Unfortunately, as a sixteen and nearly seventeen-year-old, I only applied the old wisdom "practice makes
perfect" to my hobby and not to my schoolwork. My hobby took up all of my time, and got in the way of other
matters that were considerably more important. As a result, my marks and my school reports kept getting
worse and worse. Changing schools several times only aggravated the situation. I always blamed everybody
else and never myself. And of course, these were my teenager years, so my contrary behavior was in a way
already pre-programmed. In my eyes, Oma and Opa seemed to have to find fault in everything I did or failed
to do. Whether it be my clothes that had gotten dirty in the Grunewald, my handwriting which they were
always criticizing, or my school reports, they always found something to complain about. I still had quite
a few emotional scrapes to get through before I finally came to my senses and finished school.
And then there was music, above all the English hits that were broadcast on AFN (American Forces Network),
BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), or RIAS (Radio in the American Sector). Whether it was the Beatles,
Rolling Stones, Shadows, Kings, Johnny Cash, Del Shannon, Who, BeeGees, etc., my grandparents didn't like
the sound that I so enjoyed listening to on the little medium wave radio that I had saved up for and bought
myself. It was like a "Ring of Fire"!
"Turn that crazy monkey music off", they often said to me. I avoided further trouble by means of a small
set of headphones. I didn't understand my grandparents anymore. The generation gap was becoming distinctly
noticeable. I liked the American and the English music, because this was the sound of my generation.
But for my part, there must have been quite a lot of youthful selfishness involved, because in fact, I
couldn't thank my exceptional grandparents, who both died in the 1970s, enough for their many years of
selfless care. They have been for me what I never had in real, - a loving mother and father.
Highs and lows