Picture: Murray, Utah , (top, Uli, Mom and I don't know the boy or his mom any more..bottom Mike, Prinz as a puppy and me
It was 1954 and my family had moved to Murray, Utah in hopes of finding better employment for my dad. We had just immigrated from German in October of 1953 and my English was still not too great. I had a neighbor girl, Linda Whiting, who lived next door and we walked to school together. She was a good friend and I think I learned how to speak more English from her than in school. At least the common conversational English. We had a lot of fun together! Well, here is the story.....
It was March 17th and we went to school as usual, but when I was at school some of the boys came up to me and pinched me and took off running and laughing. I thought how cruel and mean that was. Finally after so many pinches and the beginnings of a bruise or two, I started to cry. Linda found me crying. For some reason she was not with me when the pinching had occurred. In my broken English I told her and showed her that the boys were pinching me. She explained the best she could to my understanding that on St. Patrick's day one must wear green. She realized I had no green on, so she took off a green scarf around her neck and tied it around my neck saying that should help, besides she had on a green dress. She then went on to tell off the boys who had harassed me. Later the teacher found out and she gave a lesson on kindness to our class.
Lesson learned... If you want to have a friend , be a friend.
Friends help each other out in all kinds of circumstances.
Have a fun St. Patrick's day and don't pinch! (Well maybe a love pinch) Just wear some green!
2 comments:
We all have green on so hopefully there will be no pinching...maybe you can share that story when you come over!!
I loved your story. Really cute! I have always found your stories that illistrate the differences between the cultures so interesting! My favorite one being when you first arrived in America and it was Oct. 31 and everyone was dressed up and you didn't understand why. I am fascinated by these things! I hope one day to be able to go to Germany with my sweet hubby and see the places where his family came from! I hope it is not so far off that we can drag you along with us and you can show us where you were born. It is a fun dream anyway!
Oh yeah, I totally forgot to wear green and then when I remembered, I didn't care enough to change. So pathetic, huh!
Post a Comment