Thoughts of Germany

I was recently visiting with some members of the Credit Union while I was helping them with a loan. Somehow the conversation turned to Germany and the Berlin Wall. Anyway, the next day the members came to my office and gave me a surprising gift. It was some earrings that their son had sent them while he was stationed in Germany. The earrings were made from some pieces of the Berlin Wall when it was torn down. They are made from chunks of the cement with some blue paint that was graffiti. They brought them to me in the same envelope that their son had sent them in. Printed on the envelope was the note that they were purchased at the Brandonberg Gate in West Berlin February 1990. They were wrapped in toilet paper from East Berlin which was brown and about the texture of crepe paper. It was one of the finer quality in East Berlin according to the note.

The earrings are by no means precious jewelry but I value them none the less. Actually I was quite surprised that the Worthington's would choose to give them to me. They insisted on it.

They brought back a flood of memories about war, the consentration camps and the photos that Jim brought back from his visit there. What a horrible time in history. The thought kept running through my mind of some quotes that were on a sculpture of heaped up dead bodies at one of the death camps we visited "Lest We Forget" and "Never Again".

I choose to remember the good times I had in Germany and the beauty of the country and the friends I will probably never see again. Those are the sweet memories. But the earrings will be a somber reminder of the history.