Vignettes #29

Since both of our parents had full time jobs, my sister and I spent the after school hours with our grandparents, in the States as well as later in Germany.

Here in Germany school starts early and ends at noon, so my German grandparents awaited us for lunch, then we were to do our homework, which often was extensive, only then could we do what we wanted to.

One afternoon I was sitting over my homework, and I was losing time, since it was a somewhat difficult task. For our German class I was to write the description of an object, and the object I was appointed to was a telephone. This was in the early 70s, so it was a standard old fashion telephone, exactly as in the picture above.

My problem was how to put its specific form into words. My grandfather was in the room busy cleaning up the dishes from lunch, so I asked him how he would describe the phone. At first he was surprised about my question, asked what I needed it for, but then he really got into the task. In the end he was dictating to me his own full description very carefully considering the right words.

My work was done, we were both satisfied, my grandfather proud he was able to help, and I was happy the work was done and I could go out to play with my pals.

A few days later my grandfather asked me what grade I had got on the description, and I had to admit that it was a 4, the 4th worst grade in a rating system which ranks from 1 (best) to 6 (worst). Completely taken aback he said to me: "Times have truly changed since I went to school."