Reminiscing About a Childhood I Never Had

[ehowton]

Dreamed my brother and I took a road trip to Germany. It was powerful reminiscing about my childhood, even stopping at the elementary school I'd attended as a child and running into a much older version of my favorite teacher - he even remembered me! He invited my brother and I to join him for lunch as was the Germany custom. I politely declined but my brother insisted, so we ate with him in his office, telling stories about the surrounding area.

I was mostly interested in getting to the shopping district, only a short walk from what I remembered, but the landscape had change so dramatically. The enormous forest of rubber tree plants were still there, but opposite them rough discs of white stone jutting out of the ground with a cottage built adjacent each outcropping - well, that and the blue artic sea of water being held in place by a picturesque ice wall. I'd forgotten my camera.

Retrieving my camera I was trying to get some wide-angle shots of the rubber trees, but recess had just let out and kids were swarming all over them. I also couldn't find my zoom in order to take any stunning pictures of the ice wall. It was quite disappointing being here and being unable to capture any of it. So I went back inside to retrieve my brother and say my good-byes when I walked past the gymnasium and peeked through the glass in the door, seeing it hadn't changed at all, and was suddenly haunted by the indoor jungle gym which had tormented my youth because of the nuns who'd used it as their harsh lectern. A small child was sitting atop of it now smiling, unaware of its evil past.

Then I saw our old neighbor who used to teach in Anna, TX as part of the faculty here. It was odd they spoke German in Mexico, right? Or was I in Korea? It was difficult to remember. But I thought I used to have friends nearby? Checking my cell phone, I found their number and called - they arrived immediately and we had a fun time catching up on the elementary school grounds, but soon they left and without any way to ever get a hold of them again, unless I happened to find my way back to Germany.

My brother and I finally did make it to the shopping district but time had gotten away from us both so I left him to join Mom and Dad at a fancy ball that evening, and out of either boredom from the auction, or glee at the fancy dresses, I pulled out my camera and starting shooting the events here. Sadly, lenses kept disappearing from my camera bag, and soon enough I was missing the Helios which had just been on the camera itself! I suspected foul play but was too polite to let on. The hotel investigator however brought me the fingerprint-accessible lock box (which oddly looked like the stock of an M-16) and once activated. slid open dropping several pennies and some tacks into my hand. The hotel investigator seemed pleased with this development but I had no idea how a handful of pennies tacks were going to help me recover my lenses.