelpful, not to say unreasonable. So I became the very model of politeness and did my best in every way to fit back into my old school class after so many months away. Sweetness and light it was not.
The headmistress of my school, who it seemed had a soft spot for me, had instructed that I go straight back in with my old classmates, an idea our class teacher found quite unacceptable. She saw me as a problem, a thorn in her side, a provocation in the purest sense of the word: deeply tanned, unruly hair, a full beard - I was nothing short of an outrage to this elderly lady for whom decorum was everything. The beard disappeared, but the affront behind it remained, shuffling uneasily on a chair right in front of her desk, and continued to rankle.
Come the end of the year I thought I had done enough to move up with the rest of my class, but now the old lady brought her influence to bear to try and compel me to resit. That, I felt, was quite out of the question and all educational levers were duly exploited.
I managed in the end to complete my "Abitur", the school-leavers' exam required in Germany in order to continue in education, in two and a half school years instead of the more usual three thanks in large part to my apparent prowess with the violin and my art teacher's great enthusiasm for my creative output. Like Steiner schools generally, my school was more than happy to offset particular talents in one area against deficiencies in others, a situation I exploited with virtuoso panache as first violin in the school orchestra. It is almost as though my mother had some inkling of what was to come when she chose this particular school for me.
With the exams successfully behind me, life was good. The memories of less happy times at sea still remained fresh in my mind too, which only enhanced my enjoyment of the beauty of existence ashore (and of the beauties to be found there).
I never found school especially difficult; my problem was rather finding a way to fit school in around my extra-curricular activities. I, after all, had ground to make up in all areas of my education and not just in front of the books. Today I suppose it would just be put down to delayed adolescence: I spent my acne years at sea with only my thoughts and a bunch of aged (relatively) outcasts for company.
The Scent of Freedom
A strange and very useful thing happened to me when I was 18. One summer's morning I put my portable radio in my pannier and set off on my bike for some time away, only to come home not with the bike but with a car, a Lloyd Alexander TS no less. Really! Along the way I came upon a certain Mr. Seel, who was spending his retirement presiding over a garage treasury full of old cars. Interpreting my longing looks correctly (if rather generously), he proposed a swap and I agreed and hence I returned from my holiday, bursting with pride, on four rattling wheels not two. I brought a crate of apples with me that I hoped would help placate my ever-temperamental mother.
(I still had much to learn about my mother, the main lesson being to stop underestimating her so comprehensively).
So, in the space of a week, I had mutated into a car-driving student, something I short-sightedly viewed as a privilege. Schools did not provide parking spaces for students in those days, so I had to park alongside my illustrious teachers, who thus earned the dubious honour every so often of having to help me push start my Lloyd (a heavy sleeper at times, especially in damp weather). The choke demanded a very fine touch: a fraction too much and the engine could be relied on to stop instantly.
Oh foolish youth, what imbecility led me to believe the object of young love's (and lust's) desire would be impressed by my new pink automobile? To my sweetheart, the daughter of a strict family of substantial means, this precariat's car meant first and foremost embarrassment, an embarrassment she intended to avoid by never, ever, being seen in it by any of our fellow students. Thoroughly understanding of the doors her considerable charms could open, however, she also appreciated that it made for a comfortable - and thus tolerable and acceptable - journey home provided she could board away from prying eyes. Her parents always made me welcome too. They gave me lunch and I was happy to pay for the petrol in the hope of bigger rewards to come.
I certainly put in the miles, but progress came much more slowly than I had hoped.
Looking back, the whole experience provided a lesson in the intractability of such families and of the parents in particular, who would never let us out of their sight without a detailed breakdown of why, where and with whom. Their daughter eventually tired of her parents' intellectual back and forth and took matters in respect of young Foerthmann into her own hands. This, however, proved to be a colossal mistake, the price of which amounted to a swift transfer to a different school (presumably a very strict one with no males in sight). Neither of us emerged any wiser from this debacle,
My car, that clattering but ever-willing symbol of my manhood, at the time my pride and joy, triggered scorn, indifference and exclusion. These things strike deep (however justified they might seem with the wisdom of hindsight - bear in mind that, among other peculiarities, this car required driver and passenger alike to reverse into their seat, as the doors were the aft-hinged variety known to this day as suicide doors).
I hated the fact that the apple of my eye would only deign to enter in secret under the cover of anonymous backstreets. My moment of triumph lost much for passing unnoticed .
Developments .
The next blow came right out of the blue and hit me like a tree trunk: the supreme commander, home front, declined absolutely to give her contrarian 18-year-old know-it-all legal authority to operate a motor vehicle on the grounds that, "The responsibility was too great." Back then kids remained kids until they turned 21, at which point - and never before - they were considered mature and ready to face the world alone.
A short while later, tail back between my legs, I retraced my route of that fateful summer day to return the car and reclaim my bike. The wipers were going full speed, but it did little good as my tears were falling faster than the rain. I'm sure I needn't describe how I felt hauling myself back to Hamburg by bike (a single-speed bike at that). And as for the thought of having to wait another three years .
Sometimes it is the most trivial events that help to draw the child away from the maternal apron strings - and that provide the richest stimulus for spiritual and emotional development. Although on the face of it they just they underlined my dependence, in other words, these growing pains were actually setting me on the road to independence.
Being carless at least took all the complication out of the school run. I went back to travelling by train and bike, made sure to give mother plenty of loving hugs and rendered devoted voluntary service around the house - even with the laundry and ironing - in the vague hope of official early access to the car keys and the open road. Situations like these left a young man in no doubt as to the extent of his powerlessness: it's no fun to live as a child yet see what looks - and feels - like an adult staring back from the mirror every day.
I held this interruption to my motoring against my mother for a long time and immediately began saving, on the quiet, for a DKW Junior de Luxe (with two-stroke engine and automatic lubrication) in which to pull up outside the house at the earliest possible moment on my 21st birthday. Such was my need for car money that I even sold my violin. While this was undoubtedly all part of the process of carving out an autonomous existence, I very much regret losing the violin. It is hard to perform physical work with one's hands and still retain the manual dexterity required to bring the best out of a violin, I told myself. That may well be true actually but I still cannot quite shake off the suspicion that it is just a convenient fallacy to ease the loss.
But back to the DKW: it had seatbelts, a Blaupunkt radio and, most important of all, reclining seats, an enormous draw for a twenty-something with testosterone to spare, no privacy at home and a reluctance to share any more intimate moments with the unsympathetic wildlife of the woods and fields.
Total Freedom
The birthday came and I was off the hook and on the roads for good, or at least until decrepitude, dementia or excessive traffic offences slowed me down again (a day that I hope with all my heart is still a long, long way off ).
The Second Career
My...
