My family went on a longer holiday almost every summer. Mostly we went to the North or Baltic Sea and a few times also to the mountains, but under increasing protest of the growing crowd of children. A long, long time ago, before I had to go to school, according to my mother, who made her cough to me at the age of 44, I suffered from a cough which I, as the father of a son who also suffered from this disease, had just gotten to know as Krupp cough. My mother was advised to do the same and so we went to the coast in summer. My father took us by car, it was a VW beetle, to the Baltrum ferry. He helped us with our suitcases to the ship, then he went back to the harbour pier. My mother and I, my little sister who was two and a half years younger, had no role in my memories of this trip, stood at the stern and watched the casting off manoeuvre. As the ferry moved away from the port, we waved long to my father, who was still standing at the pier looking after the ship, and his shape became smaller and smaller. My mother and I outdid each other in farsightedness, but at some point we had to pay tribute to the fact that we no longer saw him. He was probably already on his way back because he had to take care of his architectural office. It was the fifties, and everywhere it went upward, and who had the suitable ambition, could achieve much. Once on the island, we learned that no cars were allowed to drive here. A small horse and cart took us and our luggage to a guesthouse. All paths were made of bricks and offered just enough space for two couples to pass each other without having to let go. I’m not really sure if that was my arithmetic unit back then, but it may well work as a description from today’s point of view. A few days later I saw another arithmetic unit driving across the island on these roads, it was a tiny fire engine, the only car we met on our vacation. Of course it didn’t burn anywhere. But one privilege has to be used as well, and I still have the feeling that here a car was constructed according to the given width of a path and not the path was adapted to the vehicle that was supposed to drive on it. What an inspiration for today. We don’t need more roads, we need smaller cars. SUV drivers can try to think along here, … and yes, it hurts a bit …. like the topics cruises, air travel … But that takes me away from the topic now. It became a nice holiday. And here I smoked my first cigarette. It was made of chocolate. At that time such a picture might have been smiled at, but nobody was excited. I’m just imagining a children’s birthday party today and the host mother is handing out chocolate cigarettes to the little guests …. (cover!)
