Reliving Fifth Grade

Oh boy!  (that is sarcasm ...)

Since Friday, I have been reliving fifth grade!  What the heck?  My memory - independent memories! are coming back and it starts with fifth grade???????  Oh dear Lord!  Not that!

Fifth grade, the year we moved to the Belgium, Luxembourg, French border - to a tiny little town where we were supposed to be hidden from the stinking Commie Spies!  (Oh give me a break!  I hate Cold War paranoia!)  We had more to fear from the French because we were German than from any Communist spy!

If I said, France hates us and wants us dead!  - It would not be an exaggeration.
If I said, NATO hated us and wanted us dead!  - Again not an exaggeration!
If I said, My parents wanted me dead, that would be darn accurate!

Why did my memory have to restart here?  Why not with my Danish Great-Uncle and my Great-Aunt?  Summers of what I think love really was.  Why to a place where I was essentially an outcast - no friends, no ability in French, nothing to do but read vast amounts of books from the NATO base in that district.  Well, and learn all about professional and commercial cooking.  :)

And, the memory?

Radio Caroline, the English Pirate Station which had broadcast to all of us in Eastern France, Belgium and the Netherlands.  With that came the memories of those years listening, learning from the weak voices in the air and knowing someone, somewhere "cared".  Radio Caroline, whom one time played a special request for my sister, thanks to one of her friends.  Everyone at school died that Caroline did it!  And I should explain that yes, I have written here or on Thoughts From The Little Apple, about Radio Caroline before - so I possessed that knowledge in my brain - just like having read a book.  But, this memory came with a sense of ownership, real memory - not someone else's named Kris!

And, so the memories begin?  Will they be sequential?  Will there be more? 

I have no idea.  But, in the meantime - it gave me an idea of a Christmas gift for Sommer: a painting of the Caroline in the English Channel,  a copy of the movie Pirate Radio, which she may never forgive me for!, and a copy of Petula Clark's Greatest Hits (the song dedicated to her was one of Pet's).  So, might be a surprise, then again might not be all that great but it will get me back to painting this week!

 I wait patiently to find out ...