sometimes you realize that something you've always had is way cooler than you ever imagined. maybe a toy from your childhood is now vintage and worth something. maybe a movie from your childhood was really really good but the humor was over your head, but now you get it (see my post about ghostbusters). i've figured out in the last couple of years that my grandma is the same way.
Oma is the affectionate German name for grandma (as opposed to the formal Großmutter) and we always have called her that. As a small child i was puzzled by her thick accent and different ways of doing things. but recently i've completely got it figured out. two years ago i went to germany for a TFK show and i loved it. Oma arranged for me to be shown around Düsseldorf by some friends of hers and once i was over there, i started to understand a bit about how she works. while my family has always been fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants, loud and boisterous, it seems that many german people have a knack for formality and manners. i know this seems obvious, but once i figured out that basic manners and 'hellos' and 'how are yous' really mean a lot to Oma, it's like a door was opened. we played germany again last december and it just so worked out that she needed to be in germany at the same time (even though she's in her 80's, she still goes back regularly).
what happened when we met up is hilarious. as she and her friends came to the concert hall to meet me, we had to go do a talkback interview in which we are interviewed on a small stage with a translator in front of a bunch of fans. i told her that i need to do the interview and that she could come watch. when i got to the room, i walked up and took my place on stage. Oma followed me on stage, took the mic out of trevor's hand and started speaking in german. it was hilarious. we were all kinda flabbergasted and the crowd loved it. she spoke for about 3 minutes and the crowd erupted into laughter a few times and i still don't know exactly what she was saying. i could tell she was proud of me.
now i've gotten my hands on a copy of the rosetta stone for german and i'm loving learning the language. in years past i would only see Oma at family functions but now i call her every couple of days and she's always ready with a german lesson. it's actually kind of cool. i've learned more about her in the last year than in my whole life. she's told crazy stories about how her family was bombed out of multiple houses during WWII and how when she was later sent to a boarding school in Austria as a young girl, she actually met Hitler when he came to visit the school. i can't even imagine going through all that.
so anyway, sometimes you never know what you've got until you start looking at what's right in front of you.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
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About Me
- nickbaumhardt
- "What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos; that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" --Hi Fidelity
Hey guys, my name is Nick Baumhardt. I help write and record music. I also play guitar for Thousand Foot Krutch and FM Static.
These are my thoughts on music, art, politics, food, recording and whatever else I feel like writing about.
For more info about my producing, go to www.NickBaumhardt.com or myspace.com/nickbaumhardt
Check out my new site dedicated to fly fishing - Rhythm Fly Fishing
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1 comment:
I think Oma is awesome. She's one of the parts of joining your family that I've enjoyed the most. The first time I met her I greeted her with "Guten Tag." She quickly told me that it was too late in the day to use Guten Tag and she corrected me. She's also a great little entertainer. Dimmed lights and chocolates on the table with soft music as you walk in.
People like her, my papaw (who fought in Germany) are way more interesting than they get credit for. Papaw doesn't talk about the war much at all, but the stories he tells blow my mind. I get the impression he was one of those guys who seen it all over there. The stories he's told me about I've seen in movies like Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan. Very interesting.
The last story he told me was about the gliders they used on D-Day. I'd heard about the gliders, mainly about how many of our guys got killed in them. They held 6 or 8 men and were dropped from planes to silently land behind enemy lines. He told me how they "borrowed" one and sailed it off a cliff, landing in a german's potato garden. They took some potatoes on their way out and the german raised cane. The Army made them take the potatoes back!
He also told me about how he went through the Eagles Nest, Hitler's personal Bavarian getaway in the Alps. He cut off part of the curtain and carried it with him. He got tired of keeping up with it and threw it away. That scene was in Band of Brothers. They "liberated" the Eagles Nest for a period of a few days. Living in luxury and drinking Hitler's personal stash.
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