My Life: The 60s

[Recently some friends had asked me to tell them about myself, so I'm workung on a cursory 'autobiography' divided by the decades, here's part one]

I was born in Munich in 1961. My Dad was stationed as American soldier here in Regensburg, got to know and fell in love with my mother (who is German) and married her a half year later. Since the next army hospital was hours away in Munich, my mother was brought there (through a heavy snow storm, it was December). We moved back to my Dad's hometown Kirkwood, Missouri the next year. This is where we lived till 1971.

I have very fond memories of my childhood in the States, I even think it was the perfect place to grow up. What you might not know yet, both my parents always had jobs, so I spent most of my childhood with my grandparents, first in America, then here in Germany. I guess that influenced me a lot, and I can say that all my grandparents were very good people (and strict Catholics). I only saw my parents in the mornings and evenings, for supper and my mother reading us bedtime stories.

I could tell so many things, but I'll have to be cursory:

I loved the hot summers (couldn't stand them now anymore, though), our house with a large garden and those animals to be found everywhere: turtles, snakes, rabbits squirrels, etc. Collecting lightning bugs in a jar and using them to secretly read in bed under the blanket.

In school (3 grades in the States, school run by nuns) I was the class' bad boy: constantly being sent to the corner, having to stay after school. Once the teacher glued my mouth shut with tape, cause I was always talking back to her...

My Grandpa's basement stock full of wondrous things, a child's, MY paradise: books, magazines (hundreds of National Geographics even from the 1800s), stuffed animals and animal skulls, a pool table, a large bar and party space. I spent a lot of my time there.

American TV: Amazing. Now if that wasn't formative! I saw hundreds of monster movies and ALL the 60s TV series. I'll always have a love for B pictures. Furthermore my Dad took me to the movies very often, so I saw a lot there, too: most memorably 2001 - A Space Odyssey right when it was released. My theory is to watch this one as a kid, it'll have so much more of an impact. It opened up a whole new world to me.

The music: another formative part of my childhood. My Dad had a large singles collection of 50s music, you know, Elvis Presley, Brenda Lee (my favourite at the time), and so many others I forgot the names of. Although it was the 60s I was listening to this older stuff all the time until my Dad got The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's and Magical Mystery Tour which I played thousands of times. This music had so much in it, you could discover something every time you played it. And of course the everyday American top 40 music in the radio. That's where my love for music comes from.

Here's me (in the foreground) 1966 during a visit at my German grandparents' house, the 2 other kids were the neighbours' kids I played with: