Archive for February 2010

23 Feb, 2010 | Posted by: photosource

My Story

7

Click on photo to enlarge
FARM WIFE NEAR DUTCH BORDER - 1957

Click on photo to enlarge
MY LAST SKETCH IN GERMANY - 1957

Click on photo to enlarge
BRATWURST SELLER - 1957

Click on photo to enlarge
RAIN TALK - 1957

On the outskirts of town that afternoon, I pulled my Vespa into an inviting grassy knoll on the edge of the river. A couple of big trees were on either side. A campfire was still smoldering inbetween. The campers had thrown some water on it. I set up my pup tent and sleeping bag. I would spend the night here.
Across the Rhine River’s width, giant redstone castles of the 15th century lay aging in the hillside greenery. Boy! What a sight! Just like the post cards. I decided to make a sketch of the scene.

The warm May sun beat down on me as I worked on the sketch. There was activity on the river. A touring ship filled with sightseers was sailing by. People waved to me. The tourists probably couldn’t see I was sketching the scenery. Some waved to me. Young boys were rowing boats near the shoreline. They waved to me.

I was finding out that my sketchbook and my guitar were passports of friendship for me as I traveled. The guitar seemed to say, “We have something in common –music.” And the sketchbook said, “You like my village, or churches, or bridges enough that you choose to sketch it.” That was pretty good. It was like having these two companions along with me too. I didn’t look like a vagrant or a highway robber or something to someone.

Now that’s a nice thing. So if you’re planning on taking a vagabond trip, there’s two secrets for you. Take a guitar and a sketchbook along, even if you don’t know how to use them!

The highway down the hill from my knoll was buzzing with tiny European cars breezing along with open windows loaded with picnickers. As they zipped by some of the passengers could see me atop the knoll. Some waved to me.
I put down my sketchbook and relaxed in the pleasant surroundings. I found myself in a zone I had come to recognize. The whole world seemed happy, and most of all, me! So far, my trip was going well. I was sorta numb. Was this freedom? I felt suspended in an atmosphere I had not known. Flashes of memories came back to me of the last day of school in 5th grade where all of us went through that thick heavy oak front door of Lincoln Grammar into the bright June outdoors realizing we had the whole summer ahead of us. It belonged to us. Freedom always seems like something you once had, not something you were presently experiencing. Well, I was experiencing it.
I sat on the green plot at the edge of the Rhine, basking in my thoughts. Not only the summer stretched out before me as all mine, but my whole life. I had no wristwatch. N o calendar, no To-Do list, no agenda. There were no more schedules, bells, loud noises, key chains, clocks, telephones. Time didn’t matter. I was free to do anything in whatever direction I chose.

There would be no disturbing knocks at the door of my life. That mirror on the edge of my shoulder examining my every moment, was missing, something had shattered it. This was great. Those warnings from my friends in Wuerzburg were just fading words. I had cancelled my career and headed off with the wind.
Was this my reward? I thought to myself. For some fleeting moments I was experiencing that elusive feeling of freedom. Would I capture this again on my trip?

Want to read more?
http://www.photosource.com/psn-article/mystory7.html

Leave comment (0)

16 Feb, 2010 | Posted by: photosource

My Story

Click on photo to enlarge
ALONG THE RHINE - 1957

Click on photo to enlarge
BROTHERS NEAR RUDESHEIM - 1957

Click on photo to enlarge
ROHN IN THE HAYLOFT - 1957

Click on photo to enlarge
TWINS

6

I was confused when I woke up. Where was I? No scratchy 78 rpm record player blasting reveille outside my window. No sounds of guys walking or rushing to the john down the hall. No guys in the lavatory bumping elbows brushing teeth, slippery tile floors, urinals, smelly excretions from guys falling asleep on the toilet, bad beer breath from the night before, no moaning and bitching about hangovers. No guys asking if they could borrow your razor, guys shouting back and forth about “the gal I saw you with” and “did you ding her.?”. No rushing to Roll Call out in the quadrangle to get there in time to get a few brownie points from the assembly Captain. I forget his name.
Today it felt like Sunday. No rush. I could turn over and get back to sleep. But I didn’t.

I rubbed my eyes and looked around at this guy’s bedroom. A university student.

A cross hung on the wall above the bed. It wasn’t a Maltese Cross it was a Christian cross. Another was across the room by the dresser. They must be Catholic or Lutheran. Probably Catholic in this part of Germany.
It’s funny, at my unit in Wuerzburg, guys didn’t really know anything about the Germans. They didn’t even know the language except “Wo ist der Bahnhof?” or something like that. Most of them were hostile to Germans. The Staff Sergeant, who was a “lifer” in the Army now 20 years told me once. “I didn’t see them as people, I was just shooting at uniforms.”

Back at Wuerzburg, the guys probably would have ostracized me if they learned I spent the night in a German guy’s bed.

I looked around some more. A picture of his girl friend on the bureau, or was it a cousin, or his mother before the war? Pretty girl. A picture of a guy in uniform. His brother, maybe? They didn’t mention him. I didn’t want to ask. And I won’t.

Back in Wuerzburg in the taverns and park benches, I had my fill of conversations about killed and gone friends and relatives. I had a habit of digging down into people’s lives, asking questions. I’m sure that’s why I was eager to learn the German language when the Army sent me to Oberammergau to learn it.

I wanted to talk to the people. I’m sure I would’ve failed German if I ‘d taken German in high school, just like I failed Spanish. I admire people who can learn things for no other reason that just to learn them. Like Latin or Greek.
I don’t know if the Germans resented me always asking questions. I couldn’t help it. It just came out. My curiosity, I mean. I guess that’s why I didn’t mind my Army job. I had a license to ask questions. As far as the answers, I don’t know how much of it was true. I guess they told me what they figured I wanted to hear.

The conversations were always the same. They never defended their involvement in the war, they didn’t know anything about Jews in concentration camps, and the High Command only broadcast the good stuff like their victories in Poland and Russia. And how the people cheered and welcomed the German Army into Austria. This idea of radio and movies telling people what they wanted to hear must've been exciting. Going to the movies back them, I mean like in the early 40's and they would have The News before the movie started. No one was late for that. Everyone was hushed and seated. and they would see resulted of when German submarines were blasting boats out of the water, and sailors were floating in the oily fires. Or a shell wolud blast a Russian tank. That was better than the movie itself.
When you walked out of the movie in broad daylight itself and saw a German soldier in uniform, you'd probably want to go up to him and hug him, or be eager to send your own son, when he was 16 or 17, to the recruitment station to sign up. It must've all been so exciting.

When the tide turned, the people were in the dark except for propaganda. That must’ve been tough. The radio played music instead of showing the losses in Russia or North Africa or other places depending on when you were listening.

How would you like spending ten to fifteen months listening to stuff on the radio like, "Good morning folks, Heil Hitler! We are losing this war. The British and American air raids are breaking our morale.”

Your reaction to the radio reports would be “My family and me might be killed tomorrow.”

But then the commentator would say something like, “But there’s still hope. Our German ingenuity will overcome. We are in the final stages of developing what’s called a jet engine airplane that will easily destroy those English and American bombers and fighter planes, plus we are developing a bomb that could wipe out London in one minute.”

I guess the people were so war-weary that they would’ve believed anything, -even the idea that one bomb could destroy a whole city. But the funny thing about it was the Nazi broadcaster would have been telling the truth because the German scientists were working on an atom bomb and they just about had it completed before the war ended. Now that would have been something. Let's not think about that,

We can get used to just about anything, it seems, doesn't it? And if we can’t, then we resort to denial, which saves us from an unpleasant existence.

During my two years in Wuerzburg, from the Germans, I never saw or heard spoken the mention of Adolph Hitler, Joseph Goebbles, Heinrich Himmler, or Herman Goering. Except Hans, in his darkroom when I would be in there working with him and Maria wasn't there. He would use the darkroom to tell me deep down what his feeling were. He couldn't express them during the war and he couldn't express them after the war, so the darkroom was the only place to express them, and to an American, me.

As I lay there in my early morning wake-up trance, I dismissed the whole subject. I transitioned into how nice it was for these people to invite me into their home and to spend the night in their son's bedroom. What a beautiful day outside! I let my mind switch into the road ahead for me that day.

The aroma of frying eggs, sauerkraut and pork and potatoes came whafting up the stairwell. Herr Werner was just coming out of the bathroom. “Gruess Gott” he shouted. “Hast du gut geshlafen?” “Sehr gut,” I smiled as we shook hands.
“Where are you off to this morning?”, Frau Werner asked as she gave me another helping of sauerkraut. This was not a breakfast, this was a send-off supper.

Want to read more?
http://www.photosource.com/psn-article/mystory6.html

Leave comment (0)

09 Feb, 2010 | Posted by: photosource

Click on photo to enlarge
NEAR KITZINGEN WEST GERMANY - 1957

Click on photo to enlarge
ROHN’S SKETCH OF SUMMERHAUSEN - 1957

Click on photo to enlarge
CEMETARY IN OBERAMMERGAU - 1957

ROHN AT AGE 26 WUERZBURG - 1957

My Story

5

At 5:00 a.m. on the morning of May 20th 1957, the wake up shrill of a well-scratched reveille record pierced the PA system in the hallway of our barracks. I lifted the blind, looked out and saw fog everywhere. “Jeeze”, I said.

I don’t know if I was saying the “Jeeze” to the fog out there or just that I gotta do it. I gotta follow through and just get on that motor scooter today and head west.

But if I didn’t follow through, what would I tell all the people that tried to convince me not to go on this trip?

Sleeping wasn’t easy during last night. Several times my thoughts turned to just forgetting the whole thing. I could do that. Several times in the last week as my discharge date came up I thought about just dropping the whole idea.

I could sell my Vespa in downtown Wuerzburg and buy a plane ticket back to the states. I could spend a few more days with Maria, or a few more weeks or the whole summer, or a lifetime with her. She wasn’t there to see me off. I cut things off. I told her not to be there.
“No, no, don’t do this, forget the trip. Dump it. It’ll make you feel better” was what I heard in my head. And it wasn’t the people who surrounded me talking, it was I saying it.
But I looked at all my travel belongings. I had prepared the night before to strap on to my Vespa. And thought about all the official papers I had filled out and the goodbyes I had made. It would be easy to appear on Maria’s doorstep. But the sun was now coming up and by the time it was setting on May 20th 1957, I had to be somewhere, and it couldn’t be in the barracks of the 8212th AAI Unit.

Rick caught up with me on the way to the mess hall for breakfast. He grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. “This is it,” he said. “Freedom!” he shouted.

I tried to muster a smile. I guess I did for his sake. He was happy for me.
I was scared. What had I done? Why had I chosen to take this trip?
Was Lieutenant Kohler right? Was I running away from something?
I had told him, “No, I’m breaking away. I’m not running away.”
At breakfast, I had no appetite.
Sergeant Adams came by our table in the mess hall, stood over me and tossed a brown enveloped near my plate. “There it is, Engh, your discharge papers. Lieutenant Kohler says to shoot a tiger for him in Africa.”
“I mumbled as I looked at the envelope, “ They don’t have any tigers in Africa.”
“Well, don’t shoot yourself in the foot!” He said, walking away smiling, something I rarely saw from h im.
“He’s just jealous,” Rick said.

Back at the barracks, Rick helped me pack the motor scooter. I had shipped all of my non-trip belongings back to Maryland. All that remained were the essentials for my trip: my guitar, my pup tent, my Rollieflex, a map and the “civvies” I had chosen to wear on my journey.

What with the fog hanging over the gray cement-block buildings around the quadrangle and the sun starting to break through the heavy mist and the silver color of my sparkling new Vespa, it all gave a silvery tinge to my departure.

Rick grabbed me by the neck, shook me a little, and didn’t say anything as he shook his head. “Good luck!”

I whistled to Rick who was walking back to the quadrangle where everyone was assembling for roll call. He turned, gave a “thumbs up” gesture, turned and continued on. .

I was alone. I was on my own.

I started up the Vespa, swallowed, and headed west.

I left all the doubts about canceling the trip behind. I was on my way. The horizon awaited me. I didn’t feel good about all this. “So this was ‘freedom’?” I said to myself.
My first day on the road was a frightening one. An accident near the end of the day nearly ended the trip on the first day.
The road out of Wuerzburg winds around the sloping vineyards that border the city to the west and twists and turns through a series of hills and valleys toward the nearby river city of Frankfort/Main.
I hadn’t really had much experience driving the Vespa. On highways. I drove at cautious speeds, much to the irritation of fast moving Germans cars and Army trucks. It was a cold morning and heavy winds swept across the countryside. I had attached a windshield to the Vespa. The winds would sometimes catch me from the back and other times sweep in from the right, causing me to veer onto the opposite lane (in Germany, people drive in the right lane like in the USA).
Then suddenly the wind would shift and catch sideways in the windshield. The wind would treat it like a sail, and would send the scooter sweeping at sudden angles off the road or into the oncoming lane.
I had to concentrate every moment in preparation for the next gust of wind. The newness of driving a motor scooter was uncomfortable enough, but the sudden jolts from the wind made steering not so pleasant.
That first day, I made a distance of only 80 miles. It took me six hours. Other motorcyclists and motor scooters passed me. Some of them waved to me and were probably surprised at not seeing a grandmother driving the Vespa. It wasn’t just a couple of times the thought entered my head that when I got to Frankfurt, I could drive into the Vespa distributorship, sell my machine, and buy an airline ticket to Baltimore.

Sometimes I would stop in a village or alongside the roadway to watch the passing traffic and the people bustling on their way to work or doing their everyday chores. If I caught someone’s eye, I would nod my head and say, “Gruess Gott.’ Which was the normal way of saying hello to a stranger in this part of West Germany. My brand spanking new Vespa was a clue to them that I must be just starting out. Some would actually stop and ask where I was off to and if I was an American and all that. Then they would head off on their daily routine or whatever they had to do that day.

Well, I didn’t have anything to do that day except move westward or just stay set or whatever I wanted to do. It’s then that I think an overwhelming feeling of independence overcame me. I wasn’t beholden to anybody. Not Colonel Henderson, not Lieutenant Kohler, not to my parents, not to anybody. I can’t remember ever feeling this way.

I was to feel that way a lot on the road ahead. The sun was my clock and the leaves would be my calendar. But independen ce has its price I was to learn too.
I had $192.50 in my pocket in USA cash. I didn’t exchange it for the local currency. The Germans liked U.S. dollars even more than their own deutschmarks. I suspected everyone in Europe would be glad to accept the dollar.
Late in the afternoon, I learned my first lesson for the beginner on a motor scooter. Pay attention to the road. As I was nearing the village of Dettingen, I came up on a steep grade that ended in a beautiful view, actually a panoramic view, of a wide valley with little farms and quilted vegetable patches, I locked into the immensity of the scene and didn’t notice that the road made a sharp winding curve around the mountain.
I felt the scooter wheels hit the gravel that bordered the road. It was too late to avoid an accident. I guided the scooter so that it slid sideways into a guardrail that protected the road from a cliff.

Want to read more?
http://www.photosource.com/psn-article/mystory5.html

Leave comment (0)

03 Feb, 2010 | Posted by: photosource

Click on photo to enlarge
West Germany Woman at stove 1957 -Rohn Engh

Click on photo to enlarge
MAN ASLEEP - HOFBRAU HOUSE -- Rohn Engh

Click on photo to enlarge
Couple at Gasthaus 1957 --Rohn Engh

4

My Story

Saying Goodbye to Army Life

I was thinking the other day what a good stage the army-life was for me over there in West Germany.
Yes, a good stage, like in the theater. I mean in the sense of Shakespeare’s famous theme about the ‘world’s only a stage’, and his other famous subject, ‘the difference between seeming and being.’

Back in my high school days, the students came from mostly families that were chicken farmers there on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. During the summer vacation time, over at the beach in Ocean City, about five miles inland where we lived, I spent most of my summer time at the ocean, at the beach and on the boardwalk with people from big cities like Baltimore and Washington, and even New York. I worked at summer beach jobs, so I got a lot of chance to talk with all kinds of people, of all ages, girls, boys.

Sometimes a high school friend of mine would come walking down the boardwalk and he would wave to me on the beach and I would pretend not to see him. I would be with one of those Philadelphia girls from some suburban family and I didn’t want her to see the kind of friends I had. I know now that was wrong, making those prejudgments. One of them went on to be a prominent doctor in a Washington hospital.

And you know something? I found that Shakespeare was right, at least for me. There are two levels of seeming and being in people. Whether it was the big city people I got to know in the summertime or the locals during the rest of the year. It became clear that if I wanted to get on in life, wherever I ended up, I’d have to deal with this ‘seeming and being’ thing.

That’s why I welcomed the idea of joining the Army when I was drafted during the Korean War. It would give me a different ‘stage’ to learn from. And later on, when I decided to take my Army discharge over in Europe, I guess it was one of the prime reasons I wasn’t ready to return home to the USA. I say “guess” because I didn’t say to myself something like, “I’m curious, as long as I’m here in Europe, I’m going to go out and learn about other people.” But that’s the way it turned out. And by the way, at first, I was only intending to travel to Europe. Other circumstances that I’ll tell you about later caused me to go farther into Africa.
But back to my farewell to the U.S. Army.
Whenever I see a recruiting poster for the U.S. Army, I think of the army as a massive contraption that sucks in young men and spits out two flavors: robots and mavericks. My impression is probably all wrong because I served in a peacetime Army in Germany.

You’re probably thinking “You didn’t serve in the Army you served in a peace-keeping corporation You didn’t serve in a crackerjack combat unit like the guy
s over there in Korea are doing.”
You’d be right. And, worse you could say I let a lot of Nazis into the USA. And a lot of others things I was doing in my CIC job was listening in on a lot of German citizen’s phone calls and reading their mail.
We also had these new secret agent gimmicks like pounding a spy nail into a hotel wall and listening in on the conversation in the next room or photographing them with a long telephoto camera from across the street. We had won the war and were occupying West Germany, so we could act like victors. It’s not like we made them slaves or anything like that. Like in Roman times.

I was getting unhappy with the Army. In my army career I was playing their game and turning into a robot and didn’t like what I was doing. It was only Rick who encouraged my idea of traveling Europe with my guitar and singing for my supper. He even entertained the idea of coming along with me. That idea lasted about two minutes.

But I could understand. And I could understand my parent’s response when I wrote to them. “Think of your career. You’ve invested 4 years of art education!” They also knew that I had a job waiting for me at BBD&O in Baltimore with a big salary.
No one, at 8212th AAI Unit Wuerzburg except Rick thought it a wise move for me.
“You’re wasting your life,” one advised.

“You’ll be killed on the highways,” someone said.
A sergeant warned me, “Life on the outside is mean. You’ve had a free bed and a warm meal whenever you wanted it. You’ll soon learn what’s best.” The word was getting around.
Colonel Rice, my commanding officer, ordered more to report to his office on Monday morning. He was a man of middle age and had already seen twenty-some army years. Gosh, he was loud. There was nothing tender about his cadence-calling voice that shot in spurts from his wiry frame.

He looked at me with green piercing eyes from his seated position, as I stood rigid before him in the center of his carpeted office. “At ease Engh”, he barked, shuffling through some papers.
“Well, Engh, what’s the meaning of this request I have here? What’s this, you want an overseas discharge? What do you plan to do over here, -get a job? he roared. He enjoyed shouting this conversation so that office people in the adjacent office could hear. . He stared at me and then sat back in his big ol’ executive chair and folded his arms to wait for my answer with an expression that said, “You’re wasting my time. Hurry up.”

I wasn’t excepting all this. I just thought all I had to do was sign some kind of paper and that was it.
I wished for a slight moment that I had never requested an overseas discharge.
I gathered up some courage and answered, “Sir, I plan to travel the world.”
There was a long pause, of course. In the next door office there was silence over there. I thought I heard some tittering laughter. “Well, Engh, that’s very nice,” he continued, “I’m sure we’d all like to travel the world. You must be a very rich person.”
“No, sir. I’m not.
“Well, “ he shot back, “How much money do you have for this world trip?”
“Sir, I have six hundred and forty eight dollars.” I answered as officially as I could. Of course I couldn’t tell I sill had to buy the Vespa, sleeping bag, and pup tent, and $400 of that had to go to the motor scooter agency.
The sum impressed him and he questioned, “And how long do you think you could get on with that amount of money?”
“I have no idea, sir.”
I saw by his quick change of expression this wasn’t a very proper answer.
“You realize Engh, that the U.S. Army cannot afford to discharge people overseas who will become a burden to the government .He was getting close to the reason for calling me into the office. “Unless I can be assured that you
will be financially responsible in your traveling, I can see no way that I can sign your release for an overseas discharge,” He paused for awhile and then asked, “What initial provisions are you going to need for this trip?”
I had hoped he was not going to ask that question. “I figured I’d need a sleeping bag, a pup tent, a guitar, a knapsack, and a motor scooter.”

He looked at me, holding back a smile, or even bellowing laughter. He reached for a notepad and them slid it away. He rested his chin on his clasped hands with his arms planted in a solid triangle on his desk this had turned into something humorous for him. On the other hand he probably entertained the idea that he might be dealing with a “nut” case.
“You’re not traveling by train and staying in hotels?” He brought the notepad back over and started making notes.
“No” I said.
“Well then what does a sleeping bag cost,” He began.
“Fifteen dollars, sir.”
“And a guitar?” he questioned without looking up from his desk.
There was silence in the next office.
“And knapsack??” He was taping his pencil against the notepad.
“Five dollars and fifty cents, sir.”
“And a motor scooter?” he said. He was smug now.
“Four hundred dollars, sir,” I said so low I could hear it in my head but I wasn’t sure he heard it.
He didn’t.
“What? He bellowed out, looking up from his scribbling.
I repeated it.
His eyes shot back at me like one of his automatic weapons. Then he returned to total up the figures I gave him.

“That comes to four hundred and fifty five dollars and fifty cents, Engh! You mean to tell me you’re leaving here with, “ and he swiftly subtracted, “one hundred and ninety-two dollars and fifty cents?”
My throat was dry. I couldn’t answer him.
He sat back in his chair and stared at me. “I think you had better look at this a little more seriously, Engh. I’ve taken more that than that on a weekend visit to Italy.”
He shot back again, “You think this trip over from a practical viewpoint. If you ask me, forget about the whole thing. Let’s consider you receiving your discharge in Baltimore. Then you can take whatever trip you want to take.”
I saluted.
I turned to leave his office and he added, “I heard reports that your friend Tolman might be traveling with you. If this is correct, tell him he can expect to take his discharge in Philadelphia.”
“He’s decided not to go on the trip, sir.” I said.

Colonel Rice answered only with an unfriendly grin and I left.
Those were dark days back in February 1957. I had only a month to convince the colonel that I could support myself. More problems began coming up.

I contacted the British and French consulate in Frankfort and learned it was impossible to apply for a visa for the African colonies unless I had a passport. That was a problem. U.S. Army regulations said military personnel could not be issued a passport until after their discharge. Since it took three or four months for an African visa to come through, it meant a long delay in Europe before I could head off on my trip.

Want to read more?
http://www.photosource.com/psn-article/mystory4.html

Leave comment (0)

PhotoStockNOTES

Categories

Archives

login

Register

Admin

Our Products

23 Feb, 2010 | Posted by: photosource

16 Feb, 2010 | Posted by: photosource

09 Feb, 2010 | Posted by: photosource

03 Feb, 2010 | Posted by: photosource